would injure the trade in slaves, if we knew these means, and resorted to them. The honourable chairman kindly threw out a suggestion to save his witness, whose humanity he had commended in one question. He said, "you like not to tell these means, for fear of exposing yourself to the prejudice and passions of the people amongst whom you live?" The witness rejects the plan of escape courteously held out to him with a 66 no; but, &c.. ; " and then gives another reason.

Now this description of himself by Dr. Cliffe gave rise to great comment, by both Lord Denman and Lord Brougham, in the debate of 22d August last, in the House of Lords; and the advocates of this person were exceedingly wroth with these noble lords for charging him with felony; "because," said they, "he is a domiciled Brazilian, and naturalised in that country." Lord Denman (p. 27), cites the solemn denunciation of slave trading by Brazil in the treaty of 1830, whereby whoever shall engage in slave trade is to be "deemed and treated as a pirate," and Dr. Cliffe says, in his evidence, that at least as late as 1841 and 1842 he had committed this act so denounced as piracy by the law of the country in which he is resident. Indeed, if he or his advocates should persist that he was not a Brazilian since 1836, then they lose the benefit of his supposed naturalisation; for of course he must have been a subject of the United States. However, we put the case upon higher grounds. We affirm that, wherever he resides, or in whatever state he is naturalised, he is by birth an American, of the United States, and as such is guilty of felony and piracy by the American law, and liable, if taken by any American force, to be tried and hanged.

The laws both of England and America, which make slave trading felony, carefully distinguish between two cases first, that of slave traders committing the offence within the limits of the American or English jurisdiction, and of this parties are punishable to whatever country they belong; secondly, that of persons belonging by birth to America or England, and slave trading in any part of the world—these are, if taken, amenable to the criminal courts of their own country. An Englishman, ever so long settled in Brazil, or

even in Africa, where the traffic is allowed, which in Brazil it is not, is liable to be tried, if caught in England and in the English settlements, and transported for life till 1837 he would have been hanged. So a citizen or a subject of the United States any person born there, whatever now be his place of residence, is liable to be tried by the American law as a pirate, and hanged as such. Such has been the law of the United States ever since 1820; Chancellor Kent so lays it down in his celebrated "Commentaries on American Law," p. 149.

Thus it is manifest that this man, were he bold enough to risk his person in his own native country, or were he caught by one of the United States' cruisers, would infallibly be tried, and on his own confession received, and which could be proved by a host of witnesses, might be hanged. We give no opinion on the merits of the proposed mode of extinguishing the slave trade; we only ask, can Dr. Cliffe be called a credible witness?

II.- The Moral, Social, and Professional Duties of Attornies and Solicitors. By SAMUEL WARREN, Esq., F. R. S., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London; William Benning & Co., London. 1848.

WE anticipate much good from this volume, which is published at the request of the Law Society. The idea of lecturing the attornies and solicitors of the empire on their moral, social, and professional duties, was seasonable and happy. The execution (a task of great delicacy) is, on the whole, we think, truly admirable, though not faultless. The success will doubtless be commensurate; for the name of the learned author is always sure to inspire curiosity, and to beget attention. The main object of the present performance is to set attornies and solicitors right with the public; by showing, on the one hand, the incalculable importance of the functions they have to perform, and, on the other, the high standard of moral culture and intellectual qualification which an adequate discharge of those functions necessarily requires.

But Mr. Warren does much more than this; for by his vivid picture of their capabilities, opportunities, and responsibilities, he furnishes attornies and solicitors with pure and lofty motives to action, so as to dignify and render interesting the most ordinary routine of their duties. The following passage is well calculated to open the eyes of the unthinking laity. After showing that the proper instruction of attornies and solicitors is " a matter of vital concernment to society at large," the lecturer proceeds

"You, gentlemen, are armed with powers really formidable, for good, and for evil. You may serve and protect, you may harass and oppress, all of us, in our turn; for which of us is there, how conscientious and circumspect soever, that may not, at some time or other, have to ask your services in the conduct of our affairs, and to assist us through unexpected litigation? Lord Chancellors and Judges, even, cannot discharge their exalted functions, without occasionally finding the law which they administer, turned, whether rightfully or wrongfully, against them.. selves! Bishops may have to run the gauntlet of a law-suit, before assuming their mitres ! And - to pass for a moment from grave to gay sweet Jenny Lind, warbling, lark-like, high in the regions of song, is suddenly stricken by a certain missile of ours, to wit, a writ, and drops terrified through the air, thrilling with her melody, into the arms of- her attorney! In the gravest exigencies of the state-equally in matters of business and of amusement, --on great and on small occasions, you find yourselves called into action, expected, and promising, and that upon your oaths, to acquit yourselves discreetly, and with integrity. Gentlemen, I repeat, speaking as one of the public, that we could not do without you, even if we wished. Whatever be our talents or acquirements; whatever our tempers and dispositions, — whether amiable and yielding, or exacting, irritable, and overbearing; whether we be virtuous or profligate, we may have to take you into our confidence, and open to you the most secret recesses of our hearts. We tell you what we would disclose to no one else on earth. We pour into your ears the accents of anguish all but unutterable. To your eyes are exposed hearts bleeding and quivering in every fibre; pierced by the serpent's tooth of ingratitude, broken by the loss of those whom we loved more than life itself,

