[1] It was embarrassed with a debt, however, of £3749, which, owing
to conditions caused by the War of Independence, he really paid three
times to his British creditors (not counting destruction on his
estates, of equal amount, ordered by Lord Cornwallis). This greatly
reduced his income for a number of years.
[2] The first law of its kind in Christendom, although not the
earliest practice of such liberty in America.
[3] George Mason and Thomas L. Lee were members of the commission,
but they were not lawyers, and did little actual work on the
revision.
[4] Capital punishment was confined to treason and murder; the former
was not to be attended by corruption of blood, drawing, or
quartering; all other felonies were made punishable by confinement
and hard labour, save a few to which was applied, against Jefferson's
desire, the principle of retaliation.
[5] This plan applied to the south-western as well as to the
north-western territory, and was notable for a provision that slavery
should not exist therein after 1800. This provision was defeated in
1784, but was adopted in 1787 for the north-western territory--a step
which is very often said to have saved the Union in the Civil War;
the south-western territory (out of which were later formed
Mississippi, Alabama, &c.) being given over to slavery. Thus the
anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1784 was not adopted; and it
was preceded by unofficial proposals to the same end; yet to it
belongs rightly some special honour as blazoning the way for federal
control of slavery in the territories, which later proved of such
enormous consequence. Jefferson in the first draft of the Ordinance
of 1784, suggested the names to be given to the states eventually to
be formed out of the territory concerned. For his suggestions he has
been much ridiculed. The names are as follows: Illinoia, Michigania,
Sylvania, Polypotamia, Assenisipia, Charronesus, Pelisipia, Saratoga,
Metropotamia and Washington.
[6] He owned at one time above 150 slaves. His overseers were under
contract never to bleed them; but he manumitted only a few at his
death.
[7] During this time he assisted in negotiating a treaty of amity and
commerce with Prussia (1785) and one with Morocco (1789), and
negotiated with France a "convention defining and establishing the
functions and privileges of consuls and vice-consuls" (1788).
[8] Patrick Henry humorously declaimed before a popular audience that
Jefferson, who favoured French wine and cookery, had "abjured his
native victuals."
[9] Jefferson did not sympathize with the temper of his followers who
condoned the zealous excesses of Genet, and in general with the
"misbehaviour" of the democratic clubs; but, as a student of English
liberties, he could not accept Washington's doctrine that for a
self-created permanent body to declare "this act unconstitutional,
and that act pregnant with mischiefs" was "a stretch of arrogant
presumption" which would, if unchecked, "destroy the country."
[10] John Basset Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (New York, 1905).
[11] Compare C. D. Hazen, _Contemporary American opinion of the
French Revolution_ (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1897).
[12] It was at this period of his life that Jefferson gave expression
to some of the opinions for which he has been most severely
criticized and ridiculed. For the Shays' rebellion he felt little
abhorrence, and wrote: "A little rebellion now and then is a good
thing ... an observation of this truth should render honest
republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not
to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound
health of government" (_Writings_, Ford ed., iv. 362-363). Again,
"Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably
conducted?... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without
such a rebellion.... What signify a few lives lost in a century or
two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure" (Ibid. iv.
467). Again he says: "Societies exist under three forms--(1) without
government, as among our Indians; (2) under governments wherein the
will of every one has a just influence.... (3) under governments of
force.... It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first
condition is not the best." (Ibid. iv. 362.)
[13] He turned law students from Blackstone's toryism to Coke on
Littleton; and he would not read Walter Scott, so strong was his
aversion to that writer's predilection for class and feudalism.
[14] Hamilton wrote for the papers himself; Jefferson never did. A
talented clerk in his department, however, Philip Freneau, set up an
anti-administration paper. It was alleged that Jefferson appointed
him for the purpose, and encouraged him. Undoubtedly there was
nothing in the charge. The Federalist outcry could only have been
silenced by removal of Freneau, or by disclaimers or admonitions,
which Jefferson did not think it incumbent upon himself--or, since he
thought Freneau was doing good, desirable for him--to make.
