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CHIEK-JUSTICE TROTT AND THE CAROLINA PIRATES. A. M. Barnes. NICHOLAS TROTT, the first attor ney-general of the Province of Caro lina, and afterwards chief-justice, was a man of splendid legal ability, of unbounded ambition, and of little principle. To use a trite expression, he knew well how to look out for number one. He is renowned in the history of Carolina as having set him self, while a member of the Assembly, in violent opposition to what he deemed the undue assumption of authority on the part of three governors, by two of whom he was deposed, and each time reinstated by act of Assembly ratified by the council, or king's own, as it was called. He it was, too, who took bull-dog issue with this same royal council as to its claim to being an Upper House, corresponding to the House of Lords of England. Trott held that with this council alo1Te did not rest the power of either rejecting or ratifying enactments, and dubbing it the House of Proprietors' Depu ties, by which name he also persuaded the Assembly to designate it. This question once sprung with reference to the higher power of the Council in the enactment of laws, the tension never slackened until the coming of the Revolution of 1776 with its weightier matters put an end to it. Among others, the heated and protracted contro versy concerning it between William Henry Drayton of South Carolina and the Hon. Sir Egerton Leigh of England, became a matter of international interest. Hut all the same the royal council con tinued to hold its own to the end of the pro prietary government; sitting as a separate body, without the consent of which no law could be passed nor even a question of law considered. It is also asserted that the tyrannical con duct of Trott while chief-justice had much to do with the throwing off by a long-suffer

ing people of the yoke of the proprietary government. 1 lowever, Trott is more widely known in history as " the man who hung the pirates." On the coming of Trott to the province, in 1698, legal affairs were in a sad shape. In deed, they may more fittingly be described as in no shape at all. The court, if so dig nified a term may be applied, consisted of only a judge and sheriff, with no prosecuting officer. The grand (? ) model of Locke, as is well known, was antagonistic to lawyers. It declared it to be a " base and vile thing to plead for money or reward," and it for bade any but a near kinsman to appear in court in another's behalf. " Even he had to take public oath that he had not bargained to enter upon said defense for any money consideration or for other reward. The ob ject of this was only too evident. With no shrewd legal minds to combat their schemes and plans, the proprietors and their official puppets could have things all their own way. It is believed that Trott was the first real lawyer to appear in the province, that is, one regularly trained; and it is amusing to note the comments which his coming called forth from some writers of that day. The appearance of the serpent in Eden seems to have been a matter of little consequence compared to the advent of this lawyer. The proprietors sent out a chief-justice and an attorney-general at the same time, though the attorney-general was the first to be commissioned and to assume his duties. In the hands of this official was placed unlimited power, for, in addition, he was advocate-general of admiralty and naval officer. His duties were thus manifold. First, he was expected to instruct the gov ernor in various matters pertaining to his office. Thus, if that chief executive were anything of a clayey nature, the attorney