tion; and that a convenient number of magistrates, in every county, should, for the purpose of administering the oaths, be appointed by the government; and that such magistrates should be clothed with such further powers as might be thought expedient, in order to enable them to make a thorough investigation of the fairness or fraud of the debtor's conduct.

3. That in cases where the debtor had been discharged, if the creditor would make oath to newly discovered evidence, proving original fraud, or, to his be lief, that the debtor had subsequently received property, and concealed or withheld the same from his creditors, it should be competent to such creditor to have investigation of such charge, and, if made out, to have execution against the person, and if not made out, that the creditor should pay the cost of the proceeding.

'Other provisions might doubtless be useful; but if these three alone could be obtained, they would, in a great measure, clear the jails of debtors, and give general satisfaction, I have no doubt, to creditors.

'I ought to add, that the imprisonment of females in the common jails, for mere debt, is a barbarism which ought not to be tolerated. Instances of such imprisonment, though rare, do yet sometimes occur, under circumstances that shock every humane mind. In this respect, the law ought, in my judgment, to be altogether reformed.'

In an earlier part of this memoir, we noticed some few of the forensic speeches of Mr. Webster, but a very small number of them only could be named or noticed with critical remarks, even if this work were extended to half a dozen volumes, and we had the notes from which they might be taken; for he has now been twentysix years at the bar, and in full practice in higher and in inferior courts also a portion of the time, and in that

period he has argued more than a thousand causes of importance, besides an immense number of those which are necessarily forgotten with the common business of the day. Many of those, both of the greater and the lesser kind are lost, irrevocably lost, but their effects on court and jury will be long remembered. Some of them, no doubt, made when there were no restraints upon him, and when in the hours of health and spirits, had as much power and more brilliancy than his efforts made in high places with reporters at his elbow. The world has been favored but with few volumes of forensic eloquence, in comparison with the number of speeches preserved from the debates of deliberative bodies. One reason for this scarcity has been, that these productions do not always convey the honest dictates of the speaker's understanding, and of course satisfied with whatever ingenuity he may have exhibited at the time, or with the praise he may have received, he is not desirous that his argument should be preserved; and when he, and his friends are satisfied that his logic is sound and his argument felicitous, it is difficult to preserve an extemporaneous speech, unless there be some strong inducement for the speaker to sit down and write it out from his notes, and it would be almost impossible for one in full practice to do this often. The late Judge Parsons who for more than thirty years held the first rank at the bar of Massachusetts, and with it the reputation of being among the greatest geniuses and profoundest scholars of the world,

has not left, as far as is now disclosed, a page of any argument he ever made before court or jury, and the evidences of his greatness rest on his judicial opinions as a Chief Justice, an office which he only held about seven years previous to his death. Parsons lived in a time when the great elements which are incorporated with our national Constitution were coming into form and substance, and he was one of the most powerful agents in giving it the noble stamp it has borne ever since. Yet nothing is to be found of this great man's forensic eloquence on paper; it lives only in the memories of those who loved him, and were so fortunate as to have heard him at the bar. Of the forensic eloquence of Dexter only a few shreds of speeches remain. Of all their predecessors of mighty name and long life in New England, you might as well ask the sea to give up its dead, as to inquire for what they said on the most vital occasions. Oblivion has devoured them all, and hardly has their plunge into the abyss of the great destroyer been remembered. Not ten of Mr. Webster's speeches at the bar, have, even in this more careful age, been saved, unless he has preserved them himself, which is not in the least probable, as those who perform the most have the least time to record their doings. The few which have been saved, have in general, had some bearings upon State rights, or were connected with some popular excitement. Three or four of them we have mentioned, and to which may be added, the speeches in the case of Gibbons against Ogden, and Ogden

against Saunders. These have been spread over the country by the public journals, and their points and bearing are so well known that it is not necessary to give an analysis of them.

One forensic exertion which was made by Mr. Webster, when acting as counsel for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on a trial of certain persons charged with the murder of Captain Joseph White, of Salem, should not pass unnoticed in this memoir, as the event was one of the most extraordinary nature in the annals of our country; and the part he bore in it was not a little conspicuous. On the 7th of April, 1830, Mr. White, an aged citizen of Salem, in the county of Essex, in Massachusetts, was found dead in his bed, having been murdered during the previous night by some vile assassin. The crime produced the most astonishing excitement ever known in that peaceful community. The town of Salem is one of the most quiet places in the country. It is among the second class of cities in point of population, and among the very first in regard to the moral habits of its inhabitants. The people there, almost from its early days, had slept quietly in their beds, almost without bolts and bars, nor had they hardly thought of them as things of security against any one but petty thieves. The murderers had remained for some time in secret, and not the most distant clue could be found to unravel the mystery, which seemed to shroud the whole affair. Not any thing was taken from the house of the deceased. His last will

was found untouched in his chamber. Strong suspicions were raised against the inmates of the house and of the family, from these singular circumstances. The

first person thought of as the murderer, was the son of the housekeeper of Mr. White, who was also his relation, but on examination he was acquitted, having clearly proved himself to have been in another place when the deed was done. Many persons for a while, suffered in their feelings, by cruel suspicions, most of them spread abroad by those involved in the guilt of blood and murder, as was afterwards discovered, principally by the prime mover of the whole scene, a wicked and shallow man, who attempted to pursue a bold course to screen himself and his associates by scattering rumors, and by forging letters to draw suspicions on others, and particularly on the favorite nephew of the deceased, the Hon. Stephen White, who had been brought up, as it were, in the old man's bosom. These rumors were not believed for a moment by those acquainted with that gentleman. He had from his early youth been a favorite with the people among whom he lived as well as with his uncle. He had at an early age been honored by the suffrages of his fellow-citizens as a representative of the town in the Legislature, and soon afterwards was chosen a Senator of the large and respectable county of Essex,-a county where the people are most scrupulous of the moral qualifications of their men in office. He had also been elected a counsellor to advise the Supreme Executive