NOT only fuch as are guilty of an actual violence, but of threatening or reproachful words to any judge fitting in the courts, are guilty of a high misprifion, and have been punished with large fines, imprisonment, and corporal punishment'. And, even in the inferior courts of the king, an affray, or contemptuous behaviour, is punishable with a fine by the judges there fitting; as by the fteward in a court-leet, or the like ". LIKEWISE all fuch, as are guilty of any injurious treatment to those who are immediately under the protection of a court of justice, are punishable by fine and imprisonment: as if a man affaults or threatens his adversary for fuing him, a counsellor or attorney for being employed against him, a juror for his verdict, or a gaoler or other ministerial officer for keeping him in custody, and properly executing his duty: which offences, when they proceeded farther than bare threats, were punished in the Gothic constitutions with exile and forfeiture of goods. LASTLY, to endeavour to diffuade a witness from giving evidence; to disclose an examination before the privy council; or, to advise a prisoner to stand mute; (all of which are impediments of justice) are high misprisions, and contempts of the king's courts, and punishable by fine and imprisonment. And antiently it was held, that if one of the grand jury disclosed to any perfon indicted the evidence that appeared against him, he was thereby made acceffory to the offence, if felony; and in treason a principal. And at this day it is agreed, that he is guilty of a high mifprifion, and liable to be fined and imprisoned'. CHAPTER THE TENTH. OF OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE. ΤΗ HE order of our diftribution will next lead us to take into confideration fuch crimes and mifdemefnors as more especially affect the common-wealth, or public polity of the kingdom which however, as well as those which are peculiarly pointed against the lives and fecurity of private subjects, are also offences against the king, as the pater-familias of the' nation; to whom it appertains by his regal office to protect the community, and each individual therein, from every degree of injurious violence, by executing thofe laws, which the people themselves in conjunction with him have enacted; or at least have confented to, by an agreement either expreffly made in the perfons of their representatives, or by a tacit and implied confent prefumed and proved by immemorial ufage. THE fpecies of crimes, which we have now before us, is fubdivided into such a number of inferior and subordinate claffes, that it would much exceed the bounds of an elementary treatise, and be infupportably tedious to the reader, were I to examine them all minutely, or with any degree of critical accuracy. I shall therefore confine myself principally to general definitions or descriptions of this great variety of offences, and to the punishments inflicted by law for each particular offence; with now and then a few incidental obfervations: referring the student for more more particulars to other voluminous authors; who have treated of these fubjects with greater precifion and more in detail, than is confiftent with the plan of these commentaries. THE crimes and mifdeinefnors, that more especially affect the common-wealth, may be divided into five fpecies; viz. offences against public juftice, against the public peace, against public trade, against the public health, and against the public police or oeconomy: of each of which we will take a cursory view in their order. FIRST then, of offences against public juftice: fome of which are felonious, whose punishment may extend to death; others only misdemeanors. I shall begin with those that are most penal, and defcend gradually to fuch as are of less malignity. I. IMBEZZLING or vacating records, or falfifying certain other proceedings in a court of judicature, is a felonious offence against public juftice. It is enacted by ftatute 8 Hen. VI. c. 12. that if any clerk, or other person, shall wilfully take away, withdraw, or avoid any record, or process in the fuperior courts of justice in Westminster-hall, by reafon whereof the judgment shall be reverfed or not take effect; it is felony not only in the principal actors, but also in their procurers, and abettors. Likewife by ftatute 21 Jac. I. c. 26. to acknowlege any fine, recovery, deed enrolled, statute, recognizance, bail, or judgment, in the name of another person not privy to the same, is felony without benefit of clergy. Which law extends only to proceedings in the courts themselves: but by ftatute 4 W. & M. commiffioner auc. 4. to perfonate any other person before any thorized to take bail in the country is also felony. For no man's property would be safe, if records might be suppressed or falfified, or perfons' names be falfely ufurped in courts, or before their public officers. 2. To prevent abuses by the extenfive power, which the law is obliged to repofe in gaolers, it is enacted by statute 14 Edw.III. c. 10. that if any gaoler by too great durefs of imprisonment makes any prisoner that he hath in ward, become an approver or an appellor against his will; that is, as we shall see hereafter, to accuse and turn evidence against some other perfon; it is felony in the gaoler. For, as fir Edward Cokea observes, it is not lawful to induce or excite any man even to a just accusation of another; much less to do it by durefs of imprisonment; and least of all by a gaoler, to whom the prisoner is committed for fafe cuftody. 3. A THIRD offence against public justice is obstructing the execution of lawful process. This is at all times an offence of a very high and presumptuous nature; but more particularly so, when it is an obstruction of an arrest upon criminal process. And it hath been holden, that the party opposing such arrest becomes thereby particeps criminis; that is, an acceffory in felony, and a principal in high treafon. Formerly one of the greatest obstructions to public juftice, both of the civil and criminal kind, was the multitude of pretended privileged places, where indigent perfons affembled together to shelter themselves from juftice, (especially in London and Southwark) under the pretext of their having been antient palaces of the crown, or the like: all of which fanctuaries for iniquity are now demolished, and the oppofing of any process therein is made highly penal, by the ftatutes 8 & 9 W. III. c. 27. 9 Geo. I. c. 28. and 11 Geo. I. c. 22. which enact, that perfons oppofing the execution of any process in fuch pretended privileged places within the bills of mortality, or abufing any officer in his endeavours to execute his duty therein, fo that he receives bodily hurt, shall be guilty of felony, and tranfported for seven years. 4. AN efcape of a perfon arrested upon criminal process, by eluding the vigilance of his keepers before he is put in hold, is also an offence against public juftice, and the party himself is punishable by fine or imprisonment. But the officer permitting fuch escape, either by negligence or connivance, is much more culpable than the prisoner; the natural defire of liberty pleading strongly in his behalf, though he ought in ftrictness of law to fubmit himself quietly to cuftody, till cleared by the due courfe of juftice. Officers therefore who, after arreft, negligently permit a felon to escape, are alfo punishable by fine; but voluntary escapes, by confent and connivance of the officer, are a much more serious offence: for it is generally agreed that fuch escapes amount to the fame kind of offence, and are punishable in the fame degree, as the offence of which the prisoner is guilty, and for which he is in cuftody, whether treason, felony, or trespass. And this, whether he were actually committed to gaol, or only under a bare arreftf. But the officer cannot be thus punished, till the original delinquent is actually found guilty or convicted, by verdict, confeffion, or outlawry, of the crime for which he was fo committed or arrested: otherwise it might happen, that the officer might be punished for treason or felony, and the perfon arrested and escaping might turn out to be an innocent man. But, before the conviction of the principal party, the officer thus neglecting his duty may be fined and imprisoned for a misdemesnor 3. h 5. BREACH of prison by the offender himself, when committed for any caufe, was felony at the common law or even confpiring to break it. But this severity is mitigated by the statute de frangentibus prifonam, 1 Edw. II. which enacts, that no perfon shall have judgment of life or member, for breaking pri |