Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/94

 Lincoln (Maine] Bar.

73

All offenses were required to be tried within the colonial precinct. Magistrates were ordered to hold sentence on judgments recovered in abeyance for appeal to royal clemency to secure a chance for pardon. To facilitate this feature of legal mercy, the court was required to keep full records and preserve the same. Preaching of the Christion religion was ordained as matter of law, as well as Christian teaching and civilization of the Indians. It will be seen the scope of jurisdictional

Lord George Popham, the first president of a civil magistracy (shall we say within the United States?) and first chief justice of a court of law within the ancient jurisdiction of Lincoln bar, is described as having been an aged, God-fearing man,1 stout built, honest, discreet and careful, somewhat timid and conciliatory; but he was the life of the colony, made up of London men and West of England rural life. Rawley Gilbert, second in command, rep resentative of the London city element of

issue of the court at its colonial start in this county was substantially, as relates to crime, the same in its cognizance as now. No records of the adjudications of the court of Popham's town of Fort St. George have yet been recovered. The only legal public paper extant is a despatch of President Popham to the King of England, dated at the old town, December 13, A.D. 1607, detailing present success and incidents of promise of the colonial holdings, written in Latin, the then language of state papers.

the colonial adventure, is said to have been a very different man from his chief. He is described to have been a " sensual, jealous and ambitious man, of loose habits, small experience, poor judgment, little re ligious zeal, but valiant," and a mischievous factor in colonial affairs. The prudent Popham, nevertheless, recon ciled differences and soothed friction during his administration, which ended with his life in February, 1608. The last of January, fear ful thunder, lightning, mingled rain and snow, 1 Brown's Genesis of the United States.