12 It is probable that the death of the " cosen" prevented this. As to Nicholas More, Mr. Lewis has col lected indications of a tempestuous career, but of a strong and honorable man. He does not seerrt to have had legal training, being a physician. He had arrived in America with Penn, and soon became a trusted pub lic servant, filling numerous offices. His temper in the Council, however, tinctured his English till it became continually too strong for the ears of his colleagues; and by the enemies that his pungent vocabulary made for him, he was at length impeached. "Either myself or some of you will be hanged," he remarked at this crisis. Plainly too contemptuous and high-handed, he was dismissed from his office and disappeared from public life, dying in 1689. One cannot read his brief chronicle without a certain sympathy. He was followed by four that were laymen like himself; but this court's character, if untrained, was rugged and not unadmirable. Indeed, lawyers though they were not, men of stout sense and integrity these early Moores, Harrisons, and succeed ing Logans, and Langhornes certainly were. And if the reactionary prejudice which Quakers held against all barristers, attor neys, and gunpowder — the other unpeaceful thing — retained the vehicle of Justice in amateur hands, still those individuals who trusted their cases inside it usually reached the journey's end quickly and in safety. The absence of technical skill did not hin der them and their fortunes from touching the proper goal. Mr. Lewis states that not one man who sat upon the bench prior to 1700 had received a regular legal education; and this, with the single exception of Samuel Jenings, Chief-Justice in 1691, is correct, — indeed, for seventy-five years later many a layman attained the position. Benjamin Franklin saw himself a judge in 1750; but "finding that more knowledge of the com mon law than he possessed was necessary to . act in that station with credit," he relin quished this responsible post, — an example
which, it is held by some, might have been profitably imitated by others who have flour ished since that day. The slim number of the profession as late as 1708 is revealed by a petition of the distinguished Pastorius, quoted by the Hon. James T. Mitchell in an address before the District Court of the City and County of Philadelphia, which sets forth that one Sprogel had " fee'd or retain'd the four known lawyers of this Province in order to deprive your Petitioner of all advice in Law." John Guest, commissioned in 1701, was the second trained lawyer in seven ChiefJustices. He declined, for reasons not known; but four years later he accepted the position, perhaps disappointed that his practice, under the Quaker restrictions as to receiving fees, had turned out less lu crative than ownership of well-nigh a mo nopoly in the profession might have tempted him to hope. To sketch by legal means a picture of his era, though not of him, the following indict ments are sufficiently appropriate : — Philadelphia, the 26th day of the 7th Month, 1702. We, the Grand Inquest for this corporation, do present George Robinson, butcher, for being a parson of evill fame as a common swarer, and a common drunker, and particularly upon the twenty-third day of this instant, for swearing three oths in the market-place, and also for utering two very bad curses the twenty-sixth day of this instant. Signed in behalf of self and fellows, by Jno. Pons, ferman. Submits, and puts himself in mercy of the Court. George Robinson, fined xxx s. for the oaths and curses. A masked ball was given at this time, there being citizens in Quaker Pennsylvania who evidently shared in the proclivities of Morton of the Merry Mount of earlier notoriety in Massachusetts. This gayety met with the following among several rebukes : —
