The crown taken meta the perfon, who wears it. preffes the code of criminal law by the term phorically for nity of obferving, that when our law books mention the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of the crown, they speak metaphorically only of the perfon, who wears it; and not in that literal fenfe, which a modern philofopher of illuminating fame has most ingeniously and wifely annexed to the phrase. * The crown then, or (to speak more intelligibly to fome of my readers) the king or queen regnant of Great-Britain, in † "whom centers the majesty of the whole community, is fuppofed by the law to be the person injured by every infraction of the public rights belonging to that community, and is therefore. in all cafes the proper profecutor for every public offence. For all public wrongs "are offences either against the king's peace or his crown and dignity, and are so laid in every indictment; for though in their confequences they generally, feem (except in the "In England this right (viz. of making peace and war) is faid to refide in a metaphor fhewn at the tower for fixpence or a fhilling a-piece; fo are the lions; and it would be a step nearer to reafon, to fay it refided in them; for any inanimate metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap." Payne's Rights of Man, p. 61. + Blak. Com. b. iv. c. i. p. 2. cafe All profecuname of the tions in the the law. cafe of treason, and a very few others) to be rather offences against the kingdom, than the king; yet as the public, which is an indivifible body, has delegated all its power and rights, with regard to the execution of king, as the perfon injured, by the laws, to one vifible magiftrate, all affronts to that power and breaches of those rights are immediately offences against him, to whom they are fo delegated by the public. He is therefore the proper perfon to profecute for all public offences and breaches of the peace, being the person injured by the law." It is beyond my intention to enter into an elaborate effay or treatise upon the criminal law of England. I refer fuch of my readers, who wish to be more accurately informed upon this fubject, to the more diffused and learned works of Hale, Hawkins, Forster, Blakiston, and others, who have handled it at large. I fhall merely adhere to the general principles of crown law, in order the more pointedly to enforce the obligation of every refident member of the community to It Obligation of fubjects to fub all refident mit to, and duty of magiftrates to enforce the law. The general knowledge of the crown law neceffary for all men. It is a conclufion of falfe delicacy to fuppofe, that the knowledge of the criminal or crown law of England is to be confined to acting magiftrates, practitioners of the law, or those unfortunate wretches, who have been or are likely to become the paffive objects of its rigour and severity. Would to God that the barefaced and boafted efforts of fome of the discontented minority to traduce, weaken, disturb, or fubvert the present eftablishment, did not fuperadd a weight of reasons to those, upon which the late judges Blakiston and Forfter grounded the neceffity of rendering this knowledge general to all men. *" The knowledge of this breach of jurisprudence, which teaches the nature, extent, and degrees of every crime, and adjusts to it its adequate and neceffary penalty, is of the utmost importance to every individual in the ftate. For († as a very great master of the crown law has obferved upon a fimilar occafion) no rank or elevation in life, no uprightness of heart, no prudence or circumfpection of conduct should tempt a man to conclude, that he may not at some time or other be deeply interested in these * Blak. Com. b. iv. c. ii. p. 2. refearches. refearches. The infirmities of the beft among us, the vices and ungovernable paffions of others, the inftability of all human affairs, and the numberless unforeseen events, which the compass of a day may bring forth, will teach us (upon a moment's reflection) that to know with precifion what the laws of our country have forbidden, and the deplorable confequences, to which a wilful difobedience may expofe us, is a matter of univerfal concern." *"A crime or misdemeanor is an act What a crime committed or omitted in violation of a pub- or misdemea nor. Difference heand private tween public wrongs, and "The distinction of public wrongs from private, of crimes and mifdemeanors from civil injuries, seems principally to confift in this; that private wrongs or civil injuries juries. *Blak. Com. b. iv. c. i. p. 5, between crimes and civil in are an infringement or privation of the civil rights, which belong to individuals, confidered merely as individuals; public wrongs, or crimes and misdemeanors, are a breach and violation of the public rights and duties due to the whole community, confidered as a community in its focial aggregate capacity. As if I detain a field from another man, to which the law has given him a right, this is a civil injury, and not a crime; for here only the right of an individual is concerned, and it is immaterial to the public, which of us is in poffeffion of the land; but treafon, murder, and robbery are properly ranked among crimes; fince befides the injury done to individuals, they strike at the very being of fociety, which cannot poffibly fubfift, where actions of this fort are suffered to escape with impunity. "In all cafes the crime includes an injury; every public offence is also a private wrong, and fomewhat more; it affects the individual, and it likewife affects the community. Thus treason in imagining the king's death involves in it confpiracy against an individual, which is alfo a civil injury; but as this fpecies of treafon in its confequences principally tends to the diffolution of government, and the deftruction thereby of the order and peace of fociety, |