whether taken from our arms by death, or ravished from us by fiendish lust, or the ruthless ruffian hand of violence. When our

domestic peace is slain; when the most hallowed relations of life and society are dislocated by the evil passions of others-by cupidity, perfidy, fraud, hypocrisy, malice, and revenge; in short, whether our honour, our life, our liberty, our property, or those of our families, are endangered or outraged, to you perforce we must fly in our extremity; living or dying — yes, I say dying, for we descend into the grave, in reliance on the discretion and integrity with which you have undertaken to carry into effect our wishes on behalf of those loved ones whom we are leaving behind us; whom we would fain shelter, as far as we may, from calamity and the world's reverses, by providing for them out of the produce of a life's labour, anxiety, and privation; and we look to do all this, through the instrumentality of your judicious and conscientious exertions.

When the shaft of calumny has wounded us, it is to you that we fly to vindicate our smarting honour. Into your ear are poured the affrighted accents of those to whom guilt is imputed; crime, of fearful enormity, attaching infamy maddening to contemplate; crime, too, which may be falsely imputed to him whom the mere imputation is blighting before your very eyes, and who in his agony and horror has sent for you has summoned you, that he may listen, in the dread gloom of a prison cell, to your sympathising words of counsel and guidance; that he may whisper into your ear the indignant protestations of an innocence which, with confiding eagerness, relies on you for its vindication. In all such agitating cases, I have been supposing you our friends; but remember that we also have you for our opponents, using, then, your greatest energies as resolutely against us, as you would have used them for us, had you been called upon to do so. Oh, how much our peace and safety depend, in this latter case, on your being gentlemen!"

The satirical pen of Fielding bore hard on the attornies of his day. He paints them as at once ridiculous and odious ;fellows who talk jargon, and were constantly setting people together by the ears. Hence the modern solicitor rather eschews the designation of attorney. Mr. Warren, however, seems in love with it. He says:

"Let me take this opportunity of correcting an erroneous impression among some members of your branch of the profession, that the name of 'Solicitor' is their most honourable designation, a title preferable to that of Attorney.' It is certainly not so;

and the late Lord Tenterden took the trouble several times of refuting such a notion, and stigmatising as absurd the conduct of those who called by the name of Solicitors persons conducting proceedings in courts of law. The proper expressions are ‘Attorney at law,' and 'Solicitor in Equity.' There is no difference whatever between the two, in respect of rank, or status, any more than there is between barristers practising respectively in courts of law and equity. If there be any preference I should have thought that it would lean towards the good old Saxon word Attorney-indicating an office most honourable and ancient. The word Solicitor' is, comparatively speaking, of much more recent introduction an off-shoot from the under-clerks of the now abolished Six Clerks in the Court of Chancery. Which is higher in rank-her Majesty's' Attorney' General or Solicitor' General ? And yet, though all this be incontestably true, it is almost getting fashionable to drop the elder title, and adopt the modern newfangled one thereby causing it to be supposed, that the persons doing so, have no right to practise in the courts of law, but are confined to courts of equity! Believe me, gentlemen, the word 6 attorney' is an honourable, a right honourable, old English word, and I hope it will not be lightly parted with by those who have a right to the title. When you have to address one another, therefore, let it be thus, as the case may be : .A. B., Esq., Attorney at Law,'- 6 or A. B., Esq., Attorney and Solicitor'- but not A. B., Esq., Solicitor,' except possibly when you are corresponding with him solely on chancery matters, and you think it may please him to be so addressed! At all events, never use the word 'Solicitor' either in writing, or verbally, with reference to proceedings at law; or you will justly incur the censure expressed by Lord Tenterden."

Mr. Warren's directions to students are valuable, although we do not concur in all of them. We think seventeen, the year he prescribes for plunging a raw youth into the contamination of an attorney's office, too young. Nor can we assent to the occupation he recommends for the first twelve months namely, the study "of the different kinds of writs, of process, and execution, the forms of jury process, particularly of verdicts and judgments-in short, all the formal entries and proceedings, direct and incidental, in the various stages of an action or suit in equity, notices, subpœnas, affidavits, warrants of attorney, and cognovits," &c. This is