Death of a Colonial

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At the age of sixteen, in the year of 1771, I, Jeremy Proctor, could at last say that my education in the law had properly begun. Having read twice through Sir Edward Cokes Instituted of the Law of England and made copious notes, I had been judged by Sir John Fielding to be ready to begin the study and discussion of it with him. This, Sir John confided, was more or less the same process he himself had followed when he had read law with his brother, Henry. He was of the opinion that what it lacked in formality, it more than made up for in providing the scholar with a proper grasp of the principles of law. “It is essential,” said he to me on more than one occasion, “that in learning to be a lawyer you must first learn to think like a lawyer.”

Nor was Sir John my only teacher at the time of which I write (now some twenty-five years past). In an even more informal way I learned something, as well, from young Mr. Archibald Talley. He, though two years my senior, was only a bit further on in his reading of the law, and so we were no doubt well matched in the discussions which took place between us nearly every week. It was commonest for us to share a pew at Old Bailey and then adjourn to a coffee house nearby that we might examine together the trial or trials we had that day witnessed. In this way, each learned from the other, though what we learned was as often false as true — usually the product of mere speculation. Of course Sir John knew of these visits to the law courts and of their aftermath spent in discussion, and in general he approved of them.

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