[15] Contrary to the general belief that Hamilton dominated
Washington in the cabinet, there is the president's explicit
statement that "there were as many instances" of his deciding against
as in favour of the secretary of the treasury.
[16] See also Jefferson to E. Gerry, 26th of January 1799
(_Writings_, vii. 325), and to Dupont de Nemours (x. 23). Cf.
Hamilton to J. Dayton, 1799 (_Works_, x. 329).
[17] In 1786 he suggested to James Monroe that the society of friends
he hoped to gather in Albemarle might, in sumptuary matters, "set a
good example" to a country (i.e. Virginia) that "needed" it.
[18] See C. R. Fish, _The Civil Service and the Patronage_ (Harvard
Historical Studies, New York, 1905), ch. 2.
[19] Jefferson's dislike of a navy was due to his desire for an
economical administration and for peace. Shortly after his
inauguration he expressed a desire to lay up the larger men of war in
the eastern branch of the Potomac, where they would require only "one
set of plunderers to take care of them." To Thomas Paine he wrote in
1807: "I believe that gunboats are the only _water_ defence which can
be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy."
(_Works_, Ford ed., ix. 137.) The gunboats desired by Jefferson were
small, cheap craft equipped with one or two guns and kept on shore
under sheds until actually needed, when they were to be launched and
manned by a sort of naval militia. A large number of these boats were
constructed and they afforded some protection to coasting vessels
against privateers, but in bad weather, or when employed against a
frigate, they were worse than useless, and Jefferson's "gunboat
system" was admittedly a failure.
[20] See e.g. his letters in 1787 on the Shays' rebellion, and his
speculations on the doctrine that one generation may not bind another
by paper documents. With the latter may be compared present-day
movements like the initiative and referendum, and not a few
discussions of national debts. Jefferson's distrust of governments
was nothing exceptional for a consistent individualist.
[21] In his last years he carefully sifted and revised his
contemporary notes evidencing, as he believed, the existence of such
a party, and they remain as his _Ana_ (chiefly Hamiltoniana). The
only just judgment of these notes is to be obtained by looking at
them, and by testing his suspicions with the letters of Hamilton,
Ames, Oliver Wolcott, Theodore Sedgwick, George Cabot and the other
Hamiltonians. Such a comparison measures also the relative judgment,
temper and charity of these writers and Jefferson. It must still
remain true, however, that Jefferson's _Ana_ present him in a far
from engaging light.
[22] "Jefferson, in 1789, wrote some such stuff about the will of
majorities, as a New Englander would lose his rank among men of sense
to avow."--Fisher Ames (Jan. 1800).
[23] He was classed as a "French infidel" and atheist. His attitude
toward religion was in fact deeply reverent and sincere, but he
insisted that religion was purely an individual matter, "evidenced,
as concerns the world by each one's daily life," and demanded
absolute freedom of private judgment. He looked on Unitarianism with
much sympathy and desired its growth. "I am a Christian," he wrote in
1823, "in the only sense in which he (Jesus) wished any one to be;
sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others;
ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never
claimed any other."
JEFFERSON CITY (legally and officially the City of Jefferson), the
capital of Missouri, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Cole county, on the
Missouri river, near the geographical centre of the state, about 125 m.
W. of St Louis. Pop. (1890), 6742; (1900), 9664, of whom 786 were
foreign-born and 1822 were negroes; (1910 census), 11,850. It is served
by the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago & Alton, and the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas railways. Its site is partly in the bottom-lands of the river and
partly on the steep banks at an elevation of about 600 ft. above the
sea. A steel bridge spans the river. The state capitol, an imposing
structure built on a bluff above the river, was built in 1838-1842 and
enlarged in 1887-1888; it was first occupied in 1840 by the legislature,
which previously had met (after 1837) in the county court house. Other
prominent buildings are the United States court house and post office,
the state supreme court house, the county court house, the state
penitentiary, the state armoury and the executive mansion. The
penitentiary is to a large extent self-supporting; in 1903-1904 the
earnings were $3493.80 in excess of the costs, but in 1904-1906 the
costs exceeded the earnings by $9044. Employment is furnished for the
convicts on the penitentiary premises by incorporated companies. The
state law library here is one of the best of the kind in the country,
and the city has a public library. In the city is Lincoln Institute, a
school for negroes, founded in 1866 by two regiments of negro infantry
upon their discharge from the United States army, opened in 1868, taken
over by the state in 1879, and having sub-normal, normal, college,
industrial and agricultural courses. Coal and limestone are found near
the city. In 1905 the total value of the factory product was $3,926,632,
an increase of 28.2% since 1900. The original constitution of Missouri
prescribed that the capital should be on the Missouri river within 40 m.
