THE Ancient, Legal, Fundamental, and Necessary Rights OF Courts of Justice, In their Writs of Capias, Arrests, and Process of Outlary.  
And the Illegality, many mischiefs and Inconveniences, which may arrive to the People of England, by the Proposals tendered to His Majesty, and the High Court of Parliament, for the abolishing of that old and better way, and method of Justice, and the establishing of a new, by peremptory Summons and Citations in Actions of Debt.  
By Fabian Philipps, Esq  
Antonius Matheus in Praefat: ad Lib: de Auct●onibus,  
Arduum est vetustis novitatem dare, novis Autoritatem.  
Dira per incantum Serpunt Contagia vulgus.  
LONDON, Printed for Christopher Wilkinson, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Black Boy in Fleetstreet, over against St. Dunstan's Church, 1676.   

The Contents of the Chapters.  

Chap. 1. THe many mischiefs and inconveniences which may happen by an Act of Parliament, if obtained, for the more speedy recovery of Debts upon Bonds or Bills, under the Debtors hands and seals, in the manner as is by some desired.  
Chap. 2. That the most part of that desired Innovation was borrowed from Mr. Elsliot's wicked Invention, and a wild Systeme not long after framed, and from some also now much disused part of the Civil Laws.  
Chap. 3. The reason and necessity of the more frequent use of Writs of Arrest and Vtlary, then was before the Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 17.  
Chap. 4. The Ancient use as well as necessity of the Process of Arrest and Outlawry in this and other Nations.  
Chap. 5. The Process of Arrest and Vtlary are a more gentle way of compelling men to pay their Debts, or appear in Courts of Justice, then that which was formerly used.  
Chap. 6. The delays and inconveniences of the Process of Summons, Pone & distringas, were a great, if not the only cause of the disuse thereof.  
Chap. 7. The Writs and Process of Arrest and Outlawry have increased, preserved, and encouraged Trade, better secured the Creditors Debts, and made the borrowing of Money more easy than it was before.  
Chap. 8. The pawn and engagement of the Body, is most commonly a better security than Lands or personal Estate, upon which the borrowing of Money was not only very troublesome, but difficult.  
Chap. 9 The difference betwixt borrowing of Money upon Lands and real Estate, and the procuring of it upon personal security; and that without trust and personal security Trade cannot well, or at all subsist.  
Chap. 10. The way of Capias and Arrest is no oppression or tyranny exercised upon the people, since the making of the Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 17. or hath been hitherto, or may be destructive to their Liberties.  
Chap. 11. That the wisest of the Grecian Commonwealths, Athens and Sparta, those great contenders for Liberty and preservers of it, did in their establishments and methods of Justice neither understand or suspect any Tyranny or oppression to be in the necessary and moderate use of the Process of Arrest.  
Chap. 12. The troubles and seditions of the people of Rome concerning the whip, scourging, selling for Bondslaves, and other cruelties used by Creditors in the suing and prosecution for their Debts, and the troubles and endeavours of the Magistrates and Senators to appease them.  
Chap. 13. That their Order made to pacify a tumult was not perpetual, or so much as intended to extend to an absolute freedom of the Debtors from Arrest or restraints of their persons, until they appeared in Courts of Justice, or gave bail to do it.  
Chap. 14. That the Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 17. which giveth Process of Capias and Exigent in Actions of Debt, and other Actions therein mentioned, is not repealed either by the Acts of Parliament of 28 E. 3. or 42 E. 3. cap. 1. there being no inconvenience or prejudice to the Public good in those kind of Law proceedings, which might deserve a repeal by those or any other Acts of Parliament.  
Chap. 15. That the Nation hath not been base or slavish ever since the making of the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. cap. 17.  
Chap. 16. An examination of the Opinions of Sir Edward Coke in his report of Sir William Herbert's Case, touching the Process of Arrest used in our Laws; and the many Errors appearing in that Book or Manuscript called the Mirror of Justice, and the fictitious matters and relations mentioned therein.  
Chap. 17. That the late incessant needless complaints against our Laws, and the proceedings in our Courts of Justice, had in the bottom of it a design of overturning Monarchy and Government, and to create Offices, places, employments and profits to the contrivers thereof and their party.  
Chap. 18. That neither Oliver Cromwell or his Son Richard, the second Mock-Protector or little Highness, did conceive it to be reasonable, or had any intention to deliver up the Justice of the Nation to those ignorant, giddy, and ever-changing kind of Reformations.  
Chap. 19 What occasioned the contrivance of the former Projects and groundless Complaints against our Laws, since his Majesty's happy Restauration.  
Chap. 20. That the Proceedings at the Common Law desired by the new way of a peremptory Summons, or the old by Writs of Summons, Pone & Distringas, or Writs of Capias at the Plaintiffs pleasure, are not consistent or agreeable one with the other; and that Laws being to be binding, are to be certain and positive, not arbitrary.  
Chap. 21. That it will not be for the Interest of the King and his people to give way to that Design which may open a passage to other Innovations and Contrivances as much if not more inconvenient and prejudicial.    

CHAP. I. The many mischiefs and inconveniences which may happen by an Act of Parliament, to be made for the more speedy recovery of Debts upon Bonds or Bills, under the Debtors hands and seals, in the manner as is by some desired.  
THe Suggestions and that which should be the Causes or inducements to such an Act of Parliament are greatly mistaken; or if there happen any such Evils as are pretended, they are Raro Contingentia, and do but seldom happen.  
And when they do arise, have their originals from other Causes, but not from Arrests in Actions of Debt, which by the shortest account, are and have been of 374. years' continuance, by order and approbation of many Acts of Parliament, but may be demonstrated to have been of a far greater Age, and equal to that of the Eldest Court or Method of Justice, in this, or any other civilised Nation in the world.  
The mischances happening by two or three Bailiffs in 20. or 30, jeers, killed most commonly upon the score of their own provocation, rudeness and misdemeanours, are when they do so happen in the unruly Suburbs of London towards Westminster, for in the other too vast extent of them, an Age or Century is scarce able to furnish out one of those evil accidents.  
And within the City of London, where Credit seems to be the Life and Soul of Trade, and their growing, and already gained Riches there may be reckoned in their two Sheriffs Courts twice every week in the Year, holden no less than two hundred Actions and Arrests weekly, entered and made upon Debts which makes no more disturbance than a quiet putting in of Bail, which secures the Debt more than it was before.  
And in all the Counties, Cities, and Corporations of England and Wales, as well as in the City of London, the death of a Bailiff, Sergeant at Mace or Catchpole, is not to be found in the remembrance of the most aged persons.  
And the Writs and Records of the Courts of Westminster, from which very many Writs and Process do Issue, and are to be returned into, cannot show any frequency of Writs of Rescues, or any assaults made upon the Sheriffs or their Bailiffs, in the Execution of them.  
And if the Proposers of this Bill and great Alteration of the Laws, will not think themselves to be prejudiced if they should speak according to the Truth, and what every man upon the visible evidence of demonstration and Records, may rationally believe.  
It cannot be denied, but if there be in one County or City two Thousand Writs or Actions of Debt, made out in a year to Arrest, not above five hundred of them do proceed or come to Appearance, and that of that five hundred unagreed, there are scarce half of them that are declared against, or make any defence, and not half of that half ever come to be tried, and that those do also most commonly come to an end or determination.  
Where there is no Demurrers, or matters of difficulty in Law, or peevishness in some of the parties to occasion the contrary, within less than a third Term, that many thousands of Actions are both in the Superior courts at Westminster, and the Country and hundred court Barons, and the inferior Courts, determined within a few days, weeks, or months, very many in a quarter of a year, and those that remain uncompounded and undispatched, do not survive the contention or trouble of half a year after the Suit commenced or begun.  
So that all things considered, if the Laws and Praxis in Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, Brabant, and all the other Kingdoms and Provinces of the Christian world, civil and municipal, shall be rightly compared with our more happy, less troublesome, and chargeable, they will not be found to afford to their people such a quick dispatch of Justice adequate, and ready way unto it as ours have done, and will always do, if they be not turned out of their old course and channel.  
By an Invention now proposed, which will be as illegal as unparallelled, and hath no other precedent or pattern then that late way of proceeding in Actions of Ejectment hatched in the levelling or Oliverian times, and hath then and ever since amongst knowing and good men, gained no better an esteem then that of a public grievance, and a monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptum, spawned and bred up in a Rebellion, when Monarchy was Banished, and the word of God and Laws of the Land were shamefully, and as much as they could, be misused.  
For that there is an absurdity, confusion, and Hysteron Proteron in it, putting the Cart before the Horse, and making a Declaration which should be after a summons Executed, and Appearance entered to precede the Appearance, and at the same time go along with the Summons, with a prefixion but from one Term to the next, which betwixt Easter and Trinity Term, being but with an Interval of seventeen days, Sundays not excepted, will be too short, peremptory, and prejudicial to Defendants, and in the Lent Vacation, which is commonly three Months, and the Summer Vacation which is never less than 15 weeks, and sometimes longer, may be as inconvenient to Plaintiffs, who by the ancient and more legal prefixions, with the small distance of time of 15 days from return to return, in the Term time might sooner have recovered their Debts, appoints no Trial by Juries, nor declares by what certain Authority or Court the Summons shall be made, whether by the Parties, Plaintiffs, or otherwise, and gives a promiscuous Conusance of Pleas to all the Courts of Law at Westminster, when as all but the court of Common Pleas, (some cases of privilege excepted) have by our ancient Laws, and Magna Charta, no jurisdiction or right therein.  
Makes the Summons for a time to come to falsify the Declaration if at the same time delivered with it, to suppose it to be already made, and the Declaration which supposeth it to be already made, and is and aught to be a copy of the Record in the Court wherein the Action is pretended to be laid, and intended to be Tried; to say he was Summoned when he was not, the Fieri to be a Factum, and the future to be a past or present, and will create some contradictions when the injured defendant shall come to wage his law, make Affidavit of a non Summons, or bring his action for damages sustained by a false Affidavit or return  
And will be sure enough to produce as necessary effects of causes, very many not easy to be altogether foreseen or enumerated mischiefs and inconveniences.  
Overturn and mutilate all our fundamental Laws, upon which the Monarchy of England, the best of Governments, and less arbitrary in the world, and the Justice of our Nation have for above one Thousand years been built and established, and cut and canton both it and our well tempered Monarchy into little pieces, and bring them as near as may be to an unhappy Republic, which will neither fit, or be for the good of the Nation.  
Deform, or almost annihilate our long approved Courts of Justice at Westminster, by taking away a great part of the Process, 
Judges.  and excellent Forms and Proceedings thereof, as Adonizebek is said to have done to his Captive Kings, when he did cut off their Thumbs and great Toes, destroy a great part of the King's Prerogative which limited and bounded by our Laws and our Kings and Princes Concessions, is no more than his just and necessary means of Government, and in and by his High court of Chancery superintends over all the Courts of Justice in the Kingdom.  
And as to the Law and Latin part of it, and granting out of Writs remedial under his Teste meipso, will appear to be a Court as ancient as the reason and civility of the Nation, from which all the other Courts of Westminster-Hall, Country-courts, Sheriffs Turns, Court-Leets and Baron, and all other Courts inferior in the Realm, may truly be said to have their beginning, the Matrix or Womb of all our Fundamental Laws, either before or since Magna Charta, which had its birth and being from it, the Repository (under the King in the absence of Parliaments) of Justice in all cases where an appeal to the King or Parliament, or the helps of Parliament shall be necessary, the Custom of the Nation Officina Justitiae, place and workhouse of Justice, & Lex Terrae, as it was in the year 1641. alleged to have been by the then House of Commons in Parliament.  
Take away a considerable part of the rights and privileges of Parliaments, Nobility, Peerage and Parliament Men.  
And the Liberties not only of them, but many of the Gentry, and men of great Estates in the Kingdom, some of them very largely extended in the Executing of Process and returna brevium, by the Charters of our Kings and Princes, or a long prescription have been granted or permitted, and vested in them, and their Ancestors and Predecessors, and in 52 counties of England and Wales, may after an account but of 20 in a county one with another, amount to no less than one Thousand, and of the Lords also of Manors in their court Barons, which, according to the computation but of three hundred Manors and court Barons in every of the said Counties one with another, will in all probability make a total of fifteen Thousand and six Hundred, 
Rot. Parl. 33. H. 6. M. 1.  if not a great many more, which the Commons in Parliament in the 33. year of the Reign of King Henry the VI were so unwilling to have invaded by the then undue practice of Attournys, as they did Petition the King for the Love of God, and in the way of Charity, to forbid it under great Penalties, which the King granted, If it be thought to the Judges reasonable, who being thereupon consulted, an Allocatur of that Petition was entered in the Margin of the Parliament Roll.  
Overthrow, or put into a Chaos or confusion all or much of the long used course and order of Process and Justice in the large and ancient Jurisdictions of the courts of Marshal-sea, Principality of Wales, Duchy of Lancaster, and country Palatines of Chester and Durham.  
And do the like to those great Jurisdictions of the Cinque-ports, and the Admiralty whose business and the ancient course and manage thereof, cannot conform to the designs of such an unpracticable way of getting in of Debts.  
Lame and discourage the very ancient and useful, if something better ordered Offices of Sheriffs, Under-Sheriffs, and their Bailiffs, in the Execution of Justice, and the Process of the courts thereof, by turning much of their business into a worse condition.  
Change and inconvenience the Government of the City of London, and Borough of Southwark, and of all the Cities, Boroughs, and Towns corporate of England and Wales, in their several administrations of Justice.  
And like a Hurricane whirling, and passed through the Nation, at once spoil or confound all the Courts of Justice, great and little, therein and abridge or take from them their ancient and hitherto justly allowed Rights and Jurisdictions, which to them and their predecessors, have with our incomparable Magna Charta, been no seldomer than 30 times confirmed by Acts of Parliament.  
Will be directly repugnant unto, and against Magna Charta, 
42. E. 3. cap. 3.  and the Statute of 42. E. 3. a branch or limb thereof, which at the request of the Commons, and for the good governance of them, ordained that none be put to answer without presentment before Justices, or matter of Record, or by due Process of Law, and Writ Original, according to the Old Law of the Land.  
And if any thing should from thenceforth be done to the contrary, it should be void in the Law, and holden for Error.  
Be a great loss and damage to the King, in his Fines and Seals of Original Writs, the Seals of the Writs and Process Issuing out of his Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, Principality of Wales, Duchy of Lancaster, and County Palatine of Chester, and the amercements and Issues forfeited or returned upon Caepi Corpus, Writs of Habeas Corpus, and Distringasses; all which were intended by Law to be assistant to the defraying of his great charges in the Salaries and supports of the Lord Keeper, Master of the Rolls, Judges, and Officers employed in the Administration of Justice, which taken away, will render him to be in that particular less considered, and in a worse case than Oliver Cromwell was, who by his miscalled Parliaments, and Instrument of an Arbitrary Protectorship, was besides his charge of the Navy, and Horse and Foot Guards, allowed two hundred thousand pounds per Annum, for the charge of the Government and Administration of Justice.  
Take away from the King much of the Law Tax upon the writs and process, which a late Act of Parliament consented unto for supply of his urgent occasions, and bereave him of his never denied Prerogative, and benefit of Utlaries.  
Extirpate the Anciently and legally allowed Essoynes de malo lecti, or veniendo, de ultra mare, or in servitio Regio, or any hindrance which might happen to excuse their non-appearance after a lawful Summons in Debt, which by the Laws of Nature and Nations have been in cases of necessity, Inundation of waters, or employment for the public never denied.  
Turn all, or the most of the proceedings upon Actions of Debt into Surprises and Defaults, and disturb the more deliberate, satisfactory, and safe way of Trials by Juries.  
Make a default which no Law ever did, to have the force and effect of a Verdict by Jury when there was none.  
And debar the helps of Writs of Error, when all Mankind, as well Judges as Juries, and the parties and their Council on both sides, may err, and can have no assurance to be Infallible.  
Deprive the People of that part of our Magna Charta, 
9 H. 8. cap. 14.  which would have no man amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault, and for a great fault, after the quantity thereof, saving to him his Contenement, and to a Merchant his Merchandise, and that none be amerced but by the Oath of good and lawful Men of the vicinage, which did not certainly intend a Debtor to be ruined for a small default, or to be debarred of his Trial by his Peers.  
And obliterate the equity of the Act of Parliament of 13. E. 1. which providing that he that recovereth a Debt, 
13. E. 1. cap. 18.  may Sue Execution by writ of Fieri facias, or Elegit excepteth the Oxen and Beasts of the Blow, and cannot be rationally supposed to favour such a Ruin upon a Debtor, when for want of evidence and witnesses, he shall not be able to escape the fury of such a default.  
And likewise that part of Magna Charta which granted that the City of London should have and enjoy all the old Liberties and Customs, 
9 H. 3. ca 9  which it hath been used to have, and that all other Cities, Boroughs, and Towns, and the Barons of the five Ports, and all other Ports, should have all their Liberties and free Customs, and did not take it (as it may be conjectured) to be any reason that a surprise in Actions or Suits for Debts, should by Malice or Tricks, without pleading, or reasonable time given for Defence, destroy them and their Trade, and Families, and all their endeavours before and after.  
Which the prudent Romans held to be so unjust, as where they gave a Plaintiff but three hours to Plead, they allowed the Defendant nine.  
And it is not yet gone out of the memory of Man, that in the year 1642 or 1643, the course of stealing or hurrying of Judgements, now unhappily borrowed from the Innovation of the late wicked times of Usurpation in Actions of Ejectment, was believed by Justice Bacon in the Court of King's Bench, and Justice Reeve in the Court of Common Pleas, to be such a vioviolation of our Laws, as they Publicly declaimed against it, and threatened to imprison any Attorney that should practise in such a manner.  
And with great authority and warrant of our Laws, and right reason, for that as it was justly and truly said by the Judges in the Reign of King Edward the first, that non summonitus nec attachiatus per Legem terre prejudiciari non potest, and Fleta an approved Lawyer in the Reign of that King, and King Edward the second his Son hath published it to be a great and known Truth, that the Court of Common Pleas cannot hold Plea in real and personal Actions, without the Commission or Authority of a Writ original out of the Chancery, 
Fleta. lib. cap. 34.  and that without it, nec Warrantum nec Jurisdictionem neque Coercionem habent, and our Laws did then and long after not proceed upon such warrant or commission until the Plaintiff had actually given sureties to prosecute and maintain his action, and the Sheriff to whom such original Writ was directed, for to summon or attach the debtor to appear before the said justices had returned that he was summoned or attached as the nature of the Action required, or had nothing whereby to be summoned or attached.  
When but a few years preceding, that well deserved indignation of those two worthy Judges, that excellent, most just, laudable, and rational course of justice had been endeavoured to have been subverted by one Elsliot of a degree betwixt an Attorney and a Barrister, and a man very bold & able enough to make and contrive tricks and abuses in Law proceedings, who having about the middle of the reign of King Charles the Martyr as a Reprobate and Cast away in the Law shifted himself from England into Ireland, and from thence after some bad pranks there played returning back again with as much poverty as impudence attending upon him, and having a desire to get some money by a contrivance, to gain a sudden possession of some Lands or houses for one as bad as himself, upon a judgement by default against the Landlord or his Tenant who were to know nothing of it, caused a declaration to be prepared in an action of Ejectment against a feigned Deft. or ejector in the name of a feigned Lessee upon a short Lease pretended to be made by his naughty Client, and left at the house of the Tenant, who not well apprehending the force and extent of the project, a judgement by default was entered, possession surprised and taken for which upon complaint made to the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, in which Court the action was supposed to have been laid, and examination of the fact, the judgement was made void, possession restored, and Master Elsliot the contriver, committed and told by Justice Barkley, that it was a shame that ever he should come or show his face in a Court of justice.  
Howsoever getting himself afterwards enlarged, and the confusion and troubles of the late civil Wars disturbing and breaking in upon the Law and all the Courts of Justice, Mr. Elsliot; began again to appear to be somebody, & engages in another exploit, which was to gain by the like device, accompanied with force & some other naughty ways, possession of an house and a very considerable estate in Lands in the County of Essex of Sir. Adam Littleton's the Father of Sir Thomas Littleton Knight, now a member of the house of Commons in Parliament, who to his great cost and trouble endeavouring to extricate and free himself and his Father's Estate from the peril and danger of such a villainy, may well remember that a counterfeit record was in that pretended suit privately laid in the office of the Records in the Tower of London, sworn unto, and offered to be justified, but was at length taken as it ought to be for a Roguish piece of Forgery, and Sir Adam Littleton and his Estate freed from any further disturbance.  
Whilst that no small parcel of Knavery being in great respect with the Agitators of the then called Parliament Army, Levellers & other State moulders, and styling himself the Esquire at arms, being sometimes a Prisoner in Newgate, and sometimes out, wanted not a Liberal maintenance from his Patrons and great Masters, until death shortly after unexpectedly rid the world of him.  
From which reasonless and ungodly formula or way of proceeding, rather to be exploded then embraced in actions of Ejectment, and so utterly against the Law (evil examples being oftener followed then good) by some of his proselytes and the connivance or want of courage in some of the Judges, in the time of the Cromwelian usurpation, dum sui non fuerunt, knowing better, but doing worse, the same came again to be revived, and creep into an allowance, with a note endorsed by the Attorney in the name of the incognito or casual ejector, directed to the Tenant or Landlord, requiring them to appear and look to the action, and confess Lease Ouster and Entry, otherwise he must and would confess a judgement, or let it pass by default.  
As if such a judgement acknowledged by practice and confederacy, could not with a great deal of ease have been reversed by a court that should not be so abused, and the party's contrivant severely punished.  
Of which kind of irregularity in the Law▪ and wand'ring out of the old Paths, never to be justified, the Justices of the court of Kings-bench have been so sensible as they have for some years last passed, caused a Writ of Latitat (which anciently was used to be warranted by a Writ Original of the Chancery) to be awarded and sued out against the feigned ejector.  
And it is not half a year ago, since the Pillory of Westminster proclaimed a Brewer to be more Crafty than wise or honest, when to gain an indirect possession of some houses by Judgements upon defaults, having fuddled the Tenants with Drink and Tobacco.  
And giving them pieces of the declarations as waste paper, when they knew not what had been written therein to give fire to their tobacco thought he had snapped them with judgements upon defaults when he made oath that he had left declarations at their houses, where they were in that manner made drunk, and could neither say or swore to the contrary.  
But unde or from whence soever it came, or if this new manner of Law proceedings could have derived its pedigree from any more Noble an Ancestor.  
It will if every Client and his Attorney who is no member of the court, but only represents his Client, shall be suffered to make the summons or Citations, and to be both Party, Judge, and Sheriff, without an authentication of hand, seal, or stamp, of any Court or their subordinate officers (which no Court of Justice, Christian or Heathen, hath yet adventured to allow) be hugely opposite to the rules and maxims, as well of the Civil as the Common Law, used for more than one thousand years, that nemo privatus Citare potest, and bereave the high court of Chancery of those Rights which do truly and justly belong unto it, and the Judges of all other the Courts and circuits of England and Wales, who by an act of Parliament made in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King E. 1. and by ancient custom long before used are to have their Clericos Irrotulantes sworn and intelligent officers to record and make their writs and process. 
13. E. 1. cap. 30.   
Frustrate the Anciently well approved power of the court of Chancery in their process upon contempts, when there shall be as there will always happen to be matters of Equity in cases of Fraud, Combinations, Hardships, or Rigours of Law fit to be relieved by the said court, and a great deal more than were formerly, if the Creditors shall by this new Model of common Law proceedings be let loose to act their own will and furies upon their insolvent or not punctually performing debtors, and that high court shall upon contempts or disobedience of its process of Attachments or commissions of Rebellion have no power to punish them by arrest or imprisonment being the only means tueri Jurisdictionem to maintain and uphold its Authority and Jurisdictions.  
The hands of Justice and coercive power & authority of it, will be paralitique manacled & less in the laying by of the Sheriffs and their very necessary under Officers, by whom the Law received its Execution, which is as the life of it, and might as well be made use of in the Summons, Attachment or Process before Judgement, as they are to be afterwards, where there are and may be dangers of killing of men (if ever there were so many as is informed) by how much an execution after Judgement of Body or goods being unbaylable, is more terrible, and to be avoided by the debtor, then that which is bailable, and in many cases to be discharged by an appearance only to the action, and if the Plaintiffs or their servants, the Attorneys, Clarks, Constables or Porters, must be the Sheriffs or their Bailiffs, there may be more danger of resistance, killing, tumults, and commotions, than ever there was of Bailiffs, and of more extortion and tricks, in those that are not sworn, then in those that are sworn and bound up by many Statutes and Acts of Parliament, and the penalties thereof.  
Or if arrests and the execution of Justice by the Sheriffs and their subordinate officers could be any primary or never failing efficient causes of the sl●ughters seldom happening upon arrests, or that to prevent it there will be any such necessity of laying aside or disuseing that necessary office of Sheriffs in the execution of Justice, as well after judgement as before, that of the raising the posse comitatus in cases of a forcible resistance of their taking possessions or levying the King's debts, is to be put under the same fate, and neither Sheriff or Constable may arrest a fellow, but obey the like method of Summoning him at his house or Lodging, to know if he be willing to be indicted, come to his Trial, and adventure a Hanging.  
But no well built or grounded reason being likely to be found to support such reasonless and lawless opinions, the Adorers of such Imagination may assure their disciples that Elias is to bring the reason, and that until than they must expect it, and may in the mean time do much better to give them leave to believe that.  
Such a System of Infamy and Cruelty, and an unmerciful credit, tearing course of summoning publicly by papers left at the debtor's Houses or Lodgings, or which is worse, fastened upon the outward doors, which the malicious contrivances or tricks of ill affected or violent Plaintiffs, if not prohibited by some severe penalties, will too often prompt them unto, and in the consequence bring an Inundation of ruins upon this Nation who do now more than half of them live upon credit, and are so generally indebted, as they will not be much wide or from the Mark, who do believe that half the Lands and Estates real and Personal of the Kingdom sold to the utmost will not be enough to pay the debts thereof.  
And by Suing out as it were Commissions of Bankrupt against all the Nation, write, Lord have mercy upon us, upon too many men's doors, and now there is so little money left them, take a way the Credit that should help to support them.  
Add affliction to affliction to all the Loyal nobility Gentry, and Citizens, that had impoverished themselves by their Loyalty, and taking part with their King and his Laws, and the Church of England, and leave them to the invisible mercy of those that did help to Rob, Plunder, and Sequester them.  
Bankrupt and undo most of the Tradesmen, and be a means to help the overhasty Creditors to a composition of four Shillings in the Pound, or a great deal less, when as otherwise, with a little patience, they might have had their whole debts paid unto them, and make the unbridled fury of one Creditor, to be a cause of the never payment of other Creditors debts.  
When plaintiffs are many times as unreasonable as they are unmerciful, insolent and unperswadable, where they can either find or keep advantages, and that many an Action as well as many a Plaintiff, may be Malicious, Oppressive, Unjust, and Vexatious, and such a fancied speedy way of getting in debts, may be very instrumental for the advance of evil purposes and knavish designs.  
No Inhabitant of Wales where their Laws do already allow them an Iterum summons nor in the Cincque ports or any of the Counties palatine of Chester, Lancaster, or Durham, will be able to borrow any money in London, or out of their own Countries upon the best security, when that those who shall be employed to serve the Summons, being not the Sheriff's officers, may be in danger to be beaten, and cannot be outlawed without several Writs of Capias  
Many Tradesmen do only subsist by their credits, and take up great sums of money upon an opinion of their present abilities, or future gain, by which they do commonly give no other security than their Persons, and by the advantages thereof do many times by their industry attain unto great Estates, but if the process of arrest be taken away, they can hope no more to be so easily entrusted, for that an Attachment of the person doth secure the plaintiffs debt, either by present payment or causing other satisfaction, which the proceedings by summons in this manner will never attain unto.  
The fear and disgrace of a Process of Arrest do put a period to many suits before the persons be attached, and before appearance, for that as a man will give all for his Life, so he will do much for his Liberty, and when men will either not regard a Summons, or delay to give satisfaction or an appearance, they will make a great deal more haste to prevent an arrest.  
Debtors are several times or often called upon by their Creditors, which is as much as a Summons made without a Legal Officer, but yet neither that nor a Writ of summons doth drive the most of them, to any care of payment, until the Process of Arrest do issue forth, which is more compulsory, and will be sure to prove a more speedy remedy for the Creditors than the way of Summons.  
And a large and long experience consensu rectae rationis & totius antiquitatis, and many ages will evidence that the benefit of the process of arrest hath been very great to this Nation, and that the care and wisdom of several Statutes and acts of Parliament who have always provided for the public before the private, universals before particulars, believed certainties before incertainties, and long and never failing experiences before remote probabilities, and have from time to time given a larger extent unto it then before it had, may tell us that for many ages past it hath been the best remedy for the people to recover their debts, and to compose other differences that our forefathers in some hundreds of years last passed could devise.  
And that to give the force of an Utlary after Judgement in a few days upon such a peremptory summons betwixt the terms of Easter and Trinity, and in the longer intervals, betwixt the other terms, doth scarcely allow half the time, which our Laws thought reasonable and fit to the bringing of a man to be outlawed, which for its rigour and severity, 
Bracton. lib. 2. de corona. cap. 22.  was not by Law as Bracton saith to be over hastened, but to be after three Writs of Capias returned non est inventus and eight several contempts more.  
Will settle upon the plaintiff a liberty appropriated only to a special Capias utlagatum, to take both body and goods at one time, which the Law where the body is first taken, although the Lands and Goods of the Debtors, unless in cases of extents, upon Statute, Merchant, or of the staple, and Utlary be otherwise sufficient to answer the debts will not condescend unto.  
When unless it could be probable possible or Imaginable, which a large proportion of melancholy can hardly do, that a personal estate in goods, money, or Chattels, in the debtor's house or shop, could be always ready and enough to pay that and all other his debts (and the King were no Creditor, for his debts are to be first satisfied) there must where a Man owes one thousand Pounds to ten several Creditors, of one hundred pounds a piece, and hath but one hundred pounds in estate towards the satisfaction of those several debts, and one of the ten Creditors hath out run the other & seized it, be a necessity of a nihil habet to be returned, & the severest Plaintiffs, must against their wills be constrained to forsake the Byways of this new kind of summons, and make what hast they can with some repentance into the bargain to return out of them into the plain roads and highway of arresting the Body, or where there is a haste of the getting in the money, or there is a suspitio fugae, or his insufficiency, or a necessity (which may often be the case) to outlaw a fugitive, or invisible debtor not easy to be taken or come at.  
Bonds given to the Sheriffs, or spetial Bail before Judges, so many times necessary according to the old usage and customs of our Laws & Courts of Justice, & fortifying many a debt, will by this new course of proceeding be no more to be hoped for or insisted upon by the Creditor or Plaintiff, who will be put in a worse condition than they were before, and where upon some doubt or mistrust of the debtor or his Estate he might have had two more sureties or Strings to his Bow then he had before, that the Deft. should answer the Action, or yield his body to Prison, must now be content with what he did not like, when by an arrest he might have had a better security.  
Instruct or give warning in a Lent or Summer Vacation to an insolvent or suspected debtor, to convey away himself, goods or estate, and by such an unmerciful way of Process and proceedings, will not seldom encumber and ruin their debts and debtors, as many cruel creditors in the times of a more gentle and Christian way of process have done, to the great loss of themselves as well as others, for want of a competent prudence and patience.  
Occasion, multiply and increase perjuries, which are already too frequent and in fashion.  
And therefore when all is done, and some scores of good Acts of Parliament, without repeal, or any mention of them, and many a lawful reasonable and useful custom and course of the Courts of Justice of this Kingdom shall be run over to prepare a way for this innovation, which if it be well inspected and considered, and put in the Balance of Law and right, Reason against the old, and that he or his posterity that is now a Plaintiff, may be hereafter defendants, will certainly appear to be much lighter than the old, which is the better and more experimented, and not only to be very destructive to the design held forth, and benefits expected by it, but very disproportionable to the public good & the Laws & Liberties of the people.   

