We are like to get nearest the truth in a law case with its official documents and sifted evidence and considered decision. The trial of one Alexander Broadfoot for the murder of one Calahan is the best available. In the April of 1774 H.M.S. _Mortar_ lay at anchor off Bristol. The captain held a warrant of impressment, but he could delegate his authority only to a commissioned officer, whose name must be inserted in his order; and the only one aboard was the lieutenant. On the 25th the ship's boat was sent down Channel, _with neither captain nor lieutenant_ to look for men. She had no luck till evening, when she came across the _Bremen Factor_, a homeward bound merchantman, still some leagues from port, but beating thitherward up Channel. The man-o'-war's men having boarded her, were proceeding to search the hold, when they were confronted by Broadfoot, the boatswain, armed to the teeth. He demanded what they came for. "For you and your comrades," was the plain and honest, though no doubt irritating answer. "Keep back, I have a blunderbuss loaded with swan shot," said Broadfoot, levelling his piece. The press-gang stopped. "Where is your lieutenant?" he went on. (Evidently this boatswain knew a little of the law.) "He is not far off," was the evasive answer, showing that the man's acts and words had impressed his assailants. Did Broadfoot grasp the fact that they were trespassers? At any rate, he let fly, killed Calahan on the spot, and wounded two others. He was tried at Bristol, and acquitted of the capital charge--for the action of the man-o'-war's men was plainly irregular; but he was found guilty of manslaughter, for that he had used more force than was necessary. Another case is that of Robert Goldswain, a small freeholder at Marlow, in Bucks. In the March of 1778 he was a bargeman on the Thames, engaged in carrying timber to the king's yard; with a protection order from the Navy Board to him by name so long as he should continue in that service. But these were troubled times, the French had just declared for the revolted American colonists and our war-ships were frightfully undermanned; so, on the 16th of March, the Admiralty fixed the next night for a general press on the Thames, with direction to seize--despite protection orders--on all sailors and watermen whatsoever, saving and excepting merchant skippers and men exempted by special acts. Goldswain was in the net, and was passed from ship to ship down to the Nore, where his captors were overtaken by an order from the Court requiring a return to a writ of Habeas Corpus issued on his behalf. Counsel's argument for the Admiralty--that the device of first issuing protection orders to lure sea and watering men from their lurking-places, and then pouncing on them under the authority of a general press, was excellent--did not commend itself to the Court, which, in the battle over poor Goldswain's body, suspected some antagonism between the Admiralty and the Naval Board.