of the mouth of the Osage, and a commission selected in 1821 the site of
Jefferson City, on which a town was laid out in 1822, the name being
adopted in honour of Thomas Jefferson. The legislature first met here in
1826; Jefferson City became the county-seat in 1828, and in 1839 was
first chartered as a city. The constitutional conventions of 1845 and
1875, and the state convention which issued the call for the National
Liberal Republican convention at Cincinnati in 1872, met here, and so
for some of its sessions did the state convention of 1861-1863. In June
1861 Jefferson City was occupied by Union forces, and in
September-October 1864 it was threatened by Confederate troops under
General Sterling Price.
JEFFERSONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Clark county, Indiana,
U.S.A., situated on the N. bank of the Ohio river, opposite Louisville,
Kentucky, with which it is connected by several bridges. Pop. (1890),
10,666; (1900), 10,774, of whom 1818 were of negro descent and 615 were
foreign-born; (1910 census), 10,412. It is served by the Baltimore &
Ohio South-western, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and
the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by three
inter-urban electric lines. It is attractively situated on bluffs above
the river, which at this point has a descent (known as the falls of the
Ohio) of 26 ft. in 2 m. This furnishes good water power for
manufacturing purposes both at Jeffersonville and at Louisville. The
total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,526,443, an increase
of 20% since 1900. The Indiana reformatory (formerly the Southern
Indiana penitentiary) and a large supply dépôt of the United States army
are at Jeffersonville. General George Rogers Clark started (June 24,
1778) on his expedition against Kaskaskia and Vincennes from Corn Island
(now completely washed away) opposite what is now Jeffersonville. In
1786 the United States government established Fort Finney (built by
Captain Walter Finney), afterwards re-named Fort Steuben, on the site of
the present city; but the fort was abandoned in 1791, and the actual
beginning of Jeffersonville was in 1802, when a part of the Clark grant
(the site of the present city) was transferred by its original owner,
Lieut. Isaac Bowman, to three trustees, under whose direction a town was
laid out. Jeffersonville was incorporated as a town in 1815, and was
chartered as a city in 1839.
JEFFREY, FRANCIS JEFFREY, LORD (1773-1850), Scottish judge and literary
critic, son of a depute-clerk in the Court of Session, was born at
Edinburgh on the 23rd of October 1773. After attending the high school
for six years, he studied at the university of Glasgow from 1787 to May
1789, and at Queen's College, Oxford, from September 1791 to June 1792.
He had begun the study of law at Edinburgh before going to Oxford, and
now resumed his studies there. He became a member of the speculative
society, where he measured himself in debate with Scott, Brougham,
Francis Horner, the marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird and others. He
was admitted to the Scotch bar in December 1794, but, having abandoned
the Tory principles in which he had been educated, he found that his
Whig politics seriously prejudiced his legal prospects. In consequence
of his lack of success at the bar he went to London in 1798 to try his
fortune as a journalist, but without success; he also made more than one
vain attempt to obtain an office which would have secured him the
advantage of a small but fixed salary. His marriage with Catherine
Wilson in 1801 made the question of a settled income even more pressing.
