Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/276

 Scripture precedents which were so dear to the jurists of the time. The pages of Grotius teem with them, and when Whitelocke proposed to the Parliament of the Commonwealth that law proceedings should in future be conducted in the vernacular, he founded his case on the precedent set by Moses, who, he said, had expounded his laws in the vernacular to the Jews. So now Sir William affected to establish the right of the Lord High Admiral's Court to claim tenths on shipping by reference 'to Abraham's paying tenths on the conquest of the five Kings, besides some other precedents of the Admiralty Court held upon Mount Ararat, when Noah was Judge, Japhet registrar, and Shem Marshal of the Admiralty.' 'I wonder,' he says, 'where the Common Law was then, that troubles us so much now? Surely the Admiralty Court was the high Court of the world.' A determined onslaught on the Judge, as might have been expected, soon began.

' ' Tis expected,' Sir William writes to Sir Peter Pett, 'that I should some time or other build Hospitalls, &c.; but I assure you that the pains, the attendancy and expence I am at, and the fear of treading awry, in order to doe poor men Justice, may well commute pro tanto for the Charitys I owe the world. I am not weary of what I do, because I believe I do well; but have often wish't I never had engaged in it; and truly without the Appeals into England are taken away, or limited, I will throw up; for I cannot doe the good which is necessary to bee done. The last week I adjudged three considerable men of Dublin to pay wages unto 5 seamen in ye plainest case imaginable. Now although no case requires a summary and Speedy Decision more than this; yett these men appeal to the Admiralty of England, knowing the poor seamen had not a penny amongst them; and must be forc't to go to sea, and disperse themselves before anything can be done therein. Besides why should one Kingdom appeal to another? Can matters of fact be better examin'd in remote parts, than in