CHAP. II. That the most part of that desired Innovation, was borrowed from the said Mr. Elsliots wicked invention, and a wild System not long after framed, and from some also now much disused part of the Civil Law.  
ANd the promoters of the petarre invention, to blow up the Estates and better part of the People (for Usurers, Brokers, oppressors, and such as grind and devour the languishing and wanting part of them, are not like to be malignant to such a profitable engine for their purposes) when they shall have made their account with God and Man, for bringing such a desolation upon their fellow-subjects, for some selfended interests.  
Will bring themselves and all to this conclusion, that the most part of it was taken from Mr. Elsliots wicked invention, and another part of it framed out of a wild System, not long after thrown amongst a disaffected party of the People, to infect those who were mad enough before; and that the little colour and glimmering of reason, that seems to keep them company, was borrowed from a now much disused part of the Civil Law; that in cases of contumacy, the Judge after a citation served, and disobeyed, did mitte●e Actorem in possessionem bonorum.  
And that even in that Custom of the Civil Law, 
Clem. 1. de Jud.  these Innovators did not consider as they might, that such a citation public or peremptory, 
Gail. 1. obss. 16. l. ejus sect. si quis ad municip.  is by the Civilians themselves acknowledged, to be a deviation à jure communi, & in casibus necessitatis tantum recepta quando alio modo, qui● citari non potest. Secondly, Vbi locus non est ●utus ubi citandus habitat. Thirdly, Si persona est vagabunda quo casu edictum eo loco affigi debet ubi solita est conversari.  
That such a possession is notwithstanding but fiduciary, and the Plaintiff only put in possession, Custodia causa & vice pignoris deti●et donee reus veniat responsurus.  
That a 2d. trial, decree, or sentence, & restitutio in integrum do not seldom afterwards follow.  
And that appeals from the lower Courts or Judges, to the higher Commissions of adjuncts and revisions, will never allow that Law to be ●o desirable, expedite, or little chargeable as our Common Laws are, which our novelists would persuade us to renounce and abandon.  
Of which and the disparity of a great part of the Body of the Civil Laws with those of our cipal and common Laws, the Dukes, Earls, and Barons of England, were so sensible as in the eleventh year of the Reign of King Richard the 2. in the cause and appeal of Thomas Duke of Gloucester and others against Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland, 
11. R 2. in Rotsie Process & Judic contra le duc. d' Ireland & autres.  the Earl of Suffolk and others they denied to proceed to Judgement thereupon, according to the Law civil and declared que la Roialme de Angliterre ne estoit devant ces Heures ne all intent du Roy & signiors de parliament unques ne sirrah rule ne govern per le ley civil, and our Ancestors more than what they retained of some of the actions rules and directions of reason which that excellent Law afforded, 
Selden dissert. ad Fletam ca 9  and was necessary, would not as our learned Selden hath observed constanti adhaesione by a constant perseverance and affection be drawn from that singular reverence and esteem which they had of the common Law, which so long a course of time and antiquity had fitted to their nature and Genius.  
In so much as William de la Pole Duke of Suffolk was in the Reign of King Henry the sixth accused amongst other things by the Commons in Parliament that he had sought to introduce the Civil Law. 
ro: parl 28. H, 6. m. 19 & ab inde usque 47.   
And the great Cardinal Wolsey was in the Reign of King Henery the eight indicted or informed against, quod ipse intendebat finaliter antiquissimas Anglicanas leges penitus subvertere & enervare in universum & hoc Regnum Anglie & ejusdem Regni populum legibus Imperialibus dict. legibus Civilibus & earundem legum canonibus subjugare. 
Trin. 23. H. 8. coram▪ rege.   
And King James coming from a Kingdom where those Laws were much in use, and seemed to have some inclination to introduce or intermingle some part of it with our Common Laws, 
King James his Speech in the Star Chamber.  did notwithstanding forbear to do it, acknowledging that the Civil Law was not applicable to this government, or fit for it.  
And our Innovators that have been so wiling to intermingle with their System that part of the Civil Law, which in the cases of contumacy did allow a missio bonorum replevisable as aforesaid, may upon a further search and enquiry satisfy themselves and others that for the expedition of Justice put on and persuaded by the increase of trade and insolvency of debtors the Caesarean or Civil Law hath long ago forsaken their course of granting judgements for not appearing & missionem rum and Seizure, and found the Citatio realis captura & incarceratio, to be the more ready and less prejudicial way of compelling debtors or Defendants to appear in judgement.  
For certainly to enforce, persuade or give a liberty to the people in their Law Suits and concernments depending thereupon to circulate, when they may go a more easy and less expensive way, nearer, more straight and better conducing to their honest ends, will be but to vex and tyre both Plaintiffs and defendants, and multiply their charges.  
When to draw and prepare the declarations which in Debt and common Actions were until the fourteenth year of the Reign of King James to be entered by the Filacers, and aught yet, if the cause or reason of their remitting that ancient part of their employment do cease, and be taken away, the Plaintiffs will in this new devised expedient for a quick and Pie-powder Course of Justice, be put to a charge for the drawing of their Declarations before hand, when it may be there will be no need of them, and to pay for the Copies of them, which in a more regular course after appearances entered, were to be paid for by the Defendants.  
And to the Trouble and charge of entering judgements and the hazard of the loss of charges poundage and other fees paid to Sheriffs and Bailiffs upon execution, or paying of damages where they are wrongfully or not well obtained multitude of Affidavits, pro & con, of motions in Court on the one side and the other many referrences and reports wagers of non-summons, writs of restitution, actions on the case for non summons, or for slander or defamation brought for malicious contrivances cum muliis aliis which will increase and heighten the Bill of Charges.  
And that goods Seized inventaried and sold by under Sheriffs and Bailiffs at half or less value, though it may suffice one greedy and merciless Creditor, will not be unlikely to defeat another or many others of their more just debts and utterly blast the Debtor in his credit by which he might well have subsisted and survived the disgrace and trouble of so furious a prosecution.  
And that the long ago trodden path, or way of compelling or bringing men unto judgement or unto Courts of Justice, would not so frequently be made use of in England, the way of Summons Pone and distress being not yet altogether forsaken, and disused as it was formerly) for that betwixt the Reigns of Canutus a Danish King, & the 25 year of the reign of King Edward the Third, and for some ages after, there neither could be any, either frequency of arrest, or necessity for it, as there hath been since and is now.   

CHAP. III. The reason and necessity of the more frequent use of Writs of Arrest, and Outlawry than was before thy making of the Statute of 25 E. ca 17.  
IN regard that in those former Ages there were more Lands than Tenants, more real Estates, & but little personal, the Trade of the Nation not the fortieth part of what it is now, & so little before the Reign of King Edward the third, as those few Merchants that came hither, had Letters of safe conduct granted unto them before they came; and that the Commerce and Trade, which was in King Edward the Third's time & long after, was only with the Esterlings, and Hanse Towns, Burgundy, Aquitaine, & some Genoese, and Italian Merchants, (the Turkey, East and West- India, and African trades not then or long after known or used) Usury so horrid and damnable a Crime as it was, a cause of Excommunication, denial of Christian Burial, or a power to make a last Will and Testament▪ the Friborghs or Tubing in every County, so obliged men to an obedience to the Laws, & the public peace, as every man of the Tubing or Freborgh were bound upon all occasions to bring each other to Justice, & the Nobility Gentry, & Masters of their numerous Families were to do the like, for all that were de manu pastu, or in their service; the Lords of Manors kept much of their demesnes in their own hands, with great Stocks & Herds of cattle thereupon, had their Bondmen and Bondwomen in their Families, Villains & Neifes regardant to their Manors, did let their other Lands for small Rents, and much personal service, as to plow their Land, now their Grass, make their Hey, reap their Corn, carry in their Harvest & Wood, do a great part of their Husbandry, and sometimes ride with them 600 Abbeys and Religious Houses, with their numerous Monks, Friars, Nuns, and all their Dependants and Servants belonging to them▪ lived out of the reach of Writs and Process, and all or most of them and the secular Clergy in above 9600. Parishes, so formidable as they were as it were exempt from common Process, and no man durst lay violent hands upon them, that many thousand Tenants in Capite and by Knight service, and the Tenants which did hold their Lands of the Nobility & Gentry, either as freehold or copy by Lease or at Will, in the times of that great Hospitality, Protection, and Comfort, which they receivedunder them, and the great Veneration, Awe, and respects which they paid unto them could, never find it to be either safe or convenient for them to commence or prosecute any Action or Suit in Law against them, or any of their very numerous Dependants, Friends, Kindred, or Alliances, and there were many thousands which in the Reigns of King Henry the 1, Henry the 2, Richard the 1, King John, Henry the 3, and Edward the first were Croysadoed for the wars in the Holy-land and at Jerusalem, and thereby claimed and enjoyed a Freedom from any arrests or molestations concerning the paymentof their debts, with the many necessary protections given unto such as were employed in Servitio Regis, which the said several Princes & several of their successors, whilst they had so many Provinces in France, and wars for the defence of the same, could not deny unto those whose service they made use of, increase of people by reason of more than formerly frequent marriages of the laics and the marriages of all our Clergy, which before had been for some hundred of years forbidden, could not but administer so many occasions to disuse the more slow way of the process of summons pone & distringas, and make use of that more expedite and quicker way of recovery of Debts, or bringing men to justice, when in so great a change as hath since happened in the alteration of the Estates, Manners, business, and trade of the Nation, not only at home, but a broad inward and outward, and that every man could not like a Snail carry his house upon his head, or be sure always to be found in it, there could not be a few very great and pressing necessities to call for it, especially.  
When if all the People of the Nation were numbered, or put into Ranks, there would be,  
1. Freeholders'.  
2. Copy-holders', Lease-holders', and such as have an Estate only in Tithes, Annuities, or Rend Charges.  
3. Men of Estate only in Goods.  
4. Or of Trade and Credit only.  
5. Men whose Estates are only in Money at use, or abroad in other men's hands.  
6. Or of no Estate but what they carry about with them, or hope for by their Friends, or their Industry, or some future preferment.  
7. Such whose Estates depend upon their daily labours, or profits arising thereby, as mechanics Artificers, Servants, Labourers, and the like.  
8. Mariners, and a sort of adventitious people, who have little or no abode, going or coming to or from beyond the Seas, Merchants, Strangers, and the like.  
Of all which several sorts of people, the Freeholders' and first Classis are the only men, who are properly to be summoned, or to be within this new proposed Law, because they have lands & Estates to be known, and thereby summoned, and are to be found with some certainty, but are not the fortieth part of those which have not.  
Of the second sort, the Copyhold Estates, which being very near a fifth part of the Nation, are not extendable or liable to debts, nor can without manifest prejudice to the Lords of the Manors, whose Predecessors or Ancestors did under certain Limitations permit them to enjoy them, be made to be so; Tithes are for the most part not distrainable, and may be sold or compounded for before they be due, Leases may be surrended or assigned, so as none shall easily find the true Proprietor, Annuities or Rent-Charges are not extendable.  
The third and fourth sort, may either convey away their Goods, or have very little of them.  
The Estate of the fifth, either not to be found out, or hardly to be come at.  
And the experience of some Thousands of years past, and the latter as well as the former Ages, can and will bear witness, and record of the usefulness and approbation of the Process of Summons pone and Distress, where the Defendants are Freeholders', & have a visible Estate, and of Arrest in case of Contumacy and Contempt of Courts of Justice, and suspicion of Flight and Insolvencies.   

