subsequent times reduced the general method of proceeding on these writs (though not within the reach of that statute, but issuing merely at the common law) to the true standard of law and liberty.

The statute itself enacts, 1. That on complaint and request in writing by and on behalf of any person committed and charged with any crime*, (unless committed for treason or felony expressed in the warrant; or as accessory, or on suspicion of being accessory, before the fact, to any petittreason or felony; or upon suspicion of such petittreason or felony, plainly expressed in the warrant; or unless he is convicted or charged in execution by legal process,) the lord chancellor or any of the twelve judges, in vacation, upon viewing a copy of the warrant, or af fidavit that a copy is denied, shall, unless the party has neglected for two terms to apply to any court for his enlargement, award a habeas corpus for such prisoner, returnable immediately before himself or any other of the judges; and upon the return made shall discharge the party, if bailable, upon giving security to appear and answer to the accusation in the proper court of judicature. 2. That such writs shall be indorsed, as granted in pursuance of this act, and signed by the person awarding them. 3. That the writ shall be returned and the prisoner brought up, within a limited time according to the distance, not exceeding in any case twenty days. 4. That officers and keepers neglecting to make due returns, or not delivering to the prisoner or his agent within six hours after demand a copy of the warrant of commitment, or shifting the custody of the prisoner from one to another, without sufficient reason or authority, specified in the act, shall for the first offence forfeit 1007. and for the second offence 2001. to the party grieved, and be disabled to hold his office. 5. That no person, once delivered by habeas corpus, shall be recommitted for the same offence, on penalty of 500l. 6. That every person committed for treason or felony shall, if he requires it the first week of the next term, or the first day of the next session of oyer and terminer, be indicted in that term or session, or else admitted to bail; unless the king's witnesses cannot be produced at that time and if acquitted, or if not indicted and tried in the

*This is now extended to other cases by 56 G. III. c. 100.

second term or session, he shall be discharged from his imprisonment for such imputed offence: but that no person, after the assizes shall be opened for the county in which he is detained, shall be removed by habeas corpus, till after the assizes are ended; but shall be left to the justice of the judges of assize. 7. That any such prisoner may move for and obtain his habeas corpus, as well out of the chancery or exchequer, as out of the king's bench or common pleas; and the lord chancellor or judges denying the same, on sight of the warrant or oath that the same is refused, forfeit severally to the party grieved the sum of 5007. 8. That this writ of habeas corpus shall run into the counties palatine, cinque ports, and other privileged places, and the islands of Jersey and Guernsey. 9. That no inhabitant of England (except persons contracting, or convicts praying, to be transported; or having committed some capital offence in the place to which they are sent) shall be sent prisoner to Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or any places beyond the seas, within or without the king's dominions: on pain that the party committing, his advisers, aiders, and assistants, shall forfeit to the party grieved a sum not less than 500l. to be recovered with treble costs; shall be disabled to bear any office of trust or profit; shall incur the penalties of præmunire*; and shall be incapable of the king's pardon.

By these admirable regulations, judicial as well as parliamentary, the remedy is now complete for removing the injury of unjust and illegal confinement. A remedy the more necessary, because the oppression does not always arise from the ill-nature, but sometimes from the mere inattention of government. For it frequently happens in foreign countries, and has happened in England during temporary suspensions of the statute, that persons apprehended upon suspicion have suffered a long imprisonment, merely because they were forgotten.

QUESTIONS.

What does the writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum direct?
What must be shewn before a judge will issue this writ?

On what grounds did sir Edward Coke refuse a habeas corpus to one confined by the court of admiralty for piracy?

* These were forfeiture of goods, loss of civil rights, and imprisonment.

Why is the reason of every commitment, expressed upon the face of it?

What was it that produced the Petition of Right?

How was this illustrated in the case of Mr. Selden?

What led to the enactment of the Habeas Corpus Act-and in what reign was it passed?

What steps must be taken to obtain the advantages of the Habeas Corpus Act?

What are the cases of committal for crime, which are expressly excepted from the operation of the Habeas Corpus Act?

Within what time must a prisoner be brought up under this act? What is the penalty incurred by officers and keepers who infringe the Habeas Corpus Act?

What would be the consequences of recommitting a person for the same offence as that in respect of which he had been once delivered by Habeas Corpus ?

Can a Habeas Corpus run into a county palatine-into the islands of Jersey and Guernsey?

THE SUPPOSED UNCERTAINTY OF THE LAW.

THE uncertainty of legal proceedings is a notion so generally adopted, and has so long been the standing theme of wit and good humour, that he who should attempt to refute it would be looked upon as a man, who was either incapable of discernment himself, or else meant to impose upon others. Yet it may not be amiss to inquire a little wherein this uncertainty, so frequently complained of, consists; and to what causes it owes its original.

It hath been sometimes said to owe its original to the number of our municipal constitutions, and the multitude of our judicial decisions; which occasion, it is alleged, abundance of rules that militate and thwart with each other, as the sentiments or caprice of successive legislatures and judges have happened to vary. The fact of multiplicity is allowed; and that thereby the researches of the student are rendered more difficult and laborious; but that, with proper industry, the result of those inquiries will be doubt and indecision, is a consequence that cannot be admitted. People are apt to be angry at the want of simplicity in our laws: they mistake variety for confusion, and complicated cases for contradictory. They bring us the examples of arbitrary governments, of Denmark, Muscovy, and Prussia; of wild and uncultivated nations, the savages of Africa and America; or of narrow domestic republics in ancient Greece, and modern Switzerland; and unreasonably require the same paucity of laws, the same conciseness of practice, in a nation of freemen, a polite and commercial people, and a populous extent of territory.

In an arbitrary despotic government, where the lands are at the disposal of the prince, the rules of succession, or the mode or enjoyment, must depend upon his will and

pleasure. Hence there can be but few legal determinations relating to the property, the descent, or the conveyance of real estates; and the same holds in a stronger degree with regard to goods and chattels, and the contracts relating thereto. Under a tyrannical sway, trade must be continually in jeopardy, and of consequence can never be extensive: this therefore puts an end to the necessity of an infinite number of rules, which the English merchant daily recurs to for adjusting commercial differences. Marriages are there usually contracted with slaves; or at least women are treated as such: no laws can be therefore expected to regulate the rights of dower, jointures, and marriage settlements. Few also are the persons who can claim the privilege of any laws; the bulk of those nations, viz. the commonalty, boors, or peasants, being merely villeins and bondmen. Those are therefore left to the private coercion of their lords; are esteemed, in the contemplation of these boasted legislators, incapable of either right or injury, and of consequence are entitled to no redress. We may see, in these arbitrary states, how large a field of legal contests is already rooted up and destroyed.

Again; were we a poor and naked people, as the savages of America are, strangers to science, to commerce, and the arts as well of convenience as of luxury, we might perhaps be content, as some of them are said to be, to refer all disputes to the next man we meet upon the road, and so put a short end to every controversy. For in a state of nature, there is no room for municipal laws: and the nearer any nation approaches to that state, the fewer they will have occasion for. When the people of Rome were little better than sturdy shepherds or herdsmen, all their laws were contained in ten or twelve tables; but as luxury, politeness, and dominion increased, the civil law increased in the same proportion; and swelled to that amazing bulk which it now occupies, though successively pruned and retrenched by the emperors Theodosius and Justinian.

In like manner we may lastly observe, that, in petty states and narrow territories, much fewer laws will suffice than in large ones, because there are fewer objects upon which the laws can operate. The regulations of a private family are short and well known; those of a prince's household are necessarily more various and diffuse.

The causes therefore of the multiplicity of the English