foré nothing of that fort in the act, I concluded that the common law, or former statutes, had fufficiently fecured against imprisonment, at least fo far as a proper caution in the manner and cause of commitment could go. In this I was daily confirmed, by what I have already mentioned, of the practice of magiftrates requesting information upon oath to ground warrants of commitment. And there I refted content, having never had occafion, on any particular account, to make further inquiry, or to get better information. What has lately-happened excited my attention, and I am afraid has given me reason to believe the Habeas Corpus act is really defective in the particular in which it appeared to me at first reading to be lame, if the objection which then occured to me was not, as I thought it certainly muft have been, obviated or removed by some other statute, or by the course and practice of the law. If the thing strikes others in the fame light, it will not, I hope, país longer unattended to. When it is confidered in how many, and what sort of hands the power of commitment is lodged in this country, and the tedioufnefs even of the remedy by Habeas Corpus, for returning which for a diftance above 100 miles the ftatute allows twenty days, with the expence of the journey of the prifoner, which must be paid, and fecurity given for the charges of the journey back, if he is remanded, and which is not the leaft of all, the difficulty there may be to recover damages from fome who may be guilty of falfe imprifonment: it may appear not to be unreasonable, that as much caution fhould be had to prevent illegal or groundlefs commitments as the public. fafety can admit of. And whether that is the cafe, if any inferior magiftrate and justice of the peace has a power to commit his fellow fubject, by a warrant bearing nothing but the magiftrate's own

affirmation, or charge, that the perfon is guilty, is fubmitted to the cool, the fober, and the fage, who will always feel this truth,

LIBERTAS LÆSA NULLA REPARABILIS ARTE.

Queries, with their answers, on the conftitutional office of king, confined to his fpeeches to parliament.

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Imagine the reason why an answer was not given immediately to the queries which formerly appeared in the papers, and to which, as defired, the printers have once more afforded a place, is not that they are unanswerable, but that it has been thought, that, to all who know any thing of the constitution, they answered themselves: and that in that view they certainly put the affair alluded to in the strongest light. But in condefcenfion to the author of them, you may again reprint them with these answers.

Q. 1. Whether the king perfonally present and fpeaking to both houfes affembled in the high court of parliament, is not as fully in the exercife of his kingly office as when he is reprefented by a judge in Weftminster-Hall.

Answer to quere 1. The king perfonally prefent and fpeaking to both houfes affembled in the high court of parliament, is fully in the exercife of his kingly office; but HE is not at all in it when he is represented by a judge in Westminster-hall. The conftitutional GOVERNMENT of the kingdom is executing itself, when the king's courts, not only in Westminster-hall, but in the loweft judicature in the kingdom, are difpenfing juftice, in the proper form and according to the laws of the land. The judges represent the king's perfon; they are vefted with his authority, and act in his name, but may act in their own proper person, and are perfonally and individually refponfible for what they fay or do. When the king perfonally

perfonally prefent in parliament, pronounces a speech with his own royal mouth from the throne; or when any where else he does the perfonal act of using his own royal hand, in the royal fignature, or any other writing in execution of the royal functions, he is certainly in the exercise of his kingly office. But, by the wisdom of this conftitution, no act of the kingly office, whether oral or graphical, is confidered as the perfonal act of the fovereign; nor is or can be imputed to his majefty perfonally and individually. All regal acts of whatever kind are the acts of the minifters of the crown, by whofe advice the king is conftitutionally bound to act, and only can act legally; and they are perfonally and individually ref ponsible for them. Nor can they protect themfelves from the confequences of the imputation, by fheltering themselves under the perfonality of the king's act. The conftitution rejects that defence. Exprefs and pofitive diffent, and quitting the fervice, is the only legal cover against the imputation. Refponfibility is the neceffary attendant of the fervice which gives the capacity to advise. Individual fubjects may have political characters, but they have no perfon but their natural one. To that every act which is imputable to them is afcribed. In that they must bear the confequences. The king, as well as other men, has his natural perfon; but he has a political one too; and in the exercife of the royal functions the latter abforbs the former. The king's natural perfon the conftitution hardly knows; infomuch, that the king never dies, though the fovereign, as well as the fubject, obeys the laws of mortality. To the king's political perfon only all regal acts are afcribed; and the minifters of the crown compofe that political perfon, much in the fame manner, and to the fame effect, that the in

dividual members of a corporation make up the political perfon of it, which appears no where but in

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the feal of the corporation. The lawyers fay, the crown is a corporation; in the language of the conftitution IT is a political perfon, feveral and diftinct from the natural perfon of the fovereign; a real but a fort of invifible entity, which appears no where but in the minifters of government. It acts in the exercife of the royal functions, and most usually speaks by the feals. Hence it is the maxim of the conftitution, that the king is not allowed to do any thing in his own perfon; nay not fo much as to draw and feal the commiffions of thofe that are to act in his name, and under his authority. The royal fignature alone does not perfect or compleat any regal act. They must all be counterfigned by a proper officer of state, in the department to which the bufinefs they relate to belongs. It is as a neceffary confequence of this principle of the constitution, that the well known (but perhaps very generally mifunderstood) adage has been received, that the king can do no wrong. The diftinction is the true foundation of the conftitutional freedom of DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT; to which nothing is more fubject than the fpeeches fromthe throne. And it is no lefs remarkable, than it is firmly established, that in debating upon the king's fpeeches, it is against ORDER fo much as to mention the crown, or the name of the king, or to afcribe the speech to the king perfonally. The reason is, that the members may not be shackled with a falfe refpect for the perfon of the king, or awed from speaking their mind upon the fpeech from the throne, with as much freedom as they would upon any other minifterial act whatever. The diftinction is alfo one of the chief pillars of the LIBERTY OF SPEECH without doors, and of the LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. All thefe, every one will admit, are effential to the prefervation of the conftitution, and of all thofe valuable rights and privileges which depend upon it. If the diftinction

is deftroyed, or the principle of it weakened, the conftitution is diffolved. There is an end of our LIBERTY; and the most facred guard is removed, which the wisdom of the conftitution has placed about the throne, to refcue and protect the perfon of the fovereign from, and to fecure his enjoyment of the crown, against the dangerous confequences of illegal acts of power, the exercise of the royal functions. This is effectually done, by imputing thofe acts to minifters, and levelling their effects, not against the king but against his minifters, who are the truftees of the conftitution, and refponsible for the due execution of the regal office. Of thefe principles this very fhort illuftration may be added, that, fo far as the conftitution can inftrust us, there cannot be the leaft doubt, but that the moment after the king has pronounced a speech from the throne, any member of either houfe of parliament may, if the cafe deserves it, move to addrefs the crown, defiring his majefty to inform them who advifed him to make that speech. Or, if they know the minister who did it, they may directly move to IMPEACH him for advising his majefty to make such a speech. And as the speech itself would be matter of the charge, the highest aggravation of it would be, that the minifter had abufed his fovereign, by making the royal lips convey to the parliament and to the people of the realm, things that ought not to have come from the throne, or proceeded from the crown. There is the highest reason to believe that those who know the most of the constitution, and are beft acquainted with the hiftory and proceedings of parliament, will affent to this pofition: and if it is a true one, it is thought it fully proves all that has been advanced.

Q. 2. Whether the fpeech delivered by his majefty from the throne, is not as much his own

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fpeech