CHAP. IU. The Ancient use as well as necessity of the Process of Arrest, and outlawry in this and other Nations.  
FOr it may be evident to any, who shall not too much be led by a causeless prejudice, or an humour of censuring that which they do not understand, that an attachment upon Pones do cause a manucaption or Bail, and that upon on a Distringas made thereupon, a manucaption of the Defendants person is Returned as well as the issues or profits of his Lands or goods, that the words of Attach or Capias, used in the writs, process, and records of our Law, are in many things Synonimous, and of one and the same signification.  
And that the proceedings in law by process of Capias and Arrest may not at all seem to be unwarrantable, cruel, and unjust, when precedents and approbation of the like and greater severities are to be found in the sacred, and always to be believed records of holy Writ, in the old and new Testament, 
Numb. 15. v. 32, 33, 34.  as the putting the man in ward that was found gathering of sticks upon the Sabbath whilst the Children of Isreal were in the wilderness, 
Levit. 15. v. 39  because it was not declared what should be done unto him, 
2 Reg. 4. 1. & 7.  and if thy Brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a Bond Servant; and the selling of a debtor and taking his Children to be bondmen.  
If thou be surety for thy friend, 
Proverbs. 6. 1. and 2.  thou art snared and taken with the words of thy mouth, 
Mat. 18. v. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.  that of taking and casting into Prison for debt until the utmost Farthing was paid, and such or the like coertions to compel men to appear in Courts of Justice and satisfy actions, were long before the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour in use amongst the Athenians in their Laws. And the Romans, those great Masters of Liberty, who having their Lictores & Sergeants carrying their Rods and Axes before their Magistrates, expressly ordained that if a man would not or could not come before the Judge, 
Sigonius de Judiciis, cap. 18. 372.  he should give Bail to answer the action.  
Metellus one of the Tribunes of the People at Rome arrested one of the Consuls for taking away his Horse.  
The great Scipio Africanus being called to account for moneys received, 
Livy lib. 24.  and refusing to come to his answer, the Tribunes of the People, those great protectors of their supposed Liberties, 
Livy lib. 38. 1007.  urged very hard to have him Arrested, and fetched out of his house in the Country and made to appear.  
Julius Caesar was enforced to give Bail to his Creditors who were about to stay him when he went Praetor to Spain. 
Plutarch in vita Julii Caesaris.   
Urgulania a great favourite of Augusta, 
Tacit. annal lib. 2.  mother of Tiberius the Emperor, being summoned by Piso in an action of Debt, which she disobeying, was Arrested, but rescued and conveyed to Caesar's house, whereupon a great stir and tumult happening, and Augusta herself complaining that she was injured by it, the money notwithstanding was afterwards sent and paid by her; nor was such arresting of persons condemned by our Blessed Saviour when he advised Defendants to agree with their adversaries before they were by them delivered to the Judge, 
Mat. 5. 25.  and the Judge deliver them to the officer, and they be cast into Prison.  
Those Roman Laws and Customs being to be allowed for an inducement to our Common Laws to do the like, 
Selden Di●sert ad Fletam 478, 479▪ & 501.  which never refused to take in and borrow from other Nations any thing that might add to its own perfections and excellencies, and could be no strangers unto the Civil and Caesarean Laws brought into England about 50 years after Christ, when the Emperor Severus Reigned seven years together at York, and that great Lawyer Papinian as Praetor or Lord Chief Justice, governed the Civil affairs and Justice of this Nation under him, and those Laws continued as a Seminary of many of our Laws & Customs, as may be demonstrated for more than three hundred years after.  
By the Laws of Ina a Saxon King Reigning here in England betwixt the years 712 and 727. made suasu & instituto of Cenred his Father, Hedda and Erkenwald his Bishops, & omnium Senatorum & natu majorum & sapientum populi sui in magna servorum Dei frequentia; if the Plaintiff demanded right to be done unto him by the Judge, 
In Legibus Inae. 8.  and could not obtain it, and the Defendant show no cause why he should not give him a Pledge or Sureties, the Judge was to be fined thirty shillings, and to do him right notwithstanding within a Week after.  
And then there could be no doubt but that he had power to compel him to appear, and to Punish his contumacy, for otherwise the Judge could not be justly fined that had no power to enforce the Defendant to appear before him.  
And if a Pledge were required of him that was accused (which as to the giving of a Pledge or Bail was no less than the awarding of a Capias) and he had not wherewithal to do it before the Suit be determined, 
in Legibus Inae. 63.  another might lay down a Pledge for him, upon condition that he remained with him or in his Power (which is a most ancient and clear example) saith that great AntiAntiquary Sr. Henry Spelman) of being Bailed out of Prison or giving Bail to answer the Action. 
Spel. Gloss. in voce Ball 69. & in verb capital. 140.   
By the Laws of King Edgar (who Reigned Anno Dom. 971.) made Frequenti senatu, 
Lamb. Sax. Laws 62.  every man was to have sureties who might have him forth coming to do right.  
By the Laws of Canutus made Sapientum consilio, 
Lamb. Sax. Laws 97. ib. 18.  who Reigned in Anno Dom. 1031. no man was to compel another by distraining or taking away Pledges to a Suit in another Liberty, 
Ex Chron. Jo. Brampton in legibus Canuti. §. 62.  unless he had thrice required right to be done him within the hundred.  
If any one be destitute of Friends, and cannot find Pledges, let him be put into Prison.  
In the Hundred Courts, 
Vide spelman's Glos. in voce Carkanun.  County Courts, Courts Leet & Baron, which (saith our Learned Selden) have a resemblance of the Customs of the old Germans brought hither by the Saxons, 
Selden. Janus Anglorum 43.  the Process are for the most part by Summons, Attachment, and distress, or if upon the Summons a nihil habet be returned, that is to say, hath nothing whereby he may be Summoned, than a Capias.  
By the Laws of King Edward the Confessor who Reigned in Anno Dom. 1044. 
Lambert Saxon Laws 138.  which were of so high esteem with the English, that after a commission to find them out by the oaths of twelve men in every County of England elected and chosen, they with much a do, Precibus & fletibus, 
Ibid. 149. & 158. ex Chronico Lichfieldensi.  obtained of William the Conqueror to have them confirmed, and were after so exceeding careful not to lose them, as the observation of those Laws, were by an oath afterwards taken by the succeeding Kings of England at the Coronation, more especially recommended unto them.  
Every man that would be accounted a Freeman, 
Cap. 64. Spelmans gloss. in verbo Friborge. 297.  aught to be in Pledge, that the Pledges might bring him to Justice if he should offend, and if he escape, such Pledges should pay what he was Sued for, which (saith our Sr. Henry Spelman in his Glossary resembles our Frank Pledge) and let the Hundred and County (say those Laws) be demanded for him as our Ancestors have ordained.  
For say the same King Edward's Laws, it is the greatest and highest security by which all men and their Estates are strongly upheld.  
By the Laws of William the Conqueror who confirmed the Laws of King Edward the Confessor, omnis homo qui voluerit se teneri pro liber● sit in plegio ut plegius eum habeat ad Justitiam si quid offenderit & si quisquam talium videant plegii & solvant quod Calumpinatum est, 
LL. Gulielmi Conquestor 64.  every man who would live or be accounted as a free holder is to live in frank Pledge, so as his Neighbour or Pledge may bring him to Justice, if he shall offend, and his Pledges (or Neighbour in the Tithing) are to look unto it and pay that which shall be demanded of him, and he shall be adjudged to Pay.  
By the Laws of Henry the 1 made Concilio Baronum, 
In leg. H. 1. cap. 29.  he which is summoned to the Hundred Court, and without any just necessity refuseth to come, if he be able let thirty Pence be taken from him, for the first and second time (which seemeth to be a forfeit) and let him be distreined by the Hundred, 
Lindenbrog. glos. in verbo pulsare.  but let him be put to Pledges till the day of Pleading.  
And he which was brought or compelled by Process before the Judge, 
In leg. H. 1. cap. 5. and in Capital. Car. & Lodovic. Imp. lib. 7. 283. Goldastus Tom. 3. Imperial. Constitut. 30.  for so the word Pulsatus in that Law of H. 1. was by the Civil Law, and the Laws of the Longobards commonly rendered, might appeal if he suspected his Judges, and appealing might not be detained in Custody.  
Ranulphus de Glanvil who recorded much of what was the practice of the Courts of Justice in England in his time, and was Lord Chief Justice in the Reign of King Henry the 2 when (as he saith in his proaemio or Epistle to that Book) the Laws then in use were founded upon reason and ancient Customs, 
Glanvil in proaemio.  the King willing to be advised, the Judges, men of great Wisdom and Knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom, and Justice so faithfully administered, as the great men could not oppress the Poor.  
Writeth, 
Lib. 10. cap. 3. & 11.  that if the Defendant appeared not in an Action of Debt, after he was Summoned, an Attachment was awarded and a Distringas as in other Pleas.  
And it was in those times held to be Common Law, 
Ibid. lib. 8. cap. 5.  that where a fine was Levied, and that after 3 Essoynes either of the Parties refused performance, tunc remanet in misericordia Regis & salvo attachiabitur quous que securitatem in veniret bonam.  
In the Reign of King Henry the 3. (as appeareth by Bracton a Judge and learned Lawyer of those times, in his book delegibus & consuetudinibus Angliae, compiled as he saith ex veteribus Judiciis Justorum out of ancient records and memorial; if upon the 4th day of the return of the Summons in an Action of Covenant or Trespass, 
Bracton lib. 5. de Exceptionibus 440. 441.  the Defendant appeared not, whether the Summons were returned or not, an Attachment was awarded.  
If he came not then a second Attachment was awarded to put the Defendant to better Pledges or securities.  
And if he had not Land which might be taken into the King's hands, or by which he might be distrained, the Sheriff should be commanded to take his Body or bring him, and the Pledges were to be in misericordia quia ulterius non sunt summonendi, and if he came not at the day appointed, sed maliciose se subtraxerit & latitaverit quod Corpus inveniri non possit vel forte se transtulerit extra Comitatum & potestatem vicecomitis & vicecomes mandavit quod non fuit in ventus in balliva sua, then in default of his appearance, three Writs of Distringas shall be made out one after another, the first by all his Lands and Chattels, second by all his Lands and Chattels, ita quod nec ipse nec aliquis pro eo nec per ipsum manum apponat ita quod habeat Corpus ejus ad alium diem & si tunc non veniret precipiatur vicecomiti quod distringat eum per omnes terras & Catalla & quod Capiat omnes terras & omnia Catalla sua in manum domini Regis & Capta in manus domini Regis detineat quousque dominus Rex aliud inde preceperit & quod de exitibus eorundem domino Regi respondeat.  
And for this kind of proceedings cited a Record in Michaelmas Term in the Third year of that King's reign, which in its use and nature carried along with it a restraint of the Body of the Defendant, for the Sheriff was by the Writ to distrain the defendant, Ita quod haberet corpus, and it would be in vain to distrain him who perhaps had a small Estate or profit of his Lands to be destrained betwixt the Teste and return of the Writ if the Sheriff did not at the same time restrain or secure his Body to appear before the Justices at the time prefixed, to answer the contempt as well as the Action.  
But saith Bracton, 
Bracton. lib. 5. cap. 31. 9, 6, and 7.  if the Plaintiff post tot & tantas dilationes justiciam non fuerit consecutus should not after so many delays obtain Justice, what shall be done, for durum est enim quod placitum suum deserat & infecto negotio desperatus recedat domum, it would be hard that the Plaintiff should go home in despair, and be able to do nothing; and therefore concludes, that if it be a civil or personal action, for money, or upon any contract, it would be good to put the Plaintiff in possession of the Defendants goods and Chattels according to the quantity of his demand and summon the Defendant at a time limited to appear, and answer the Action, at which time if he do appear, he shall have his goods and Chattels restored unto him, so as he answer the Action otherwise, he shall never more be heard concerning his goods and Chattels, sed querens extunc verus possessor efficiretur, but the Plaintiffs shall from thence be reckoned the true owner and possessor thereof, si autem cum corpus non Inveniatur nec terras habuerit nec Catalla ille de quo quaeritur iniquum esset si Justicia remaneret vel malitia esset Impunita; But if his Body cannot be found, and he hath not any goods or Chattels, it would be unjust that Justice should be at a stand and not go forward, and that the evil actions of men should remain unpunished, and therefore whether the Action was pecuniaria vel injuriarum, was in Debt, or for money or Trespass, the Court was to proceed against him by Process of Utlary, propter contumaciam & inobedientiam factam domino Regi quia nullum majus Crimen quam Contemptus & inobedientia omnes enim qui in Regno sunt obedientes esse debent domino Regi & ad pacem suam & cum vocati vel summoniti per Regem venire contempserint faciunt se ipsos Exleges, for their contempt and disobedience to the King, because there is no greater Crime than contempt and disobedience, for all that are in his Kingdom are to be obedient to the King, and observe the peace and Justice thereof, and being called or Summoned by him, shall contemn it or refuse an obedience thereunto do make themselves Outlaws.  
Et ideo Utlagari deberent non tamen ad mortem vel membrorum truncationem si postea redierent vel intercepti fuerint cum causa utlagationis criminalis non existat sed ad perpetuam prisonam vel Regni abjurationem & a communione omnium aliorum qui sunt ad pacem domini Regis, 
Bract. l. 5. de Exceptionibus cap. 31. §. 7.  and therefore he ought to be Outlawed but is not if he return, or should be taken to be punished by Death, Mutulation or cutting off his Members, in regard that the cause of the Utlarie was not Criminal but he is to be committed to perpetual Prison, or to abjure the Kingdom, be Banished, and forbid the society of all the King's Subjects.  
And in those days where a man by Lease had taken an house rendering a certain Rent, 
Bracton. lib. 2. cap. 28. § 1. Fleta. lib. 2. cap. 59  quid saith Bracton, what shall be done when the Tenant doth not pay his Rent, & nihil in domibus locatis & conductis inveniatur, and hath no goods and Chattels, yet howsoever resolves the question, recurrendum erit ad corpus conductoris, si autem Corpusnon inveniatur hoc poterit locator suae imputare negligentiae vel imperitiae quod sibi Cautius non prospexit, recourse is to be had to the Body of the Tenant, and if he be not to befound, the Landlord is to impute it to his own negligence that he did not look better to it.  
Cum quis ad warrantum vocatus fuerit Christianus vel Judaus qui terram non tenuerit in feodo quae capi possit in manum domini Regis per quam distringi possint pracipiatur vicecomiti quod habeat corpora eorum, 
Bracton. lib. 5. de warrant. cap. 6. sect. 13.  when any man is vouched to warranty be he Christian or Jew, and hath not Land which may be taken into the King's hands or by which he may be distrained the Sheriff shall be commanded to take his Body or bring him. 
Bracton. lib. 4. de assisa. ultunae. presentationis cap. 9 sect. 3.   
And a Bishop being Summoned in a quare non admisit cum non venit nec se excusat per nun-nec per Essoniatorem attachietur, when he neither comes, nor sends his excuse, nor essoins shall be attached.  
Upon a writ awarded to a Bishop to command him to bring before the King's Justices a Clerk or Minister in holy Orders, refusing to find Pledges because he was in holy Orders, and had no lay Fee whereby he might be distrained, if the Bishop did not after a Summons pone & Distringas, awarded against himself, cause him to come, 
Bracton de exceptionibus 443.  the Court did proceed against the Clerk upon the contempt, and cause him to be arrested, nor could the Sheriff or his Bailiffs incur any punishment for doing of it; for the execution of the Law saith Bracton wrongeth no man.  
By the Statute of Marlebridg made in the 52 year of the Reign of that King, 
52. H. 3. cap. 3.  if any shall not obey or suffer Summons, attachments, or executions of the same according to the Law and customs of the Kingdom they were to be punished. 
Vossius lib. 2. devariis glossem in appendic. 814. Spelmans glossary in verbo. attachiare.   
The word Attachment being, saith the learned Vossius, derived from a French word to apprehend or detain.  
An Attachment is to arrest, force or compel a man denying to come to judgement, saith Sir Henry Spelman.  
And by Skene a learned Scotch Lawyer is defined to be a certain Bond or Constraint of the Law, 
Skeneus indice ad leges Scoticas. 52. H. 3. cap. 23. Register 35.  whereby a Defendant is unwillingly compelled to answer in Judgement to the Party complaining.  
In the Statute of 52 Henry the third, where a Capias is given against accomptants, it is said they shall be Attached by their bodies.  
An Attachment made for disobeying a Writ of prohibition is in the very form of a pone, 
52. H. 3. cap. 23.  & the awarding and entry of a pone is that the defendant should be Attached.  
And saith Bracton the course, or solemnity of Attachments to compel the Defendant to come to the Court to answer his contempt, was not so always observed, but in trespass for the greatness of the offence, or in favour of Soldiers that were going to the Wars, 
Bracton lib. 5. cap. 33.  or of Merchants or such as required haste in Actions of Debt (and it is probable that the Actions or Suits of Merchants were most commonly of that nature) the Judges granted an Habeas Corpus (which to that purpose was in effect as much as a Capias) whereby the Sheriff was commanded, all delays set apart in regard of such haste and privilege to bring the Body of the Defendant to answer the Plaintiff in an Action of Debt or Trespass as the case required, with a Clause in the Later end or perclose of the Writ, that the Sheriff should be grievously amerced if he refuse to do it.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the 52 year of the Reign of the aforesaid King in a Plea of Common custody or guard by reason of ward, 
●2. H. 3. cap. 7.  if the deforcers came not at the great distress the Writ was to be renewed twice or thrice within the half year following, and if after the Writ read and proclaimed in open County, the deforceant absent himself and the sheriff cannot take his Body to bring before the Justice, then as a Rebe●●e shall lose the Seisin of his ward.  
By the Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Edward the first, if any under Sheriff or other do withhold Prisoners replevishable after they have offered sufficient security, 
3. E. 1. cap. 1. 5.  he shall pay a grievous amerciament to the King, in which act of Parliament, men committed by the King or his Justices, are excepted and declared to be not replevishable.  
By a Statute of the aforesaid King made in the same year 
3. E. 1. cap. 34.  (the title of it being against the arresting of men in Liberties) great men and their Bailiffs (the King's Officers only excepted, to whom special authority sayeth the Statute is given) were not to attach men passing through their Jurisdictions with their goods compelling men to answer before them upon contracts and covenants, etc. And the writ of prohibition in the Register awarded upon that Statute, 
Register 98.  is for attaching a man to answer upon contracts and covenants.  
Britton who wrote his Book by the command of King Edward the first saith, 
Britton cap. 6. tit. Attachment. and cap. 28. tit. Debt.  if any man will complain of a debt under forty shillings, let him find Pledges to prosecute his debtor, and if he that is sued in Trespass maketh default, let him be distrained.  
And that in an action of debt if there be not a sufficient distress the Difendants might be taken by their Bodies, 
Tit. Attachment 51. and Debt▪ 68  be they Clarks or Laymen.  
Fleta or whosoever was the Author of the Book so called reciting the than manner of proceedings at law as an old and accustomed course saith, 
Fleta, lib. 2. cap. 62, 65, 67, & 70.  they were by Summons, Attachments and distress in personal actions the entries and awarding thereof upon record being the very same with little difference as they are now used. If a debtor had bound himself to be in default of payment distrained by the Steward, 
Ibidem lib. 2. cap. 60. Sect, 33. 36.  and marshal of the King's house, then upon security given by the Creditor to prosecute, a distringas was awarded against the debtor until he found Pledges, so as he were within the virge, and if he were personally to be found, was to be Attached by his body until he should by Pledges acquit himself, and if he had not Pledges was to be held in Custody until that he answered the Creditor, non tamen in vinculis, or if he found Pledges and after made default, the Pledges were to be amerced and the Defendant arrested and detained, and not be bailed or let loose by Pledges before he had answered.  
And that not only, Marescallus sub suo periculo omnes captos infra virgam custodire debet, sed de eyes coram Senescallo respondere & de Judicatis plenam facere executionem, 
Fleta lib. 2. cap. 5. sect. 5.  the Marshal should at his Peril keep all that were taken within the virge, but answer for them before the Steward, and aught to take in execution those against whom Judgement should be given, and the Steward did of course command the Clerk that keepeth the placita Aulae pro Rege Rolls and Records of the King's Court to direct his writ, Marescallo quod ipsum de quo fit sine dilatione attachiari faciat, to the Marshal that he do without delay attach him of whom any complaint should be made.  
In the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the second a nihil habet being returned by a Sheriff upon a Distringas in waste a Capias was awarded by the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas against the defendant. 
17. E. 2.   
And that if a Sheriff return upon a pone a Tarde that the Writ came so late unto him as he could not execute it, 
Fleta lib. 2. de maliciis Vicecom. obviam. cap. 67.  and it be averred that the Writ came time enough, or that the Party was present and might be attached the Sheriff was to be amerced. 
Mirror of justice. 79 register. 267.   
Personal Actions, saith the Mirror of Justice, (so much admired by Sir. Edward Coke) have their introductions by Attachments of their Bodies, real by Summons and mixed actions.  
By Summons and after by Attachment in personal Action. And in the same King's Reign if a Religious man Professed, had forsaken the house and become vagrant, a Writ upon a Certificate of the Abbot or Prior issued out of the Chancery to the Sheriff to take him. 
20. E. 2. Register▪ 267.   
In the eight year of the Reign of King Edward the third presentatio facta fuit apud Lincoln contra Thomam de Carleton sub Vicecomitem Indictatum de extorsionibus & aliis malefactis & inter alia quod mittit homines arrestatos pro debitis in ergastulum strictum & fetidum inter latrones quousque finem fecerint cum illo pro deliberatione sua extra, 
8 E. 3. corain. rege▪ Ro●i 24.  etc. Contra formam statuti & plurima alia pro quibus fecit finem cum Rege & postea pardonatur per breve domini Regis eo quod invenit Regi in guerra sua Scotiae tres homines armatos & duos Hobelarios Thomas de Carleton under Sheriff of the county of Lincoln was indicted at Lincoln for several Extortions and Misdemeanours, and amongst other things, for that he did put such as were Prisoners and arrested for Debt in a close and loathsome Prison amongst Thiefs until they gave him money for their better accommodation, against the form of the Statute, and did commit many other Misdemeanours, for which he paid a Fine to the King, and was pardoned for that he furnished the King in his Wars in Scotland with three armed men and two Hoblers or common Soldiers.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the 18 year of the Reign of the same King a Capias is to be awarded against such as not having wherewithal to live do refuse to serve. 
Statute of Laborers 18. E. 3.   
22. Ed. 3. It was held for Law, that upon a Judgement obtained for Debt or Damages, 
Lib. Assis. 22. Ed. 3●. 61.  the Body of the Defendant might be taken in execution, and by the opinion of Thorpe and Basset Judges where conusance of Pleas is granted, 
Br. Conusans' 33.  there are also granted all things necessary unto it, as to proceed by way of Capias, Distress, etc.  
And it was in those times agreed to be Law that the Judges have Power by Word of Mouth to command a Defendant to be Attached, 
22. Assis. 43. Brook tit. execution 79.  and that he that Bailed a man might by the Law, without Process, Arrest or take the party Bailed, and bring him into the Court.  
All which put together and brought to a due consideration, with the small or no difference, which is betwixt a Pone and a Capias, as to the Attaching and Compelling of Defendants to appear in the Tenor, and anciently practised, and yet intended use of it may be enough to Rescue us from the imputation of Error or presumption, 
Coke l. 3. relat. Sir William Herbert's Case 25. Ed. 3. cap. 17.  if pace tanti viri, we shall take that which hath been said in Sir. Will. Herbert's case by Sir. Edward Coke in his third Reports that the Body of a Defendant in an Action of debt was not subject or liable to an execution before the Statute made in the 25th year of the Reign of King Edward the third, to be no more than an opinion built upon a great mistake, for that Statute was not made only to give Process of Arrest by Capias upon a nihil habet or non est Inventus upon a Pone or a nihil habet or non est Inventus returned upon a Distringas by a Sheriff, because it was so before by the Common Law of England (it being altogether improbable that those who had Lands or any visible Estate in Goods or Chattels were before the making of that Statute always Resident, or did never hide or absent themselves for Debt or some other Actions, to avoid a Summons or some Arrest or compulsory way to bring them into Courts of Justice to answer and give satisfaction unto such as had cause to complain of them, or that those who had no Lands or Goods were always to be free and exempted from any restraint or arrest of their bodies upon actions of Debt or for any other matters commenced against them.  
But was intended only to have Process to the Exigend and Utlary, (which could not be without a Write of Capias) in Actions of Debt, detinue of Chattels, and taking of Beasts, per Capias & Exigend selon retourne du vicecount come home use en breifs daccompt, by Capias and Exigen● according to the return of the Sheriff, 
Ro. part. 25. E. 3.  as was used in Writs of account, and being at the petition of the Commons in Parliament priont les Commons, the King, as the record itself witnesseth, did answer, I'll please ou Roy que ainsi soit & quill soit mys en Estatut, it pleaseth the King that it should be so, and that it be put or form into a Statute.  
And the reason of that petition of the Commons in Parliament to the King which introduced and procured that Act of Parliament, (many Acts of Parliament and good Laws in the former Ages being ushered in, and obtained by the Petitions of the Commons in Parliament to their King and Sovereign,) may in all probability seem to be, for that they did not think either the former Process of the Law by Summons, 
Bracton lib. 3. cap. 13.  Pone Distringas or Capias to be severe or sufficiently coercive, or so powerful to bring a Defendant to Justice, as the fear of an Utlary, which in the Saxons times were so Terrible as he that was outlawed was accounted to be a Friendless or Lawless man and was afterwards so formidable to those, that by the contempt of the Laws incurred in the forfeiture of their Liberties, Goods, Chattels, Profits of their Lands, and Benefits of the Laws, as it might well be believed every man would be careful to avoid so great a danger and trouble.  
And therefore in the eighteenth year of the Reign of that King, being but seven years before the making of that Statute, it was deemed to be for the good of the People to have it declared by Act of Parliament in what cases process of Exigend and Utlary should be, that is to say, against such as received the Kings. Wool or Money, and detained it, such as transported Wool, not Cocquetted or without Custom, against Conspirators and Confederates of quarrels such as committed Riots and brought in false money, if they could not be found or brought in by Attachment or Distress, and not against any other.  
And by another Statute of the same year no exigend was to be granted in trespass but where it was for breach of the Peace, and at this day notwithstanding the Statute of 25. E. 3. ca 17. no Writ of Capias can be made without a nihil habet returned, nor could a Capias in account be otherwise made before the making of that Statute, nor can be since without a nihil habet returned by the Sheriff, unless the Co●●t should by their coercive power of punishing contempts and contumacy think fit to do it, as is now done by Attachment in Chancery upon a Defendants not appearing, and was long before that Statute done by the Judges of our Courts of Common Law, for not obeying prohibitions or Writs Commanding the not Impan●lling of one above the age of 70 years to be of a Jury, a Writ to replevin or Bail a man which was Imprisoned, upon a moderata misericordia, against a Steward or Bailiff of a Manor for amercing too much, against a Sheriff, for not Summoning or misreturning a Jury (and the like) they being as well enabled to cause a Defendant to be attached or arrested for a default or contempt in refusing to appear before them as they did usually before that statute, and do yet award a grand Cape against the Lands of a Tenant for not appearing in a real Action, make out a Capias pro fine & Imprison, a Defendant for Pleading non est factum to a Bond or other deed after it is found against him, and a Capias to arrest such as shall make a Rescue as they did before that statute, and do yet make a Capias upon a nihil habet returned upon an original in account when the Statute of Marlbridge 52. H. 3. cap. 23. only gives it upon a Distringas when the Defendant hath nothing to be distrained and as they did before the statute of 25. E. 3. cap. 17, and yet do in actions of Trespass make a Capias upon a nihil habet returned instead of a Distringas when the original Writ out of the Chancery is a Pone or attachment.  
Otherwise they cannot do Justice to those that complain and their jurisdiction will be useless, 
Oldendor pius in definite. actionum 25. 31. & Selden, de Synedriis in prefat. & 61. & 62.  and to no purpose saith Mr. Selden, and therefore where ever there is the one, of necessity there must be the other, and the Judges saith Glanvil in H. 2. time had power to Punish contempts and such as should absent themselves.  
And had no less in the Reign of King Henry 3, 
Bracton. lib. 3. cap. 1. §. 3.  when it was said by Bracton, ex quo eis commissa est causa simpliciter extenditur eorum Jurisdictio ad omnia sine quibus causa terminari non potest quantum ad judicium & executionem judicii, when they are commissionated to hear a cause, their jurisdiction is to be extended unto that without which the cause, as to the judgement and execution thereof, cannot be determined, and did not want a coercive power in the Reign of King Edward the 1. 
Westminster cap. 15. & F. N. B.  when a man could not have a Writ de homine replegiando when he is taken by the commandment of the chief Justice, and upon all contempts made to any Courts of Record in disobeying the commandment of the King under his great Seal, the offender is to be fined and imprisoned, 
Coke 8. relat. Beechers case 19 E. 3.  for jurisdictions saith the civil Law are maintained and upheld by such kind of coertions, and is no more either as to the point of contumacy or when the defendants have not goods sufficient then is now usually done in the collecting the excise or monthly assessments, when the collectors where no distress can be found, are impowered to take and imprison the Body, and even the System maker in the time of the late rebellion when the enclosures of the Law and all that supported or savoured of Monarchy were endeavoured to be thrown down, and every discontented or foolish fancy would be a Legislator, and busy itself in the alteration and spoiling of our Laws, could not tell how to avoid the allowing of an arrest or Capias where the defendant had no visible and certain Estate whereby to be Summoned.  
And with much more which might be alleged for the antiquity, legality, rationality, long approbation and usefulness of the Writs and Process of arrest, and Utlary, which have been and are a great part of the power and ancient rights and customs of our Courts of Justice without which they can neither subsist, exercise, maintain or Keep their authorities, or accomplish the design and ends of justice, and their constitution may inform all those that would not bind or make themselves more than apprentices to those inconsiderate clamours which since that fatal and unhappy year 1641, have been raised by the mobile & scelestum vulgus, ignorant and plundering part of the People and their new Fangled devices and designs for the banishment or alteration of our Laws which they but a little before had cried up and publicly professed to be their birthright.  
And by the Extirpation of Monarchy, Kingly and Church government plow up the Kingdom to their own ungodly advantages and profits, and render it to be in a worse and more barbarous condition than Wat Tiler, Jack Cade or Ket could have brought it unto if their several Rebellions and Clounery had gained their expected success.  
That there is nothing to uphold those their reasonless desires of Innovation.  
And that our Forefathers were so well content with the benefit of that Act of Parliament of 25. E. 3. for the proceedings by Writ of Capias, and by Process of Exigend to the Utlary, in Actions of Debt, detinue of Chattels, and taking of Beasts, (for that may appear to be the only design and purpose of that Statute.)  
And did so little believe the Process by way of Capias and Arrest, to be any invasion of their liberties and rights of Freemen, as they did in the said Parliament Petition for, and obtain an Act of Parliament, that no man might be taken but by Indictment or Presentment, or by Process made by Writ original at the common Law, or to be prejudicial unto them or their posterities and in the 38 year of the Reign of that King.  
Although great mischiefs did as was complained to that King in a Parliament holden in the seven and thirtieth year of his Reign often happen and daily come, 
37. E. 3. cap. 2.  because that Escheators Sheriffs and other the King's Ministers did seize the Lands Goods and Chattels of many surmising that they were Outlawed, where they were not because they did bear such names as those that were Outlawed the benefits of the aforesaid Statute of 25 E. 3, for Process of Utlary by Writs of Capias and Exigend which was made but two years before did so over balance that or other inconveniences as might happen in some men's particulars, as the Wisdom of that King and Parliament, could not think it fit to repeal that Statute, or forbid or discourage the right use of it, but did only ordain that if any complained, he should in such a case have a Writ de ldempuitate nominis as had been in time past.  
And in the 38th year of that King's Reign whereas many People were grieved and Attached by their body in the City of London at the Suit of the People of the same City surmising to them that they be Debtors, 
38. E. 3. cap. 5.  and that they Prove by their Papers whereas they have no Deed or Tally, It was assented, that men may wage their Law, upon Debts due upon such Papers.  
And the Right use of that Act of Parliament of 25. F. 3. cap 17. did from time to time receive its Allowance and Approbation by several Acts of Parliament made by our Kings and Princes▪ from the making of that Act until that never to be enough deplored infatuation and unruly Giddiness of a rebellious part of the Nation betwixt the year 1641, and his Majesty's happy return in the year, 1660.  
As by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the 2, 
1 R. 2. cap. 12. & 15.  it was enacted, that Prisoner upon judgements given in any of the King's Courtsses of Justice should not be suffered to go at large that a feigned confession of a Debt due to the King should not delay another's Execution.  
And that Priests should not be arrested doing Divine service.  
And in the second year of that King's Reign, being but about 27 years after the making of that Statute of 25 E. the 3. to proceed to Utlary by way of Capias in Actions of Debt, 
Rs. parl. 2. R. 2. m. 72, 73, & 74.  Robert de Hauley Esquire being Arrested upon an Action of Debt, and upon his Escape pursued into Westminstar Abbey Church, where he took Sanctuary, was in a Tumult in the Church, Slain at the High Altar when the Priest was Singing high Mass, and the offence and breach of Privilege (as it was then pretended to be) complained of in Parliament by the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Prelates and Clergy, who prayed that due Satisfaction and amends might be made of so Horrible a fact, It was opposed by the Lords and Commons who Vouched records and called to witness the Justices and others▪ that were Learned in the Laws of the Land, that in the Church of England▪ It hath not been accustomed that the offenders flying to a Church ought to have Immunity for Debt or Trespass or other cause whatsoever, except for crime only, and certain Doctors of Divinity, Canon and Civil Laws being thereupon examined, and sworn before the King himself, to speak the plain truth, said upon mature and sound deliberation, that in case of Debt account or Trespass where a man is not to lose Life or Member, no man ought to have Immunity in holy Church, and said further in very high expressions, that, God saving his perfection, and the Pope saving his holiness, nor any King or Prince can grant such a Privilege, and that if the King should grant such a one, the Church which is and aught to be favoured and nourished, ought not to accept of it, whereof offence or occasion of offence may arise, for it is a Sin and occasion of offence (saith the Record) to delay a man willingly from his Debt or the just recovery of the same.  
And so little did that great affray, & complaint of a then Powerful Clergy, for that breach of Privilege, & the trouble of the King and Parliament therein, persuade our forefathers to any dislike of the way of proceedings by way of arrest, 
2R. 2. cap. 3.  by Capias or Utlary thereupon, as at another Parliament holden in the same year, for the avoiding of debtors, withdrawing themselves and Flying into Places of Churches Privileged, It was ordained by the King upon the Petition of the Commons in Parliament, that in such cases after the Creditor had brought an Action of debt, and procured a Capias to be thereupon awarded, and the Sheriff returned that he could not take the defendant because of places of Privilege, another Writ should be made with Proclamation to be made at the gate of such Privileged place by five Weeks continually every Week once that such person render himself.  
And the Succeeding Kings were so careful not to suffer particular grievances to disappoint the effects of good Laws, made for the generality of the People.  
As by a Statute made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the fifth, 
1. H. 5. ●a. 5.  it was ordained that in every original Writ of Actions personal upon which an Exigend shall be awarded, the names of the defendants and their additions shall be mentioned.  
And by another made in the 7th year of the said Kings Reign, 
7. H. 5. ca 1.  upon the Petition of the Commons as the Statute witnesseth, like process for the common profit of the Realm, saith the preamble of that Statute shall be had in Writs of forging of Charters or evidences by Capias and Exigend as in Trespass.  
By a Statute made in the 23 year of the Reign of King Henry the sixth, 
23. H. 6. ca 10.  Sheriffs shall take Bonds securities or sureties for the appearance of such as be Arrested, except upon Writs of Execution Capias utlegatum or excommunicatum,  
By a Statute made in the 19th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 7th because there have been great delays (saith the Preamble of that Act) like Process is given in Actions of the Case as in Actions of Trespass or debt. 
19 H. 7. ca 6.   
By an Act of Parliament made in the sixth year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth, 
6. H. 8. cap. 4.  Proclamation shall be awarded to give notice unto him that dwelling in one County, shall be sued to an Exigend in another.  
By a Statute or Act of Parliament made in the three and twentieth year of his Reign, 
23. H. 8. cap. 14.  because there are many delays in Actions of Annuity for that Process of Utlary, saith that Act doth not lie like, Process was granted by the King in Writs of Annuity as was formerly used in account.  
Writs of Capias, 
34. H. 8. cap. 16.  Exigent and Outlawry were allowed in Wales by a Statute made in the 34th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King.  
And two several Statutes, the one made in the 1. year, 
1. E. 6. cap. 10.  and the other in the 5th year of King Edward the 6th, taking notice that for want of such Proclamations, many of the persons Inhabiting in Wales, Lancashire, Cheshire, or Chester, were without knowledge or cause of Suit wrongfully and unjustly Outlawed to their utter undoing, did without abrogating the Right use of the process of Utlary ordain, that upon every Writ of Exigend against any Persons Inhabiting in every of the said Counties or Places, Proclamations shall be made and awarded, 
5. E. 6. cap. 26.  directed to the Sheriffs of the several Counties where the defendants inhabit, do give notice thereof.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the fifth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
5. Eliz. cap. 26.  three several Writs of of Capias with Proclamations, with the Penalty of 20ls a time shall be awarded against an Excommunicate person that cannot be taken by the Sheriff upon the Writ of Capias excommunicatum granted out of the Chancery.  
By a Statute made in the eighth year of her Reign, 
8. Eliz. cap. 2.  for that many of their malicious minds, and without any just cause did procure divers of the Queen's Subjects to be Arrested, it was enacted that the defendants should recover their costs and damages where the Plaintiffs do delay, discontinue their Suits or be none Suited.  
And by an Act of Parliament made in the one and thirtieth year of her Reign, 
31. El●z. cap. 3.  it was for the avoiding of secret outlawries in Actions personal, ordained, that upon every Writ of exigend awarded against any person, three several Proclamations shall be made by the Sheriff of the County or place where such defendant inhabiteth, first at the County Court, the second at the Quarter Sessions, and the third at the Church door of the Parish where such Person inhabiteth.  
And the like to be done in the County Palatine of Durham where as the Statute saith many men have without knowledge been outlawed, 
Ibidem. cap. 6.  to their utter undo, if some speedy remedy be the sooner provided but those misdoings were not not then accounted to be sufficient to bereave a Multitude or far greater number of the people, of the good which they received by the process of Utlary.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the three and fortieth year of Her Reign, the procurers or makers of any Warrant to Summon, Arrest, or Attach any Person by his or their Body or Goods to appear in any of her Majesty's Courts of Justice not having before an original Writ or Process to warrant the same, 
43. Eliz. cap. 6.  shall be Imprisoned without Bail or mainprize, and not be delivered until he shall have paid 10l. to the Party grieved, besides his Costs and Damages, and 20l. a piece for their offences to her Majesty, her Heirs and Successors.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the 21th year of the Reign of King James, 
21. Jac. cap. 24.  the Lands of him which Dieth in Execution, shall be Chargeable with the Debt.  
By an Act of Parliament made in the 13th year of his now Majesty's reign reciting, 
13. Car. 2.  that by the ancient and fundamental Laws of this Realm, where any Person is Sued, Impleaded, or Arrested by any Writ, Bill, or Process, Issuing out of any his Majesty's Courts of Record at Westminster, at the Suit of any Common Person, the true cause of Action ought to be set forth, and particularly expressed: It was ordained, that where the true cause or certainty of Action is not expressed, in any such Writ, Bill, or Process, the Sheriff shall take no greater Bond for any Defendants Appearance thereunto, then of the Penalty of Forty Pounds.  
Which in such a length of time and approbation of many Statutes and Acts of Parliament, and of our Judges in Courts of Justice, in the awarding and allowance of such kind of Writs and Process, which as the Rolls and Records of the Court of Common Pleas in the 17th year of the Reign of Edw. the 2, and of former Kings Reigns do declare, were not granted of Course (as for the ease of the People they have been in later times, by sworn and experienced officers) but upon grave and deliberate advice, upon Petitions or motions to the Judges, and the names sometimes of the Chief Justice, and at other times of the particular puisne Judge that granted them, 
Trin. 17. E. 2, in communi Banco & in aliis antiq. Record & Rotulis ejusdem Cur.  mentioned in the latter ends of the Entries thereof, might if there had been no Vestigia or tract of the necessary Process of Arrest, to compel men to appear in Courts of Justice to be found, a multis retro seculis ex longissima experientia observata, in almost all the foregoing ages and wisdom of the Ancients, abundantly serve to recall that humour or desire of novel experiments, or imposing or practising upon our Laws and Liberties and conduct those Sons of Innovation to a better obedience and veneration of our Laws, rules of right reason, and necessity of maintaining the indispensable, Ancient, Legal power and Authority of Justice, in the blessings of that which we have already received, and may hereafter, receive by its due administration, if we do not give entertainment unto the wild proposals, of those who in their plenty of Ignorance, Obstinacy, and Interest, would have they know not what.  
And bring upon the Nation, and themselves, and posterities, the many sad effects and consequences it will produce, and may give them to understand, that having such a small assurance of an Infallibility, they may do better to stop the Carrere of their so causeless prejudice, against the Process of Capias and Arrest, and observe what their Neighbour and other Nations have adjudged to be very necessary and unavoidable in their proceedings in Courts of Justice upon personal Actions.  
Who have not so lost or forsaken the Ancient Customs and Paths of their Forefathers but that the same or very like, what is, and hath been so long in use amongst us, may be seen amongst many of the most civilised of them, and was so early in the World as it seems, 
〈◊〉. Oldendorpius de definite. actionum 11. 20. 21.  saith John Oldendorpius to be deduced from the Laws of God and Nature, Right reason and necessity.  
By an Edict or Law of Theodorico, 
Goldastus constitutiones Imperial. 18. cap. 8. Spelman Glossar. in verbo Hinfare.  King or Emperor of the Goths, made in the year of our Lord God 497, Arrests of the Bodies of Defendants, were allowed to be made.  
By a Constitution of Charlemaigne, whose dominion extended over the greatest part of Europe, made about the year of our Lord God 780. the houses of those that withheld their Tithes were to be seized, and if they opposed and presumed to enter again of their own authority, the Ministers of the Commonwealth were to put them in Custody.  
In the Empire of Germany, more especially in famous Mart Towns, 
Jo. Koppen. in decision questionum in Germania qu. 35. §. 1. 2. 4. & qu. 29. § 10. & 15.  and Imperial Cities, as Frankford upon the Main Lipsich, Norinberg, etc. (saith John Koppen in Rangensdorff, Chief Councillor to the Elector of Brandenburg) Arrests for Debt are frequently made, and the Debtors Imprisoned, and this saith he, a vetustissimis Romanorum legibus originem sumpsit, had its beginning from the most Ancient Roman Laws, a Clerk in holy Orders, and likely to run away, a Debtor that hath no Land, or is likely to remove away his Goods, is a Prodigal, or contumatious, refuseth to appear, and cannot give Sureties, may by the Laws and practice of those Countries, & Jure Saxonico, be Arrested and taken.  
In Poland, 
Cromerus lib. 2. de Polonia.  he that will not or cannot give Bail to answer the Action, is arrested.  
In Russia when any of the officers of the Courts of justice, 
Commentar▪ de Russia.  do come to a Defendant, if he give not Bail, 
Laws of Geneva Printed at London, 1562.  he is to be detained in Custody.  
In Geneva upon a return or Certificate, that the Defendant hath nothing, he is arrested.  
The like course of Arrest and compelling of men to appear in Judgement, 
Molin. in consuetud. Paris. tit. 2. gl. 1. Num. 3.  is and hath been long ago practised in the Kingdoms of France Spain, Hungary, Scotland, and in the Dukedom of Savoy, 
Bibliotheque o● Thresor. du droit. du France. tit. Arrests. 326.  and many other Places, who do think that they have a great deal of Liberty, as the Commonwealths of Venice, Holland, and the united Provinces, the Hanse Towns, Switzerland and Genoa, etc.  
And in New England, 
Gonzale de Suarez. de pas as part. Tom. 81.  whether the ignorant and mistaken consciences of many, having carried divers of our People where they would, make their own Laws, and be independent of the government of this Kingdom from whence they came they do notwithstanding.  
Not want it, 
decret. Uladis●ai Regis Hungariae Anno. 1492. Art. 91.  where for the better expedition, and execution of Justice (as the words of their Laws are,) they do ordain that every Court of Justice, shall have Ministers of Justice to attach and fetch, and set Persons before the Magistrates. 
Edicts. & Arrests. de Savoy. An 1574.   
And is likewise in practice in some Nations that are more remote, and have only the light of Nature, 
Laws of Genoa Printed at Milan. 1576.  and some information of Reason to direct them, as namely in the Region of Mallabor, where if the Debtor do break his Day with his Creditor, 
Laws of New-England Printed at London. 1641.  and often disappointed him, he went to the principal of the Bramenes, of whom receiving a Rod, he goeth to the Debtor, and making a Circle about him, chargeth him in the name of the King and the Bramene, not to depart from thence until he hath satisfied the Debt, and if he do not, he must Starve in the place, 
Purchas Pilgrimage lib. 5.  for if he Depart, the King will cause him to be executed.  
And when that which hath been here so truly▪ and Irrefragably asserted, will never deserve to be thought a Postulatum conclusion or principle begged, but is de facto apud multos & de Jure apud omnes, so done and practised, by very many Nations, and of right aught to be by all.   

