court. For in general it is an evidence that he deserves to stand well; and this from his legal knowledge and attention to business.

But I come now to say a little, on perhaps, a more important point; that of self-preservation from bad habits. These are frequently acquired from mere imitation, or the idea of being a fashionable fellow; such as smoaking segars, which is detestable in a young person, and never fails to exhibit to me the evidence of a bad family education, or indulgence. Or, if not proceeding from that source, the effect of puppyism, which bespeaks a mind naturally little, and of the petit maitre kind. Imitators are contemptible. every where; such as at London, or Paris, your opera-glass coxcombs. The wearing spectacles, some years ago, was common in Philadelphia, among the young men, because there happened to be a few great men there, in the profession of the law, that wore spectacles; Wilson, Lewis, Coxe, and Wilcox. They wore them because they needed them; on account of the convexity of the visual orb. But the use of glasses by their imitators, when they walked the streets, was from an affectation of being thought learned men, because they resembled such ina nearness of vision, and the necessity of using lenses on the nose. It was more pardonable in a blind man whom I once knew, who wore spectacles to make people believe that he could see.

But the segar excites thirst and leads to intemperance. When the mouth is parched, you must wet the whistle; recourse must be had to something to moisten it. That which was at first unnecessary, and mere wantonness of indulgence, becomes a habit, and cannot be got rid of, but increases until the individual becomes the slave of tobacco, and of spirituous liquor. I never see a young person with a segar in his teeth, but I give him up, as one that will ncver come to much. In early life there can be no necessity for narcotics, or use in them, as a sedative; nor is there any necessity for the use of stimulants, when the animal spirits are of themselves, gay, and sufficiently volatile. These things ought all to be reserved for a more advanced age, if

used at all, and the beginning too soon with the use of them is unnatural, and destructive.

The situation of the greatest danger to a young practitioner of law is a remote county town, where amusements are few, and a literary society is wanting. The attending the courts is to all, a scene of inducement to intemperance, it being the lawyer's harvest, and as on that occasion, as with agricultural men, so on this with the lawyer, there is a latitude of mirth, and convivial indulgence, to which those are the most exposed, whose society, from wit or song, or other talent is the most courted. There can be no profession where it behooves to be so much upon guard, in these respects, as the practitioner of the law. Intemperance of living at the county courts, and sitting up, perhaps at cards, "hath cast down many wounded; many strong men have been slain by it." It is owing to these causes, and circumstances, in a great degree, that so few succeed in the profession of the law, which, I will admit, will, in a republic, where the law governs, always have the first place as an order or rank of men. Political science constitutes no order or rank, for the standing, to an individual is but occasional, not perma

nent.

Nor do I speak of agriculture, for that does not come under the denomination of a profession. That of arms does; and, inter arma silent leges; in time of war the soldier occupies the whole attention of the public; but a standing army, on a great scale, has never been favoured in a republic. It is contrary to the genius of it, and will be certainly depressed, and frowned upon, perhaps more than it ought to be. For though a militia is a proper organization for a time of peace, and the preservation of civil liberty; yet, for the purposes of actual service in a war with a foreign enemy, whether of offence, or defence, an army enlisted for, and during such war, is the only efficient force. It must be made a man's business, to be in camp, to make it his home; and it must be made his home, to keep him contented in it. That subordination is necessary in a stated body of troops, which cannot be found in a militia,

The navy unquestionably, in a republic, will always occupy the next grade in rank to the civil authority, and those connected with it; the one supporting the laws, and the administration of justice in the interior; the other protecting from, without. For, commerce, to a people that live upon the water, will be sought; and to protect commerce a navy, a permanent navy, is essentially necessary. I do not know to whom to attribute the depression of ours, at an early period after it had begun to be cultivated; but to that source I attribute all our national humiliation for a length of time, and, all the calamities of the present war. If we had gone on as we had begun, to build seventy-fours, and frigates, we should have had no tribute to pay to Barbary powers; no constructive blockades from the English government, which was the earliest aggression; no Berlin decree, or orders of council; or Milan decree following these; no British captures, nor French spoliations; no necessity for embargo, a measure which it was expected to relieve us from the necessity of war. But what is more, we should have had no impressment of American seamen, under a pretence of being British seamen; nor would Britain, with all her wave-ruling boasts, have dared to question our right of impatriation, which she herself exercises, in its fullest latitude, and protects in her employment, naturalized or not, as she would her own subjects, without asking questions as to the service in which they had before been; or the country to whom they might have before belonged. The means of defence, and the spirit to defend, is the only preservative of peace to a nation, as it is of safety to an individual.

