is liable to be sentenced to penal servitude for life or any term not less than three years; or to be imprisoned, (with or without hard labour,) for any term not more than two years (u). But whoever, with intent to commit, or at the time of or immediately before or after committing, the crime of piracy, in respect of any ship or vessel, shall assault with intent to murder, or stab or wound, or unlawfully do any act by which the life of any person on board of or belonging to such ship or vessel may be endangered,―is liable to suffer death as a felon (x).

(u) 5 Geo. 4, c. 113; 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 88; 9 & 10 Vict. c. 24; 16 & 17 Vict. c. 99; 20 & 21 Vict. c. 3.

(x) 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 88, s. 2. As to the general law with respect to wounding, &c. with intent to murder, vide sup. pp. 161, 162.

CHAPTER IX.

OF OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE.

WE are now arrived, according to the arrangement before laid down, at the consideration of offences against public justice (a). Of these, some are felonious, others only misdemeanors.

I. The first of these which we shall mention, are those of stealing, injuring, and forging or falsifying records; which are high offences against public justice. For, as observed by Blackstone, [no man's property would be safe if records might be suppressed or falsified, or persons' names be falsely usurped in courts, or before their public officers (b).] With regard to the two first of these offences, they are provided against by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 30, by which it is made a felony, punishable by penal servitude to the extent of three years, or imprisonment not more than two years, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement, in whomsoever shall steal or fraudulently take from its proper deposit or custody,-or who shall maliciously cancel, obliterate, injure or destroy,-any record, writ, return, panel, process, interrogatory, deposition, affidavit, rule, order, or warrant of attorney, or any original document whatever belonging to any court of record or equity, or relating to any matter in such court (c). And with regard to the forgery or falsification of records, it is provided against by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 98, ss. 27, 28; which make it a felony punishable by imprisonment as above mentioned, or penal servitude to the extent of seven years, in whomsoever shall forge, or fraudulently alter, or (a) Vide sup. p. 232. At a former place we remarked, that crimes are all considered as contempts of public justice (vide sup. p. 130), but the crimes spoken of in the present chapter are those which are directed more

particularly against public justice. (b) 4 Bl. Com. p. 128.

(c) If the court think fit, it may also bind over the offender to keep the peace (sect. 117). 24 & 25 Vict c. 96, s. 30.

[undisturbed liberty of conscience to the members of the
national Church, which the retainers to every petty con-
venticle enjoy. And, accordingly, it is provided by statute
1 Edw. VI. c. 1, and 1 Eliz. c. 1, that whoever reviles the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper shall be punished by fine
and imprisonment. And by the statute 1 Eliz. c. 2, that
if any minister shall speak any thing in derogation of the
Book of Common Prayer, he shall, if not beneficed, be im-
prisoned one year for the first offence, and for life for the
second: and, if he be beneficed, he shall for the first offence
be imprisoned six months, and forfeit a year's value of his
benefice; for the second offence he shall be deprived, and
suffer one year's imprisonment: and, for the third, shall in
like manner be deprived, and suffer imprisonment for life.]
The same Act provides also, that [if any person whatso-
ever shall in plays, songs, or other open words, speak
any thing in derogation, depraving or despising of the
said book of prayer, or forcibly prevent the reading of it,
or cause any other service to be used in its stead,-he
shall forfeit, for the first offence, a hundred marks; for
the second, four hundred: and, for the third, shall forfeit
all his goods and chattels, and suffer imprisonment for life.
These penalties were framed in the infancy of our present
establishment, when the disciples of Rome and of Geneva
united in inveighing with the utmost bitterness against
the English liturgy; and the terror of these laws, (for
they seldom, if ever, were fully executed,) proved a prin-
cipal means, under Providence, of preserving the purity
as well as decency of our national worship. Nor can their
continuance to this time, (of the milder penalties at least,)
be thought too severe and intolerant; so far as they are
levelled at the offence, not of thinking differently from the
national Church, but of railing at that Church and ob-
structing its ordinances, for not submitting its public judg-
ment to the private opinion of others. For though it is
clear that no restraint should be laid upon rational and

[dispassionate discussions of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of worship, yet contumely and contempt are what no establishment can tolerate (p).]

V. Another offence against God and religion, is that [of profane and common swearing and cursing. By the last statute against which, 19 Geo. II. c. 21, which repeals all former, ones, every labourer, sailor, or soldier, profanely cursing or swearing, shall forfeit one shilling (q); every other person, under the degree of a gentleman, two shillings; and every gentleman or person of superior rank, five shillings; to the poor of the parish] wherein such offence was committed. And, [on a second conviction, shall forfeit double, and for every subsequent offence, treble, the sum first forfeited, with all charges of conviction; and, in default of payment, shall be sent to the house of correction for ten days. Any justice of the peace may convict upon his own hearing or the testimony of one witness. And any constable or peace officer, upon his own hearing, may secure any offender and carry him before a justice, and there convict him ;] but the conviction must be within eight days after the committal of the offence. [If the justice omits his duty, he forfeits five pounds, and the constable forty shillings.]

VI. Another offence of the description under considertion, is that of using pretended witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, and sorcery. Our law once included in the list of crimes, that of actual witchcraft or intercourse with evil spirits; and though it has now no longer a place among them, its exclusion is not to be understood as implying a denial of the possibility of such an offence. To deny this,

(p) See also the provisions contained in 9 & 10 Will. 3, c. 32, sup. p. 286.

(q) It also forms one of the articles of war contained in 24 & 25 Vict. c.

115, for the government of the navy,

VOL. IV.

that any person subject to that Act who shall be guilty of profane swearing, shall be dismissed her majesty's service with disgrace, or suffer such lesser punishment as by that Act authorized under sect. 48.

U

would be to contradict [the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself, is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony; either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits. The civil law punishes with death not only the sorcerers themselves, but also those who consult them (r); imitating in the former the express law of God (s), " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And our laws, both before and since the Conquest, have been equally penal; ranking this crime in the same class with heresy, and condemning both to the flames (t). The President Montesquieu ranks them also both together, but with a very different view; laying it down as an important maxim, that we ought to be very circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy; because the most unexceptionable conduct, the purest morals, and the constant practice of every duty in life, are not a sufficient security against the suspicion of crimes like these (u). And indeed, the ridiculous stories that are generally told, and the many impostures and delusions that have been discovered in all ages, are enough to demolish all faith in such a doubtful crime: if the contrary evidence were not also extremely strong. Wherefore it seems to be the most eligible way to conclude, with an ingenious writer of our own, that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft, though one cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it (v).

Our forefathers were stronger believers when they enacted, by statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 8, all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergy. And again, by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 12, that all persons invoking any evil spirit; or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witch

(r) Cod. 1. 9, c. 18.
(s) Exod. xxii. 18.
(t) 3 Inst. 44.

(u) Sp. L. b. 12, c. 5.

(v) Mr. Addison, Spect. No. 117.