CHAP. V. The Process of Arrest and Vtlary, are a more gentle way of compelling Men to pay their Debts, or to appear in Courts of Justice than that which was formerly used.  
EVery man that would entitle himself to any reason, or not wilfully divorce or separate himself from the company thereof, and shut out that light which the wisdom and practice of former Ages have tendered unto him, may give way to so many cogent Arguments and acknowledge, the course and way of our process of Arrest and Utlaries, to be a more gentle way of proceeding, in the doing and Execution of Justice, 
Deut. 25. v. 1. & 3.  then that of the forty stripes, which in the most righteous Laws of God were in cases of controversy betwixt men, ordered in none of the greatest sort of offences, to be given to him who was condemned by the Judges, 
2 Reg. 4. v. 1. & 2.  than the taking away of the two Sons of the Widow, of one of the Sons of the Prophets by a Creditor, 
Matth. 18. v. 25.  to be Bondmen for their Father's Debt, the selling of a Debtor and his Wife and Children, and all that he had by the Creditor in use amongst the Jews; or taking them by the Throat, saying, Pay me what thou owest, and Haling him to the Judge, who cast him into Prison, mentioned by our Saviour Christ; 
Gellius noct. Attic.  the cutting of Insolvent Debtors in pieces, after a Sentence and small limitation of time; and giving every Creditor a piece learned by the Romans, from the Athenian and Grecian Laws, but never put in practice for the cruelty thereof; the Nexus and taking of Debtors prisoners by the Creditors own authority (until they had by some good Laws been taught a less fierce, 
Livy.  and cruel way of recovering their Debts) and keeping them bound in Chains in their own houses; 
Plutarch in vita Luculli & Solonis Dionysius Halicar. lib. 6.  the making the Children Slaves for their Father's Debts, by the People of Asia, that large Quarter or fourth Part of the World; and the like Customs used by the Athenians and Romans, or the usage of the Longobards who, 
LL. Longobard tit. 21. §. 1. 7, 8.  if the Debt were not paid after the third time demanded, did suffer the Creditor to pawn the Debtors Body, or take by order of the King or Judge, his Men or Maidservants Prisoners; or that of the Wisigothes, 
LL. Wisigothorum in Liudenbrogio l. 2. cap. 88  the Spaniards Ancestors, whose Laws ordained a penalty of three pounds of Gold to be paid by the Offender, or such as contemned the King's Command and Authority, and if he were not able to pay it, was to endure Quinquaginta Ictus Flagellorum, Fifty lashes with a whip; or of the Russians beating with Cudgels their Insolvent Debtors, 
Fletcher de Republica Moscoviae.  upon the Calves of their legs, and bottoms of their feet; or if the Debtor be poor, set him under a Crucifix, and cause the plaintiff to take his Oath over his head, that his Debt is true, which being done the Duke causeth the Defendant to be brought home to his house, putteth him to labour, or letteth him to hire until he be redeemed.  
Or of the Egyptians in not permitting the bodies of the Debtors to be buried, but to be left as a pawn to their Creditors, 
Quenstadt de Sepultur. veter. Valer. Maxim. l 5. cap. 4. & Covarruvias de variorum resolute.  Donec Haeredes Aes alienum integrè solverent, Until their Heirs or Executors paid the Debt, and was so imitated by the Athenians, the wisest Nation of the learned Greece, as the brave Cimon was constrained to yield himself a Prisoner in Chains, as the manner than was, to the end that his glorious Father Miltiades (who had deserved better of them) dying a Prisoner for a Debt owing to the Publicque, might be buried; And by the Goths, and some other Nations under their large Dominions, until by a Constitution of Theodorico, 
Goldastus Constitut. Imperial.  King of the Goths, and some other Princes, Tanquam inhumanum & erudelitati proximum; It was prohibited under severe penalties (which in these times used to be more than threatened) as Inhuman and too near bordering upon cruelty, and is notwithstanding yet at this day used in some parts of the Lower Germany▪ 
Philip Albert Orthen de Regali Conducendi Jure, cap. 4. 9, 13. Impress. Norimbergae Anno 1672.  as Holstein, Brunswich, and Holland (that great Monopoly as they think of Liberty, when they do but dream of it) for Debts or Money owing to private Persons.  
Or not so rigid or uncompassionate, as the way of prosecution for Debts is, in the vast Empire of the Great Mogul, where if the Debtor do not pay his Creditor, according to the time limited by the Judge, he is severely whipped, and his Wife and Children sold for Slaves by the Creditor; or the Merciless manner of poinding Horning, or Outlary, 
Skeneus Reg. Majest. & Craig. de Feudis.  and Caption for Debts, upon short and almost impossible prefixions used in Scotland.  
When our Writs of Pone or Attachment, by the favour and unwillingness of Sheriffs, to execute the extremities and rigour of Writs, and Process of Law, or their kindness procured by some other persuasions of rewards or power; were in the moderation of our Laws, and Courts of Justice; which Canutus by his Laws desired to be ad Divinam Clementiam temperata, 
LL. Canuti §. 2.  not so exactly executed, or the Defendant enforced to put in real Pledges and Security, as formerly.  
And the Distringasses have only small, or little issues returned upon them, nothing near amounting to the Rents and Profits of the Lands, Goods, and Chattels of the Party prosecuted, betwixt the teste and return of the Writ.  
And the Writs of Capias, when made out are very often easily satisfied by an Attorneys undertaking, to appear to the Action, or if Bond be given to the Sheriffs by two Sureties, for the Defendants appearance, are not one in many hundreds enforced to give special Bail afterwards; and if the demand in the Writ specified, be under 20. pounds, are by the Rules and Custom of the Court of Common Pleas not to be insisted upon, or if above, not at all in the Case of Defendants, being Executors or Administrators; and if the Defendant, for want of Bail for his appearance, do continue in Prison three terms, and no habeas Corpus be brought, or declaration given, or further prosecution made, he is to be delivered by a Writ of Supersedeas, made of course upon the appearance to the action only, without any special Bail put in before a Judge, or Bond given to the Sheriff; and where special Bail is very seldom given, it is but that if Judgement be obtained against the Defendant, he shall render his body to Prison, or satisfy the condemnation.  
Our Writs of Arrest ad respondendum, being ad Cautionem & custodiam non ad poenam, but to enforce a gage or pledge, or to detain, or put a Debtor or Defendant into the Custody of the Law, to the end he may give Bail Judicatum solvere, to abide the Judgement of the Court, or if no Bail be required to appear to the Action.  
And the Process of Utlary, 
LL. Edgari 11. & 67.  which although they were not ordinarily used in Actions of debt, 
LL. Canuti 30 & 61.  before the making of the Statute of 25 E. 3. 
LL. Edwardi Confessor 45.  was notwithstanding in cases of trespass for breach of the Peace, and for Contumacy, and Contempts in not appearing warranted, 
Bracton de Corona cap. 11.  by the Laws of King Edgar, Canutus, Edward the Confessor, 
Stamford lib. 3. cap. 35. tit. forfeiture.  and the practice of our Saxon Ancestors borrowed, and deduced from the Ancient Customs of other Nations, is not now so dreadful as it was in former Ages, when, as Bracton, and Stamford do agree, the Party outlawed did forfeit Patriam, Amicos, & omnia terras & tenementa bona & Catalla sua, all that he could entitle himself unto, was out of the protection of the King and his Laws, and could not bring any action, until he had rendered himself to Prison, obtained his Charter of Pardon, brought his Writ of Error, and given Bail to answer the Action; but may now without Bail, unless specially required, be admitted to reverse the Utlary before Judgement, upon defect of Proclamation only, or some small Error without a Writ of Error, or the Record certified into the Court of King's Bench, or Errors assigned, with other the many troubles and charges which that way produced.  
The Plaintiffs for fear of obstructing, or narrowing the ways of Justice, are not put as they were anciently to find real Sureties, to prosecute and make good their actions, or to pay a Fine to the King, if they do not as our Laws do intent they should, or to make Oath of their debts, or de non calumniando, that the Action is not prosecuted in malice, or upon sinister ends as the Civil Law enjoined.  
And the Statute of Westminster, 
Westminster 2. c. 18.  the second doth in Writs of Execution, against the Goods and Chattels of a Defendant, except Boves & Affros de Caruca sua, Oxen and Horses of Husbandry, and the Writ imports as much in the tenor of it, the Judges do without any Inquisition or proof, that there were not other goods sufficient to satisfy the Execution, permit for the Creditors more speedy attaining to his satisfaction, all the goods to be taken in Execution, which in more Ancient times was so unusual, as a Defendant hath brought his Action against the Sheriff▪ and the Plaintif for taking them in Execution, when there was other personal Estate sufficient: And do also suffer the Plaintiff to prosecute the Sureties upon a Bond, when the Principal hath not been sued, and was sufficient to pay the Debt or damage, which by the former course, and practise of the Law was not allowed.  
And our Writs of Exigent, and Outlary were truly, and properly only to be made use of, where the Defendant refuseth to appear in contempt of a Court of Justice, and the Process thereof is fugitive, or incertain where to be found, taken, or arrested, hath no visible or certain Estate, or lurketh in some Liberty (of which there are many in England and Wales, where the King's ordinary Writs, and Process do not run, or have any power or force) and a Capias utlegatum carrieth with it, in the same Writ a Non omittas propter aliquam libertatem, and impowereth the Sheriff to enter into any Liberty, and arrest the Defendant, and by a special Capias utlegatum to seize, and take at the same time all the Defendants Lands, Goods, Chattels, and Estate into the King's hands, as forfeited for his Contempt; and that seizure transferred into the Court of Exchequer, bringeth the plaintiff an advantage, to take a Lease of the King of the Lands so seized, at a very low rent, until the Defendant purge himself of the Contempt, reverse the Outlary, give Bail, and appear unto the Action; which being so consonant to the Outlawries Bannes, and proscriptions of Germany, and other Nations, Kings, and Princes in the like Cases, to preserve their own Authority in that of their Courts of Justice, and requiring some severity, and a more than ordinary Process hath been all the means, which without force and violence, and a greater disturbance of the People our Laws, and a long Custom, and usage of time have hitherto prescribed, can contrive to bring unwilling Men to Judgement.   

CHAP. VI The delays, and inconveniences of the Process of Summons, Pone, and Distringas were a great, if not the only cause of the disuse thereof.  
FOr the way and Course of Summons, Pone, and Distringas, so much in use before that Statute of 25 E. 3. was unto Plaintiffs as full of delays as they were of increase of Charges, and trouble which a view of the old Records of the Court of Common-Pleas, before the making of that Statute, by the many Writs of Alias, and Pluries Distringas with issues, forfeited and returned upon them, occasioning a great pro●it to the King, and less to the Subjects, and the many Writs of testatum Distringas made into other Countries, where the Plaintiffs averred that the Defendants had Lands, and Estate sufficient, and Writs of Averment and Enquiry, made out upon too small issues returned, directed unto the Justices of Assize, to certify if there might not be more issues returned; and such a Writ of Enquiry to be executed in the Lent, or Summer Vacations, could not but cause a more long, chargeable, and troublesome delay, to get better issues to be returned, may help to attest the more necessary, and better use of the Process of Capias and Arrest and that Writs of Exigent and Outlawry, will in the Cases aforesaid, propter inevitabilem necessitatem be everlastingly necessary; especially when in the same Parliament of 25 E, 3. wherein Process of Outlawry in Actions of Debt were granted, 
Rot. Parl. & Petitions in Parl. 25 E. 3.  a great complaint was made, that the Steward and Marshal of the King's House, or their Deputies did upon Actions attach, and distrain men by ten Marks of their Goods one day, and by as much the next day, to their utter ruin and undoing.  
And the Goods and Chattels must be such as the Sheriff can be confident, the Defendant hath a property in, for otherwise he will require Bonds, or Sureties of the plaintiff, to be saved harmless; and where the Estate doth lie only in Goods and Chattels within an House, the Sheriff may in a Town or City, where are many Inmates or Lodgers, and three or four sometimes in an House together, be not a little puzzled, to know into whose Room he shall enter, or upon whose property he seizeth, and his Sergeants or Bailiffs may be afraid to enter and distrain, for fear of Actions to be brought against them: And many of the Goods and Chattels, may be such as the Law doth not allow to be distrained; or if the Defendant hath Lands & a Distringas issueth out against him, and hath no Stock or Cattle upon it, or they shall be beforehand eloigned, or driven away (as it may often happen) there will be little profit made of the Land, betwixt the Teste and return of the Writ, especially if it come to be executed in the Winter season, or that much of it is in Lease: And then he must do as well as he may to get Tenants, whereby to raise the profits, or let it lie for Crows and Trespassers to raise it for him, for Tenants (such as wish well to the Defendant, or are depending upon him, being not likely to be willing to take or Rend it at all) will be hardly got; and those that do malice or malign him, will (if they may not have it at cheap Rates) be unwilling to adventure the hazard of actions of trespass, or other inconveniences for a small term or time, which can be no longer then until the Defendant shall appear, or make his peace with the plaintiff; or if the Plaintif should himself take a Lease of it, for such a short term from the King, if he may not have it at a very easy rate, he will be as little a gainer as the Defendant by it, and as far from the recovery of his Debt, as those that had lately Writs of Distringas, against the Company of the Vintners or Grocers, in Actions of Debt for very great sums of Money, whose Lands though it was well known they had a great proportion of them, belonging to their several Companies, were so invisible as the Sheriffs or the Bailiffs of the County where they lay, could not discover, or would not tell where to find them.  
And if they did or could find any Lands, would to avoid the trouble of an Actual Eecution of the Writs of Distringas, whereupon they were allowed no pondage Fees, return small or petit Issues, and but such as they could easily answer, take off, or procure an Indemnity for, to save themselves harmless.  
Or if a Tenant be himself in Debt, and be distrained, and his Stock taken away, he is sure enough to be undone, and his Landlord not a little prejudiced also by it, when for want of Stock he cannot menage, or hold his Farm any longer, which the Statute of Westminster the 2. made in the 13th. Year of the Reign of King Edward the First, did as well believe as foresee, when it prohibited the taking in Execution the Cattle and Utensils of Husbandry, now not at all as to that particular obeyed or observed.  
And the Writs and Process of Distringas will be much more inconvenient, and destructive to Trade and Tradesmen, when they become Creditors, or shall be made Defendants, and be distrained by Process of Distringas for Debt, or in any other personal Action, for then such a Defendant may suddenly be ruined in his credit, & not only himself; but ten or 20. of his Creditors suffer not a little by it: And it may be when all is done, the Action may appear to be but upon some malicious pretence, or upon Covenant, or Action of the Case battery or trespass, where in no adjudication of the value of the Action can be, had before a Trial or Writ to inquire of damages, and one hundred Pounds worth of Goods may be taken or spoiled, upon an Action of less than so many Shillings, for the Sheriff to have enough will not fail to seize more if he can come at it, than the Demand of the Writ or the Plaintiffs suggestion amounts unto, and the Defendants Estate will thereby become ruined and racked, as far as the greedy, unconscionable, or knavish pretences of a Plaintif (for all are not likely to be conscionable or reasonable) shall carry him unto, and after he shall be thus pulled in pieces, or condemned and executed before he be heard or come to his Trial, or can well know what it is for, will be left afterwards to make himself up as well as he can (which to a Tradesman was never easy) and seek his revenge or remedy, by as many suits in Law or equity, as himself, or his Friends, or necessities shall put him upon.  
And when he hath appeared to the Action, after he hath been undone a great deal more than the Action comes to, cannot easily restore, or so make himself up again, as to be in the same plight, or condition of Credit which he was in before.  
And it is not also unusual to some Tradesmen, when they find themselves sinking, or to be in any desperate condition, or likelihood of breaking, to endeavour more than they should, to be most commonly beforehand with their Creditors, make away their Goods and Wares, lodge them in other men's hands, cover them under some secret, and never to be discovered trusts, and putting as much Money as they can into their Purses, retire themselves into some Place incognito, shut up their Shops, and leave little or nothing therein, and assoon as they can make it their business to compound, and give their Creditors for very great Sums of Money owing to them, no better a satisfaction then three or four Shillings in the Pound, and keep the overplus for their labours; and a setting up again, which they could not so unawares or advantageously, to their evil ends, have done or contrived, if they had been arrested.  
All which or many more mischiefs, and inconveniences happening to that kind of Dilatory Process, may appear to be no over nicely guessed or strained consequences, if if shall be but considered what an abundance of hideous, and remediless mischiefs, and inconveniences, would every day, and long ago have happened to Shopkeepers, and Men of Trade, and Credit in the City of London, and the Suburbs thereof, if the Process issuing out of the Courts of Common Pleas, and King's Bench, and the Courts of the City of London, against them had been not to Arrest Defendants, but to distrain, and seek after their Goods and Wares, when the property of the Defendants Wares and Goods may be so concealed, or disguised by Bills of Sale, fraudulent deeds or contrivances, (the Wares in a Tradesman Shop being many times other men's, who upon some allowance of share, have employed or trusted them to Trade withal) as there would be a necessity of Suits in Chancery, to discover the right Owners.  
Many or some of which inconveniences, being before the making of that Act of Parliament of 25 of E 3. experimented, or well understood, or foreseen, might cause our Forefathers to forsake, and disuse the former way of Summons, Pone, and Distringas, and betake themselves to the more useful, and expedite way of Process of Arrest or Outlary, which hath been since evidenced, to be much more accommodate to Trade, and the good and benefit in general of the Nation.  
And was not denied to be truth, and reason by Mr. Charles George Cock, who being something of a Common Lawyer, but nothing at all of a Civil, and advanced in the times of Usurpation, to be one of the Judges, in the then so called Court, for probate of Wills, and granting Administrations, could in his Book printed in the year 1651, entitled the Household of God upon Earth, or an Essay of Christian Government, dedicated to the Family of God over the whole Earth, but more especially to them of the Household of Faith, in the Commonwealth of England, after a Rhapsody of Whymsical Propositions for Reformation, and Invectives with ill will enough, against the proceedings in the Courts of Justice, Arrests, and Outlaries, delivered his opinion, concerning the Writs of Capias and Arrest, 
Charles George Cock Essay of Christian Government in Anno 1651.  in these words: That anciently first Goods, than Lands, than liberty was to be seized for Debts, etc. Upon a just and proportionate rule, necessity found ways to evade, Quaere the Goods, and they were others; Quaere the Lands, and they were aliened; and to run through the difficulties of all those Trials, the burden was found too great, and therefore the Law of Imprisonment at first by Arrest was brought in.   