A project for a new review was brought forward by Sydney Smith in
Jeffrey's flat in the presence of H. P. Brougham (afterwards Lord
Brougham), Francis Horner and others; and the scheme resulted in the
appearance on the 10th of October 1802 of the first number of the
_Edinburgh Review_. At the outset the _Review_ was not under the charge
of any special editor. The first three numbers were, however,
practically edited by Sydney Smith, and on his leaving for England the
work devolved chiefly on Jeffrey, who, by an arrangement with Constable,
the publisher, was eventually appointed editor at a fixed salary. Most
of those associated in the undertaking were Whigs; but, although the
general bias of the Review was towards social and political reforms, it
was at first so little of a party organ that for a time it numbered Sir
Walter Scott among its contributors; and no distinct emphasis was given
to its political leanings until the publication in 1808 of an article by
Jeffrey himself on the work of Don Pedro Cevallos on the _French
Usurpation of Spain_. This article expressed despair of the success of
the British arms in Spain, and Scott at once withdrew his subscription,
the _Quarterly_ being soon afterwards started in opposition. According
to Lord Cockburn the effect of the first number of the _Edinburgh
Review_ was "electrical." The English reviews were at that time
practically publishers' organs, the articles in which were written by
hackwriters instructed to praise or blame according to the publishers'
interests. Few men of any standing consented to write for them. The
_Edinburgh Review_, on the other hand, enlisted a brilliant and
independent staff of contributors, guided by the editor, not the
publisher. They received sixteen guineas a sheet (sixteen printed
pages), increased subsequently to twenty-five guineas in many cases,
instead of the two guineas which formed the ordinary London reviewer's
fee. Further, the review was not limited to literary criticism. It
constituted itself the accredited organ of moderate Whig public opinion.
The particular work which provided the starting-point of an article was
in many cases merely the occasion for the exposition, always brilliant
and incisive, of the author's views on politics, social subjects, ethics
or literature. These general principles and the novelty of the method
ensured the success of the undertaking even after the original circle of
exceptionally able men who founded it had been dispersed. It had a
circulation, great for those days, of 12,000 copies. The period of
Jeffrey's editorship extended to about twenty-six years, ceasing with
the ninety-eighth number, published in June 1829, when he resigned in
favour of Macvey Napier.
Jeffrey's own contributions, according to a list which has the sanction
of his authority, numbered two hundred, all except six being written
before his resignation of the editorship. Jeffrey wrote with great
rapidity, at odd moments of leisure and with little special preparation.
Great fluency and ease of diction, considerable warmth of imagination
and moral sentiment, and a sharp eye to discover any oddity of style or
violation of the accepted canons of good taste, made his criticisms
pungent and effective. But the essential narrowness and timidity of his
general outlook prevented him from detecting and estimating latent
forces, either in politics or in matters strictly intellectual and
moral; and this lack of understanding and sympathy accounts for his
distrust and dislike of the passion and fancy of Shelley and Keats, and
for his praise of the half-hearted and elegant romanticism of Rogers and
Campbell. (For his treatment of the lake poets see WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.)
A criticism in the fifteenth number of the _Review_ on the morality of
Moore's poems led in 1806 to a duel between the two authors at Chalk
Farm. The proceedings were stopped by the police, and Jeffrey's pistol
was found to contain no bullet. The affair led to a warm friendship,
however, and Moore contributed to the _Review_, while Jeffrey made ample
amends in a later article on _Lalla Rookh_ (1817).
Jeffrey's wife had died in 1805, and in 1810 he became acquainted with
Charlotte, daughter of Charles Wilkes of New York, and great-niece of
John Wilkes. When she returned to America, Jeffrey followed her, and
they were married in 1813. Before returning to England they visited
several of the chief American cities, and his experience strengthened
Jeffrey in the conciliatory policy he had before advocated towards the
States. Notwithstanding the increasing success of the _Review_, Jeffrey
always continued to look to the bar as the chief field of his ambition.
As a matter of fact, his literary reputation helped his professional
advancement. His practice extended rapidly in the civil and criminal
courts, and he regularly appeared before the general assembly of the
Church of Scotland, where his work, though not financially profitable,
increased his reputation. As an advocate his sharpness and rapidity of
insight gave him a formidable advantage in the detection of the
weaknesses of a witness and the vulnerable points of his opponent's
case, while he grouped his own arguments with an admirable eye to
effect, especially excelling in eloquent closing appeals to a jury.
