allegiance; and this my Lord Coke says, * « is a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to his fovereign." In this fenfe therefore I fhall always treat of it; for thus only in reality is the duty performed. † Sir Michael Forster fays, that this allegiance" is undoubtedly due to the perfon of the king; but in that respect natural allegiance differeth nothing from what we call local. For allegiance confidered in every light is alike due to the person of the king; and is paid, and in the nature of things, must constantly be paid to that prince, who for the time being is in actual and full poffeffion of the regal dignity."

Whatever actions of individuals tend to vilify, confufe, difturb, interrupt, fubvert, or destroy that political form of government, which the majority of the community have eftablished, and chofen to fupport and maintain, they are, properly speaking, public wrongs, crimes, or misdemeanors; and because our conftitution collects and concentrates the majefty of the ftate in the perfon, to whom it entrufts the executive power of the government, therefore with great propriety it ex

Natural alle

giance in fome

things differs

not from local.

What are pubmisdemeanors.

lic crimes or

The crown taken meta

phorically for the perfon, who wears it.

preffes the code of criminal law by the term
pleas of the crown.
I blufh at the opportu-
nity of obferving, that when our law books.
mention the rights, privileges, and preroga-
tives of the crown, they speak metaphorically
only of the person, who wears it; and not
in that literal fenfe, which a modern philo-
fopher of illuminating fame has most inge-
niously and wifely annexed to the phrafe.
*The crown then, or (to fpeak more in-
telligibly to fome of my readers) the king or
queen regnant of Great-Britain, in † « whom
centers the majefty of the whole community,
is fuppofed by the law to be the person in-
jured 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 fo laid in every
indictment; for though in their confe-
quences 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 i
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.

Blak. Com. b. i, c. vii. P1 286.

cafe

case of treason, and a very few others) to be rather offences against the kingdom, than the king; yet as the public, which is an indivisible body, has delegated all its power and rights, with regard to the execution of the laws, to one vifible magiftrate, all af fronts to that power and breaches of thofe rights are immediately offences against him, to whom they are fo delegated by the public. He is therefore the proper person to profecute for all public offences and breaches of the peace, being the perfon 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 resident member of the community to obferve and fubmit to it, and the fiduciary duty of our governors to enfure and protect the community against all fecret and open efforts and attempts to render it contemptible, inefficient, or impracticable.

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 prefent eftablishment, did not fuperadd a weight of reasons to those, upon which the late judges Blakiston and Forster grounded the neceffity of rendering this knowledge general to all men. * "The knowledge of this breach of jurifprudence, which teaches the nature, extent, and degrees of every crime, and adjufts to it its adequate and neceffary penalty, is of the utmost importance to every individual in the ftate. For († as a very great mafter of the crown law has observed upon a fimilar occafion) no rank or elevation în life, no uprightness of heart, no prudence or circumfpection of conduct should tempt a man to conclude, that he may not at fome time or other be deeply interested in these

Blak. Com. b. iv. c. i. p. 2. + Forfter.

researches,

researches.

The infirmities of the beft among us, the vices and ungovernable paffions of others, the inftability of all human affairs, and the numberlefs unforeseen events, which the compafs 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 public law, either forbidding or commanding it. This general definition comprehends both crimes and mifdemeanors, which, properly fpeaking, are mere fynonymous terms; though, in a common ufage, the word crimes is made to denote fuch offences, as are of a deeper and more atrocious dye; while fmaller faults, and omiffions of lefs confequence are comprized under the gentler name of misdemeanors only.

"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

or misdemea

nor.

Difference be and private

tween public

wrongs, and

between crimes juries.

and civil in