For by
statute 23 Geo. II., ch. 33, it is enacted:
1. That a special county court shall be held at least once in a
month, in every hundred of the county of Middlesex, by the county
clerk.
2. That twelve freeholders of that hundred, qualified to serve on
juries, and struck by the sheriff, shall be summoned to appear at
such court by rotation; so as none shall be summoned oftener than
once a year.
3. That in all causes not exceeding the value of forty shillings,
the county clerk and twelve suitors (jurors) shll proceed in a
summary way, examining the parties and witnesses on oath,
without the formal process anciently used; and shall make
such order therein as they shall judge agreeable to conscience."
3 Blackstone, 81 83.
What are these but courts of conscience? And yet Blackstone tells
us they are a revival of the ancient hundred and county courts.
And what does this fact prove, but that the ancient common law
courts, in which juries sat, were mere courts of conscience?
It is perfectly evident that in all these courts the jurors were
the judges, and determined all questions of law for themselves;
because the only alternative to that supposition is, that the
jurors took their law from sheriffs, bailiffs, and stewards, of
which there is not the least evidence in history, nor the least
probability in reason.
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