attorneys, and all officers of courts, practising without having taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed the declaration against popery, are guilty of a præmunire, whether the oaths be tendered or no. To assert, maliciously and directly, by preaching, teaching, or advisedly speaking, that the then pretended prince of Wales, or any person other than according to the acts of settlement and union, hath any right to the throne of these kingdoms; or that the king cannot make laws to limit the descent of the crown; such preaching, teaching, or advisedly speaking, is a præmunire: as writing, printing, or publishing the same doctines amounted, we may remember, to high treason. If the assembly of If the assembly of peers of Scotland, convened to elect their sixteen representatives in the British parliament, shall presume to treat of any other matter save only the election, they incur the penalties of a præmunire. All unwarrantable undertakings by unlawful subscriptions, then commonly known by the name of bubbles, subject to the penalties of a præmunire. Subject to the penalties of the statute of præmunire all such as knowingly and wilfully solemnize, assist, or are present at, any forbidden marriage of such of the descendants of the body of King George II. as are by that act prohibited to contract matrimony without the consent of the crown.

Its punishment may be gathered from the foregoing statutes, which are thus shortly summed up by sir Edward Coke: "that, from the conviction, the defendant shall be out of the king's protection,

and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, forfeited to the king: and that his body shall remain in prison at the king's pleasure; or (as other authorities have it) during life:" both which amount to the same thing; as the king by his prerogative may at any time remit the whole, or any part, of the punishment, except in the case of transgressing the statute of habeas corpus. Such delinquent, though protected as a part of the public from public wrongs, can bring no action for any private injury, how atrocious soever; being so far out of the protection of the law, that it will not guard his civil rights, nor remedy any grievance which he as an individual may suffer. And no man, knowing him to be guilty, can with safety give him comfort, aid, or relief.

CHAPTER IX.

OF MISPRISIONS AND CONTEMPTS, AFFECTING THE KING AND GOVERNMENT.

THE fourth species of offences, more immediately against the king and government, are entitled misprisions and contempts.

Misprisions (a term derived from the old French. mespris, a neglect or contempt) are, in the acceptation of our law, generally understood to be all such high offences as are under the degree of capital, but nearly bordering thereon,

I. Of the first, or negative kind, is what is called misprision of treason; consisting in the bare knowledge and concealment of treason, without any degree of assent thereto : for any assent makes the party a principal traitor. This concealment becomes criminal, if the party apprized of the treason does not, as soon as conveniently may be, reveal it to some judge of assize or justice of the peace.

There is also one positive misprision of treason, created so by act of parliament. The statute 13 Eliz. c. 2. enacts, that those who forge foreign coin, not current in this kingdom, their aiders, abettors, and procurers, shall all be guilty of misprision of treason. The punishment of misprision of treason is loss of the profits of lands during life, forfeiture of goods, and imprisonment during life.

Misprision of felony is also the concealment of a felony which a man knows, but never assented to; for, if he assented, this makes him either principal or accessory. And the punishment of this, in a public officer, by the statute Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 9. is imprisonment for a year and a day; in a common person, imprisonment for a less discretionary time; and, in both, fine and ransom at the king's pleasure: which pleasure of the king must be observed, once for all, not to signify any extra-judicial will of the sovereign, but such as is declared by his representatives, the judges in his courts of justice; "voluntas regis in curia, non in camera."

There is also another species of negative misprisions; namely, the concealing of treasure-trove, which belongs to the king or his grantees by prerogative royal: the concealment of which was formerly punishable by death; but now only by fine and imprisonment.

II. Misprisions, which are merely positive, are generally denominated contempts or high misdemeanors; of which

1. The first and principal is the mal-administration of such high officers, as are in public trust and employment. This is usually punished by the method of parliamentary impeachment: wherein such penalties, short of death are inflicted, as to the wisdom of the house of peers shall seem proper; consisting usually of banishment, imprisonment, fines, or perpetual disability. Hitherto also may be referred the offence of embezzling the public money, called among the Romans peculatus, which the Julian law punished with death in a magistrate, and with deportation, or banishment, in a private person. With us it is not a capital crime, but subjects the committer of it to a discretionary fine and imprisonment. Other misprisions are, in general, such contempts of the executive magistrate, as demonstrate themselves by some arrogant and undutiful behaviour towards the king and government. These are

2. Contempts against the king's prerogative. As, by refusing to assist him for the good of the public; either in his councils, by advice, if called upon; or in his wars, by personal service for

defence of the realm, against a rebellion or invasion. Under which class may be ranked the neglecting to join the posse comitatus, or power of the county, being thereunto required by the sheriff or justices, according to the statute 2 Hen. V. c. 8. which is a duty incumbent upon all that are fifteen years of age, under the degree of nobility, and able to travel. Contempts against the prerogative may also be, by preferring the interests of a foreign potentate to those of our own, or doing or receiving any thing that may create an undue influence in favour of such extrinsic power; as, by taking a pension from any foreign prince without the consent of the king. Or, by disobeying the king's lawful commands; whether by writs issuing out of his courts of justice, or by a summons to attend his privy council, or by letters from the king to a subject commanding him to return from beyond seas, (for disobedience to which his lands shall be seized till he does return, and himself afterwards punished) or by his writ of ne exeat regnum, or proclamation, commanding the subject to stay at home. And so, lastly, is disobedience to any act of parliament, where no particular penalty is assigned; for then it is punishable, like the rest of these contempts, by fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the king's courts of justice.

the

3. Contempts and misprisions against the king's person and government, may be by speaking or writing against them, cursing or wishing him ill, giving out scandalous stories concerning him, or