have made a provifion to which every other nation is a ftranger, a provision most abhorrent to the principles of defpotifm; a strong barrier against the violence and perfecution of the crown; a provifion worthy the great abilities of a Shaftesbury*, and for which this country' must be his debtor as long as it retains its freedom: I mean the Habeas Corpus Act. If any man has been illegally committed and retained in prifon, though it be by command of the king or privycouncil, he and his friends have the remedy in their own power. If committed for treafon or felony, he may infift on being brought to his trial the next term, or the next feffions of oyer and terminer, or else admitted to bail; unless the king's witneffes cannot be produced by that time. If he be not brought to his trial the fecond term or feffion, he muft be discharged. If he be not committed for treafon or felony, a writ of habeas corpus will bring him, within twenty

According to king James the fecond's MSS. in the Scots collection in Paris, in the cuftody of Father Gordon.

days

days at fartheft, into Westminster-hall, there to be admitted to bail. Ample provifion is made for the punishment of all parties, who by any means violate or evade this act. It is ordained by this act, that if any inhabitant of England be fent prifoner to Scotland, Ireland, or any where beyond the feas; the party committing, his advisers and affiftants, shall forfeit to the party aggrieved a fum not lefs than five hundred pounds, to be recovered with treble cofts; fhall be difabled to bear any office of truft and profit; shall incur the penalties of a premunire; and fhall be incapable of the king's pardon*. How valuable is this provifion for the perfonal liberty of Englishmen !— In every defpotic government, the number of ftate prifoners is innumerable. Blackstone fays, he has been affured from good authority, that, during the mild administration of Cardinal Fleury, above fifty-four thousand lettres de cachet were iffued, upon the fingle ground of the famous bull Unigenitus t. If the Bastile, * 31 Car. II. c. z. + Blackft. vol. i. p. 135. the

D4

the castle of Segovia, and all the state prifons in France and Spain, were acceffible, like the prifons of a free country; if we could count the number of the miferable wretches there confined, or the days of their mifery, we fhould be then better able to form an estimate of the value, the infinite value of liberty, and its ftrong barrier the habeas corpus. The defpotic princes who have fat upon the English throne, have always had their Baftile, and their caftles of Segovia, inacceffible to the habeas corpus of the common law.

William the first forged and rivetted on our hands and feet, thofe chains and fetters from which we were never perfectly delivered, 'till the thirty-first year of Charles the fecond. William, in the fourth year of his reign, "by his fole authority, banished some the kingdom, and threw others into prifon, without any legal proceedings, or giving any other reafon than his good pleasure *." His example was followed by all thofe of his fuc

ceffors, who inherited the fame arbitrary disposition, and who at any time, through the tameness of the English, were fuffered to gratify that difpofition.

From the time of the Reformation, the nation began to recover its fenfibility, the galling fetters became at laft intolerable; little, however, could be done to get them off, till the reign of Charles the firft. That unhappy, that infatuated prince, fent Sir Dudley Diggs, and Sir John Elliot to the Tower, for leading the attack in the House of Commons against his favorite the duke of Buckingham. King Charles fent the earl of Arundel to the fame prifon by his own authority, unfupported by law, without any plaufible pretext, but, as it was fuppofed, only because his fon had married the fifter of the duke of Lenox, whom the king had defigned for the lord Lorn *.

The Houfes of Lords and Commons taking up this matter with a high hand, the king was obliged to fet them at li

• Rushworth.

berty,

berty, after the earl of Arundel had been long confined. Not contented with this firft effay, he fent Sir John Elliot again to prifon.-With Elliot, the king sent Sir Thomas Darnel, Sir John Corbet, Sir Walter Earl, and above feventy more. They had all refused to lend him money, without the authority of parliament. The king, however, fent them to prison, without affigning any cause of their commitment. They claimed the benefit of that habeas corpus provided by the common law, as no other then existed, and infifted upon being admitted to bail; but as this could be denied them with impunity, they were remanded back to prifon till the king should be pleased to fpecify the charge against them, and bring them to their trial, or discharge them. In fhort, it was folemnly determined by all the upright judges of the crown, that the perfonal liberty of every Englishman was, and ought to be according to the law, wholly at the mercy and difpofal of the king *. The king not being able to

* Rushworth, tom. i. p. 459–473.

go