without fufficient reafon or authority (fpecified in the act). fhall for the firft offence forfeit one hundred pounds, and for the fecond two hundred, to the party grieved, and be difabled to hold his office. 3. No perfon, once delivered by Habeas Corpus, shall be recommitted for the fame offence, on penalty of five hundred pounds. 4. Every person committed for treafon or felony, fhall, if he require it, in the first week of the next term, or the first day of the next feffion, be indicted in that term or feffion, or elfe admitted to bail, unless the King's witneffes cannot be produced at that time: and if not indicted and tried in the fecond term or feffion, he fhall be discharged of his imprisonment for fuch imputed offence. 5. Any of the twelve Judges, or the Lord Chancellor, who fhall deny a writ of Habeas Corpus, on fight of the warrant, or on oath, that the fame is refused, shall forfeit feverally to the party grieved five hundred pounds. 6. No inhabitant of England (except perfons contracting, or convicts, praying to be tranfported} fhall be fent prifoner to Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or any place beyond the Seas, within or without the king's dominions, - on pain that the party committing, his advisers, aiders, and affiftants, fhall forfeit to the party grieved a fum not less than five hundred pounds: to be recovered with treble cofts fhall be disabled to bear any office of truft or profit, fhall incur the penal ties of a pramunire, and be incapable of the King's pardon. 2 The Statutes of præmunire, thus called from the writ for their execution, which begins with the words pramunire (for præmonere) facias, were originally defigned to oppofe the ufurpations of the Popes. The first was paffed under the reign of Edward the Firft, and has been followed by feveral others, which, even before the Reformation, eftablished fuch effectual provifions as to draw upon one of them the epithet of Execrabile Statutum. The offences against which those Statutes were framed, were likewife diftinguished by the appellation of præmunire; and under that word were included in general all attempts to promote the Pope's authority at the expense of the King's. The punishment decreed for fuch safes, was alfo called a præmunire: it has fince been extended again to feveral other kinds of offence, and amounts to the “imprisonment for life, and forfeiture of all goods and rents of lands "during life." See Blackstone's Com. book iv. ch. 8. BOOK II. CHA P. I. Some Advantages peculiar to the English Conflitution. 1. The Unity of the Executive Power. WE have feen in former Chapters, the refources allotted to the different parts of the English Government for balancing each other, and how their reciprocal actions and re-actions produce the freedom of the Conftitution, which is no more than an equilibrium between the ruling Powers of the State. I now propose to show that the particular nature and functions of these fame constituent parts of the Government, which give it fo different an appearance from that of other free States are moreover attended with peculiar and very great advantages, which have not hitherto been fufficiently obferved. The firft peculiarity of the English Government, as a free Government, is its having a King, - its having thrown into one place the whole mafs, if I may ufe the expreffion, of the Executive Power, and having invariably and for ever fixed it there. By this very circumftance also has the depofitum of it been rendered facred and inexpugnable; by making one great, very great Man, in the State, has an effectual check been put to the pretenfions of those who otherwife would strive to become fuch, and diforders have been prevented, which, in all Republics, ever brought on the ruin of liberty, and, before it was loft, obftructed the enjoyment of it. If we caft our eyes on all the States that ever were free, we shall fee that the People ever turning their jealousy, as it was natural, against the Executive Power, but never thinking of the means of limiting it that has fo happily taken place in England never employed any other expedient befides the obvious one, of trufting that Power to Magistrates whom they appointed annually; which was in great measure the fame as keeping the management of it to themselves. Whence it refulted, that the People, who, whatever may be the frame of the Government, always poffefs, after all, the reality of power, thus uniting in themselves with this reality of power the actual exercise of it, in form as well as in fact, conftituted the whole State In order therefore legally to disturb the whole State nothing more was requifite than to put in motion a certain number of individuals. In a ftate which is fmall and poor, an arrangement of this kind is not attended with any great inconveniencies, as every individual is taken up The rendering that power dependent on the People for its fupplies, with the care of providing for his subsistence, as great objects of ambition are wanting, and as evils cannot, in fuch a State, ever become much complicated. In a State that strives for aggrandizement, the difficulties and danger, attending the purfuit of fuch a plan, infpire a general spirit of caution, and every individual makes a fober use of his rights as a Citizen. But when, at length, thofe exterior motives come to cease, and the paffions, and even the virtuos, which they excited, thus become reduced to a state of inaction, the People turn their eyes back towards the interior of the Republic; and every individual, in feeking then to concern himself in all affairs, feeks for new objects that may reftore him to that state of exertion which habit, he finds, has rendered neceffary to him, and to exercise a fhare of power which, fmall as it is, yet flatters his vanity. As the preceding events muft needs have given an influence to a certain number of Citizens, they avail themselves of the general difpofition of the People to promote their private views: the legiflative power is thenceforth continually in motion; and as it is badly informed and falfly directed, almost every exertion of it is attended with fome injury either to the Laws, or the State. This is not all; as thofe who compofe the ge neral Affemblies cannot, in confequence of their numbers, entertain any hopes of gratifying their own private ambition, or in general their own private paffions, they at least seek to gratify their |