preceding Hilary Term, and during the whole of Easter Term, with
Justice Sherwood as his only colleague. He had however assumed the
prevailing practice to be justified by the constitution of the Court,
and had not examined the matter on his own account until impelled to do
so by the reasons already indicated. He now discovered, as he believed,
that the practice was altogether unwarranted, and that all that had been
done under it was liable to be upset. The first section of the
Provincial Statute under which the Court had been created[107] enacted
that "His Majesty's Chief Justice, together with two puisne justices,"
should preside therein. All the subsequent sections except those
relating to appeals had been repealed by a later Provincial Act,[108]
and although power was given to the senior puisne Judge, in the absence
of the Chief Justice, to _teste_ the process, and to _any_ of the Judges
to sit at _Nisi Prius_, there was no authority to sit _in Banco_,
unless the Court were full. Having arrived at a conclusion on the
subject, Judge Willis at once communicated the fact to the Colonial
Secretary, the communication being made by letter, forwarded through the
Lieutenant-Governor, and left purposely unsealed in order that that
dignitary might possess himself of the contents, to which his attention
was specially called by a separate note. Sir Peregrine could not refuse
to transmit the Judge's missive, but he took good care to malign him in
an accompanying despatch. "It is with pain" he wrote, "I am compelled to
observe that, having presided as a Judge for the first two terms after
his arrival, without finding more occasion than all the respectable
Judges who have preceded him to make the administration of justice
subservient to popular excitement, Mr. Willis has been either unable or
unwilling within the last few months to avoid making his proceedings,
either in the Civil or Criminal Court, the prominent subject of
political discussion, and the pretence of attacks _from the vilest
quarters_, and of the grossest kind, upon those who were associated with
him in the administration of justice, and of whom I shall speak only
justly when I say that the measure of respect and esteem in which their
public conduct has ever hitherto been held, and is now held, by their
Government, and by every person except by Mr. Willis, and by a party
with whom I have lamented to find him associate himself, and _who are
not very respectable in any