With such a force upon the ocean, as we might have had before the present war, to protect our own trade, and annoy that of Britain, she would have been cautious with regard to the Indian in our neighbourhood, or the suffering trading companies, for the sake of gain, and a monopoly of fur, and peltry, to excite men to hostilities with our frontier settletlements. For I will not charge her with more, in the first instance, than suffering these traders to excite an Indian war against us; however she may have come, in the next instance, to acknowledge them as allies; and to close the cli

max by the ne plus ultra of degradation, and national barbarity, to place the scalp with the speaker's mace, in the capital of Upper Canada.

But now to conclude what I have to say to the student. You will not understand me as at all conceiving that what I have suggested in the preceding notes, and observations, is, in all respects correct. For even the great Lyttleton, concludes his treatise upon tenures with a caution which must much more become such a jurist as I can pretend to be, even though writing upon matters less profound than those upon which he wrote, viz. to use his own language, "Know my son, that I would not have thee believe that all which I have said in these books is law; for I will not presume to take this upon me. But, of those things that are not law, enquire, and learn of my wise masters learned in the law. Notwithstanding, albeit that certain things which arc moved and specified in the said books, are not altogether law, yet such things shall make thee more apt, and able to understand, and apprehend the arguments and the reasons of the law, &c. For by the arguments, and reasons in the law, a man more sooner, shall come to the certainty, and knowledge of the law." The first thing I would recommend you to do, when this book shall have been published, and you obtain a copy, is to have it bound up with blank leaves, and in them enter your remarks, as to the errors, that may seem to exist after due examination, and your practice which may suggest them; but much more the remarks which the learned in the law may make upon them, whether coming from a judge upon the bench, or a counsellor at the bar, whose opinions are as much to be regarded, so far as respects what is extra-judicial, and out of court. The profession form a a body like a general council of the church, but, with this difference, that what the council determine is, eo instante, to be accounted orthodox; but, in the opinions of the profession, make their way, progressively; nevertheless, never fail to control all judges, just as the vox populi in a commonwealth must ultimately prevail. It is immaterial, whe ther what is contrary, is put down by general sentiment, and public opinion in one case, or the other.

THE CONCLUSION.

THIS book has been written raptim, et carptim; at snatches of time in the intervals of business; and these intervals have been short, never exceeding ten days at a time. For, though I have been two or three times in á year, near three weeks at home, yet the greater part of that interval has been taken up in making out statements of causes tried at nisi prius, for the sake of the court in Term, where there were motions for a new trial, on ground of misdirection; or on reserved points; or, on the ground of the verdict being against evidence. But, still more, my time has been occupied, when at home, in considering cases holden over under advisement from the Term, and examining the authorities cited by the counsel in the argument. For it is only at the intervals of which I speak, from these occupations, that there can be leisure to make notes or observations upon collateral subjects, and abstract matters of law. Nor would there be leisure for this, at these intervals, were it not that I abstract myself wholly from company, and neither visit, nor receive visits of ceremony, and, see no one, but upon business; except a literary character, or professional man, to whom I am always at home, and perpetually disengaged. Because from them I may derive something; information, or instruction. Drawing near the end of my pilgrimage, I consider all time lost that is not employed in leaving some memorandum of my existence, and that may be useful to men, either by contributing to mental enjoyment, or to instruct. I state this with a view to exclude the conclusion that this publication can be evidence of my having little to do, in my immediate officia