CHAP. VII. The Writs, and Process of Arrest, and Outlary have increased, preserved, and encouraged Trade, better secured the Creditors Debts, and made the borrowing of Money more easy than it was before.  
ANd therefore the Process, and Writs of Capias, Arrest, and Exigent, the latter not being able to subsist without the former, having been both of them, in their several kinds, so very beneficial and avantagious to the Lawful increase of Trade, now almost every man's desire and concernment, and in that and all other matters, as well concerning Debtors as Creditors, should not be turned away when they have so long, and faithfully officiated in our Gates of Justice, and assisted in the Execution thereof; and although they are now Grey, and hoary-headed, and full of years, are not grown Impotent or feeble, but having a perpetual youth, and spring attending upon their endeavours, have made the borrowing of Money more easy, and the Creditors better secured than they were before, the making of that Statute of 25 E. 3. and the more general use of arresting of the Body, or relying upon it, as the better security; and not only in the reason, but the long experimented good effects and use thereof, made good, and verified the design, and expectation of the Act of Parliament, for the increase and continuance of Trade, made by King Edward the 1. at Acton Burnel, 
Stat. of Acton Burnel 13 E. 1.  in the 13th. year of his Reign, which to prevent the loss of Foreign Merchants Debts, which did greatly impoverish them, and caused them to withdraw themselves, for want of a speedy way of recovering their Debts, did ordain the taking of Recognizances, before the Major of the Staple, for the security of their Debts, and that upon failer of payment, if a Writ of Execution had been sued forth, and the movables, and personal Estate should not be sufficient to satisfy the Debt, the Debtors body should be taken, put, and kept in Prison until he had made agreement, or his Friends for him.  
And time and experience have in the change, and vicissitude of the Manners, Customs, and affairs of the Nation, and the inundations of necessities upon the lower, and poorer ranks of the People, brought them to a very great Assurance.   

CHAP. VIII. The pawn, and engagement of the Body, is most commonly a better security than Lands, or personal Estate, upon which the borrowing of Money was not only very troublesome, but difficult.  
THat the pawn of the Body, and liberty of a Debtor being so dear and precious, to which the real and personal Estate, if they have any, or shall have any, being as it were annexed and concomitant, are most commonly the Essentialia consecutiva, and the Collaterales sequelae & appendices, to the Person of the Debtor; and as to what is in his immediate possession, or are other ways in his dispose or power, are as incorporate and consocate with it, as the Contenta are in, or with the Continens; (the Goods and Chattels being, as it were ipsa vita hominis & tanquam alter sanguis, as the life and life blood,) 
Juxta Gl. in l. 14. & C. de advocate. divers. Judic.  was the Instar omnium, the most easy, most certain convenient, and obligatory kind of security.  
And must needs be so, when the taking of Pledges or Pawns had such a restraint laid upon it, by Gods own most righteous Laws, given to his chosen People of Israel: 
Exod. 22. v. 26. & 27.  Not to keep the poor man's Raiment or Covering, after the Sun was gone down, 
D●ut. 24. v. 10, 11, 12.  for that it was to be his covering. And he that was to take it, was not to go into his house to fetch it, but stand abroad, and the man was to bring the pledge unto him.  
And by the necessity of the making of several Laws, by divers Kings and Princes in other Nations, did appear to have been very troublesome, and inconvenient both to the Borrowers and Lender's, when Horses, Oxen, Swine, Sheep, Men Servants, Maid Servants, and Children, were either voluntarily given as Pledges by the Borrower, or violently taken by the Lender; and were the causes of making many a Law or Constitution, 
LL. Alamannorum in Lindenbrogio 86.  for the taking away of grievances, or abuses happening by it.  
As when a Man gave an Horse, or a Servant for a pledge, 
LL. Wisigothorum lib. 5, §. 2.  he was to pay any damage which it did in that time; if Gold, Silver, or any other Ornaments were pledged, and happened to be burnt, 
LL. Longobard. tit. 21. §. 5. & 16.  the Creditor was to purge himself by his Oath, that he was no cause of the damage; If a Pledge was given, and a Surety with it upon the Debtors Oath, and the Oaths of the Neighbourhood where he was born, the Party pledging desiring to have it again, was to allow the Creditor the curiosity of his choice; of one, two, or three Sureties none were to take Pawns or Pledges; 
Edictum Theodorici Regis 122, 123, 124.  without licence of the Judge; and they which assigned it over unto others, whereby to exact more than was due, were to lose their Debts; and if the Creditor did take more than was pledged, he was to pay four times the value, if he were sued for it within a year; If a Creditor took it against the Law, 
LL. Frisonum tit. 9 & in additamen. sapient▪ Ulmari.  and a Man taken in pledge were killed, or any other damage were done, the Creditor, and not the Owner of the Pledge, was to pay it: If any Man took a Freeman as a Pledge by force, and shut him up as a Prisoner, 
LL. Bajuvariorum §. 24  he was to pay forty Shillings penalty; If the time for the Pawn was expired, and it was not within that time redeemed, he was to bring it before the Judge, whereupon an Apprisement made by three honest Men, 
LL. Wisigothorum lib. 5. tit. 3.  he was to be licenced to sell it, restoring to the Owner the overplus. If Men or Maids were taken in pledge, and being kept in the Custody of the Creditor, had stolen any thing, he was to endure the damage. If Oxen, Horses, Minuta Animalia, or smaller Cattle, Vestments, Jewels, and Utensils of Husbandry, remained as pawns with the Creditor, by the space of twelve nights; and they were not redeemed, he might make use of them as his own: And if he that owed the Pawn or Pledge; complained that they were misused, he could have nothing but the Creditors Oath concerning it. If any did pawn a Man or Maidservant, of another Mans by a mistake, he was to procure them to be released; 
LL. Longobard tit. 21. §. 3.  And if the Creditor was questioned for it by their Master, he was to take his Oath that he thought the Debtor had pawned them. If any Debtor did against the Law, 
LL▪ Baivar. ti●. 12. §. 1. 3, & 4.  give any Man in pawn or pledge without Licence, he was to pay forty Shillings penalty; And if the Creditor took Hogs in pledge without order, both he and the Driver were to undergo severe penalties.  
And the grievances and inconveniences, did by pawning and pledging grow so high and burdensome, 
Constitut. Theodoric. in Goldasto §. 95.  as by Theodorico, King of the Goths and Italy, the pawning of the Children by their Parents was forbidden. And Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, added to his Lombardy Laws concerning pledging, that he Et ille cujus est causa, the Emperor and the Creditor Would as they please show mercy; and ordained that No Judge should cause Men to pawn any thing contrary to Law, especially their Oxen, Quia audivimus mu●●a damna & afflictiones propter hoc Populum nostrum sustinuisse, 
LL. Longobardorum tit. 21. §. 26.  For that he understood, that his People had lain under many losses and afflictions by it.  
And the borrowing of Money by Pawns, and Pledges, and securing of it, tho●gh with less usury and Brocage then now, was in the former Ages so very difficult, and upon hard terms, as upon the putting in a Fidejussor or Surety: For a Debt or Money amongst the Burgundians, 
LL. Burgundionum §. 9 & 19  he That became the Surety, carried home to his house the Debtor, there to remain as his pledge for performance; 
LL. Bajuvariorum tit. 3. §. 24.  And where the Surety had not so secured himself, he was Before Witnesses to have three times more than the Debt secured, or gauged unto him; And if the Debt were not paid within three Months, was to retain it to his own use. And the Old Bavarians did use, To take the Bodies of Men for Pledges or Security, and shut them up as Prisoners in their houses.  
Nor was the borrowing of Money in the Kingdom of Pegu or Brama very pleasant, 
Purchas Pilgrimage Tom. 1.  where the Wife, Children, and Slaves of the Borrowers are bound to the Creditors, who may carry them to their Houses, and there shut them up or sell them.  
And was not with us in the times of greater Charity, which was then believed to be a Scala Caelorum very meritorious, and the most ready way to blessedness, so easy as it is now? when in the Reign of our King Henry the Second, and long before, and sometimes after, the Lender's of Money, if they were any thing suspicious of the return and payment thereof, did not seldom take an Oath of the Borrower, besides his Bond or Pledges, which gave the Ecclesiastical Courts an occasion, or pretence of taking cognisance of Debts, and encroaching upon the Jurisdiction of the King's Temporal Courts of Justice; as may be seen in many Plea Rolls, in our King's Courts of Justice, in the Reigns of King Henry the 3d. Edward the 1, 2d. and 3d. where Prohibitions were sent into the Spiritual Courts, by our Kings and their Temporal Courts of Justice, and Actions were brought upon the disobeying of them by the Parties grieved, as well against the Ecclesiastical Judges, as the Parties therein prosecuting: 
pryn's Historical Collections in the Reigns of King John, H. 3. & E. 1.  Quare traxerunt eos in placitum in Curia Christianitatis, in placito debiti contra prohibitionem Domini Regis; And then there was no doubt, but that a Sentence being given for the payment of the Debt, an Excommunication was upon the non prrformance denounced, and a Writ de Excommunicatum Capiendo often granted by the Secular Power, to arrest, and take the Body of the Defendant; which kind of Writ and Process was as early as the Constitutions or Parliament of Clarendon, in the tenth year of the Reign of King Henry the Second.  
Insomuch as King Edward the First, 
Rot. Pat. 25 E. 1. intus.  to preserve the Privilege of his Menial Household Servants, and prevent their Arrests, and Imprisonments upon Excommunications, held it necessary to make and issue out his Writ, De promulgatoribus Sententiam Excommunicationis in Ministros Regis capiendis & imprisonandis, to take and imprison such as excommunicated any of them.   