Jeffrey was twice, in 1820 and 1822, elected lord rector of the
university of Glasgow. In 1829 he was chosen dean of the faculty of
advocates. On the return of the Whigs to power in 1830 he became lord
advocate, and entered parliament as member for the Perth burghs. He was
unseated, and afterwards returned for Malton, a borough in the interest
of Lord Fitzwilliam. After the passing of the Scottish Reform Bill,
which he introduced in parliament, he was returned for Edinburgh in
December 1832. His parliamentary career, which, though not brilliantly
successful, had won him high general esteem, was terminated by his
elevation to the judicial bench as Lord Jeffrey in May 1834. In 1842 he
was moved to the first division of the Court of Session. On the
disruption of the Scottish Church he took the side of the seceders,
giving a judicial opinion in their favour, afterwards reversed by the
house of lords. He died at Edinburgh on the 26th of January 1850.
Some of his contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared in four
volumes in 1844 and 1845. This selection includes the essay on
"Beauty" contributed to the _Ency. Brit._ The _Life of Lord Jeffrey,
with a Selection from his Correspondence_, by Lord Cockburn, appeared
in 1852 in 2 vols. See also the _Selected Correspondence of Macvey
Napier_ (1877); the sketch of Jeffrey in Carlyle's _Reminiscences_,
vol. ii. (1881); and an essay by Lewis E. Gates in _Three Studies in
Literature_ (New York, 1899).
JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS, 1ST BARON (1648-1689), lord chancellor of
England, son of John Jeffreys, a Welsh country gentleman, was born at
Acton Park, his father's seat in Denbighshire, in 1648. His family,
though not wealthy, was of good social standing and repute in Wales; his
mother, a daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland of Bewsey, Lancashire, was "a
very pious good woman." He was educated at Shrewsbury, St Paul's and
Westminster schools, at the last of which he was a pupil of Busby, and
at Trinity College, Cambridge; but he left the university without taking
a degree, and entered the Inner Temple as a student in May 1663. From
his childhood Jeffreys displayed exceptional talent, but on coming to
London he occupied himself more with the pleasures of conviviality than
with serious study of the law. Though he never appears to have fallen
into the licentious immorality prevalent at that period, he early became
addicted to hard drinking and boisterous company. But as the records of
his early years, and indeed of his whole life, are derived almost
exclusively from vehemently hostile sources, the numerous anecdotes of
his depravity cannot be accepted without a large measure of scepticism.
He was a handsome, witty and attractive boon-companion, and in the
taverns of the city he made friends among attorneys with practice in the
criminal courts. Thus assisted he rose so rapidly in his profession that
within three years of his call to the bar in 1668, he was elected common
serjeant of the city of London. Such advancement, however, was not to be
attained even in the reign of Charles II. solely by the aid of
disreputable friendships. Jeffreys had remarkable aptitude for the
profession of an advocate--quick intelligence, caustic humour, copious
eloquence. His powers of cross-examination were masterly; and if he was
insufficiently grounded in legal principles to become a profound lawyer,
nothing but greater application was needed in the opinion of so hostile
a critic as Lord Campbell, to have made him the rival of Nottingham and
Hale. Jeffreys could count on the influence of respectable men of
position in the city, such as Sir Robert Clayton and his own namesake
Alderman Jeffreys; and he also enjoyed the personal friendship of the
virtuous Sir Matthew Hale. In 1667 Jeffreys had married in circumstances
which, if improvident, were creditable to his generosity and sense of
honour; and his domestic life, so far as is known, was free from the
scandal common among his contemporaries. While holding the judicial
office of common serjeant, he pursued his practice at the bar. With a
view to further preferment he now sought to ingratiate himself with the
court party, to which he obtained an introduction possibly through
William Chiffinch, the notorious keeper of the king's closet. He at once
attached himself to the king's mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth; and
as early as 1672 he was employed in confidential business by the court.
His influence in the city of London, where opposition to the government
of Charles II. was now becoming pronounced, enabled Jeffreys to make
himself useful to Danby. In September 1677 he received a knighthood, and
his growing favour with the court was further marked by his appointment
as solicitor-general to James, duke of York; while the city showed its
continued confidence in him by electing him to the post of recorder in
October 1678.
