The death of Sir John Popham was a more serious matter. He was the head and front of the enterprise; the brother was only his agent. It was Sir John's Colony. He furnished the bulk of the capital, provided the colonists, gave his name and his own personal infamy to the undertaking. Who, then, was Sir John Popham? He was Lord Chief Justice of England, and was seventy-six years of age. In his youth he had been a highwayman, and probably a garroter. "He frequently sallied forth at night from a hostel in Southwark, with a band of desperate characters, and, planting themselves in ambush on Shooter's Hill, or taking other positions favorable for attack and escape, they stopped travelers and took from them not only their money, but any valuable commodities which they carried with them. The extraordinary and almost incredible circumstance is, that Popham is supposed to have continued in these courses after he had been called to the bar, and when, being of mature age, he was married to a respectable woman." (Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849-57, i. p. 210.) Lord Campbell was not the man to speak unadvisedly of one who had occupied the highest judicial office, save one, in England. "Popham's portrait," he says, "represented him as 'a huge, heavy, ugly man,' and I am afraid he would not appear to great advantage in a sketch of his moral qualities, which, lest I should do him injustice I will not attempt."--Idem, p. 229. With regard to his law reports, Lord Campbell says "they are wretchedly ill done, and they are not considered of authority. We should have been better pleased if he had given us an account of his exploits when he was chief of a band of freebooters." (p. 229.) "The reproach urged against him was extreme severity to prisoners. He was notorious as a 'hanging judge.' Not only was he keen to convict in cases prosecuted by the government; but in ordinary larcenies, and above all in highway robberies, there was little chance of an acquittal before him."--Idem, p. 219. "He left behind him the greatest estate that had ever been amassed by any lawyer. Some said as much as £10,000 a year; but it is not supposed to be all honestly come by; and he is reported even to have begun to save money when 'the road did him justice.'"--Idem, p. 229.