264 of this building, constructed with the stately magnificence of colonial buildings, was the court-room with its elevated bench, its bar with its circular table covered with green baize, held fast by the round-headed brass tacks which the present generation never sees. The elevated boxes where sat the dig nified and consequential high sheriff and the humble though none the less indispensable crier, while the dock was flanked on either side with a box in which a deputy of the sheriff constantly sat with argus-eyed care of the prisoner, showed conclusively to the spectators that no guilty man could escape. The sessions of the courts in those days were great events in the town. Perhaps no better illustration of this fact can be had than is contained in the following taken from the "United States Oracle of the Day," a news paper published in Portsmouth. In the paper of May 24, 1800, appears this, almost the only local item, which may be regarded as a first-rate notice : — "Circuit Court. On Monday last the Circuit Court of the United States was opened in this town. The Hon. Judge Patterson presided. After the jury were empanelled the Judge de livered a most elegant and appropriate charge. The Law was laid down in a masterly manner : Politics were set in their true light by holding up the Jacobins as the disorganizers of our happy country, and the only instruments of introduc ing discontent and dissatisfaction among the well-meaning part of the Community. Religion <5v Morality were pleasingly inculcated and en forced as being necessary to good government,
good order, and good laws; for ' when the right eous are in authority, the people rejoice.' "We are sorry we could not prevail upon the Hon. Judge to furnish a copy of said charge to adorn the pages of the United States Oracle. "After the charge was delivered, the Rev. Mr. Alden addressed the Throne of Grace in an ex cellent and well-adapted prayer." It may well be supposed that the judge, who was Associate Justice William Patter son of New Jersey, could hardly afford to concede the request of the New Hampshire editor, as doubtless the charge might be needed to be thereafter given in other dis tricts by the learned judge, who probably spent more time in its preparation than was commonly required for matter which adorned the pages of Portsmouth papers nearly a hundred years ago. In the court-room where this charge was given and where the courts were held down to 1836, Jeremiah Mason was admitted to the bar of the Circuit Court in 1798, and Daniel Webster in May, 1809. In October, 1812, Mr. Justice Story here conferred the honorable degree of Sergeant-at-Law upon Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith, and ordered that they be respected as such by the officers of the court, and at the same time conferred the degree of Barrister of Law upon Daniel Webster and three other prominent members of the Federal bar in the New Hampshire district. These titular honors seem never to have been afterwards conferred upon any other counsellors of the court.
