some very severe, he arrived at the Bemini Isles. During this trip he had a narrow. escape from two large waterspouts which formed during a storm and which the direction of the wind barely prevented from overwhelming him and his companions in their little boat at sea. From Bemini he took passage in a small sloop loaded with sponge for Nassau. He left Bemini on Thursday afternoon, July 13, and on Friday morning about halfpast seven o'clock the sloop foundered at sea thirty miles from the nearest land, sinking with such rapidity that he and three negroes had barely time to jump into a small skiff before the sloop went to the bottom. In this slight skiff, leaky, and with but a single oar and no provisions save a pot of rice that had just been cooked for breakfast and a small keg of water, he found himself about eight o'clock in the morning, with the three negroes for his companions in disaster, only five inches of the boat out of water, on the broad ocean, with the certainty that they could not survive five minutes if the sea became the least rough. About eleven o'clock a vessel was discerned in the distance which by dint of sculling they reached at five o'clock in the afternoon when they were taken aobard an English lighthouse yacht and soon afterwards put down again at Bemini.

Mr. Benjamin at once obtained another sloop which this time carried him safely to Nassau and the next day he left that port for Havana.

After he left St. Thomas on the afternoon of the 13th. of August and when they were sixty miles at sea, the ship was found that night to be on fire in the forehold. The vessel's head was hastily turned back toward St. Thomas. According to his own account, "by great exertion and the admirable conduct and discipline exhibited by all on board, the flames were kept from bursting through the deck until we got back to the harbor of St. Thomas, where we arrived at about three o'clock in the morning, with seven foot of water in the hold poured in by the

steam pumps, and the decks burnt to within an eighth of an inch of the entire thickness."

Such were some of the adventures which marked his way to England. He arrived there in the autumn of 1865. All his capital at this time consisted of one hundred bales of cotton which some time before he had shipped to England. Out of this store he provided assistance for his wife and daughter in Paris and his sisters at home. He earned money for his own current needs by writing editorials for one of the London papers.

On January 13, 1866, he entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn and shortly afterwards was admitted to read law under the instruction of Charles Pollock, later Baron Pollock, and the son of Sir Frederick Pollock, Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

Through the influence of distinguished friends the regular three years of dining at Lincoln's Inn was dispensed with and Mr. Benjamin was called to the Bar in Trinity term June 6, 1866.

He seems to have resumed his professional studies with unabated energy and he went to the front with rapid strides. His grasp of the Civil and French law was of great advantage to him. He chose the Northern Circuit embracing Liverpool. "My time is spent in close study," he writes at this time, "I am as much interested in my profession as when I first commenced it as a boy and am rapidly recovering all that I had partially forgotten in the turmoil of public affairs."

It was at this period that he prepared his classic masterpiece, the "Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property with reference to the American Decisions, to the French Code and the Civil Law." This great work went through three editions before his death, and nothing need be said of its merits in this presence. It greatly enhanced his professional reputation in England and aided in his advancement at the bar.

In 1872, after six years of unremitting toil and many conspicuous successes, upon the recommendation of a number of Judges to the Lord Chancellor, and of that official to the Queen, he received a “Patent of Precedence," giving him rank above all future Queen's Counsel and above all Sergeants at Law, except only two or three who already had such patents.

"It became, before many years," says Mr. Butler, "almost a matter of course that in every important case taken to the Courts of Appeal, the Privy Council or House of Lords, Mr. Benjamin, Q. C., should be retained as counsel."

In 1874, the eighth year of his practice in his new home his fees for the year reached 10,000 pounds ($50,000.00); and, year by year, his professional earnings went steadily up, until in 1880 they approximated 16,000 pounds or $80,000.00.

Early in 1883, because of his failing health, he retired from practice, occupying a clear rank among the very foremostand pre-eminent of the leaders of the bar of England. Soon after the public announcement of his intended retirement, a letter from the Attorney-General informed him that that official had received a requisition signed by more than eighty Queen's Counsel and by all the leading members of the bar of England desiring the Attorney-General to offer to Mr. Benjamin a public dinner in order that they might take a "collective farewell" of him, and testify their high sense of the honor and integrity of his professional career and their desire that their relations of personal friendship with him should not be severed. This was the first time that such an honor had been extended to a barrister on leaving the profession.

The great banquet took place in the Hall of the Inner Temple on the night of June 30, 1883, with Sir Henry James, the Attorney-General, in the Chair, Lord Selborne, the Lord Chancellor, on his left, and Mr. Benjamin on his right; and all whom England ranked highest in the legal profession were present.

Mr. Benjamin's response to the toasts delivered in his honor was a simple but affecting valedictory. It was, too, a final farewell, for within a year, on the 6th of May, 1884, he died at his home in Paris.

On motion, duly seconded, the Association adjourned until Saturday, July 1, 1911, at 10 o'clock A. M.

MORNING SESSION.

JULY IST, 1911.

Pursuant to adjournment, the Association assembled at 10 o'clock A. M., the President being in the chair.

The President: Ladies and gentlemen, you will confer a great favor on the chair, as well as on the speaker, by coming forward and taking seats nearer the front, as it is very difficult and hard on the speaker to address persons sitting so far away. A number of those who are sitting at the other end of the room I hope will come forward, as it will be a kindness and courtesy to the speaker.

I have been requested by the Treasurer to state that all who desire to return to Baltimore tomorrow will please notify the Treasurer in order that arrangements may be made for proper train arrangements. Notice should be given not later than the adjournment of this meeting.

The first business in order this morning will be an address to be delivered by a gentleman who has done us the honor to accept an invitation to address the Association. By reason of the distinguished position which he held, both on the bench, and as Governor of the great State of Pennsylvania, he will scarcely require any introduction by me. I have the honor to introduce to you the Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker, of the Pennsylvania Bar, who will speak to you on "Judicial Experience in Executive Office."

JUDICIAL EXPERIENCE IN EXECUTIVE OFFICE.

BY JUDGE SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER.

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen of the Maryland State Bar Association: The acceptance of your very courteous and complimentary invitation to me to speak before you today was due in part—I hope in small part-to the fact that it was a revivication of old memories, since many very pleasant days of my youth were spent about the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. My grandfather was an ironmaster and he and his brother owned the Principio Furnace, where they had a tract of about 11,000 acres of land, and they were, I believe, at that time the largest landowners in the State, and as a youth I used to boat and fish in the Principio Creek and in the Chesapeake.

At the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion-and you will excuse me for using the official characterization for that event—an uncle of mine was living at Havre de Grace. We were very anxious to get into communication with him. I was a boy of eighteen. My grandfather and I came to Philadelphia to take a train on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, but before we reached Philadelphia the bridges over the Bush and Gunpowder rivers had been burned, and that plan failed. We went home and devised a scheme by which we hoped to succeed. An old Irish servant man and his wife took the carriage, I went in it, and we drove across Lancaster and Chester counties, intending to go over the Conowingo bridge and thus reach Havre de Grace.

The incipient rebellion was then that far north, and within about a mile of the bridge we encountered a party of fifteen or twenty enthusiastic young men with guns in their hands who were there to burn the bridge if necessary, and to see that no improper people crossed it. I had a story