CHAP. IX. The difference betwixt borrowing of Money, upon Lands and real Estate, and the procuring of it upon personal security, and that without trust and personal security Trade cannot well or at all subsist.  
ANd the difference betwixt the borrowing of Money upon Lands and real Estate, and the procuring of it upon personal security, may by the Borrowers sadly be evidenced.  
When, security by Lands is now most commonly by way of Leaf and Release, being a dark way of assurance; and within the memory of man, at first only purposely concontrived by Sergeant Francis Moor, at the Request of the Lord Norris, to the end that some of his Kindred or near Relations should not take notice by any search of public Records, what conveyance or setlement he should make of his Estate; and by the sad experience of sometimes double or treble Mortgages, hath not appeared to have been so safe as the former, which was more public and of Record.  
And when for a Security of two thousand Pounds, the Borrower must upon strange scrutinies, and almost a Spanish Inquisition (the torture of the Body only excepted) have his Estate, Evidences, and Credit put upon the Rack, and be bound with an abundance of over-jealous, hardhearted, thorney Covenants, and unmerciful provisoes, and conditions too near of Kin to the Scottish movable Bonds, mort-gage Lands worth four or five thousand Pounds or more, give his answer upon Oath to a Bill in Chancery, what Judgements, Statutes, or Encumbrances are upon it, and so embroil that and the residue of his Lands and Estate, with Statutes, Judgements, and Recognizances of great penalties, for the performance of those Covenants, as he shall hardly be able to have any more Credit by it, or Money lent upon it; or if the Creditor, who to be sure to keep him in the Chains, or thraldom of his power and threatening, will seldom give him time for above one year or two, for the repayment of the principal money and Interest, under the severity of a forfeiture, will, if he be a Nabal, more eagerly than he needs or should, call for his Money; upon a pretence of the Interest not being duly paid (of which the back wardness and delay of the Tenants may be many times the only cause) or of his want of the principal Money, which upon a due Examination may appear to have more of a contrivance, than truth in it; or if that will not trouble or disturb the Debtor enough, will do all that he can to affright him, to quit his right in the Land, and permit him to have a cheap bargain of it, by suggesting some flaw and defect to be in the Title; and tells him that otherwise he must call in his Money, for he dares not continue it any longer upon so weak an assurance: And if he thus gets it at a lamentable cheap rate, can notwithstanding assure himself he hath a very good title, and such as needs no confirmation; but if that will not do his business, and accomplish his griping design will exhibit his Bill in Chancery against him, to enforce him to pay the Money, or lose his equity of Redemption, whereupon a six Months, or some not very long prefixion given unto him by the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, he must either upon that short warning sell the Land at low and unreasonable Rates, and great disadvantages and loss to a Stranger, or take what pittance or little Sum of Money the Mortgagee will find a conscience to give him, upon a Release of his claim and interest in the Land, which is twice and many times more worth than the Money lent, upon some short prefixion or time of Redemption allowed; And that affording him but some small parcel of relief, and he being not also at that time able to procure a Redemption, must lie down under his sorrow, and let the Mortgagee enjoy the Land, for scarce half the value.  
A due consideration whereof might either in equity or compassion become a Court of Equity, in such a case to order the overplus of the just price or value of the Land, after the principal Money, Interest, and costs of Suit satisfied, to be paid to the poor Mortgagor, and his Wife, and Children, and be much more agreeable to Justice and good conscience, then to deliver up the distressed Mortgageor, to the greedy appetite or gripes of a merciless Creditor or Usurer bruise the broken Reed, add affliction to affliction, and strengthen the hands of the Oppressor; which the Prophet Ezechiel saith, was one of the crying sins of Sodom, in a time especially when too many of the loyal Nobility and Gentry have so abundantly suffered in their endeavours to rescue their King, Country, Laws, Religion, and Liberties from the pretences and oppression of a factious and disloyal part of the Nation, who by plunder and sequestrations did too well know how to enrich themselves by the ruin of their betters, and having after all their villainies received his Majesty's mercy, in being themselves pardonned, cannot tell how to allow a Christian forbearance to the sick, and languishing Estate of a Mortgageor, who hath been so much undone by them.  
And whether he can be able to Mortgage the residue of his Lands, or sell that which is already mortgaged, must take along with him as new additions to his heart breaking miseries, the fall or enforced abatement of Rents, as much if not more than twenty per Cent, and to give the fuller weight or measure to his troubles, be constrained to sell it after that abated Rate and Rent at sixteen years' purchase, when it would before have yielded eighteen or twenty, and could neither procure two thousand pounds' ●pon the former Mortgage, or the latter, if he could attain unto it without one hundred Pounds, given for the procuring of each two thousand Pounds, and walk a great way, besides towards forty or fifty pounds' Charges more, in the contriving and preparing the assurances; and after many a scruple and Rock of the Lender's, never to be satisfied fullness of security, passed over many a weeks attendance and charge, in the humouring of his many times purposed procrastinations, to drive him into greater necessities, whereby the easier to procure his unjust advantages, and render him the more patient to endure that Strappado, may, being bound hands and feet, and abundantly wrapped in Sheepskin, engagements, and encumbrances, sit down at Weeping Cross; and wonder there was no express Prayer in our Litany, against unmerciful Creditors, and such as make more necessities than they find, with a good Lord deliver us.  
And if that now over trodden way be not taken, to dig down and demolish the Borrowers Estate, and foundations of livelihood, will apply himself to as destroying a course, by extending the mortgaged, and all other Lands which the Debtor hath at a low rent; and keep it so in his possession, and a careless management, and with so great a loss to the Debtor, as the fiftieth year of Jubilee may come, before the Lands by the unjust account of the mean profits, be able to shake of that burden, and bring an Action also against him, and imprison him for the not performance of his Covenant, to pay the mortgage Money, or for breach of some other Covenants in the deed of mortgage; and if he hath any other Lands of his own, or his Wives, that can escape the fury of such a Creditor, shall not by reason of the former encumbrance, be able, without great difficulties and cost, to borrow any more Money upon what remains unmortgaged. And if the Money could be borrowed of a Citizen of London upon a mortgage, it must be of Lands near London, or in some adjacent County, otherwise his Nicetyship will by no means be entreated to lend any Money upon it; but he must be as unlikely as a poor Scholar or Poet, or borrow any more Money, and may dream of a Credit, and believe he hath a right unto it, when he is never more like to come in sight of it.  
When a Country Gentleman, whose Credit hath not been tainted, could heretofore with ease enough sometimes upon his own single Bond, or at the worst with a Friend or two, and one of them but his Tailor joined in the Bond with him, borrow fifty or one hundred, or two hundred Pounds; and the Farmer or Countryman wanting Money to pay his Rent, could upon a short warning procure forty or fifty Pounds, upon his own Bond or Bill; and a Citizen of London, or some other trading Town, can with a small Estate in Money and no Land, but a great care of his Credit and performances, be trusted upon his Word, Bond, Bill, or personal Security, with ten or twenty times more than he is ever likely to be worth.  
And it is very well known, that a multitude of London Merchants, retailers, Tradesmen, and Artificers, in or about that vast City, and the overgrown Suburbs thereof, being in their number about six hundred thousand Men, Women, Children, and Servants could not maintain or uphold themselves, in their several orbs and stations, without a trusting of their Customers; and being trusted themselves, or a confidence on both sides in personal Securities, Bargains, Contracts, and Promises; which is very often done, and necessitated to be done without Pawns or mortgage, security in the course of Commerce and interchange of affairs one with another, by all Merchants, Seamen, retailers, Farmers, Tailors, Laborers, Husbandmen, and all sorts and degrees of People in the Kingdom, and other Parts of the World; and even the landed men and Freeholders', who are not the fortieth part of the Nation; and the Copy-holders', when they do not deal for so great Sums of money, as to surrender and engage their Copyhold Estates, cannot in the multitude, diversity, speed, and management of their almost daily and hourly business one with another; and at Markets and Fairs, and elsewhere, avoid the taking or giving of personal Securities or Contracts, which cannot primarily affect those that have Lands, or concern their real Estates, but are to follow the Persons of those that are Debtors, for the performance thereof.  
So as it would be no Problem, or Cripple assertion, to aver that the forbidding of trust or giving days of payment, by which the Citizens and Tradesmen of London, do gain more than they should do by enlarging their price, and Items to a very great excess, and in some, as it may be feared, to more than a double or larger Interest, and the taking of huge Sums of money with Apprentices, now more then formerly, become a part of their Trade; and a public Registering enjoined of all money and debts, which they do owe and are engaged for, by Credit or otherwise.  
Would quickly manifest how Trade would be undone, if it were not for trust upon personal securities, and performance, and the benefit, and necessity of Writs of Arrest, enforcing their Debtors to make payment, or to be the more careful of it.  
And by so speedy a way of enforcing a Defendant to appear to the Action, make the Merchants and Tradesmen so punctual in their payments, whereby they do get great Credit and Riches, and have given a confidence to all Trade and Commerce, which since the Reign of King Edward the 3. hath been hugely increased, makes the poor man, which hath no great Stock or Estate, to be as good security for what he undertakes, as those who have greater; and gives us the reason, why those that do lend Money unto Country Gentlemen, or Men of great Estates do usually require a Citizen, though he have but a very weak and small Estate, and is more in danger of breaking then the Gentleman, to be bound with him, and do think their money not to be very safely lent without such a security. And that great City and Emporium, which sitteth upon many waters, and stretcheth out her lines to the utmost ends of the Earth, would certainly languish and decay, if she should be deterred, or bound up from trusting, or being trusted; and there would be none, or a very little Trade and Commerce in the Nation, if it should not be driven by personal securities, when our Merchants that do Trade into Persia, the East-Indies, Turkey, the Levant, and Norway, with as much Money as Commodities, having neither Pawns nor Lands to mortgage, do not seldom deal upon personal security; Foreign Merchants being in that manner contented, to do as they would have done unto them, and do many times borrow money in their own Countries, to give day and time of payment unto Merchants, and their Correspondents in other Countries.  
And there would not be wanting, very great and many mischiefs, inconveniences, delays, disturbances, and obstructions in the universal Trade, and affairs of our Nation, both at home and abroad, if that great and daily manage of our Commerce at the Royal Exchange of London, for vast sums of Money or the value thereof, twice every day, in every week, of every year, Sundays, great Festivals, and public and extraordinary days of Fast, or Thanksgiving only excepted, should by a jealousy and distrust, in all Merchants and Men of Trade therein every day concerned, and the Actions and Estates of one another, forsake their accustomed, and very laudable ways of trust, and confidence in the credit, and punctuality of performance of one another, and not believe a Bargain or Contract to be well and securely made, or Bills of Exchange safely answered, without an almost infallible certainty, of the Estates of those with whom they deal or correspond, and in their diffidence thereof (when as to the Sea and Foreign Trade, the Winds and Tides will not be entreated to tarry, and opportunities of vent and benefits, if not suddenly laid hold on, cannot be easily or at all times met withal, or gained) adjourn the conclusions, or certain engagements of their Bargains, Contracts, Undertake, or Promises, until they could consult with their Lawyers of some of the Inns of Court, some not easily to be satisfied, Conveyancers, Scriveners, or Men of scruple, how to make their Contracts, Charte●, Parties, Agreements, Partnerships, or Insurances to be without any, or very little, or seldom hazard or danger, or procure some Perspective glasses to afford them a clear intimacy, or visibility into the Estates of Men, or a possibility of Accidents, Shipwrecks, Piracies, or Sea misfortunes, or the breaking or knavery of retailers, and render them as safe in their Trade, and adventures against all contingencies, as any moral or worldly probability, or security can make them.  
And that their great concernment, and height of reputation, guarded by the wakeful Eyes of public Notarial Protests (which is sometimes tromped upon them, by some of their Foreign Factors or Correspondents, inadvertencies or over charging them, is of so brittle and tender a nature, as a small gust of misfortunes, or adversities, overturns, and sinks it; or a malicious or foolish report of being broke, or likely to break, shatters it all in pieces, and puts the not long before prosperous Owner of it, to recover as well as he can the damage sustained by it, and the Shipwreck of Credit can be no otherwise then exceedingly ominous, and dreadful to men that are to make much of their livelyhoods, and hopes to raise their fortunes by it; when besides the many other disasters attending and lying in Ambuscado, the Statute of Bankrupt made in the Reign of King James, doth in the Character of a Bankrupt 21 Jas. ca 19 (amongst other things declare, any Merchant, retailer, or any other seeking to get their living by buying or selling, to be a Bankrupt, who being indebted to any Person, in the Sum of one hundred Pounds or more, shall be arrested for the same, or lie in Prison two Months or more, for that or any other Debt, or afterwards escape out of Prison, or gets forth by common or hired Bail, shall be accounted and adjudged a Bankrupt to all purposes and intents: And provide that such a one should have his Goods and Estate seized, and divided amongst his Creditors proportionably to their debts, and be liable to the penalties of the said Act, and the orders and provisions therein contained.  
For certainly without competency of trust and confidence in Trade, and dealings one man with another, and a pawn or security of their Bodies, subject to Arrests, compulsion or disgrace, all Commerce and Traffic would be destroyed; no Merchant or Chapmen will, or can give day for his Wares, when he neither knows, whether his Customers have Goods sufficient to pay for what they buy, or where to find them, when the Wares that he sells may either be used, or sold away again to another; or if they could be met with again, will not be of half the value they were sold for.  
No man without personal Security, Contract, or Promise will lend any money to Merchants, because their Goods are either at Sea, or in Foreign Countries, and sent out so often, and upon so many adventures and hazards, as if they do, they will not know how to get it again.  
Young Tradesmen, and Men of hope and industry, that have none or very little Stocks of their own, will have no Money lent them; or if they have, it must be upon such other Cautions or Security, as may starve, and take away the hopes of their preferment.  
Moneys given to Charitable uses (as they are many times) to be lent upon security to poor Tradesmen, or young Beginners, that have little or nothing in Estate or their Shops, cannot without Bonds or personal Security be lent or distributed, according to the mind and intention of the Donors (mortgage of Lands not being likely to be had) for otherwise it cannot be done, but to such as are rich already.  
No Merchant, or whole Sale-men, will adventure to trust or sell to Retaylors, upon one, two three, or ●ix Months, as they shall be able to make or return it; nor retailers to retailers, as they do often use to do, if they do not give personal Security, whereby to be arrested, if they do not pay the Money contracted for.  
No Country Vintner will without it be furnished by the London Vintners or Merchants; no man shall know how to do good to a Friend or Servant, or set up a young man, if personal Securities shall not oblige their Process of Arrest.  
No Tradesman shall be able to Trade as they do now, and get his living and a comfortable subsistence, by retailing under other Tradesmen; nor any Mariner, Soldier, or Servant be trusted, because they have nothing but their Bodies to be answerable for it.  
Many Lawyers and Ministers, who do carry much of their Estates in their brains; the Artisan in his hands, and a few Tools; the Soldier the most that he hath by his side; Unlanded men or untrading Bachelors or single Men, all or the most part upon their backs; and the smaller sort of Farmers and Country Cottagers, having very little Goods or Householdstuff, may bewail their want of Credit, when personal Security cannot help them; and all the Trade and Commerce, good will and charity of the Nation, that was wont to flourish more by the Care and Credit, and honesty of Men, than any certainty or visibility of Estate, must, if necessities and occasions cannot be supplied as they were wont to be by Bonds, Bills, or personal Security, now be turned into a way of Pawns and Bro●age, and three times more given than the value of that which is bought or borrowed, where ready money is wanting.  
And all Credit and Industry fall to the ground, especially if it shall be considered that not long before our late times of Troubles and Confusion, the money of some Dutch and Foreign Merchants lodged here, being estimated to have been as much as five Millions Sterling, have been much of it by reason of our bringing down of Interest to six per Cent, and other disturbances called home; and that the money Current in the Kingdom, is by no very random computation verily believed to be scarce enough to pay the Interest of the Capital, of what is owing by the People one unto another; and if the course and way of Credit should be now stopped, and turned out of his Channel, we may not expect to see any more happy effects of trusts and Credit, as in this Age of ours we have done in a rich Sir John Spencer, Sir William Craven, Sir William Cockain, and Sir Paul Bayning, who beginning their World with no Original Riches, have gone out of it with the comfort and honour, of laying the foundations of several noble Families, and every day in the hopes and flourishing of many young Merchants, is ready to proclaim the great benefits of trust and Credit, and that, which not seldom happens, by the only employ and advantage of another man's money: And the sad & ineluctabile fatum dismal, and not to be overcome disasters, which do fall upon those whose former props of trust and Credit have failed them, when their Friends stand afar off, and look upon them as Lepers and Persons infected, do by the ill government of their tongues and censures, debar them more than they should, of all the opportunities of fortune, or means to a more happy condition.  
It was Credit and the care of it, not Lands or a visible Personal Estate, which made our Prince of Merchant's Sir Thomas Gresham; in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, to be able to lame the King of Spain and his Indies, in his design of subduing England, by draining of his Banks beyond the Seas with his personal security.  
It was personal Security, Credit, and the care of not having any man come twice to his house for money, which made Sir Abraham Dawes, one of the Farmers of the Customs, in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr, able to take of those who voluntarily offered it, one thousand Pounds at a time upon his single Bond or Bill, which to support he did always (as he himself acknowledged) keep five thousand Pounds at a time in a Chest in his house at Interest, and when he had paid out any considerable part of it borrowed, and took in as much to replenish it.  
It was an imaginary Credit, & an heretofore punctual performance of our late handy dandy men the Bankers of London, paying one man's money with another's that decoyed, and enticed almost all the money of England, into their running, ebbing, and flowing Cash, upon their or their Servants single notes, for some years & under their only hands, for five hundred or a thousand Pounds at a time, for some years, after upon the Master's single Bonds.  
And it was Credit and personal Security, not so much any real Estate in Lands or Houses, that have made the Banks of Lions and Amsterdam so to flourish, in the midst of Wars, and abundance of Taxes, and enabled the Dutch, those mighty men of Trade and money; whose Lands and Territories, in all their Seven United Provinces, do in quantity scarce equal our Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, to engross almost all the Trade of the Heathen and Christian World, to raise five Millions Sterling at home, upon no more than as many Weeks short warning, and to manage at a vast expense, a long and lasting War with the greatest Kings and Princes of Christendom.  
It being certain that Securities, or Cautions for money or Credit, cannot in the general be so safe possible, or ready at hand to be had, as personal Security; which as our Bracton and Fleta, 
Bracton lib. 3. de actionibus ca 3. Fleta lib. 2. ca 6. §. 22, 23.  in their Divisions of Actions into real, personal, and mixed▪ have informed us, do inducere Actionem in personam, make an Action to be personal, for that the individual and very same money is not, nor can by the Plaintiff be expected to be restored, but the value of it or damages; and it doth oblige the Person, but not at the first the Lands, Goods, or Chattels, as our Statutes Merchant, or of the Staple, or Recognizances in Chancery, or elsewhere taken, do when they do carry in them a condition upon default of payment, to levy the money upon Lands, Goods, and Chattels, and upon the Body, if the Lands, Goods, and Chattels be not sufficient to satisfy; and in a Bond the words obliging are, Obligo me Haeredes, Executores, & Administratores meos, the Land being chargeable in respect of the Person, but not the Person in respect of the Land; and the Goods and Lands, if any or the properties thereof are many times more invisible, than the Persons of men; for Bonds or Contracts do bind, and engage the Person as much, as if he did thereby undertake to pawn his Body, and subject it to an Arrest or Compulsion, to appear in Judgement, if he should fail in the performance; for all Contracts and Promises, 
Fleta.  saith Fleta, have in them Vinculum Juris such a Bond or Obligation, as ties us to the performance of them, 
Bronkhorst tit. Reg. Juris, & Commentar. ad loc. Bracton lib. 1. ca 5.  and is so personal and inseparable; as it doth sequi personam obligati, go along, saith Bronkhorst, with him that made it like the shadow with the Body: And generaliter, saith Bracton, Jus gentium se habet ad omnes Contractus, The Law of Nations binds us to the performance of them: 
Grotius de Jure Belli lib. 2. ca 6.  For, saith Grotius, he to whom the promise is made, hath by the dictates of natural reason a right to compel it by lawful means.  
For a man may be known where to be found, when his Money, Goods, or Estate cannot, or what Estate he hath at home, or abroad in his own or other men's hands in trust for him, or otherwise: And the Pawn or Pledge of the Body must needs be the greatest tye upon a Debtor; for if a Pedlar travelling with a pack of Pedlery upon his Horse, hath his Horse distrained and taken away, and he be put to carry his pack upon his back, or if the Debt be so much as to lay hold on both, that cannot so disturb or trouble him, as an Arrest will do of his Person: Or if a poor man shall have his only Cow, and the Instruments and tools of his daily labour taken from him, that will not so much affright or beggar him, and his Wife and Children, if he do not take care to prevent it, as an imprisonment of his Body will do.  
And our Bonds, are not so rigorous, severe, or jealous, as the movable Bonds in Scotland, as they there term them are, which even for small Sums of money with us (but great with them) can be so distrustful as to enforce the obligor to renounce beforehand, All manner of exceptions to the Law, 
Scottish Records in the Tower of London, whilst they were there imprisoned by Oliver Cromwell, & Parl. James the Sixth in Anno 1600.  which may be proponed to the contrary, and all Privileges and Jurisdictions, with a clause and consent inserted of Registration, Horning, and Outlary, and to have the strength of a decreit to pay principal Interest and Charges, according to the Obligees own modification, declaration of conscience or discretion; and ten Pound Scotch money for Ilke shilling Scotish Money, which shall be unpaid of the Principal; nor so fierce as in some Parts of Germany, 
John Coppen in Rangensdorf in Decis. quaestion. 33.  where the Creditor, if he suspected the Debtor to be poor, will take Juratoriam Cautionem, make him swear that he would pay the money again; amongst whom and the Italians there were Ostagia or Undertake, to give entertainments to the Creditors with Men and Horses, at the Sureties or Debtors charges, till the Debt were satisfied.  
And the Civil Law was upon Contracts and Bonds, for money lent or trusted, so well furnished with renunciations beforehand, of the benefits of Law in general and particular; 
Butrigarius in Tract. de Renunciation.  as there is by Butrigarius reckoned up no less than fifty three several sorts of Renunciations, which the cruelty or diffidence of Creditors did in their Contracts and Bargains usually, and as they pleased put upon those that had occasion to borrow or deal with them.  
But our Nation keeping itself constantly to its own more gentle, and yet binding enough constant form of Bonds and Obligations for money, used here in England for some Centuries of years last passed, hath with its Process of Arrest attending and guarding it, persuaded the People thereof justly to believe that that kind of Process hath produced such a better, more sure, and easy Credit in the Nation then was formerly, as it hath not only greatly increased, encouraged, and facilitated the Trade and reputation thereof, but it hath been its greatest prop, and support in the for many years long and bloody Wars, betwixt the two great contending Houses of York and Lancaster, when Estates in Land were little worth, and where they were of any value, or enjoyed any quiet from the furies of War, or disturbance of Seizures, Attainders, or Confiscations were until the 27th. year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th. and the 27th. year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth covered, and protected with secret and undiscernible uses, many of which were fraudulent, and in the many other also tosses, and troubles of our present and former Ages, which may appear to be more than a conjecture to any, who shall but consult their own reason, and observations of the difficulties and inconveniences which would daily and hourly happen, in the borrowing, procuring, or securing of money, if nothing but Pawns or Pledges, at as hard a rate to private Brokers many times as twenty per Cent, or mortgages of Land would be taken for security for money, or moneys worth, or the value of it, which in matters of Trade would so quickly turn all into Exchange and Barter; as a Tradesman could not be able to furnish, or stock himself, or his Shop, without either ready money, which many Tradesmen, and not one in every twenty, are always or often able to do, or disfurnish, or unstock themselves, and carry as much out as they endeavour to take in; and how quickly and easy, upon the stock of Credit, Reputation, and Opinion, one or more hundred Pounds may be borrowed upon a Bond with one or two Sureties? and how readily, and without any more ado one or more Counter-bonds of the Principal doth serve to counter-secure them.  
And where Citizens do take Apprentices, without whom they cannot manage their Trade, and by taking too great, and in former Ages unheard of Sums of money, to teach them their Mystery of gain, will find it to be as inconvenient to themselves, in that their new way of Apprentice Trade, as troublesome to the Parents of the Apprentices, if they were to be satisfied with nothing but a mortgage, by Security of Lands, or Pawns, or Pledges to be given by them for their children's honesty, many times dearly discharged, when as now their single Bonds or Covenants will suffice.  
And they ought not surely to be accounted too Sanguine or over credulous, who shall give entertainment to an opinion, that if all the money which hath been borrowed in the times of our English Troubles, lately passed or long ago, or in the now times of our unparrelled pride, prodigality, and luxury, had been to have been borrowed only upon Mortgages, Pawns, and Gauges, the vicious and foolish part of the People of this Kingdom, which are the far greater number, would have long ago suffered their follies, to have brought them into the sad condition of the Egyptians, in the time of the more thrifty and forecasting Joseph, 
Genesis 47.  when in a famine only of Bread, prognosticated to continue for seven years, they were in the first year of it constrained, when money failed them, to take bread in Exchange for their Cattle, Horses, Asses, and Flocks, and after their Bodies offered as pledges upon the like occasion, and necessity to give up their Lands for necessary (but no wanton) supplies.  
And although the first pawn or pledge, that is mentioned in the Book of God, the most Ancient and best of Records, to have been given in the Forenoon of the World, was that of Judah's Signet, 
Genesis ca 38.  Bracelets, and Staff to his disguised Daughter Tamar, for a security of what his Amours, and unlawful Contract had promised; yet shortly after his Brother Simeon became a personal security to his Brother Joseph, for the bringing unto him his youngest Brother Benjamin, and was in the mean time bound and kept in Prison; and Reuben upon his return to his Father Jacob, to remove him from his unwillingness to send his beloved Benjamin into Egypt, 
Genesis ca 42.  offered his own two Sons in pledge, that he would safely return him unto him again: And when that could not prevail, Judah, without being bound or kept in Prison the while by his Father, became a Surety for him as it were body for body, and that of his own hand he should require him. And the after Ages have found so great a benefit, as well as a necessity of personal security, as here in England long before the Statute of 25 E. 3. the Bodies of men, as well Nobility as others, have to the great advantages of the Kingdom, and upon great and weighty reasons and occasions of State, been given and taken as Sureties and Hostages, for and to divers of our Kings and Princes.  
And by our Laws agreeable in that and many other particulars, not only to the Civil and Caesarean Laws, but of the Law of Nations the Plaintiffs, when by our Original Writs, made out of the Chancery in Actions of Debt, impowring the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas, to make process and hold plea thereupon, 
Sigonius de Judiciis lib. 1. cap. 21.  the Sheriff to whom the Writ is directed, when he doth summon the Defendant to appear before the said Justices, being commanded to take Sureties of the plaintiff, that he will prosecute and justify the Action, was to take it by personal security, and not by any pawn or pledge.  
So as if there were not so many irresistible Arguments, Reasons, Examples, proofs, and necessities for the ancient, long continued use of the Writs of Capias and Outlary, beyond a prescription and memory of man, and many ages.  
That which hath in all Ages been allowed, as the best expedient to secure from doing or suffering wrong, in case of lesser or greater Crimes, as Trespass, Felony, Manslaughter, Murder, Treason, or suspicion of either, where the less favours are to be showed, propter atrocitatem criminis, for the horridues of the Fact, until Offenders can be brought to Judgement: For whom Plegii sint donec se defenderunt Carcer & Gaola, 
Bracton lib. 5. de exceptionibus ca 8. 31.  The Goal and the Prison were to be Securities, saith our old and learned Bracton.  
And that old rule of Law not used, to be denied, kicked, or spurned at eadem ratio eadem lex, that a parity of reason in one Law or Case, may be the foundation of a like Law in another; and that other maxim of Law, Qui non habet in Aere ●uat in corpore, Where a man hath nothing in his purse to answer the Law, he ought to suffer for it in his Body, the punishment of Contempts of the authority of Courts of Justice; and the securing of men's Debts, where there is A suspitio fugae, Any suspicion, likelihood, or signs of the Debtors running away (which the old Almans were so careful to prevent, as that rather than fail they suffered the Plaintiffs themselves to take and imprison them) may be called in as Assistants, to maintain the right reason and necessity of Writs of Capias, and Outlary in matters of Debt, and other the like personal Actions.  
And those very good effects of our said English Law proceedings, and the consequences thereof, and benefits ad●rewed thereby, are and may be demonstrable by the less difficult way of borrowing money, more safe lending of it, and more speedy way of recovering, and getting it in with little damage and loss, when in this last Century, and present Age of about one hundred and fifty thousand Capias, or Process of Arrest and Outlary, sued out or prosecuted in a year, there are little more than one housand of them if so many so arrested or unbailable, as to be carried to Prison, or being destitute of Friends or Money, do remain in Prison a quarter or half a year at the most; or if any do continue any longer, they are so very few in respect of the far greater number, which were threatened or might have been there; as if the Prisons of the Fleet, King's Bench, Marchalsea, Ludgate, the Compters in London, Newgate, the Gatehouse at Westminster, and the Counties, and every other City Goals, or Prisons belonging to Liberties in England and Wales, shall be truly searched and examined, either as to those who are actually in every of those Prisons, or are out upon Writs of Habeas Corpus; or how many new Prisoners are every year, half year, or quarter of a year brought in upon Actions of Debt, Trespass, or other Civil Actions? And how long or little while they did or do there tarry the product of that account, may truly testify that the terrors, and continual affrights, and trouble of Arrests, with the Tristis poenae expectatio paena molestior, often sad apprehensions of the many inconveniences of imprisonment, which do inevitably follow as to the Charges, loss of Estate and Credit, do so summon and call together all their cares, and so gently and best of all conduce to the ends of Justice; and those that seek it, as it verifies and gives us the benefit and right use of that moderation, and care of our Laws in that rule and maxim of it, to threaten more than execute ut metus ad omnes poena ad pauco●, that the punishment of a few may operate as much as if all did partake thereof; the affright being most commonly that which makes the suffering to be so disproportionate, and less than what was necessarily or otherwise threatened.  
For if four thousand Writs of Exigent be awarded, and issued out of the Court of Common Pleas in the year 1674. which is very near an exact account taken thereof, not much above one thousand of them do come to be returned, filled, or outlawed: But the residue, and those very many which are not, are either stayed by Agreements, or Retraxits, and Compliance betwixt the Attorneys, or in order to appearances upon new Originals, without returning and filing the Writs of Exigent: And may be taken to be no fancied Calculation, when the number of all the Capias utlegatums, special or general, made by the Clerk of the Outlaries in the year 1674. were no more than 1034. the Outlaries reversed no more than 27. And the Outlaries certified into the Exchequer no more than sixteen. And all the Prisoners that were for Debt, and other actions not Criminal, in the Prison of the King's Bench (being the greatest in England and Wales) either in the Prison or the Rules, or abroad by Writs of Habeas Corpus, the third day of May 1653. were under the hand of Sir John Lenthal Knight, Marshal of the Court of King's Bench, with the several times of their Commitments, certified upon the special order and command of the then miscalled Parliament, to be no more than three hundred ninety one; of which there appears to have been committed in the year 1616,— but— one. In the year 1631-one. In the year 1633— one. In the year 1636— one. In the year 1637-one. In the year 1638-one. In the year 1639-one. In the year 1640— nine. In the year 1641— five. In the year 1642— two. In the year 1643— three. In the year 1644— four. In the year 1645— seven. In the year 1646— fourteen. In the year 1647— fiveteen. In the year 1648— twelve. In the year 1649— fourty-six. In the year 1650— thirty-two. In the year 1651-fourty-one. In the year 1652— one hundred thirty. And in the year 1653— fourteen.  
And it must needs then be a wonder, and none of the smaller sort or size of wonders, how or upon what ground, cause, or reason, that so very ancient, rational, legal, necessary and useful way of Capias, Process and Outlary, derived and deduced from the Laws of God, Nature, and Nations, should either deserve or come into so ill an opinion with some of the People, or that it should be called or understood to be an Illegal, Iron sharp and cruel, Law, a Tyranny, thraldom, mischief, slavery, lamentable bondage, terror, and sorrow of heart, and utter ruin● of the free born People of this Nation, founded upon a misconstruction, and inadvertency of the genuine sense of the Common Law itself, and contrary to thirty Acts of Parliament, made in Confirmation of Magna Charta; or should be repealed by the Act of Parliament, made in the 28th. year of the Reign of King E. 3. ca 3. and by the Statute of 42. E. 3. 〈◊〉 3. Or should now in its old age have no better a title than a grievance; and those unjust Rabsheka railing reproaches, (when it hath been helpful to multitudes of men in several Ages) cast upon it.   