In the previous month Titus Oates had made his first revelations of the
alleged popish plot, and from this time forward Jeffreys was prominently
identified, either as advocate or judge, with the memorable state trials
by which the political conflict between the Crown and the people was
waged during the remainder of the 17th century. The popish plot,
followed by the growing agitation for the exclusion of the duke of York
from the succession, widened the breach between the city and the court.
Jeffreys threw in his lot with the latter, displaying his zeal by
initiating the movement of the "abhorrers" (q.v.) against the
"petitioners" who were giving voice to the popular demand for the
summoning of parliament. He was rewarded with the coveted office of
chief justice of Chester on the 30th of April 1680; but when parliament
met in October the House of Commons passed a hostile resolution which
induced him to resign his recordership, a piece of pusillanimity that
drew from the king the remark that Jeffreys was "not parliament-proof."
Jeffreys nevertheless received from the city aldermen a substantial
token of appreciation for his past services. In 1681 he was created a
baronet. In June 1683 the first of the Rye House conspirators were
brought to trial. Jeffreys was briefed for the crown in the prosecution
of Lord William Howard; and, having been raised to the bench as lord
chief justice of the king's bench in September, he presided at the
trials of Algernon Sidney in November 1683 and of Sir Thomas Armstrong
in the following June. In the autumn of 1684 Jeffreys, who had been
active in procuring the surrender of municipal charters to the crown,
was called to the cabinet, having previously been sworn of the privy
council. In May 1685 he had the satisfaction of passing sentence on
Titus Oates for perjury in the plot trials; and about the same time
James II. rewarded his zeal with a peerage as Baron Jeffreys of Wem, an
honour never before conferred on a chief justice during his tenure of
office. Jeffreys had for some time been suffering from stone, which
aggravated the irritability of his naturally violent temper; and the
malady probably was in some degree the cause of the unmeasured fury he
displayed at the trial of Richard Baxter (q.v.) for seditious libel--if
the unofficial _ex parte_ report of the trial, which alone exists, is to
be accepted as trustworthy.
In August 1685 Jeffreys opened at Winchester the commission known in
history as the "bloody assizes," his conduct of which has branded his
name with indelible infamy. The number of persons sentenced to death at
these assizes for complicity in the duke of Monmouth's insurrection is
uncertain. The official return of those actually executed was 320; many
hundreds more were transported and sold into slavery in the West Indies.
In all probability the great majority of those condemned were in fact
concerned in the rising, but the trials were in many cases a mockery of
the administration of justice. Numbers were cajoled into pleading
guilty; the case for the prisoners seldom obtained a hearing. The
merciless severity of the chief justice did not however exceed the
wishes of James II.; for on his return to London Jeffreys received from
the king the great seal with the title of lord chancellor. For the next
two years he was a strenuous upholder of prerogative, though he was less
abjectly pliant than has sometimes been represented. There is no reason
to doubt the sincerity of his attachment to the Church of England; for
although the king's favour was capricious Jeffreys never took the easy
and certain path to secure it that lay through apostasy; and he even
withstood James on occasion, when the latter pushed his Catholic zeal to
extremes. Though it is true that he accepted the presidency of the
ecclesiastical commission, Burnet's statement that it was Jeffreys who
suggested that institution to James is probably incorrect; and he was so
far from having instigated the prosecution of the seven bishops in 1688,
as has been frequently alleged, that he disapproved of the proceedings
and rejoiced secretly at the acquittal. But while he watched with
misgiving the king's preferment of Roman Catholics, he made himself the
masterful instrument of unconstitutional prerogative in coercing the
authorities of Cambridge University, who in 1687 refused to confer
degrees on a Benedictine monk, and the fellows of Magdalen College,
Oxford, who declined to elect as their president a disreputable nominee
of the king.
