go on without a parliament, before he ventured to call one, took care to dismiss all these prifoners, and had the mortification to fee twenty-feven of them chofen representatives in parliament. Had the doctrine of the judges been univerfally received and fubmitted to, the Tower of London would in all after ages have been as formidable to the English, as the Baftile is and has been to our unhappy neighbours on the continent. But fortunately for us, either the irrefolution of Charles the fecond, according to Hume, or the views of the court, according to Rapin, detached Lord Shaftesbury from the cabal. His illegal imprifonment for twelve months in the Tower, and his ineffectual application to the judges for the benefit of the habeas corpus, procured next year that effectual act, which conftitutes the fecurity and happiness of the prefent day. By this act it is provided, that gaol-keepers refufing to deliver to the prisoner, or his agent, within fix hours

• Hume. + King James II's. MS. Scot. Col.

after

after demand, a copy of the warrant of commitment, or fhifting the cuftody of a prifoner from one to another, fhall for the first offence forfeit one hundred pounds, and for the fecond two hundred pounds, to the party grieved. And the lord chancellor or judges denying the habeas corpus, shall forfeit feverally to the party grieved the fum of five hundred pounds. What an unfpeakable happiness is it for a people to be thus protected and fecured from the violence and oppreffion of their magiftrates! Those magiftrates who at firft are appointed guardians of the laws, and protectors of the people, being generally in the end the great violators of the law, and irresistible oppreffors of the people. The habeas corpus is a barrier which the prince can never pass, without confent of parliament; the confent of parliament will never be obtained, but in the last extremity, while the representatives are independent.

§3. We have seen how tender the law is, refpecting the perfonal liberty of Englishmen;

lishmen; the fame tenderness proceeds throughout. The prifoner is not suffered to languish in a gaol; 'till he and the offence are both forgotten, as is the cafe in countries fubject to a defpotic power *.Twice every year there is a commiffion of oyer and terminer, and gaol-delivery, empowering the judges to try and deliver every prifoner who fhall be in the gaol, when they arrive at the circuittowns, for whatever crime committed. Every man who is acquainted with his Bible, may fee the conduct of defpotic governments towards prifoners.-Jofeph, under the defpotic government of Pharaoh, was accused of a crime, and cast into prifon; there he remained two years without being brought to trial, and might have been confined two-and-twenty, if Pharaoh had found any one who could have given him fatisfaction in the interpretation of his dream.

Under the oppreffive government of Felix, Paul was left two years in a gaol

*Blackft. Com. vol. iii. p. 137, 138.

without

without being brought to trial, and might have been left ten times as long, had not Felix been fuperfeded by a more honest

man.

There is no abufe of defpotic power more common, and more to be dreaded, than this of leaving men in prifon for an unlimited time, before they are brought to trial. The greateft, because the most universal fault of defpotifm, is want of feeling. Some, like Phalaris, Alexander of Pheræ, Caligula, Nero, Caracalla, have been innately cruel; fuch monsters, indeed, are not often produced: but every defpot must be absorbed in felfishness; lazy, voluptuous, unfeeling. If not altogether deftitute of humanity, yet his laziness, and love of eafe, will never fuffer him to exert himself in behalf of the oppreffed. Were he an eye. witnefs of the mifery of the prifoner confined, with the wretchedness of his wife and children during his abfence, pity and compaffion would be excited, and an order given for relief; but monarchs must not be disturbed.-Defpots, like the gods

of

of Epicurus, muft enjoy an everlasting repofe. The Suba of Bengal was a foldier, and as fuch, could not be destitute of the feelings of humanity; yet, when our countrymen were confined in the black-hole at Calcutta, and Governor Holwell had offered one of the Suba's guards two thousand rupees, only to get the prisoners separated, half in one place, and half in another, the guard, after withdrawing, foon returned, and told him, that "it could not be done but by the Suba's order, and that no one dared to awake him." It was anciently the custom in this country, to iffue fpecial writs of gaol-delivery for each particular prifoner; but thefe being found inconvenient and oppreffive, a general commiffion for all the prisoners has long been eftablished in their ftead *. For this establishment, we are indebted to the nature of our government, whofe first object must ever be the liberty, the ease, the happiness of the subject.

* Blackftone.

In