398 Crime and the State
more likely the work of thief-takers, who, as we have seen, engaged in a variety
of ways of profiting from crime. That would explain some of the reflections by
the author of Directions for Prosecuting Thieveson the ‘tricks’ he complained about.
It also explains the pointed criticisms by a body that was well placed to observe
the prosecution process: the City grand jury.
At the sessions of September 1733 the London grand jury devoted its pre-
sentment entirely to the corruption they thought had infected criminal admin-
istration. In particular, they charged that many of the bills of indictment
brought to them in the grand jury room were frivolous or malicious and that
they had been concocted by men in league with magistrates’ clerks as a way of
generating fees, and—though they made this charge orally and not in their pre-
sentment—as a way of profiting from the rewards on offer for the conviction of
certain kinds of offenders. The grand jury accused the clerks, ‘Newgate Sollici-
tors’ of the kind the 1728 pamphleteer chastized, and ‘informing Constables’ of
engaging in what amounted to a conspiracy. The presentment reads:
Wee the Grand Jury of the City of London having with great Concern observed That
many Vexatious and litigious Prosecutions have appeared before us in the Course of this
our Duty and Service against many of the Inhabitants of this great City humbly Con-
ceive it becomes us to Enquire how and in what manner such Prosecutions are fomented
and Stirred up and by whom Prosecuted and Carryed on.
And first it Appears to us that Divers Persons Clerks or Servants to many of his
Majesty’s Justices of the Peace within this City, do under Colour and in the Execution
of their Office Exact and Take from all Persons Accused and others bound to Prosecute
Several Sums of Money under Pretence for Warrants Commitments Recognizances,
Discharges and other Matters Incident to the Duty and Office of a Justice of Peace con-
trary to the known Laws of this Realm In Violation of publick Justice and to the great
oppression of his Majesty’s Subjects.
Wee further observe that many such Clerks and Sollicitors in Confederacy with a Set
of People calling themselves informing Constables Newgate Sollicitors and others Do
not only Excite and Stirr up Ignorant and unwary People to enter into such Prosecutions
but are Actually Concerned as Solicitors and Agents for them thereby encouraging and
Abetting ignorant and weak People to Strife and Envy and getting that Money from
them which they stand in Need of for the Support of themselves and poor Familys.
These Things we humbly beg Leave to present as tending to the Subvertion of
the Laws, The Hindrance ofJustice, The Litigating Strife, and Contrary to the good
Order and Government of this great City....^100
Unlike the anonymous author of the 1728 pamphlet, the men who made
these charges are known to us, and known to be well informed. As we have seen,
a majority of grand jurors had had experience on both grand and trial juries in
(^100) CLRO: London Sess. Papers, September 1733 (grand jury presentment, original and copy). A con-
temporary printed version is bound in with the Chicago Law School set of the OBSP, immediately fol-
lowing the September 1733 OBSP pamphlet (see Langbein, ‘Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal
Trial’, 109 , n. 441 ). For Langbein’s discussion of the presentment, see ibid., 351 – 6.