This eventful year, the year which had seen the publication of _Tom Jones_, the shackling of Fielding's genius within the duties of a London magistrate, the issue of two pamphlets occupied with criminal reform and administration, the drafting of a proposed Criminal Bill, and the suppression of a riot, closed sadly with the death of Fielding's little daughter, Mary Amelia, when barely twelve months old. She was buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden, on the seventeenth of December, 1749. And some time in the autumn or early winter Fielding himself appears to have been dangerously ill. This we learn from the following paragraph in the _General Advertizer_ for December 28: "Justice Fielding has no Mortification in his Foot as has been reported: that Gentleman has indeed been very dangerously ill with a Fever, and a Fit of the Gout, in which he was attended by Dr Thompson, an eminent Physician, and is now so well recovered as to be able to execute his Office as usual." [1] His Commission in the Peace for Westminster bears date October 25. 1748. [2] An application is reported for the 2nd of December before "Justice Fielding" of Meards Court, St. Anne's, but for reasons given below this _may_ refer to John Fielding. [3] From the autograph now at Woburn Abbey, and printed in the _Correspondence of John Fourth Duke of Bedford_. Vol. i. p. 589. [4] Middlesex Records. Volume of _Qualification Oaths for Justices of the Peace_. 1749. From an entry dated July 13, 1749, in the same volume, Fielding appears to have then owned leases in the three first named parishes only. [5] See the King's Writ, now preserved in the Record Office. [6] Middlesex Records. _Sacramental Certificates_. [7] Middlesex Records. _Oath Rolls_. [8] _Amelia_. Book i. Chapter ii. [9] The Westminster _Session Rolls_, preserved among the Middlesex Records, contain many recognizances all signed by Fielding. [10] "On Friday last," announces the General Advertiser for May 17, "Counsellor Fielding, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace was chosen Chairman of the Sessions at Hicks Hall for the County of Middlesex"; a statement not very compatible with the incontestable evidence preserved in the _General Orders Books_ of the Middlesex Records, by which it appears that John Lane Esq're was elected Chairman of the Middlesex General Sessions and General Quarter Session from Ladyday 1749 to September 1752. The personal paragraphist of 1749 was perhaps no less inaccurate than his descendant of to-day. But a few weeks later this honour of chairmanship was certainly accorded to Fielding by his brethren of the Bench for Westminster. An entry in the _Sessions Book_ of Westminster, 1749 runs as follows: "May. 1749, Mr Fielding elected chairman of this present Session and to continue untill the 2nd day of the next." _MSS Sessions Books for Westminster. Vol. 1749_. Middlesex Records.