Not only such 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 misprision, 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 steward in a court-leet, or the like b LIKEWISE all such, 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 d. LASTLY, to endeavour to dissuade 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 person indicted the evidence that appeared against him, he was thereby made accessory to the offence, if felony; and in treason a principal. And at this day it is agreed, that he is guilty of a high misprision, and liable to be fined and imprisoned f. CHAPTER THE ΤΕΝΤи. OF OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE. T HE order of our distribution will next lead us to take into confideration such crimes and misdemesnors 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 security 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 those laws, which the people themselves in conjunction with him have enacted; or at least have consented to, by an agreement either expressly made in the persons of their representatives, or by a tacit and implied consent prefumed and proved by immemorial usage. THE species of crimes, which we have now before us, is subdivided into such a number of inferior and fubordinate classes, that it would much exceed the bounds of an elementary treatise, and be insupportably 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 observations: referring the student for more 1 more particulars to other voluminous authors; who have treated of these subjects with greater precision and more in detail, than is consistent with the plan of these commentaries. THE crimes and misdemesnors, that more especially affect the common-wealth, may be divided into five species; viz. offences against public justice, 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 justice: some of which are felonious, whose punishment may extend to death; others only misdemesnors. I shall begin with those that are most penal, and defcend gradually to such 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 justice. It is enacted by statute 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 superior courts of justice in Westminster-hall, by reason whereof the judgment shall be reversed or not take effect; it is felony not only in the principal actors, but also in their procurers, and abettors. Likewife by statute 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 statute 4 W. & M. c. 4. to perfonate any other person before any commissioner authorized 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 persons' names be falsely ufurped in courts, or before their public officers. 2. Το 2. To prevent abuses by the extensive power, which the law is obliged to repose in gaolers, it is enacted by statute 14 Edw.III. c. 10. that if any gaoler by too great duress of imprisonment makes any prisoner that he hath in ward, become an approver or an appellor against his will; that is, as we shall fee hereafter, to accuse and turn evidence against some other person; it is felony in the gaoler. For, as fir Edward Coke observes, it is not lawful to induce or excite any man even to a just accufation of another; much less to do it by duress of imprisonment; and least of all by a gaoler, to whom the prisoner is committed for safe custody. 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 accessory in felony, and a principal in high treason. Formerly one of the greatest obstructions to public justice, both of the civil and criminal kind, was the multitude of pretended privileged places, where indigent persons assembled 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 sanctuaries for iniquity are now demolished, and the opposing of any process therein is made highly penal, by the statutes 8 & 9 W. III. c. 27. 9 Geo. I. c. 28. and II Geo. I. c. 22. which enact, that persons opposing the execution of any process in such pretended privileged places within the bills of mortality, or abusing any officer in his endeavours to execute his duty therein, so that he receives bodily hurt, shall be guilty of felony, and transported for seven years. 4. An escape of a person arrested upon criminal process, by eluding the vigilance of his keepers before he is put in hold, is also an offence against public justice, and the party himself is punishable by fine or imprisonmentd. But the officer permitting such 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 strictness of law to submit himself quietly to custody, till cleared by the due course of justice. Officers therefore who, after arrest, negligently permit a felon to escape, are also punishable by fine; but voluntary escapes, by consent and connivance of the officer, are a much more ferious offence: for it is generally agreed that such escapes amount to the fame kind of offence, and are punishable in the same degree, as the offence of which the prisoner is guilty, and for which he is in custody, whether treason, felony, or trespass. And this, whether he were actually committed to gaol, or only under a bare arrest. 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 so committed or arrested: otherwise it might happen, that the officer might be punished for treason or felony, and the person 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 8. 5. BREACH of prison by the offender himself, when committed for any cause, was felony at the common lawh h: or even confpiring to break it. But this severity is mitigated by the statute de frangentibus prifonam, I Edw. II. which enacts, that no person shall have judgment of life or member, for breaking pri 2 Hawk. P. C. 122. 1 Hal. P. C. 600. 1 Hal. P. C. 590. 2 Hawk. P. С. 134. 81 Hal. P. C.588,9. 2 Hawk.P.C.134.5. 1 Hal. P. C. 607. i Bract. 1. 3. 6. 9. fon, |