Pyrenees come for fix weeks into the Southern provinces of France, and return in proper time for the getting in of their own harvest.

As I have mentioned, that the wages allowed to labourers by this law fhew the comparative value of money: I fhall likewife refer the reader to the Appendix of the third volume of Dr. Brady's Hiftory, where there is a very particular account of the pay of Edward the Third's army, in the twentieth year of his reign-The pay of the Black Prince was 20s. per diem-The fum total, is 12,720l: 25. and 9 d. for which an army and fleet of 31,294 men was to be payed and subsisted for fixteen months, which poffibly may rather astonish a modern financier, or contractor for Germany-There is likewife, in Sir Richard Cox's Hiftory of Ireland, an account of the falaries of most of the principal officers of the crown at this time, from which the fame comparative value may be drawn.

OF

OF THOSE THAT BE BORN BEYOND THE SEA.

25 Edw. III. Stat. ii.

HIS ftatute recites a doubt [0], whether children born of parents

TH

out of the king's allegiance fhould inherit lands in England; which queftion, it seems, had been before the parliament in the eighteenth year of this king's reign, but nothing had been decided-The ftatute firft declares, that it is the law of the crown of England [p], and hath always been fo, that the children of the king, born in any part of the world, have a right to inherit; and this, according to the obfervation made in the note below, is a strong argument to prove, that, in the cafe of a common fubject, the law was apprehended to be otherwife-I should imagine, that this parliament (or the judges of the time), if they had been confulted whether Philippa of Hainault, queen of Edward the Third, had been naturalized by ber marriage, would not have long hesitated about the answer.

After this declaration, the ftatute gives a very extraordinary power to the king (after having naturalized John de Beaumont, Elizabeth, daughter of Guy de Bryan, and Giles, the son of Ralf Daubenye), viz. that as many others as the king should please to name, fhould be to all intents and purpofes naturalized; and likewise enacts, that for the future all children born of parents (fubjects of the king) fhould inherit, except the children of mothers who fhall pass the fea, without leave of their husbands.

[o] The French expreffion, in the original, is en avere, and not en arwerout; which is always ufed by Lyttelton, in his Tenures, to fignify a doubt.

[p] This is always confidered as part of the common law, and differs, almost in every rule relating to it, from what is law between subject and subject.

THE

THE STATUTE OF TREASONS.

I

25 Edw. III. Stat. v. A. D. 1350.

SHALL take a very extraordinary liberty with regard to the title of this statute, which I have altered from that of the Statute of Purveyors to that of the Statute of Treafons-It is true, that the firft [9] chapter of this law (as well as the 13th) relates to purveyance; but the 2d great conftitutional chapter, which hath defined what shall be deemed treason, hath certainly a right to give a title to this Capitularium; which chapter (after many new treafons enacted during the reign of Henry the Eighth) is fixed upon, by the firft of Philip and Mary, as the statute declaratory of the common law, and which therefore fhould continue in its full force without alteration, whilft the other laws of tyranny are entirely repealed.

As the declarations made by this ftatute of what shall be deemed treafon are generally known by not only lawyers, but even every one who hath read an English hiftorian with any degree of attention, I fhould not have stated any of the particulars, did it not give occafion to fome observations.

It begins by declaring, that it fhall be treafon to compass [r] or imagine the death of the king-There have been many comments upon these words compafs and imagine; and I should with great deference think, that, notwithstanding the general excellence of this most wife and important ftatute, the word imagine is not fufficiently explicite, and is likewife too figurative to be made use of in defcribing this moft capital of all criminal offences-The Lombards, indeed, by their old laws, make use of ftill more loofe and figurative expreffions, "Si quis contra animam regis [s] cogita“verit" [t]—The Fuero Jufgo, in describing the offence of treason, makes ufe of the expreffion que trattaren del morte del principe; which is likewise a most loose expreffion, though the Spaniards were at that time a more free people than perhaps in any other part of Europe.

[9] It confifts of twenty-three chapters.