Being thus conspicuously identified with the most tyrannical measures of
James II., Jeffreys found himself in a desperate plight when on the 11th
of December 1688 the king fled from the country on the approach to
London of William of Orange. The lord chancellor attempted to escape
like his master; but in spite of his disguise as a common seaman he was
recognized in a tavern at Wapping--possibly, as Roger North relates, by
an attorney whom Jeffreys had terrified on some occasion in the court of
chancery--and was arrested and conveyed to the Tower. The malady from
which he had long suffered had recently made fatal progress, and he died
in the Tower on the 18th of April 1689. He was succeeded in the peerage
by his son, John (2nd Baron Jeffreys of Wem), who died without male
issue in 1702, when the title became extinct.
It is impossible to determine precisely with what justice tradition has
made the name of "Judge Jeffreys" a byword of infamy. The Revolution,
which brought about his fall, handed over his reputation at the same
time to the mercy of his bitterest enemies. They alone have recorded his
actions and appraised his motives and character. Even the adherents of
the deposed dynasty had no interest in finding excuse for one who served
as a convenient scapegoat for the offences of his master. For at least
half a century after his death no apology for Lord Jeffreys would have
obtained a hearing; and none was attempted. With the exception therefore
of what is to be gathered from the reports of the state trials, all
knowledge of his conduct rests on testimony tainted by undisguised
hostility. Innumerable scurrilous lampoons vilifying the hated
instrument of James's tyranny, but without a pretence of historic value,
flooded the country at the Revolution; and these, while they fanned the
undiscriminating hatred of contemporaries who remembered the judge's
severities, and perpetuated that hatred in tradition, have not been
sufficiently discounted even by modern historians like Macaulay and Lord
Campbell. The name of Jeffreys has therefore been handed down as that of
a coarse, ignorant, dissolute, foul-mouthed, inhuman bully, who
prostituted the seat of justice. That there was sufficient ground for
the execration in which his memory was long held is not to be gainsaid.
But the portrait has nevertheless been blackened overmuch. An occasional
significant admission in his favour may be gleaned even from the
writings of his enemies. Thus Roger North declares that "in matters
indifferent," i.e. where politics were not concerned, Jeffreys became
the seat of justice better than any other that author had seen in his
place. Sir J. Jekyll, master of the rolls, told Speaker Onslow that
Jeffreys "had great parts and made a great chancellor in the business of
his court. In mere private matters he was thought an able and upright
judge wherever he sat." His keen sense of humour, allied with a spirit
of inveterate mockery and an exuberant command of pungent eloquence, led
him to rail and storm at prisoners and witnesses in grossly unseemly
fashion. But in this he did not greatly surpass most of his
contemporaries on the judicial bench, and it was a failing from which
even the dignified and virtuous Hale was not altogether exempt. The
intemperance of Jeffreys which shocked North, certainly did not exceed
that of Saunders; in violence he was rivalled by Scroggs; though accused
of political apostasy, he was not a shameless renegade like Williams;
and there is no evidence that in pecuniary matters he was personally
venal, or that in licentiousness he followed the example set by Charles
II. and most of his courtiers. Some of his actions that have incurred
the sternest reprobation of posterity were otherwise estimated by the
best of his contemporaries. His trial of Algernon Sidney, described by
Macaulay and Lord Campbell as one of the most heinous of his iniquities,
was warmly commended by Dr William Lloyd, who was soon afterwards to
become a popular idol as one of the illustrious seven bishops (see
letter from the bishop of St Asaph in H. B. Irving's _Life of Judge
Jeffreys_, p. 184). Nor was the habitual illegality of his procedure on
the bench so unquestionable as many writers have assumed. Sir James
Stephen inclined to the opinion that no actual abuse of law tainted the
trials of the Rye House conspirators, or that of Alice Lisle, the most
prominent victim of the "bloody assizes." The conduct of the judges in
