try which relate to treafon. If the boundaries here are well defined, the fubject will be fecure. His property may be invaded, but his perfon will be guarded.In a defpotic government, no man can be certain that he fhall enjoy his life one minute; and under any government, if the most innocent words or actions, or even dreams, are liable to be conftrued into treason, who can be fafe? When he leaft expects it, when he does not in the least deserve it, his life may be taken from him, his eftates may be forfeited, and his blood corrupted.-The barber who shaved Dionyfius loft his life only by affecting to be witty, and Marfyas for telling of his dream. In the reign of Edward the fourth, a grocer, a citizen of London, who lived at the fign of the Crown, for a harmlefs joke, was attainted of high treason, condemned, and executed; he had only faid, "he would make his fon heir of the Crown."-By the law of China, whoever fhews any disrespect to the emperor, is guilty of treafon; but this law does not define what is difre fpect. fpect. The Roman emperors had a law fimilar to this, which feems to have been much abused, as we may collect by the remedial provifion made by the good emperors Severus and Antoninus," that if any flinging a ftone, fhould accidentally ftrike one of the ftatues of the emperor, he should not be liable to a profecution for high treafon."-The emperors Arcadius and Honorius paffed a law, " that who"ever entertained any defigns against the "life (qui de nece cogitaverit) of the "minifters and officers of the prince, "fhould be guilty of high treafon;" without defining what these defigns must be. The judge of Monfieur de Cinq-Mars, endeavouring to prove that he was guilty of high treason for attempting to remove Cardinal Richelieu from the ministry, appealed to this law*. In England, till. the twenty-fifth year of Edward the third, the number of conftructive treafons was almost infinite, and proved as many traps, fnares, and pit-falls for unwary travellers. Montefq. B. 12. c. 8. In In proportion as the constitution recovered its purity, treasons were more clearly defined, and better understood; but, under the various defpotic princes who have fat upon the English throne, treafons have been multiplied and ill defined. In the reign of Richard the fecond, "no "man knew how he ought to behave " himself, to do, speak, or say, for doubt "of fuch pains of treafon *."-Henry the eighth had the moft wonderful and unreasonable inventions; the laws of that tyrant took cognizance of the very thoughts of the heart, and entered into the most facred receffes of the conscience to find out treafons. If any one denied his fupremacy, or refufed to abjure the pope, or if any one had the misfortune to believe that the king was lawfully married to Anne of Cleves, he was guilty of treafon. Sporting with the lives of men, he feemed as if he would render treafon itself ridiculous, by enacting, that if the poor Welchmen ftole cattle on the moun Stat, 1 Hen. IV. c. 10. tains, they should be guilty of high treafon. As long as any country retains its liberty, and is governed by no laws but thofe to which it has given its own confent, treasons will be the crimes of all others the best defined; when it has loft its liberty, it must then fubmit to be governed either without laws, or by thofe which are vague and moft uncertain. Honors, property, and life, must be entirely at the difpofal of defpotic fovereigns and defpotic judges. CHAP. CHA P. III. ON THE JUDICIAL POWER AND PROCEEDINGS. § 1. ・IN Nevery free government, the judicial power must be separate from the legislative and executive; let it be joined with either, and defpotifm will be the inevitable confequence. Hence, according to the conftitution of England, our kings must appoint the judges, but cannot themselves fit in judgment to determine any cause. James the firft, indeed, whofe ambition was to be thought a fecond Solomon, chofe himself to fit on the tribunal, and was not a little mortified, when his judges told him that he could not even deliver an opinion. From this provifion we derive our greatest confidence and fecurity. If our princes could fit as judges, our lives and fortunes muft |