[r] Fait compaffer, ou imaginer la mort notre feigneur le Roi-Is it not extraordinary, that the life of an Englishman, profecuted by the crown, should continue to depend upon the critical conftruction of two obfolete French words? The word imagine is used in the Pfalms, ii. 1. in the same sense with plot: Why do the heathen fo furiously rage together? and why do the people IMAGINE a vain thing?

[] Nath. Bacon fays, that, in the time of the Saxons, an indictment for high treason against the king, run felonicè; if against the country, proditoriè: he would have obliged antiquaries much by printing these indictments at length, as well as writers on the conftitutional law of England. [] Some of the antient English grants are very figurative: "Omnes libertates et aquas circa "Hull, quas cor cogitare poterit, aut oculus videre." Rymer, vol. ii. part ii. p. 183.

The

The compaffing or imagining the death of the queen (described by the word Madame fa compaigne), is likewife declared to be high treason.-Upon this expreffion there have also been doubts, whether a queen-dowager is included-I do not mean by this to fay, that fuch doubts have not received a very fatisfactory folution, but only that it might have been worded in this part with greater precifion-The defignation of the queen [u], by the words Madame fa compaigne, feems to be fingular; we find however the fame expreffion in other laws of Europe, "Los hijos y companna del rey "han de fer bien tratados, y que najie les haga furca, ni danno algun." Fuer. Jufg. lib. i. p. 52.—It is next declared, that the counterfeiting of the king's great, or privy feal, shall likewise be confidered as high treafon; which 1 fhould not have taken notice of (as this part of the law cannot be more clearly expreffed), did not a writ, printed in the original French, at the end of fome other ftatutes [w] of the fame year, give us the intimation of a very great neglect in this part of the act, and which, in some measure, seems to countenance an obfervation made by Carte, that no lawyer fat in this parliament, when this moft conftitutional statute became a law [x]. This writ mentions a claim made by the clergy, that a clerk, who was convicted of counterfeiting the great, or privy feal, or the king's coin, should have his privilege of clergy, to which the king answers; "that "he is too much preffed by bufinefs of the greatest importance to decide "this point, but that, if any clerk fhould be convicted of this offence before "the next feffions of parliament (in which he hopes it will be fully difcuffed), " he shall not be executed, but delivered to the ordinary”—We find accordingly, that this point must have been before the legislature, and yet nothing is faid with regard to the privilege of clergy-It might be impolitic indeed (from circumstances), that this point should have undergone a difcuffion in parliament; but as the clergy had, in effect, established this privilege, the opportunity of taking it exprefly away by ftatute fhould not have been omitted—The counterfeiting or debasing of the current coin hath been made treafon in every country where a coinage hath been established: it is made fo by the ancient Athenian laws, ἐάν τις τὸ νόμισμα διαφθείρῃ, τὸν θάνατον τὴν nuía Eva. Petit's Leg. Att. p. 40.-As it is therefore univerfally a capital offence to counterfeit the coin, it is much to be lamented, that those kings who have debased the money of the ftate, and have ordered the

[u] Affuerus, in his Life of Arthur, mentions, that the Saxons never described the queen by the word regina, fed tantum regis conjugem appellabant.

[qv] Cay's Stat.

[x] Carte mentions this obfervation ad invidiam.

money

money thus debased to pass at the sterling price, are not subject to a profecution for this offence on their part.

As treafon is in all states confidered as the greatest crime of which the fubject can be guilty, I have looked into the laws of moft countries in Europe on this head, which in general are much more loosely worded than the present statute, at the fame time that the punishment is fometimes more severe by its tortures, than can ever answer the great end for which executions become neceffary-If the criminal in his agonies excites the pity of the fpectator, the crime for which he fuffers is forgot, and the law and its minifters are confidered as cruel and vindictive-There seems to be one particular in which all the laws (where the government is in the hands of a king) agree, viz. that it fhall be high treason to kill his counsellors [y]; which arifes from this, that the pretence, in the confpirator, is generally to remove the minifter, whilst the king himself is supposed to be blameless.

[y] Sir Francis Holburne hath printed a reading on this ftatute, in the year 1681.

A STA