4. [When the Crown hath unadvisedly granted any thing by letters patent, which ought not to be granted (z); or where the patentee hath done some act that amounts to a forfeiture of the grant; the remedy to repeal the patent is by writ of scire facias, issued on the common law side of the Court of Chancery (a). This may be brought either on the part of the Crown, in order to resume the thing granted: or, if the grant be injurious to a subject, the Crown is bound of right to permit him, (upon his petition,) to use the royal name for repealing the patent, in a scire facias (b). And so also, if, upon office untruly found for the Crown, it grants the land over to another, he who is grieved thereby, and traverses the office itself, is entitled before issue joined to a scire facias against the patentee, in order to avoid the grant (c). 5. An information on behalf of the Crown, filed in the Court of Exchequer by the attorney-general, is a method of suit for recovering money or other chattels; or for obtaining satisfaction in damages, for any personal wrong committed in the lands or other possessions of the Crown (d). It differs from an information filed in the Court of Queen's Bench,-of which we shall treat in the next Book (e),—in that this is instituted to redress a private wrong by which the property of the Crown is affected: that is calculated to punish some public wrong or heinous misdemeanor in the defendant. It is grounded on no writ under seal, but merely on the intimation of the Crown's officer, the attorney-general, who "gives the Court to understand and be informed of" the matter in question; upon which the party is put to answer, and trial is had, as in suits between subject and subject. The most usual informations are (z) Vide sup. vol. 11. p. 33. (c) Bro. Ab. tit. Scire Facias, 69, 185. (d) Yelverton's case, Moor, 375. (e) Vide post, bk. vI. c. xvIII. any [those of intrusion (ƒ) and of debt (g): of intrusion, for trespass committed on the lands of the Crown (h),—as by entering thereon without title, holding over after a lease is determined, taking the profits, cutting down timber and the like, and of debt, for monies due] to the Crown [upon the breach of a penal statute (i). This is most commonly used to recover forfeitures occasioned, by transgressing those laws which are enacted for the establishment and support of the revenue; others, which regard mere matters of police and public convenience, being usually left to be enforced by common informers, in qui tam actions (k). But after the attorney-general has informed upon a breach of the penal law, no other information can be received(). There is also an information in rem, when any goods are supposed to become the property of the Crown, and no man appears to claim them or to dispute its title;--as antiently in the case of treasure-trove, wrecks, waifs, and estrays, seized] by the Crown's officer for its use. [Upon such seizure an information was usually filed in the Exchequer, and thereupon a proclamation was made for the owner, (if any,) to come in and claim the effects: and at the same time there issued a commission of appraisement to value the goods in the officer's hands: after the return of which, and a second proclamation had, if no claimant appeared, the goods were supposed derelict, and condemned to the use of the Crown (m). And when in (f) See 4 Rep. 58 a; AttorneyGeneral v. Parsons, 2 M. & W. 23 ; Attorney-General v. Hill, ibid. 160. (g) See Attorney General v. Sewell, 4 Mee. & W. 77. (h) Nannge v. Rowland ap. Ellis, Cro. Jac. 212; Lord Vaux's case, 1 Leon. 49. In this proceeding the Crown has not a right to lay the venue in any county it pleases, as it has in personal actions. (AttorneyGeneral v. Lord Churchill, 8 Mee. & W. 171.) As to information of intrusion in respect of a royal forest, see Attorney-General v. Hallett, 1 Exch. 211. (i) See 41 Geo. 3, c. 90, as to enforcing, in Ireland, payment of Crown debts recovered in England, and vice versa. (k) As to proceedings on penal statutes, vide sup. vol. 111. pp. 551, 552, 575. (1) Hard. 201. (m) Gilb. Hist. Exch. c. 13. [later times, forfeitures of the goods themselves, as well as personal penalties on the parties, were inflicted by Act of Parliament for transgressions against the laws of the customs and excise,-the same process was adopted in order to secure such forfeited goods to the public use, though the offender himself had escaped the reach of justice.] Finally, we may remark, that in all informations and other legal proceedings by or on behalf of the Crown in matters relating to the public revenue, the costs are now, by 18 & 19 Vict. c. 90, ss. 1, 2, placed upon the same footing as in ordinary actions between subject and subject (n); but that, as the general rule, as it stands independently of this statute, the Crown neither pays nor receives costs (o). [We have now gone through the whole circle of civil injuries, and the redress which the laws of England have anxiously provided for each. In which the student cannot but observe, that the main difficulty which attends their discussion, arises from their great variety; which is apt at our first acquaintance to breed confusion of ideas, and a kind of distraction in the memory. A difficulty not a little increased by the very immethodical arrangement in which they are delivered to us by our antient writers, and the numerous terms of art in which the language of our ances (n) By 25 Vict. c. 14, the provisions of this statute are extended to the Isle of Man. It may be here remarked that by 18 & 19 Vict. c. 90, s. 3, and 22 & 23 Vict. c. 21, ss. 26, 27, the Barons of the Exchequer are empowered to make general rules for the regulation of the pleading and practice in informations and other proceedings by or on behalf of the Crown, with a view to their assimilation, as nearly as possible, to the pleading and practice between subject and subject. (0) See 24 Hen. 8, c. 8; 3 Bl. Com. 400; 25 Geo. 3, c. 35; Attorney-General v. Shillibeer, 4 Exch. 606; The Queen v. Beadle, 7 Ell. & Bl. 492. In Blackstone's opinion, (vol. iii. p. 400,)" it seems reasonable "to suppose, that a queen consort "participates in this privilege of the "Crown as regards costs." [tors has obscured them.] For [terms of art, there will unavoidably be in all sciences; the easy conception and thorough comprehension of which must depend upon frequent and familar use; and the more subdivided any branch of science is, the more terms must be used to express the nature of these several subdivisions, and mark out with sufficient precision the ideas they are meant to convey. But this difficulty, however great it may appear at first view, will shrink to nothing upon a nearer and more frequent approach; and indeed be rather advantageous than of any disservice, by imprinting on the mind a clear and distinct notion of the several remedies. And, such as it is, it arises principally from the excellence of our English laws; which apply their redress exactly to the circumstances of the injury, and do not furnish one and the same action for different wrongs, which are impossible to be brought within one and the same description; whereby every man knows what satisfaction he is entitled to expect from the courts of justice; and as little as possible is left in the breast of the judges, whom the law appoints to administer, and not to prescribe, the remedy.] BOOK VI. OF CRIMES. CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURE OF CRIMES AND THEIR WE are now arrived at the sixth and last branch of the Commentaries; which treats of public wrongs, or crimes. For it will be remembered that wrongs were divided into two species; the one private, and the other public (a). Private wrongs, otherwise termed civil injuries, were the subject of the preceding Book. We are now, therefore, lastly, to proceed to the consideration of public wrongs or crimes: in pursuit of which we shall consider, [in the first place, the general nature of crimes and punishments; secondly, the persons capable of committing crimes; thirdly, their several degrees of guilt as principals or accessories; fourthly, the several species of crimes, with the punishment annexed to each by the laws of England; fifthly, the means of preventing their perpetration; and, sixthly, the method of inflicting those punishments which the law has annexed to each crime respectively. First, as to the general nature of crimes and their punishment: the discussion and admeasurement of which forms, (a) Vide sup. vol. 1. p. 141 |