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mentary impeachments; have imparted to all the lords an equal right of trying their fellow-peers; have regulated trials for high treason; have afforded our posterity a hope that corruption of blood may one day be abolished and forgotten; have (by the desire of his present majesty) set bounds to the civil list, and placed the administration of that revenue in hands that are accountable to parliament; and have (by the like desire) made the judges completely independent of the king, his ministers, and his successors. Yet, though these provisions have, in appearance and *nominally, [*441] reduced the strength of the executive power to a much lower ebb than in the preceding period; if on the other hand we throw into the opposite scale (what perhaps the immoderate reduction of the ancient prerogative may have rendered in some degree necessary) the vast acquisition of force, arising from the riot-act, and the annual expedience of a standing army; and the vast acquisition of personal attachment, arising from the magnitude of the national debt, and the manner of levying those yearly millions that are appropriated to pay the interest; we shall find that the crown has gradually and imperceptibly, gained almost as much in influence as it has apparently lost in prerogative.

The chief alterations of moment (for the time would fail me to descend to minutia,) in the administration of private justice during this period, are the solemn recognition of the law of nations with respect to the rights of ambassadors: the cutting off, by the statute for the amendment of the law, a vast number of excrescences, that in process of time had sprung out of the practical part of it; the protection of corporate rights by the improvements in writs of mandamus, and informations in nature of quo warranto: the regulations of trials by jury, and the admitting of witnesses for prisoners upon oath: the farther restraints upon alienation of lands in mortmain: the annihilation of the terrible judgment of peine fort et dure: the extension of the benefit of clergy by abolishing the pedantic criterion of reading: the counterbalance to this mercy, by the vast increase of capital punishment: the new and effectual methods for the speedy recovery of rents: the improvements which have been made in ejectments for the trying of titles: the introduction and establishment of paper-credit by indorsements upon bills and notes, which have shown the legal possibility and convenience (which our ancestors so long doubted) of assigning a chose in action; the translation of all legal proceedings into the English language; the erection of courts of conscience for recovering small debts, and (which is much the better plan) the reformation of county courts: the great system of marine jurisprudence, of which the foundations have been laid, by clearly *developing the prin[*442] ciples on which policies of insurance are founded, and by happily applying those principles to particular cases: and, lastly, the liberality of sentiment, which (though late) has now taken possession of our courts of common law, and induced them to adopt (where facts can be clearly ascertained) the same principles of redress as have prevailed in our courts of equity, from the time that Lord Nottingham presided there; and this, not only where spe

tially empowered by particular statutes (as in the case of bonds, mortgages and set-offs), but by extending the remedial influence of the equitable writ of trespass on the case according to its primitive institution by King Edward the First, to almost every instance of injustice not remedied by any other process. And these, I think, are all the material alterations that have happened with respect to private justice in the course of the present century.

Thus, therefore, for the amusement and instruction of the student, I have endeavoured to delineate some rude outlines of a plan for the history of our laws and liberties; from their first rise and gradual progress, among our British and Saxon ancestors, till their total eclipse at the Norman conquest, from which they have gradually emerged, and risen to the perfection they now enjoy, at different periods of time. We have seen in the course of our inquiries, in this and the former books, that the fundamental maxims and rules of the law, which regard the rights of persons, and the rights of things, the private injuries that may be offered to both, and the crimes which affect the public, have been and are every day improving, and are now fraught with the accumulated wisdom of ages: that the forms of administering justice came to perfection under Edward the First; and have not been much varied, nor always for the better, since that our religious liberties were fully established at the ref ormation; but that the recovery of our civil and political liberties was a work of longer time; they not being thoroughly and completely regained till after the restoration of King Charles, nor fully and explicitly acknowledged and defined till the era of the happy revolution. Of a constitution so wisely contrived, so strongly *raised, and so highly finished, it is hard to speak with that praise which is justly and severely its due: the thorough [*443] and attentive contemplation of it will furnish the best panegyric. It hath been the endeavour of these Commentaries, however the execution may have succeeded, to examine its solid foundations, to mark out its extensive plan, to explain the use and distribution of its parts, and from the harmonious concurrence of those several parts, to demonstrate the elegant proportion of the whole. We have taken occasion to admire at every turn the noble monuments of ancient simplicity, and the more curious refinements of modern Nor have its faults been concealed from view, for faults it has; lest we should be tempted to think it of more than human structure; defects, chiefly arising from the decays of time, or the rage of unskilful improvements in later ages. To sustain, to repair, to beautify this noble pile, is a charge intrusted principally to the nobility, and such gentlemen of the kingdom as are delegated by their country to parliament. The protection of THE LIBERTY OF BRITAIN is a duty which they owe to themselves, who enjoy it; to their ancestors, who transmitted it down; and to their posterity, who will claim at their hands this, the best birthright, and noblest inheritance of mankind.

