the different terms allowed for bringing a prifoner: thofe terms are proportioned to the diftance: and none can in any cafe exceed twenty days. 2. That the Officer and keeper neglecting to make due returns, or not delivering to the prifoner, or his agent, within fix hours after demand, a copy of the warrant of commitment, or fhifting the cuftody of the prifoner from one to another, without fufficient reafon or authority (specified 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, fhall be recommitted for the fame offence, on penalty of five hundred pounds. 4. Every períon 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 else 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 difcharged of his imprisonment for fuch imputed offence. 5. Any of the twelve Judges, or the Lord Chan Chancellor, who fhall deny a writ of Habeas Corpus, on fight of the warrant, or on oath, that the fame is refufed, fhall forfeit feverally to the party grieved five hundred pounds. 6. No inhabitant of England (except perfons contracting, or convicts praying to be transported) 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 advifers, 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 difabled to bear any office of truft or profit,-fhall incur the penalties of a præmunire*, and be incapable of the King's pardon. *The Statutes of præmunire, thus called from the writ for their execution, which begins with the words præmunire (for præmonere facias, were originally defigned to oppofe the ufurpations of the Popes. The firft 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 thofe Statutes were framed, were likewife diftinguished by the appellation of fræmunire; and under that word were included in general all attempts to promote the Pope's authority at the expenfe of the King's. The punishment decreed for fuch cafes, was alfo called a præmunire: it has fince been extend ed ed 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 Blackftone's Com. book iv. ch. 8. BOOK BOOK II. CHAP. I. Some Advantages peculiar to the English Conftitution. 1. The Unity of the Executive Power. WE have seen 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 freedon of the Conftitution, which is no more than an equilibrium between the ruling Powers of the State. I now propose to shew 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 observed. The first peculiarity of the English Government, as a free Government, is its having a King, its having thrown into one place the whole mass, if I may use the expreffion, of the Executive Executive Power, and having invariably and for ever fixed it there. By this very circumstance 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 disorders have been prevented, which, in all Republics, ever brought on the ruin of liberty, and, before it was lost, obstructed 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 trusting that Power to Magiftates, 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 exercife of it, in form as well as in fact, *The rendering that power dependent on the People for its fupplies. See on this fubject Chapter vi. Book I.. con |