sum of five pounds, being or purporting to be the silver coin of this realm, but below the standard of the mint in weight or fineness, shall be imported into Great Britain or Ireland, the same shall be forfeited in equal moieties to the crown and prosecutor. 2. Felonies, against the king's council, are these. First, by statute 3 Hen. VII. c. 14. if any sworn servant of the king's household conspires or confederates to kill any lord of this realm, or other person, sworn of the king's council, he shall be guilty of felony. Secondly, by statute 9 Ann. c. 16. to assault, strike, wound, or attempt to kill, any privy counsellor in the execution of his office, is made felony without benefit of clergy. 3. Felonies in serving foreign states, which service is generally inconsistent with allegiance to one's natural prince, are restrained and punished by statute 3 Jac. I. c. 4. And, by statute 9 Geo.II. c. 30. enforced by statute 29 Geo. II. c. 17. if any subject of Great Britain shall enlist himself, or if any person shall procure him to be enlisted, in any foreign service, or detain or embark him for that purpose, without license under the king's sign manual, he shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy: but if the person so enlisted or enticed, shall discover his seducer within fifteen days, so as he may be apprehended and convicted of the same, he shall be indemnified. 4. Felony, by embezzling or destroying the king's armour or warlike stores, is, in the first place, so declared to be by statute 31 Eliz. c. 4. Other inferior embezzlements and misdemeanors, that fall under this denomination, are punished by statutes 9 & 10 Will. III. c. 41. 1 Geo. I. c. 25. 9 Geo. I. c. 8. and 17 Geo. II. c. 40. with fine, corporal punishment, and imprisonment. And, by statute 12 Geo. III. c. 24. to set on fire, burn, or destroy any of his majesty's ships of war, whether built, building, or repairing; or any of the king's arsenals, magazines, dock-yards, rope-yards, or victualling-offices, or materials thereunto belonging; or military, naval, or victualling stores or ammunition; or causing, aiding, procuring, abetting, or assisting in, such offence; shall be felony without benefit of clergy. 5. Desertion from the king's armies in time of war, whether by land or sea, in England or parts beyond the seas, is, by the standing laws of the land (exclusive of the annual acts of parliament to punish mutiny and desertion) and particularly by statute 18 Hen. VI. c. 19. and 5 Eliz. c. 5. made felony, but not without benefit of clergy. But by the statute 2 & 3 Edward VI. c. 2. clergy is taken away from such deserters, and the offence is made triable by the justices of every shire. The same statutes punish other inferior military offences with fines, imprisonment, and other penalties. CHAPTER VIII. OF PRÆMUNIRE. A THIRD species of offence more immediately affecting the king and his government, though not subject to capital punishment, is that of præmunire so called from the words of the writ preparatory to the prosecution thereof; "pramunire facias A. B." cause A. B. to be forewarned that he appear before us to answer the contempt wherewith he stands charged; which contempt is particularly recited in the preamble to the writ. It took its original from the exorbitant power claimed and exercised in England by the pope, which even in the days of blind zeal was too heavy for our an cestors to bear. King Edward I. a wise and magnanimous prince, set himself in earnest to shake off this servile yoke. He would not suffer his bishops to attend a general council, till they had sworn not to receive the papal benediction. He made light of all papal bulls and processes: attacking Scotland in defiance of one; and seizing the temporalities of his clergy, who, under pretence of another refused to pay a tax imposed by parliament. He strengthened the statutes of mortmain; thereby closing the great gulph, in which all the lands of the kingdom were in danger of being swallowed. And, one of his subjects having obtained a bull of excommunication against another, he ordered him to be executed as a traitor, according to the ancient law. And in the thirty-fifth year of his reign was made the first statute against papal provisions; being, according to sir Edward Coke, the foundation of all the subsequent statutes of præmunire: which we rank as an offence immediately against the king, because every encouragement of the papal power is a diminution of the authority of the crown. In the writ for the execution of all these statutes the words præmunire facias, being used to command a citation of the party, have denominated in common speech not only the writ, but the offence tself of maintaining the papal power, by the lame of præmunire. The statute 16 Ric. II. c. 5. which enacts, that whoever procures at Rome, or lsewhere, any translations, processes, excommuications, bulls, instruments, or other things which ouch the king, against him, his crown, and realm, nd all persons aiding and assisting therein, shall e put out of the king's protection, their lands nd goods forfeited to the king's use, and they shall e attached by their bodies to answer to the king nd his council; or process of præmunire facias hall be made out against them, as in other cases f provisors. The penalties of præmunire seem to have kept within the proper bounds of their original instiution, the depressing the power of the pope, up to he reign of Elizabeth: but, they being pains of 10 inconsiderable consequence, it has been thought it to apply the same to other heinous offences; FF some of which bear more, and some less relation to this original offence, and some no relation at all. To molest the possessors of abbey lands granted by parliament to Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, is a præmunire. So likewise is the offence of acting as a broker or agent in any usurious contract, where above ten per cent. interest is taken. To obtain any stay of proceedings, other than by arrest of judgment or writ of error, in any suit for a monopoly, is likewise a præmunire. To obtain an exclusive patent for the sole making or importation of gunpowder or arms, or hinder others from importing them, is also a præmunire. On the abolition, by statute 12 Car. II. c. 24. of purveyance, and the prerogative of pre-emption or taking any victual, beasts, or goods for the king's use, at a stated price, without consent of the proprietor, the exertion of any such power for the future was declared to incur the penalties of præmunire. To assert, maliciously and advisedly, by speaking or writing, that both or either house of parliament have a legislative authority without the king, is declared a pramunire. By the habeas corpus act also, it is a præmunire, and incapable of the king's pardon, besides other heavy penalties, to send any subject of this realm a prisoner into any parts beyond the seas. Persons of eighteen years of age, refusing to take the new oaths of allegiance, as well as supremacy, upon tender by the proper magistrate, are subject to the penalties of a præmunire; serjeants, counsellors, proctors, |