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EDITOR'S REVIEW.

THE just exultation with which our commentator reviewed the gradual improvement in the laws of England, which had continued to his own time, may well be felt by the English statesman of the present day, when the legis lation of the succeeding period is presented to his view. During no equal period in English history were the changes in the English constitution so great and manifest, nor the modifications in English law so radical or so beneficent. Indeed, the England of to-day is, in many particulars, so different from the England of Blackstone's time, and its system of law is pervaded by a spirit so much milder and more just, that, upon many points, our author seems to be writing of some far-off and barbarous realm, rather than of the England which we know, and the justice, humanity, and equity of whose laws we admire, and are, for the most part, content to copy.

In notes to the preceding pages, we have endeavored to point out the changes in the law which have been introduced by statute, and the student will be enabled, as he progresses, to compare the past with the present, and to form some estimate of how the English system of laws which now prevails differs from that which was in force when our English ancestors colonized this country, bringing with them the common law to plant and acclimate upon our shores. But it may be desirable that, at the conclusion of our task, we refer briefly to some of the most striking and important of the changes which have been made, as we may thus, by bringing them together into one general summary, the better appreciate the general effect of all, than could possibly be done by the contemplation of each as a separate and distinct event.

The union of Ireland with England, and the abolition of the Irish parliament, was an act which promised at once strength to the empire and beneficence to Ireland, by incorporating it more intimately as a constituent part of the realm, and advancing its people from the condition of those of a conquered province, controlled and governed mainly in the interest of the conquerors, to that of freemen, entitled to a like voice with their fellows in the making of the laws, and to the like redress for all injuries. If the result of the union has not thus far answered the expectations of its advocates, it is, in part, because the difficulties were too deeply seated to be reached, except by long and patient probing and experiment; and we may reasonably hope that the more recent efforts in that direction-the abolition of the Irish church establishment, and the pending reform in the land laws-will do much to relieve the distress of that unhappy country, and to place it, in point of prosperity and contentment, on a level with other parts of the empire.

The most important statutes in the interests of our common humanity were those which made the foreign slave trade piracy, and which finally uprooted

utterly the condition of servitude in all the territories subject to the crown of Great Britain. In immediate prosperity to the countries directly concerned, this act also, has failed to answer expectation, but the general benefit to the world at large has been incalculable, and the effects are constantly spreading wider and farther, until the present generation may well hope to witness the utter extinction of human slavery among the nations professing the Christian religion, or entitled, by their civilization and intelligence, to claim the benefits and come under the obligations of the laws of nations.

The representation of the people in the house of commons was greatly changed by the reform act of 1832, and many boroughs which had ceased to be populous and invited corruption, were entirely disfranchised. Further changes were made by the reform acts of 1867, which increased very largely the number of electors, and established such liberality of qualification as to bring the elective franchise within the reach of all but the hopelessly poor and dependent. Since then, by the introduction of the secret ballot, the independence of electors has been secured so far as, in the nature of things, this was possible. Concurrent with the changes in public sentiment which have made these reforms possible, has gone on another change, perceptible only at considerable intervals of time, by which the house of lords has been shorn of a considerable portion of its former power and importance, and the authority of the government has been steadily concentrating in the house of commons. Hitherto this change has been beneficial; but how far it can continue without necessitating other and more radical changes, the future alone can tell. In alluding to the reforms in parliament we must not forget to mention the improvement in the laws for the punishment of bribery in elections, and the reference of contested elections to a judicial tribunal, by means of which party favoritism in their determination is rendered impossible, and the actual will of the electors is reasonably certain to prevail.

The advance in religious liberty has been so remarkable, that it seems impossible in the brief space we can allot to the subject here, fitly to characterize or indicate it. A century ago the law not only supported and encouraged the state church, but, from motives of state policy, it threatened severe penalties against the teachers of another prominent body of Christians, and it imposed burdens and disabilities upon all who were not connected with the establishment. Jews and Catholics, in particular, were made to feel the weight of governmental displeasure, but all classes of dissenters were, in various ways, discriminated against; and, so far as the laws could effectually do so, conformity with the established church was sought to be enforced. It cannot yet be said that religious equality is the law of England, nor can it be, so long as burdens are imposed upon the people for the support of a favored church; but religious toleration is now universal, and all classes may take part in the making of the laws which are to govern them. The corporation and test acts, which excluded Catholics and dissenters from petty offices, and even from some other employments, were at length swept away by an act passed in 1828, though with a proviso which excluded Jews from some of its benefits, and precluded their taking seats in parliament as representatives of the people for thirty years longer. The last obstacle was then removed by a statute, which

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