CHAP. X. The way of Capias and Arrest is no oppression or Tyranny exercised upon the People, since the making of the Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. or hath been hitherto, or may be destructive to their liberties.  
WHen as Tyranny in the known and general definition and understanding of it, is a cruelty or power executed by one or more at pleasure, contrary to Laws Divine and Humane, and inconsistent with the Laws of that Place or Country wherein it is exercised: For Laws do or at the least should intend to prohibit things unjust, and to order things good and useful, for that People and Nation unto which they are applied: The intent of a virtuous and good Lawmaker being as Aristotle saith, To make the People good, and conduct them to virtue.  
Or how it can be called Tyranny, when it is no less than right reason, which should be the Parent and Director of all Justice, when as God himself the most just and rational Lawgiver, the Watchman of Israel, and the Keeper of the liberties thereof, 
Exodus 22. 7, 8.  that gave unto Mankind a reasonable Soul, and that great blessing of reason, which is the Divini luminis radius, A beam or ray of his own Excellency, did in the Laws, which he gave to Moses when he talked with him, enact and ordain, That if a man shall deliver unto his Neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen, and the Thief be not found, the Master of the house shall be brought unto the Judges to see whether he hath put his hands upon his Neighbour's Goods (which was nothing less than an Arrest.)  
The Law of Nature that giveth every man leave, and enjoineth them to work rather than to be idle and want, allows them not to hinder public good, or disturb the Rules of Civil Society, and work within the City of London or the Liberties thereof, if they be not thereunto authorized as Freemen of the said City; or was it an oppression by an Act of Parliament, as King Edward the 3. did in the 25th. year of his Reign? to limit Artificers, Labourers and Servants wages; or as Queen Elizabeth did by an Act of Parliament, yet in force and unrepealed, made in the 5th. year of her Reign; or when King Henry the 8th. did limit the price of Victuals and Household Provisions by an Act of Parliament, made in the 25th. year of his Reign; or an oppression of the People by Sumptuary Laws for Apparel, made in his Reign, and of his Daughter Queen Mary's, which otherwise in a private man according to the bent and rules of Nature, giving every one a liberty In rebus licitis & non prohibitis, in thing lawful, not sinful and consistent with the Laws of public good and Civil Society, would have been within the freedom and dispose of his own will.  
Neither do the People of Spain and Italy, in their submission to a Banda or Rate, imposed upon the Sellers of Victuals and Household Provisions; or the Natives of France, Spain, and the elective Kingdom of Sweden think themselves to be too much, or any thing at all abridged of their natural liberty, by yielding for public good a just obedience to their Sumptuary Laws, lately made and ordained.  
For there is no Law extant of this Nation so made, but the Subjects might choose to incur the penalty or hardship of it, or if they should happen to be too severe or unfit, or not so necessary, convenient, or useful, as was intended or expected; or like unto some of the Laws of the Medes and Persians, which were said to be irrevocable, but the People had by the grace and favour of the Sovereign, a remedy by Parliament to abrogate, repeal, explain or amend them by substracting of some clause, or adding some other unto it; for liberties are both by Civil and Common Law defined to be of things not forbidden, 
Bracton lib. 1. ca 6.  otherwise vaga liber●● as may quickly come to be misera servitus, and bring those that would use an unbounded liberty, where it shall meet either with Laws or a greater force, into a most miserable slavery.  
And therefore just liberties do by our Common Laws, 
Coke 2. part. Institutes 47.  saith Sir Edward Coke, signify the Laws of the Land: And that which is the Law, cannot be called Tyranny; nor that which is against the Law, liberty: And that ancient manner of Trial for those who were criminally accused, called Fire ordeal (which ordained the Party suspected to walk blindfold over certain Ploughshares of Iron heated red hot, laid at a distance one from another, 
Verstegans Antiquities ca 3.  and if the Party did not touch any of them, or treading upon them received no harm, he was declared to be innocent) coming into this Land with the Eazons; and the Law of Trial of Titles by Battle or Duel, continuing here long after the Norman Conquest, and to this day in force in certain doubtful cases, though they had very much of blood and cruelty in them, could be suffered to wear out into better Laws, and yet be obeyed as Laws, whilst they were such; the Law of torturing or pressing such men to death in case of Felony, as will not pleads or do refuse to be tried by a Jury, to be so many hours in dying, 
Stamfords' Pleas of the Crown.  and have no other drink but Kennel-water▪ hath enough of horror in it to be found fault with, if it were not the Law, and the only means to preserve the Authority of Laws and Judicature, and there were not toom enough for men to avoid that direful way of punishment.  
For there was never since the blessing of Laws, Magistracy and Government came into the World, any legal liberty not to appear in Judgement, or not to be compelled to do right one unto another by Judges, and those that were in Authority commissionated by their Superiors And if ever there had been such a liberty, it may be renounced or released by our own Acts, as in the entering into Bonds and Contracts one with another, wherein we oblige ourselves to the performance of any thing, which the Laws of God and Nature do demand of us, 
Oldendorpius in diffinit. Actionum.  the Obligees may dispense with it: And if the Law of Nature could have given us such a vast liberty, as some would pretend a right unto, the same Law of Nature doth in civil Conversation and Society give us a power sufficient to restrain it, and make that which at the first was merae voluntatis in our own wills, to be postea necessitatis a necessity, and out of any supposed freedom of our own wills or the power thereof.  
Neither can any man by any rule of Law charge our Laws with oppression, because positive, or made in terror, or binding to strict rules, to avoid arbitrarines or oppression in the Judges, or rigour and severity (as in some particular man's case, they may happen to be by an abuse of them) but the fault is rather to be laid at the doors of those who do violate and break them.  
For an unlimited or absolute liberty, and the liberty of the Subject are each unto other contradictory, and there are no Laws but do retrench, or take away some liberty which People had or took to do ill, or might be inconvenient to the public good: For God the greatest and wisest of all Legislative Powers, did put the Jews who were, as he saith himself, as the Bracelet upon his arm, and the signet upon his right hand, under a Law of forty stripes, and of death if they disobeyed the Sentence of the Judge. And yet we do find them in their Generations above two rhousand years, after in such an opinion of their freedom, as they thought nothing could be added unto it; saying they were of the Seed of Abraham, and under no Bondage, and are yet above sixteen hundred years since bragging of those their Laws.  
When David had slain Goliath, and might justly have expected the reward, of having his Father's House to be made free in Israel, as some of the promised rewards, he did not when he durst not lift up his hand against the Lords Anointed, 
1 Sam. ca 17. v. 25.  believe it to have been such a freedom, as might exempt him from the duty of a Subject. When our King Athelstan by his Charter gave Lands to St. Wilfrid, 
Dugdales 1. part. Monastic. 172, 173. & Blounts Nomolexic in verbo Frodmortel.  and the Church of Rippon in Yorkshire, in the words, Als frelich as I may, and in all things be als free as Heart may think, or eych may se. And King William the Conqueror granted the Earldom of Chester, 
Spelman Glossar. in diatriba de Comitib.  to his Nephew Hugh Lupus, Tenendum sibi & haeredibus ita libere ad gladium, sicut ipse totam tenebat Angliam ad Coronam, to him and his Heirs, to be holden as freely by the Sword, as he did himself hold England and the Crown thereof: Those very large Grants did neither free the Lands so given to St. Wilfrid, and the Church of Rippon, and that Earldom to the Earl of Chester unsubject the Owners, or give either of them (as our Records and Law-Books in the course of the after Ages will testify) any liberty not to appear upon any Summons to the Courts of Justice, of our Kings and Princes: For legalis & liber homo, 
spelman's Glossar. in verbo legalis.  saith Sir Henry Spelman, hath in our Laws no other signification then, Qui stat rectus in Curia non exlex, seu utlagatus non excommunicatus vel infamis, etc. sed qui in lege postulet vel postuletur, who standeth right in the King's Court is not outlawed, excommunicated or infamous, but may at Law sue and be sued.  
And it cannot be denied, but that in order to Justice a Summons or citation only might be sufficient, and would certainly be most consonant to the ease and liberty of the People, if they were or could be so of one mind or inclination to Justice, as to obey the first Summons, either of the Parties complaining, or the Courts of Justice commanding, or not make excuses or delays, hide themselves or run away, or be loath to come to it, be so of one kind of affairs and business as never or seldom to be absent, so always provided of their Council, Witnesses and Evidences, as not to need any further time to make their necessary deffences, and to be of so much sufficiency of estate, as to have wherewithal to make a speedy answer or satisfaction: And that there were no such pravity or incertainty in the wills and actions of men, as that the Creditor would be always sure to demand no more than what should be just, and show as much mercy, if there should be occasion for it, as the Debtor should have need of, and that every man would be as willing to do right one unto another, as it should be asked or demanded of him.  
But that being not to be found in too many of the Sons of men, or the smallest Societies, nor was always or is likely to be in the sublunary and lapsed condition of mankind, some kind of compulsion was necessary, and a lesser than what is now, or hath been most anciently practised, could not be to any purpose, unless we could content ourselves, and take that to be a happiness (which would certainly never prove to be any to have Justice (which next to the Creation, and the mercy of all mercies, the Redemption of mankind, and the Divine Protection and Providence, is one of the greatest blessings which was ever imparted by God unto it, and as to the continual guard and preservation of our lives, liberties and estates is more necessary, and less to be wanted then our food, apparel, houses or places of rest, and is the great support of the being, and well being of all humane Societies) to be a mere speculation or empty word, for Scholars only to dispute of in the Schools of Ethiques; Or sit like Old Ely in a Chair, with Why do you so my Sons? and permit every man to deceive, & mischief one another, and render the Justice of the Nation to be nugatory, for the restraint now used of the Body of a Defendant, refusing to appear voluntarily, or upon a Summons or Citation, is not in vinculis or Cippis, in Chains or Fetters, not ad poenam but ad Cautionem, and in so moderate and gentle a manner, and lessening of their liberty as it is but temporary, and when so done, is but after many delays, threatenings, warn and forbearing, and most commonly occasioned by their own default, or some long abuse of the Plaintiffs patience, and such a remedy or course taken, is no more, if rightly interpreted, then what common and right reason, necessity, and endeavour of right to be done did require. And when it is but Majoris mali vitandi causa, to avoid greater evils, is so little in derogation of public liberty, as although it may for a time be something prejudicial to some particular man, it proves many times to be a special help unto many men, to recover their Debts or Money due unto them, the want whereof might otherwise be a cause of their own imprisonment.  
And so long as any man is a Member of a Commonwealth, 
Bacon's Historical Discourse of the Government of England.  his liberty is to attend or depend upon the good of that Commonwealth, otherwise he may claim a liberty as a Freeman, but not as an Englishman.  
Nor could our Forefathers in the necessity of bringing, or compelling men to appear in Judgement, as well as of the preservation of the always very necessary Power, Authority and Jurisdiction of Courts of Justice, which do order and direct it ever, tell how to imagine that it should be understood to be a Tyranny, to arrest, attach or imprison such as should refuse to appear upon the Summons, or Process of a Court of Justice, or be fugitive or like to run away, or that it ever was or can be deemed to be an oppression, to enforce such Persons in a legal and orderly way to pay their Debts, and do that which God commandeth them to do, and hath no less Justice or conscience in it, then to be constrained to do right one unto another, 
Psalm 15.  perform Covenants and Promises, and obey Magistrates and Laws in force, when the Book and Dictates of God himself, do account a Man wicked, that borroweth and payeth not, and the wilful deceiving of Men, in the not paying of Money due unto them, or not performing of Promises, is by good Divines and Expositors conceived to be a kind of theft, and reckoned to be within the meaning of the Eight Commandment, 
Ursinus catechism, & Majer upon the ●8. Commandment.  and to be numbered amongst the breaches and transgressions of it; and it is no Tyranny by the Law of Nature, for a Man to stay or lay hold of one who is running away with his Money or Goods, or for a Judge by the Common Law of England, to commit such as misbehave themselves by word or gesture, in their presence or a Court of Justice, or for a Creditor by the Civil Law, to Arrest or stay his Debtor, if he be running away before he can get a Warrant or Process from a Judge. 
Laws of War.  To punish Soldiers with death by the Law Military, for running away from their Colours, straggling in their March, or going above a Mile from the Army without licence; to Arrest or Imprison such as resort to unlawful Games, 
23 H. 8. ca 9  until they shall find Sureties, no longer to use or haunt any place where such unlawful Games are used; or to imprison Collectors for the Poor, refusing to account: And Sir Edward Coke in his Commentaries upon that part of Magna Charta, 
Coke 2. part. Institutes 52.  saith that a Watchman's arresting a Nightwalker, or one that hath dangerously wounded another, or that keepeth Company with a notorious Thief, whereby he comes to be suspected is lawful, and no breach of Magna Charta, 
14 Eliz. ca 15.  although it be done without the Warrant of a Writ.  
By what rule of right reason then shall so gentle, and necessary a course or way of compelling Men by Process of Arrest, to appear in a Court of Justice, in order to a Sentence or Judgement, when he may be bailed, be styled a Tyranny or Oppression? When it shall not be so called or esteemed, to take a Man in Execution for not obeying or performing a Judgement, where he cannot be bailed; or shall it be Tyranny to Arrest a Defendant, to oblige him to appear in a Cause or Action Civil, and none at all in a Criminal? An Oppression or Tyranny to Arrest a Defendant, to constrain him to appear in an Action of Debt, and none at all in an Action of Trespass? Nay, rather is it not an Oppression, to endeavour to defraud and injure Men, detain their Estates and Livelyhoods, withhold from the Poor and needy their right, and undo the Widows and Fatherless, by keeping away the Money which should feed or keep them from starving, without making satisfaction? or shall it be no Tyranny to do the wrong, but a Tyranny in a legal and ordinary manner, or way to seek to be reliev●d against it?  
Or how can it be justly accounted to be a Tyranny, when no whereelse it hath been so esteemed? but was so little believed to be a Tyranny or Oppression by other Nations, or any thing less than right reason, as they have not only made use of the Process of Arrest, and Imprisonment of the Body in Actions of Debt, 
Sigonius de Repub. Athen. lib. 3. ca 4.  and other the like Personal Actions in these later Ages, but long before the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour.  
The Athenians had their Bailiffs, 
Rous. Archeologia Attica lib. ca 4.  Sergeants, and Apparitors to bring Defendants into their Courts of Justice, and the Plaintiff might himself hale or draw the Defendant by force into the Court, if he would not willingly come; but if he could put in two sufficient Bail or Sureties, he was dismissed.  
And howsoever there were at the first amongst them, and the Men of Sparta some harsh and cruel way of scourging and whipping of Debtors, and other punishments and levetities used; and their Lawmakers and Magistrates were much troubled, to appease and reconcile the interests of the Creditors, and necessities of the Debtors, they could notwithstanding very well content themselves, and think their liberties to be sufficiently provided for, by this gentle and secure way of Process, to compel Defendants Judicio fisti, to appear in Judgement.   

CHAP. XI. That the wisest of the Grecian Commonwealths Athens and Sparta, those great Contenders for Liberty and Preservers of it, did in their establishments and Methods of Justice, neither understand or suspect any Tyranny, or Oppression to be in the necessary & moderate use of the Process of Arrest.  
FOr the Usury being very great and excessive, 
Plutarch. in vita Solonis.  the Poor ploughed the rich men's Lands, and yielded the rich Men a sixth part of their Crop, for which cause they were called Hectemory, and Servants, borrowed Money at Interest upon Gage of their Bodies to serve it out; and were by Law, if they were not able to pay them, delivered to their Creditors, who kept them as Bondmen and Slaves in their Houses, or sent them into strange Countries: Many for poverty sold their Childsen to their Creditors, or were enforced to forsake their Country; Parellel in many things or something near to that the Children of Israel had long before in Custom, (for from the Phoenicians, or their learned men's travails into Egypt, they might have borrowed it) in the borrowing and lending of Money, and forcing Men to perform their Contracts.  
So as there arising at Athens a great Sedition amongst the People, to set the men indebted at liberty, redeem those who were adjudged to be bond, make a new division of Lands amongst them, and to trun up the whole State and Government. Solon one of the wisest Legislators that many Ages before or after had met withal, a contemporary with Jehojakim, King of Juda or living very near the time of his Reign, though unwilling to meddle, or endeavour the appeasing of it, because he feared the covetousness of the one part of the People, and the arrogancy of the other, was notwithstanding at the Request of the wisest Men of the City content to intermeddle in it; and therefore after he had refused the Kingdom, for fear of the name of Tyrant, and was chosen Governor, to be the Reformer of the rigour of the Laws, and to be the Temperer of the State and Commonwealth▪ by consent and agreement of all Partier ordained, That all manner of debts past should be cleared; no man should ask his Debtor any thing for the time past; nor lend Money to Usury upon Covenants, for the Body to begaged for it, and raised the value of the Money and the Pound of Silver, which was seventy-three Drachmas, up to a hundred.  
Which offended the Rich, because they were enforced to cancel their Bonds, and the Poor because all Lands and Possessions they gaped for, were not made common; yet notwithstanding shortly after having some taste of the benefits of his Ordinance, they chose him General Reformer of the Law, and of the whole State of the Common wealth, without limiting his Power; whereupon he having made many good Laws, but finding some to praise them, oehers mislike them, and some coming daily to him to expound his meaning▪ and considering therefore how it would get him envy or ill will, either to refuse or yield unto it, resolved to get himself out of the People, and to shun their groan and complaints, betook himself to be a Master of a Ship, ask licence, to retire himself for ten years beyond the Seas.  
But in his absence a great Sedition arising, Pisistratus a Tyrant was made choice of by some of the People; and the City notwithstanding they kept Solon's Laws and Ordinances, desiring a change, either Parties hoping their conditions would mend by it, and that every of them should be better than their Adversaries. Solon returning, speaks unto every one of the Heads of the Faction apart, and tries if he could reconcile them together; but though he was much honoured and reverenced by the People, seeing the Poor tumult, and the Rich fled, for that Pisistratus coming into the Marketplace, and feigning himself to be wounded by his Adversaries, for that he stood with them about the Government of the Commonwealth, had put the People into an uproar, and obtained a Guard of fifty Halbardeer, and a Mace to be carried before him, and aspired to be King, went home to his House, took his Weapons laid them before his Gate in the midst of the Street; said, He had done all he could possible, to defend the Laws and Liberties of his Country; and from that time forward betook himself unto his ease, and never more after dealt in matters of State of the Commonwealth.  
Very long after that (there being it seems no way or expedient in the mean time found out to take away that severity) upon complaints made to Lucullus, 
Plutarch. in vita Luculli.  who was Governor and Captain General for the Romans in those Parts, that the Fathers were driven to sell their Sons & Daughters to pay Interest, and yet were in the end adjudged to be Bondmen, and Slaves to their cruel Creditors, who imprisoned them set them on a rack, or in the Stocks, or upon a little brazen Horse, and made them stand naked in the heat of Summer, or cold of Winter; He abated the Monthly Usury or Interest to a hundreth part of the principal Debt, and ordained that the Usurer and Creditor should enjoy the fourth part of the Profits and Revenues of the Debtor, till he was satisfied; and that they which took Usury upon Usury should forfeit the whole: Which was reckoned, saith Plutarch, to be as a great refreshing, and deliverance of the People, who all this while were not found to be complaining against the Law of Citing and Compelling men to appear in Judgement; being a part of the Laws of the Ten Tables, which Solon is said to have compiled, but observed it as a Law of public use and necessity, giving no manner of disturbance at all unto it.   