Russell's trial was, he thinks, "moderate and fair in general"; and the
trial of Sidney "much resembled that of Russell." The same high
authority pronounces that the trial of Lord Delamere in the House of
Lords was conducted by Jeffreys "with propriety and dignity." And if
Jeffreys judged political offenders with cruel severity, he also crushed
some glaring abuses; conspicuous examples of which were the frauds of
attorneys who infested Westminster Hall, and the systematic kidnapping
practised by the municipal authorities of Bristol. Moreover, if any
value is to be attached to the evidence of physiognomy, the traditional
estimate of the character of Jeffreys obtains no confirmation from the
refinement of his features and expression as depicted in Kneller's
portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of London. But even though the
popular notion requires to be thus modified in certain respects, it
remains incontestable that Jeffreys was probably on the whole the worst
example of a period when the administration of justice in England had
sunk to the lowest degradation, and the judicial bench had become the
too willing tool of an unconstitutional and unscrupulous executive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief contemporary authorities for the life of
Jeffreys are Bishop Burnet's _History of my own Time_ (1724), and see
especially the edition "with notes by the Earls of Dartmouth and
Hardwick Speaker Onslow and Dean Swift" (Oxford Univ. Press, 1833);
Roger North's _Life of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron of
Guildford_ (1808) and _Autobiography_ (ed. by Augustus Jessopp, 1887);
_Ellis Correspondence, Verney Papers_ (Hist. MSS. Comm.), _Hatton
Correspondence_ (Camden Soc. pub.); the earl of Ailesbury's _Memoirs_;
Evelyn's _Diary_. The only trustworthy information as to the judicial
conduct and capacity of Jeffreys is to be found in the reports of the
_State Trials_, vols. vii.-xii.; and cf. Sir J. F. Stephen's _History
of the Criminal Law of England_ (1883). For details of the "bloody
assizes," see _Harl. MSS._, 4689; George Roberts, _The Life,
Progresses and Rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth_, vol. ii. (1844);
also many pamphlets, lampoons, &c., in the British Museum, as to which
see the article on "Sources of History for Monmouth's Rebellion and
the Bloody Assizes," by A. L. Humphreys, in _Proceedings of the
Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural Hist. Soc._ (1892). Later
accounts are by H. W. Woolrych, _Memoirs of the Life of Judge
Jeffreys_ (1827); Lord Campbell, _The Lives of the Lord Chancellors_
(1845), 1st series, vol. iii.; E. Foss, _The Judges of England_
(1864), vol. vii.; Henry Roscoe, _Lives of Eminent British Lawyers_
(1830); Lord Macaulay, _History of England_ (1848; and many subsequent
editions). Most of these works, and especially those by Macaulay and
Campbell, are uncritical in their hostility to Jeffreys, and are based
for the most part on untrustworthy authorities. The best modern work
on the subject, though unduly favourable to Jeffreys, is H. B.
Irving's _Life of Judge Jeffreys_ (1898), the appendix to which
contains a full bibliography. (R. J. M.)
JEHOIACHIN (Heb. "Yah[weh] establisheth"), in the Bible, son of
Jehoiakim and king of Judah (2 Kings xxiv. 8 sqq.; 2 Chron, xxxvi. 9
seq.). He came to the throne at the age of eighteen in the midst of the
Chaldean invasion of Judah, and is said to have reigned three months. He
was compelled to surrender to Nebuchadrezzar and was carried off to
Babylon (597 B.C.). This was the First Captivity, and from it Ezekiel
(one of the exiles) dates his prophecies. Eight thousand people of the
better class (including artisans, &c.) were removed, the Temple was
partially despoiled (see Jer. xxvii. 18-20; xxiii.v. 3 seq.),[1] and
Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah (son of Josiah) was appointed king.
Jehoiachin's fate is outlined in Jer. xxii. 20-30 (cf. xxvii. 20).
Nearly forty years later, Nebuchadrezzar II. died (562 B.C.) and
Evil-Merodach (Amil-Marduk) his successor released the unfortunate
captive and gave him precedence over the other subjugated kings who were
kept prisoners in Babylon. With this gleam of hope for the unhappy
Judaeans both the book of Kings and the prophecies of Jeremiah conclude
(2 Kings xxv. 27-30; Jer. lii. 31-34).
See, further, JEREMIAH (especially chaps. xxiv., xxvii. seq.), and
JEWS, § 17.