cases as common impostors, which greatly reduced their number. He had the strong whig prejudice against standing armies and the use of the military in cases of riot, and would himself ride to the scene of disturbance accompanied by his tipstaves, and endeavour to induce the rioters to disperse. On one such occasion, when the guards had been called out, he is said to have peremptorily forbidden the officer in command to fire on the people, assuring him that if he did so, and any life was lost in consequence, he and all his men would hang for it. According to a very doubtful story, he committed to prison on a charge of sedition John Atkins, one of the religious fanatics known as the ‘French Prophets,’ whereupon John Lacy [q. v.], a friend of the prisoner, also a ‘prophet,’ called at Holt’s house, and told him that the Lord had sent him to obtain a nolle prosequi for Atkins. Holt is stated to have replied: ‘Thou art a false prophet and a lying knave. If the Lord had sent thee, it would have been to the attorney-general, for the Lord knows it is not in my power to grant a nolle prosequi; but I can grant a warrant to commit thee to bear him company, which I certainly will.’ He took a high view of the law of treason and seditious libel, holding that mere conspiracy might amount to the one offence, and mere censure of the government as corrupt to the other. He gave a liberal construction to the statute 1 Eliz. c. 2, requiring every one to attend his parish church on Sunday, holding that it did not apply so long as any other place of worship was regularly attended. He also took advantage of an error in pleading by which, in an action for the price of a negro sold in Virginia the sale was alleged to have taken place ‘in the parish of the Blessed Mary of the Arches in the ward of Cheap,’ to dismiss the action on the ground that as soon as a negro comes into England he becomes free, a point afterwards expressly decided in Sommersett’s case in 1772 (Howell, State Trials, xii-xiv; Stephen, Hist. of the Criminal Law, ii. 262, 435; Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, ii 142-7, 170-4; Westminster Hall, ii. 49; Cases tempore Holt, 141, 495).
Holt’s judgement in the case of Coggs v. Bernard was the first attempt ever made by an English judge to define and distinguish into rights and liabilities arising out of the several sorts of bailment. It probably suggested to Sir William Jones his essay on that branch of the law, which indeed is largely made up of comment and criticism upon it. Story (Commentaries on the Law of Bailments, pref. p. viii) calls Holt’s judgment a prodigious effort, and it is universally regarded as the leading authority on the topic. Holt also drafted, or at any rate suggested, the act of parliament (3 & 4 Anne c. 9) which first placed promissory notes upon the same footing as bills of exchange in point of negotiability, and by his decision did much to settle the law relating to those securities, then in a chaotic condition. He edited in 1708 ‘A Report of Divers Cases in the Pleas of the Crown Adjudged and Determined in the Reign of the late King Charles II. With Directions for Justices of the Peace and others. Collected by Sir John Kelyng, knt.’ (d. 1671) [q. v.]
[Foster’s Crown Law, 1762, p. 204; Campbell’s Lives of the Chief Justices; Foss’s Lives of the Judges; Welsby’s Lives of Eminent Judges; Biographica Britannica, vii. 102; Luttrell’s Relation of State Affairs, i. 268, 297, 372, 375, 490, 585; Lyson’s Magna Brit. i. 345; Levinz’s Rep. ii. 39; Sit Thomas Raymond’s Rep. p. 303; Pearce’s Inns of Court; Lord’s Journ. xiii. 520, xiv. 102, xv. 306 sqq.; Cobbett’s State Trials, vii. 807, 1130-60, 1242, ix. 241, 586, x. 41, 1351; Howell’s State Trials, xii. 125, 1179-83, 1190 sqq., xiv. 29, 695-861; Complete History of England, iii. 395 et seq., 440; Burnet’s Own Time, iv. 67 n.; Mod. Rep. iii. 100; Skinner’s Rep. pp. 252, 354; Bramston’s Autobiog. pp. 245, 276; Clarendon and Rochester Corresp. ii. 157, 252; Parl. Hist. v. 70, 366; 4th Rep. Dep.-Keep. Publ. Rec. App. ii. 184.]
HOLT, JOHN (1743–1801), author, was born at Hattersley, near Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire, in 1743. About 1757 he settled at Walton-on-the-Hill, near Liverpool, where for many years he acted as parish clerk, highway surveyor, and master of the free grammar school, besides at one time keeping a ladies’ school. He published in 1786-8 ‘Characters of Kings and Queens of England,’ 3 vols. A few years later, at the invitation of the board of agriculture, he made the agricultural survey of Lancashire, and published in 1794 his results in a ‘General View of the Agriculture of the County of Lancaster, with Observations on the Means of its Improvement.’ It was reprinted with additions in 1795. A paper ‘On the Curle in Potatoes’ procured him the medal of the Society of Arts. He compiled a few books for the use of schools, wrote one or two novels, and collected materials for a history of Liverpool, which he bequeathed to Matthew Gregson [q. v.] He contributed many papers to the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ and for a long period communicated the monthly ‘Meteorological Diary’ to that periodical. He married, in 1767, Elizabeth France of Walton, but had no issue. He died at Walton on
