THE THIRD ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 1 53 



his Court at St. John's to civil causes. A strange state of 

 things ensued. On the one hand fishing-admirals, few of 

 whom could sign their own names, and whose unjust justice 

 was still administered in their own or their favourites' behalf, 

 * lagged superfluous on the stage ' as judges, illustrating the 

 thesis that law in its origin is interested brute force ; on 

 the other hand, a new scheme was devised, under which the 

 Governor's Secretary heard both sides and then wrote an 

 opinion, thus illustrating the thesis that law in its nature is dis- 

 interested moral suasion. Litigants disliked these embodi- 

 ments of physical or moral theories, and had recourse to the 

 Vice-Admiralty judges and the magistrates, who did not re- 

 present any theory. In 1789 the Governor discovered that 

 his commission authorized him to appoint ' Judges ' as well as 

 'Justices of the Criminal Court', wrongly inferred that judges 

 meant civil judges, and created a Civil Court with three judges. 

 This trio of amateurs resolved discords and produced har- 

 mony of a kind until 1 791, when an Act was passed creating 

 a real Civil Court, with cognizance of all civil cases except cases 

 about land, and which began every action, except trifling 

 actions, by the drastic method of arresting the defendant and 

 attaching his goods. In 1792 a Supreme Court of Civil and 

 Criminal Judicature was established, which, amongst other 

 things, superseded the new Civil Court of 1791, and the 

 older Courts of fishing-admirals and Governors, and which 

 had complete civil jurisdiction even over land, made arrest and 

 attachment in civil cases discretionary and alternative, and 

 charged its expenses upon fees and fines. One of the first 

 litigants in the new Court appealed to the Privy Council, and, 

 confusing from long habit the litigant with the judge, wished 

 to arrest both judge and respondent before opening his case ; 

 but he learned to his surprise that judges were no longer 

 regarded as interested parties and that Courts represented 

 ideal right as well as might. John Reeves, the well-known 

 historian of English law, was the first Chief Justice of the new 