CHAP. XII. The Troubles and Seditions of the People of Rome, concerning the Whip, Scourge, selling for Bondslaves, and other cruelties used by Creditors, in the suing and prosecution for their Debts, and the Troubles and endeavours of the Magistrates and Senators to appease them.  
ANd was so little believed by the Romans to be a Tyranny, as when some Seditions and Commotions had been amongst them, occasioned by the greatness of Usury, cruelty of Creditors, Whipping, Scourging, Slavery, and villainous Usage of imprisoned Debtors they did acquiesce, and submit to the use of the Process of Arrest, to enforce Men to appear in Courts of Jnstice.  
And when at Rome two hundred fifty-nine years after the building of that City, being about four hundred ninety-two years before the coming of Christ, an old Captain or Commander coming into the Townhouse or Marketplace, with the Arms or Ensigns of his Ancestors, ragged clothes, a pale famished and meager countenance, 
Livi Dec. 1. lib. 2.  his beard and hair overgrown and bearing his breast, shows the wounds received in the Wars, tells the People he had lost all his Goods and Estate, Taxes had impoverished and brought him into Debt, and he had been carried of his Creditors not only into Bondage, but into Prison and a place of Torment, and showed his back wounded and gored with stripes.  
Whereupon a great Tumult and Sedition arising amongst the People, the Senate were afraid to sit, and upon the News of an Invasion of the Volscians, were by the People bid to fight for themselves: But upon promise, that no Creditor should take away their Goods, or Sell them, or Arrest or take away their Children, as long as they were in the Camp, they were listed and pacified; but that War ended, and another shortly after with as good success, they that were bound before, were delivered over to their Creditors for Debt, as also others that were not bound or imprisoned before.  
Shortly after the People seeing a Debtor sued, and brought to the Bar, flock together, and make such a clamour as the Consul's Sentence could not be heard, and single out the Creditors and misuse them, so as the fear of the loss of liberty was translated from the Debtors to the Creditors, and the People being discontented refuse again to muster; whereupon the Consuls, by advice of the Senate, seek to force them; but one of them being summoned by the Consul to appear, stood still and refused, the Consul sends to attach him, the People rescue him; the Senators cry shame of the indignity, and run down from their Seats to assist the Sergeant: Yet for all this stir, saith Livy the Prince of Historians, it was not thought convenient to take away all keeping of Credit with the Creditors. But Valerius being chosen Dictator, upon a promise much like that they had before, procured them to muster: Those Wars ended, the Dictator moved the business again in the Senate, concerning those that were bound in Prison for Debt; but they refusing to order any thing in it, gives up his Dictatorship, and the People thinking he did it for their sakes, follow him home with praises: The Sedition increaseth again, and was laid aside; after that they mutiny again, and withdraw out of the City into the mount Aventine, and begin to fortify; but upon Menenius Agrippa's Oration, and comparison of the mutiny of the several parts of the Body against the Belly, they come to an agreement, and amongst other conditions it was granted, that they should create two Tribune's of the People, to assist them against the Consuls, and that their authority, by an Oath to be taken amongst them, should be sacred and inviolable.  
About fifty years after, the Tribune's of the People were at discord with the Consuls, for that the Commons were not suffered to make Laws, and though both sides agreed it, 
Livy lib▪ 3. 109.  to be a matter most equal for their liberties, that Laws should be made by the Commons and Senators, yet they differed about the legislative power: Whereupon Ambassadors were sent to Athens and Sparta (when they had agreed of some Laws, but could not accord who should be the Lawmakers) to learn and get copies of the excellent Laws of Solon, 
Dionis. Halicarnassaeus lib. 10. Livii Decad. 1. lib. 3. Pomponius de origine Juris lib. 2. §. 4. Isidorus 5. orig.  and the Laws and Customs of other Cities of Greece; after whose return, and much rejoicing for the bringing of the Copy of Solon's Laws, the Twelve Tables by them, and others well skilled in those Foreign Laws, were framed four hundred & forty years before the coming of Christ, by Ten Men or Magistrates, created by the People as a Committee to peruse those Laws, amongst which was that Law brought from Athens.  
Qui petebat debitorem conveniebat atque ut se in Jus sequeretur admonebat, 
Sigonius de Judiciis lib. 4 1. ca de in jus vocatione Aulus Gellius Attic. noct. lib. 20. ca 1. Cujacius lib. 10. ca 10.  saint is sequi noluisset eum in Jus ducebat, sive rapiebat verum no in juriam facere, videretur ante aliquem ejus actionis testem faciebat capta, scilice● hominis forte intervenientis aut pre●entis auricula nogahat eum licetn● antestari, id est, possum ne testem sumere si responde●at licet, tum adversanium frustrantem, aut fagientent injecta m●n● ad Praetorem trahebat atque hoc faciebat auctoritate XII. TABULARUM, Sic 〈◊〉 i●iis erat SI IN IUS VOCAT QVEAT NIT ANTESTAMINO IGITUR EM CAPITO SI CALVITUR PEDEMVE STRVIT MANUM ENDO JACITO: 
Gothofredus in fragmen 12. Tabularum.  If a man had summoned or demanded of another to do him right, and to appear in the Court; if he refused to follow him, nulla interposita mora, immediately or without delay, he might, lest he should seem to do him wrong, take Witness of the next man he met, manum injicere & per vim in jus rapere, lay hands upon him and enforce him; which the Laws or Authority of the Ten Tables did warrant. But if he was sick or aged, and not able to go, than he which summoned him was to provide him an Horse or Wagon; those Laws directing, that SI MORBUS AEVITASQVE VITIUM ESCIT QVI IN JUS VOCABIT JUMENTUM DATO SI NOLET ARCERAM NE STERNITO; 
Sigonius de Repub. Athen. lib. 1. de judiciis. Gothofredus in Fragmen. 12. Tabul.  That if he was sick, or so aged as he could not go, he was to have a Horse provided for him to ride upon; 
Gellius lib. 20.  and if he should refuse that way to go, he was to be put up in a close Wagon, and carried whether he would or no.  
Which the Romans those grand Assertors of liberty, and the most suspiciously impatient of any thing, which might disavantage or prejudice that high esteem which they had of it; neither did find any fault with, or had any reason so to do, when as those Laws of the Ten Tables (of which that above mentioned de in●jus vocatione, or the necessitate in jus eundi, of constraining men that refuse to appear in judgement was one) were freely chosen and allowed of by the People of Rome before they were enacted, and with the greatest freedom of choice that any Laws could possibly be. For, 
Livii Decad. 1. lib. 3.  saith Livy, Ingenti hominum expectatione Populo ad concionem advocato, & quod bonum faustum felixque Reipublicae ipsis liberisque eorum esset ire, & leges legere propositas jussere se quantum decem hominum ingeniis providere potuerit, omnibus summis infimisque aequasse: In a huge expectation of the multitude, the people being called together or assembled, they were with wishes and prayers that it might be good and happy for the Commonwealth, and for them and their Children, required to go together and read the Laws which were proposed unto them, which they (meaning the Decem viri, or than Magistrates, of which number were the three which had been sent to Athens and Greece to learn their Laws) had so far as Ten men with all their wisdom could foresee and provide, indifferently devised for all men: Sed quia plus pollere multorum ingenia consiliaque in animis versarent secum unamquamque rem agitarent deinde sermonibus at que in medium, quid in quaque re plus minusve esset conferrent eas leges habiturum populum Romanum quas consensus omnium invasisse, nec jussisse latas magis quam tulisse videri posset. But for as much as the wits and heads of many men might see further, and better advise, they gave them leave to consider and ponder every particular, and to reason together from point to point, and deliver their opinions openly, what was short, wanting, or superfluous in every Article; 
Sigonius & A. Gellius Attic. noct.  and what Laws an universal consent of the people should bring in, those should be enacted and none other, that it might appear they were not so much to approve of them, & give their assent after they were propounded, as to propose & prefer them their own selves: 
Livii lib. 3. 110.  Cumque ad rumores hominum de unoquoque legum capite edito satis correctae, viderentur Centuriatis Comitiis decem Tabularum leges perlatae sunt, qui nunc quoque in hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo fons omnis publici privatique est Juris. And when as they were thought to be sufficiently corrected, as every one spoke to the Titles and Chapters thereof, in an Assembly of all the Centuries and degrees of men, the Laws of the Ten Tables were enacted and established; which even at this day, saith Livy, amongst that infinite number of Laws heaped one upon another, are the very Wellspring and Fountain of all Justice, both public and private.  
But the next year after, the people finding the Decem viri growing insolent, to determine matters at home before they gave Sentence openly, and usurping Kingly Government, begun to repent themselves, of putting the power of appeal out of themselves, tumult and protested against the Decem viri, or Ten which they had chosen; saying, They had created them Magistrates, only for the publishing and enacting of certain Laws, but they had now no Justice in the City: And Appius one of the Ten, having engrossed into his hands the power and disposing of his Partners, helps on the Tumult by a business that happened, upon his lusting after a young Maid, the Daughter of L. Virginius, a Commander of good note in the Army, and setting Mr. Claudius to claim her as his Bondwoman, who laying hands on her in the Marketplace, 
Lib. 3. 117.  cited her to appear, and commanded her to follow him, otherwise he would force her; the People flock together, but the Plaintiff tells them, they need not trouble themselves, for he proceeded according to Law, and would do nothing by force, citys her again to appear before Appius, and the People persuade her to follow, where the cause by reason of the expostulation of Icilius to whom she was betrothed, not coming to hearing; that day she was bailed and suffered to go under Sureties till the next; but the second day, Appius without hearing the Defendant or her Friends, decreed that she should be a Bondwoman to Claudius, who going to seize her finds the People resisting him, Appius sends a Sergeant to assist him, Virginius in a rage killeth his Daughter, that she might not come into the Oppressor's hands, and a great uproar happening by the People, Kindred, and Friends of the Maid, Appius citys Icilius, the Spouse of the Maid, as an Author of the Tumult, and for his contumacy in not coming, caused him to be attached and carried to Prison; but Valerius and M. Horatius, two popular and powerful Senators, thrusting back the Sergeant, said, If Appius had any thing to charge him with by order of Law; they would Bail him; but if he went about to offer violence he should meet with his match: After that Appius himself is arrested, who desiring to be bailed, and not to be put in Prison or lie in Chains, by all the Friends and pitiful speeches he could make, could not obtain it; For that he had, saith the Father of Virginia, so much against all order of Law denied the bailing of her, who therefore commanded him to be carried to Prison, as a person attaint and convict: The Tribun of the Commons set him a day to plead for himself and make his answer, but Appius before that day killed himself, his Goods were confiscated by the Tribune's; the rest of the Decem viri fled and were banished, and all their Goods confiscated: And the Ten Tables having two more added to them, by the appointment of the Tribune's, are set or hung up openly to be seen, engraven in Brass.  
The Romans having long before the compiling of the Twelve Tables, 
Pomponius lib. 2. de Origine Juris.  used to Arrest and compel Men to appear in Judgement, as is manifest by their manner of giving Bail, before such time as Appius denied to take Bail, in the case of the Daugh-of Virginius; which was ex veteri Jure, an Old Law and Custom amongst them, saith Pomponius.  
And this grand Commotion of the People having nothing at all in it the while of complaint or action, against the Laws of citing and compelling men to appear in Judgement, and a putting them to Bail in the interim, but a confirmation or allowance rather of them.  
Threescore and five years after that Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, so named because he had saved the City of Rome, and the Capitol from ruin and spoil, growing ambitiously discontented, & not contenting himself to deal in the Laws Agraria about the Division of Lands, which had always ministered occasions of Seditions, began to intermeddle between the Debtors and Creditors; 
Livii lib. 6. 225.  and to overthrow, saith Livy, all keeping of Credit.  
And seeing a Centurion condemned in an Action of Debt, and carrying to Prison upon an Execution, with a rout and crew of his Followers, rescues and takes him from the Officers, and crying out that his merits in saving the Capitol had been to little purpose, if he could abide to see his Fellow-soldier carried away captive, did in sight of the People pay down the Debt, set to sale his own Land, and caused it to be openly cried, that as long as he had one foot of ground, or any thing else rest, he would not see one of the People condemned, & upon Execution carried to Prison, and stirred up such a Sedition in the City as the People followed him as the protector of their Liberties; whereupon the Dictator being sent for from the Army, assembled the Senate, caused the Ivory Chair of State to be set in the Common-Hall, and sent a Sergeant for Manlius, who with a great retinue of his party presents himself before the Tribunal; and tells the Dictator, that now he saw he was created Dictator not against the Common Enemies, 
Livii lib. 6. 226, 227.  but himself and the Commons of Rome, for he did see well that he professed to maintain and bear out the Usurers against the Commons: Whereupon, after many insolent speeches, the Dictator commanded him to be carried away to Prison; Manlius cries out, O ye Gods and Goddesses that inhabit the Capitol, suffer ye thus your Knight and Defender to be misused by his Adversaries? But, saith Livy, though every man that saw it was greatly moved, the City as most patient of all other Cities, to abide any just and lawful Commandment of the Magistrate, so contained herself, as neither the Tribune's of the Commons, nor the Commons themselves durst intermeddle in it, though many of them did put themselves in mourning, let their heads and beards grow in their grief and mourning for it, and with sad and heavy cheer kept commonly about the Goal-door; but after a while threatened to break the Prison, continued or rather increased their Sedition, 
Livii lib. 6. 228, & 229.  and never left till the Senate released him: Whereby the Mutiny was never the more ended, but rather a Captain given them to maintain it, the People hope to be rid of Usury, Manlius calls them home to his House, exhorts them to maintain their Liberty, and to hinder and cry down Dictatorship and Consulship, and Process and Course of Law for Actions of Debt; the Senate and Tribune's in Consul's Authority, 
Livii lib. 6. 230.  and the Tribune's of the Commons also, seeing that in the loss of the public liberty their own power likewise would come to an end, being much troubled at it, by advice of the Senate resolve to Arrest him, and thereupon send and serve Process upon him, to answer at a day appointed; which being come, he produceth four hundred men, for whom he had laid out Money gratis, saved their Goods from Port-sale, and kept them from the Bondage of their Creditors after they were condemned; reckoned and showed openly the Spoils of Enemies by him slain or disarmed, to the number of thirty, gifts bestowed on him by Generals to the number of forty, whereof there were two mural Garlands for scaling of Walls, and 8 Civic Coronets, for saving the lives of Citizens in danger, presented many in person whom he had rescued out of the Enemy's hands, nominated Servilius, at that instant General of the Hosse-men, stripped his breast bore showed the scars received in the Wars, looked towards the Capirol, and prayed to the Gods, to give the People the same mind to help him as he had to help them; but the People notwithstanding being called out by the Tribune's, and drawn out by Centuries or Wards, into a place where they might not behold the Capitol, for otherwise it was thought impossible for them to get leave of their love and pity to him to find the Indictment against him: And the accusation prevailing more than compassion, he was condemned for Sedition, holding Conventicles with the multitude, and his over much largess, to be thrown down the Rock Tarpeja, 
Livii lib. 6. 231. & Plutarch in vita Camilli.  where himself had won so great glory by defending the Capitol; his own Kindred making also a Decree, that none of that Race should after bear the name of Marcus Manlius.  
The Tribunes after that complain, that the Senate sought to avoid the exhibiting of public Records and Books, 
Livii lib. 6. 236.  which gave testimony of the valuation of every man's substance to the worth, because they would not have the Sums of Debts to be seen or shown, which might show that the one part of the People were eaten up and devoured by the other, and that if the Commons would call to remembrance their Ancestors liberty, they would not suffer any Citizen of Rome to be awarded to Bondage for Debt, nor any musters to be taken until a view were made, and just account had of every man's Debts, that each man might know what he had of other men's Goods, what remanied of his own, whether his body were left free, or at the mercy of his Creditor to lie in cold Iron or baleful Prison; on the other side the Censors alleged, that the Debtors cautelously would not then keep their Credit and make payment: Which hire and salary or reward of Sedition, saith Livy, shortly after stirred up a mutiny, for that when many were adjudged to be kept bound by their Creditors, the Tribunes would not suffer those that were condemned to be led to Prison, nor the younger sort of the Commons enter their Names in the Muster-masters Book: Howsoever the Wars coming on they leave their mutinies; but after the Wars ended, Tribunes Military with Consular Authority were equally chosen, from out of the Nobility and Commons; And the year following begins with Discords, Seditions, and Broils (for no better were they then termed) concerning Debts, for the true Inquisition whereof, and to know to what Sums they amounted, Sp. Servilius, Priscus, and Q. Claelius Siculus were made Censors, but stopped by occasion of an Invasion of the Volscians, notwithstanding the fear and terror whereof; so little were the Civil Discords appeased, as the Tribunes of the Commons extended their power with more violence, to hinder the levy of Soldiers until they had indented and capitulated with the Senate, 
Livii lib. 6. 239, 240.  that so long as the Wars lasted, no man should contribute or be charged with any Impost, or be sued in any Action of Debt, whereupon the Commons are content to muster, two new Legions were levied and enroled, and to War they go with the Volscians their Neighbours; but as soon as all was quiet from Enemies abroad, they began a fresh to be sued and troubled by their Creditors at home, and having small hope to be released of their old Usury, fell into a new Sedition, by reason of a Contribution imposed by the Censors for making of a Well, which they had set out to be made of square Ashler stone; but being forced to yield thereunto, and to go to War against the Volscians and Latins, after several Victories obtained, and the Armies returned to Rome, the calamities of the Commons grew every day more and more, for they wanted means and were not able to pay for the Interest, that needs must be paid; and when nothing was to be had to make satisfaction, out of their Goods were adjudged and awarded to satisfy their Creditors in their Bodies. Which gave occasion to M. Fabius Ambustus, 
Livii lib. 6. 241.  a man of much repute with the Commons, upon the proud discontent of a younger Daughter, not being married so well as her elder Sister, whose Husband was a Tribune Military, plots with his unpreferred Son in Law and L. Sextius, who hoping to compass some alteration in the State, by reason of the excessive Debts that men were grown into, got themselves made Tribunes of the Commons; upon which advantage C. Licinius, the Son in Law of M. Fabius Ambustus, and L. Sextius propose Laws touching Debts, that when so much was defalked and deducted out of the Principal, as had been paid for the use and Interest, the residue should be paid by even portions in three years; that no man should hold in possession above five hundred Acers of Land, and that there should be no election of Tribunes Military but of Consular; with which the Senate being much troubled, could find no other remedy but the negative voice of some of the Tribune's to step between, and had wrought some of their own Brotherhood to do it, who as soon as they saw the Wards or Tribes, called forth by Licinius and Sextius to give their Suffrages, would not suffer those Bills to be read or pass by the Commons; whereupon when the Nobles began to choose the Tribune's Military, L. Licinius and Sextius crossed them, so as there was no election at all, but of Aediles and Tribunes of the Commons, 
Lib. 6. 242.  for Licinius and Sextius being chosen Tribunes again, suffered no Magistrates of the Chair, or of State to be created; After that other Wars ensue, and with much ado an Army is levied, Sextius and Licinius the publishers of those Laws were the eighth time made Tribunes of the Commons, and Fabius also a Tribune Military, five in eight of the Tribunes of the Commons earnestly, and like men distraught of their wits, urge for to have those Laws enacted; Sextius and Licinius with part of their Tribune Brethren, and M. Fabius the Military Tribune being, saith Livy, their Crafts Masters, and knowing well enough by so many years' experience, how to manage the minds of the Commons, demand of them how every one of the Senate, and other Rich men, could in equity hold the Land well near of three hundred Citizens, and a Commoner have hardly ground enough to build him a House upon, and to serve for a place to bury his Dead, whether the Commoners oppressed with Usury should yield their Bodies to bear Irons and suffer Torments, unless they pay the Interest before the principal? and that daily they should in whole Companies be had away from the bar, and condemned to thraldom, and allege that the Commons could never be relieved, until they make one out of their body a Consul, who might be equal in the Sovereign command and power of the Sword, and maintain and protect their liberty. The next year the Legions being returned home, the same Tribunes of the Commons are chosen, and the same Laws again proposed; the Senate when they saw the Tribes called, and none of the Tribunes step forth to stop their proceedings, 
Lib. 6. 243.  began to be exceedingly afraid, and choose a Dictator; the Tribunes of the Commons call a Common Hall, & summon out the Wards to give their voices; whereupon after the Laws were propounded, and some of the Tribunes denied them Camillus the Dictator, their good old successful General, formerly the Saviour of their Commonwealth against the Gauls, a man of undoubted honour and integrity, and the Darling of the People's, sided with the gainsaying Tribune's, and stickling to maintain their intercession and gainsaying authority, sent his Lictors and Sergeants to command the Commons to depart, threatening withal that if they proceeded thus like Conquerors to give Laws, he would take a Military Oath of all the younger sort, and presently lead an Army forth of the City, which put them and their Captains and Ringleaders in so great a heat of contention, as the Dictator terrified with some unlucky signs of the Birds, gave up his office; mean while in an Assembly of the Commons summoned by the Tribunes, the Laws were passed concerning Lands and Usury; howbeit shortly after it was found that Licinius had a great many more number of Acres of Land than his own Laws permitted. After this another Dictator was chosen, who nominated Licinius General of the Horsemen, 
Livii lib. 6. 245.  who with Sextius at the next Election day for the Tribunes of the Commons so demeaned themselves, as seeming to be weary of the place, they were the more eagerly desired by the Commons, and alleged thereupon, that the Commons themselves were they that hindered their own good, who might presently, if they would, have their City, their Common-Hall, and places of Assemblies freed from those Creditors, and their Lands recovered again from the unjust Landlords; that it stood not with the modesty of the People of Rome, to require to be eased themselves of Usury, & set in possession again of the Lands withheld from them, and to leave those old Tribunes, by whose means they had gained those commodities to shift for themselves without honour or hopes thereof; and that if the Commons should not resolve to speak affirmatively to those Laws, it would be to no purpose to choose any Tribunes, neither would they accept of the Tribuneship, neither should the Commons have those Laws ratified, which were already granted: 
Livii lib. 6. 247.  But upon an Oration or Speech of Appius Claudius a Senator, setting forth the inconveniences of what was propounded, and that by what had been already wrested by the Tribunes, All Credit in borrowing and lending, and taking and putting forth of Money would be abolished, to the destruction of all humane Society, Commerce and intercourse whatsoever. The matter was adjourned, and the publication of those Acts cut off and deferred; but the same Tribunes Sextius and Licinius being chosen again the Tenth time, got a Law enacted, that of the Decem viri for Church & Ecclesiastical matters some should be elected of the Commons, with which they were so well content, as they laid aside the business of Tribunes Consular, 
Livii lib. 6. 248.  and gave way for the creating of Tribunes Military; and the Venerable Camillus being almost fourscore years old, is the fifth time chosen Dictator, but after the Wars ended with the Gauls, who had invaded them, is welcomed home with a hotter Sedition in the City; where after many sharp bicker and contentions, the Senate and Dictator were forced to accept of the Tribunes Laws, and Sextius was created Consul out of the Commoners; but by reason that the Nobles refused to give their consent, that Camillus should leave his place of Dictator, the Tribunes of the Commons, as Camillus was set in his Chair in the Town-hall hearing of causes, sent a Sergeant to him, who commanded him to follow him, and laid violent hands upon him, to carry him away by force; Which made an uproar, saith Livy, was never before seen in the Common-hall or Townhouse, Camillus' Friends driving the Sergeant behind the Chair; and the People crying out from beneath to the Sergeant, to pull him out: Notwithstanding all which he would not resign up his Office, but taking with him those Senators which were about him, went towards the place where the Senate was wont to be kept, but before he could go in, he returned back again to the Capitol, and made his prayer to the Gods, that it would please them to bring his Troubles again to a quiet, and made a solemn vow and promise, if those Troubles might be pacified, 
Plutarch. in vita Camilli.  to build a Temple to Concord. And the matter coming after to be debated before the Senate, there happened such an hot contention and diversity of opinions, as the easier way carried it, which was to grant the Common People's desire, that a Commoner should be chosen Consul with a Noble Man, and it was agreed, that the Common People should be content that the Nobles might out of the Patricii create a Praetor, or Lord Chief Justice for Oyer and Terminer in causes within the City, which being by the Dictator published to the People, they were so joyful as they brought Camillus home to his house, with great shouts of joy and clapping of hands; and being the next morning assembled in the Townhouse or Marketplace, decreed, that the Temple of Concord should be built at the Commonwealth's charge, that some Festival days should be solemnised, and Sacrifices made unto the Gods in every Temple of the City, to give them thanks, and that the People should in token of joy wear Garlands upon their heads for this reconciliation.  
About nine years after upon a new Sedition of choosing of Magistrates, and for want of them an Interregnum happening, the Commons lost their Consulship again, and two of the Patricii began to govern, who thinking to continue it as formerly in the Nobility, had the trouble of another Sedition, wherein the People after many stirs and meetings not prevailing, two other Confuls of the Nobility were elected. And though the Usury or rate of Interest was much abated, yet the poorer sort of the People being overcharged with the payment of the principal, became bound and thrall to their Creditors, in so much as the Commons, in regard of their private straits which they were driven unto, never troubled their heads at all any more with the making of Consuls. 
Livii lib. 7. 262.   
In the end of the next year after, 
Ibid. 263:  the contention betwixt the Senate and the Common People broke forth, concerning the Election of the Consuls; whereupon the Tribunes of the People stiffly denied to suffer any Assembly to be holden, unless they might have one of the Consuls to be chosen out of the Commons, according to the Law Licinian: And the Dictator as stoutly bend to deny it, the Election was adjourned, and the Dictator leaving his Office, the matter grew again to an Interregnum, and the Interregents finding the Commons to be always maliciously set against the Senators, succeeded one after another until the Eleventh Interregnum, when the discord and variance still continuing, the Tribunes called on hard for the Law Licinia; the Commons had an inward grief that struck nearer to them, upon the excessive Usury that still increased, and each man's private care and grievance broke out in their public contentions and debates; the Senate thereupon weary of such Troubles, commanded L. Scipio the Interregent for the time, being for concord and unity sake, to observe the Law Licinia, in the Election of the Confuls, so as P. Valerius Publicola had joined with him in fellowship of Government, Cajus Martius Rutilius one of the Commons.  
Who labouring to ease the matter of Usury, being that which hindered the general agreement, set a course to do it, so as the long or old debts, which were more entangled rather in regard of the Debtors slackness and negligence then want of ability, the City out of the common Stock crossed them out of the Book, by setting up certain Counters or Tables, with ready coin in the public Hall, provided that good Security were given to the City, by Sureties put in beforehand, or else the Goods of Men valued at indifferent and reasonable prices were to discharge the Debts, so as a great number of Debts, without the complaint of either Party, was satisfied and paid.  
Two years after the Ancient possession, 
Livii lib. 7.] 267.  saith Livy, of the Consulship was restored to the Senators; and about two years after that, the Usury coming but to half so much as it was formerly, the payment of Debts were dispensed, and ordered to be paid in three years by even portions, so as a fourth part were paid beforehand, some of the Commons being for all that pinched therewith, for that the Senate had more care to see Credit kept with the Chamber of the City, then of the difficulties of private Persons, which was the better born in regard of the forbearance to muster Soldiers, and call for Tribute.  
About seven years after that, upon a mutiny of the Soldiers, in the Camp a Law was published by a Tribune of the Commons, that Usury should be made altogether unlawful; and after many nnreasonable demands, saith Livy, the insurrection of the Soldiers, who compelled their Commanders to march against the City, was upon a Capitulation made as once before (saith that learned Historian) the Commons, 
Livy lib. 7. 279.  and a second time the Army had done with the Senate, that their mutiny and insurrection should not be made use of to their danger or dishonour, it was appeased.  
About sixteen years after, being three hundred and thirteen years before the Incarnation or coming of Christ, Papirius Publius being bound for his Father's Debt, 
Lib. 8. 301.  & having consigned himself a Prisoner to the Creditor, who supposing that he might abuse the young man's Body for Interest of his Money, began to tempt him with fair words and promises, afterwards to threaten him, and when that would not serve, commanded him to be stripped naked and whipped; whereupon the young man all wounded and torn ran forth into the Street, and complained to all he met, of the filthy lust and cruelty of the Creditor; and thereupon a great company of People moved with the injury of the Usurer, and pity of the young Man, as also in regard of their own case and their Children, gathered themselves into the Marketplace or Town-hall, and from thence towards the Senate-house; and the Consuls being upon this sudden uproar Coacti, saith Livy, compelled, to assemble the Senate; the People as the Senators entered in the Senate-house lay prostrate at their feet, as they passed by showed the young man's back and sides; whereupon the Consuls were commanded to propose to the People, that from hence forward no person whatsoever, unless guilty of matters Criminal or Trespass (for noxa, the word used there by Livy, and Noxales actiones are by the Roman and Civil Laws, and our Bracton also interpreted, to be matters and actions of Trespass as well as greater crimes) until he were condemned to punishment, should be bound in Fetters or Chains, and that the Goods of the Debtors, not the Body, should be obnoxious to the payment of the Money borrowed (which might better be ordained there than with us, or many other Nations, for that the Romans by their Censors did keep public Registers of every man's Lands, Estate, and Lands; so they that were in Bondage became released and enlarged; and order war taken for the time to come, 
Livius in 4. Edit. apud Francofurt ad Moenum Anno 1568. p. 411.  ne necterentur, saith Livy, that the Debtors should not hereafter be bound or chained in Prison: Which if any shall misinterpret to be an absolute freedom of the Persons of the Debtors from Arrest, the Roman Records and Histories will be against them.   

CHAP. XIII. That this Order made to pacify a Tumult was not perpetual, or so much as intended to extend to an absolute freedom of the Debtors from Arrest or restrainte of their Persons, till they appeared in Courts of Justice or gave Bail to do it.  
FOr a Plebiscite or Law of the People, it could not be for they were not called together by Tribes or Wards, under the Authority of the Tribunes; or if they had so many Usurers, and all that were either Rich men or Creditors, were likely to have been against it; 
Sigonius de Antiquo Jure Roman. 120.  And an Act of the Senate it could not be, for they were forced or affrighted to it, and it wanted the consent of all the People's deliberation, and the just solemnities of it: 
Joannes Sarius Zamoscus de Roman. Ant. Augustinus de S. C Rom. Bodin lib. de Repub.  For ab exactis Regibus, from the time of putting down Monarchy, till the Reign of Tiberius Caesar, saith Bodin, the Senate alone had no power to make Laws, but only Annual Decrees or Ordinances: Which bound not the Common People (Ordinances or Decrees of the Senate (saith Dionysius Halicarnasseus, 
Dionis. Halicar. lib. 4, & 7.  a most diligent Inquirer into the Roman Customs, having Nullam vim legis nisi Populus probaret, No force or effect of Law unless the People approved of it; Et ea quae Populus probaverat annua tantum erant, nisi rogatione ad Populum, vel ad plebem vim legis adipiscerentur, And those also which the People did approve were but Annual, if by rogation or ask the People's consent, being called together by their Wards, it obtained the force of a Law, and without a rogation or demanding the Suffrage of the People was, as Bodin saith, ineffectual so as a Law, 
Bodin de Repub;  it was not because all the People were not duly called nor had agreed to it, and being no Law, could be no more than an Edict of the Consuls, or an Ordinance of the Senate; or if a Law (because we fiud it by Paulus Manutius reckoned for no less) was but temporary, 
Paulus Manutius de Legibus Romanis.  and to pacify and bring to their wits again the enraged multitude.  
But whatsoever it was, it extended not nor was so much as intended to take away that necessary power of the Praetor or Magistrate, of coercing or compelling men to appear before them in Judgement, but was abrogated or continued but for that time or a little after, or not put in execution, a fate which many other enforced Acts or Orders of that Commonwealth came under; as that of the Law Licinia, or choosing of one of the Consuls out of the Commons; that of lessening of Usury at one time, or taking it quite away at another, which had their intermissions; the latter of which was so impossible to be kept, as by custom and men's necessities it came to be to no purpose, which the many Seditions of the People, which happened afterwards concerning Usury, and the more ease than abatement of it, may be enough to persuade us unto: For besides what may be observed concerning the enforcing of that Law, and the course taken to pacify the People, the meaning of Bona Debitoris pecuniae oreditae non Corpus obnoxium esset, That the Goods of the Debtor not his Body should be obnoxidus or liable to the Debts, might probably be understood to be, that the Goods of the Debtor should be sold or taken in Execution, for the satisfaction of the Creditor, as far as they would go, and that his Body howsoever should not be bound or lie in chains for it, and that those that were bound in Fetters or Chains were released from that kind of imprisonment, as may appear by the Body of that Law, or the perclose and conclusion of it; which only saith Ita nexi soluti, so those that were bound in Fetters or Chains were released, which must be understood to be by the Sale of their Goods; And for the time to come, singly relating to the matter of binding in Chains or Fetters, not as to the Sale or taking of Goods hath only these words, Cantumque in posterum ne necterentur; And for the future it was enacted, that for Money borrowed the Debtors should not be bound in Chains, which needed not have been if their Goods, and not their Persons had only been liable to Debts; the way of Distringas or attaching Men by their Goods (where they were not Fugitives, or had a certain or visible Estate, being not then unusual, as may appear by what was done in the Case of the Senators, who had their Goods taken and distrained, for not coming upon Summons unto the Senate-house.  
Which Law or whatsoever it is to be called, got so little allowance in the opinion of Livy, that most learned and ever approved Historian, as he gives it no better opinion in the reporting of it, but that upon occasion of an injury done to one Man, A mighty bond or tye upon the People to keep their Credit was that day broken: And it will howsoever be evident enough to any who shall but acknowledge that truth, which will every where meet him in his enquiry, through the Roman History or Customs, that they did not by that Edict or Law abridge or take away the power of the Praetor or Judge, who though he was at first appointed and set up at the Request of the Tribunes and People, had two Lictors with Axes and bundles of Rods (a more terrible kind of Officer than our Sergeants or Mace-bearers) allowed to attend him in the necessary course of preserving that power was put into his hands, to judge and determine of causes: For we may find Sempronius a Tribune of the People, about sixteen years after the pretended Law of prohibitting Men to be bound in Fetters for Money lent, 
Livy lib. 9 339.  to command Appius the Censor to be attached or committed to Prison for no criminal or heinous fact: That in the accusation and pleadiug of Scipio Africanus, about one hundred & twenty-two years after, concerning an Account of the public Treasures, the Court was attended by Lictors or Sergeants, 
Livy lib. 38●▪ 1017.  and a common Crier; and that the Tribunes of the People themselves, in the absence of Scipio Africanus, when he sent his Brothers to appear for him, but failed to appear in Person, upon a longer day granted for the Process of the Law against him, to cry out, saying, Dare we not now send Folk to fetch him, being but a private Person, out of his Farm and House in the Country, and make him appear? unto whom not seventeen years ago, at which time he was General of an Army at Land and Admiral at Sea, we were so bold as to send Tribunes of the Commons, and an Aedile to Arrest and bring him away; that L. Scipio his Brother being after his death accused and condemned, for not bringing to account some Treasures taken in the Wars, 
Plutarch. in vita Scipiovis Africani.  when some of Scipio's Friends had appealed to the Tribunes of the People for their help, and remonstrated the many merits and services of him and his Family; the Praetor or Lord Chief Justice opposed, and said. That for his part he could not do with all, but if the Sum wherein he was condemned was not brought into the Common Treasury. He knew no other remedy nor what else to do, but command him as a condemned Person to be apprehended again, and had away to Prison. And when the Tribunes of the People, all but Titus Gracchus, pronounced alone that they would not interpose, and that the Praetor might execute his Office and Authority, all the favour which Gracchus one of the Tribunes thought fit to do him, was to decree, that as touching the Sum wherein L. Scipio was condemned, 
Livy lib. 38. 1022.  he would not be against it nor hinder the Praetor, but that he might use his power according to his place, and take it out of his Goods as far as they would stretch; but would never consent, that he who had subdued the mightiest Monarch of the world, and extended the bounds of the Roman Empire as far as the utmost ends of the Earth should lie in Prison and Irons. Besides how little that pretended Law, gained by a Tumult, prevailed against the Imprisonment of Men in Chains or Irons, after Judgement in Debt or other Civil Actions, or a bare Imprisonment without them, plainly enough appears, in the Customs and Usages of those times, held forth in the Oration made by Publius Scipio Na●ica, another of those famous Brothers, made to the Tribune's of the People in the behalf of L. Scipio his Brother, to keep him from going to Prison, clearing up unto us the usage of those times, notwithstanding that pretended Law; for there we may find him saying, That which cannot be made of the substance and Goods of L. Scipio, they will make good on his Body.  
So that it will be abundantly evident, that all the before recited Tosses, Commotions and Troubles of that grand Commonwealth of Rome, and that People's humours and ignorance in that Popular Government, which made them to be restless as the Waves of the Sea, tormenting and inquieting themselves and their Magistracy; which continued until that Republic had, as Tacitus saith, tired itself Civilibus discordiis, and gained a rest from those public disturbances in the Government and Monarchy of Augustus Caesar, 
Tacit. Annal.  were more in regard of an horrid Usury & their Debts, and being constrained at the same time to pay Tributes, Muster, and fight for their Country then of their being imprisoned, and more for the chains and cruel manner of Usage, then for the Imprisonment itself, or restraint of their liberty upon actions of Debt, which without a renouncing of Justice, and all the hopes and benefits thereof could not be forsaken; And were therefore without the former severities of Bondage, Chains and Fetters, to be reckoned amongst the most necessary & excellent rules of Justice, 
Cicero lib. 1. Tusc. quaest. & Strabo lib. 14.  void of all Tyranny. And was so liked and approved by that conquering and great Nation, as Hermodurus an Ephesian, who had been Assistant to the Decem viri, in the Interpretation of Solon's Laws, had his Statue erected in the Forum or Place of Justice; and were so continued & commended to after Ages, as in Tully's time, which was almost four hundred years after the public and universal consent of the People and their Magistrates gained, and likewise after the pacification of the People's complaints of their burdens of Usury, & the merciless usage of the Creditors, those Laws were had in so great a reputation & veneration, as that part of them de in Jus vocando, 
Cicero lib. 2. de Legibus.  constraining Men to appear in Courts of Justice, was, as he saith, a Parvis learned and sung by him and other Children; and after that he came to be that great Orator and Lawyer, whose just praises and commendation the many Ages since, and a long course of time have taken a delight to remember, could have no other opinion of those Laws, then that if all the learning and Libraries of the World were searched, those of the Twelve Tables, Si quis legum fontes & capita viderit, & auctoritatis pondere & utilitatis ubertate superarent, If any would inquire into their reason and original, their authority and benefit considered, they would appear to be the best of all Laws.  
And were so generally by after Ages well liked, 
Ammianus Marcellinus lib. 11.  as Ammianus Marcellinus long after speaking of them saith, That Solon adjutus Aegypti Sacerdotum satis justo modetamine legibus Romano quoque Juri maximum addidit firmamentum, By the just and equal Laws, which he had made by the assistance of the Egyptian Priests, was a great means of the establishing of the Roman Laws.  
And if they could have been truly charged with any Tyranny or Oppression, or so much as a Suspicion of either of them, that Law de in Jus vocando, being a part of the Twelve Tables, could not as well as the rest have gained as it did, the constant approbation and good liking of the World, and come as it hath done from generation to generation unto these our present Times.  
And it is a thing not unworthy of observation, and pertinent enough to be here remembered, that the Romans abhorring the cruelty of the Diaco or Athenian Laws, ordaining the Debtor after a Sentence or Judgement given against him, and a certain number of days limited, and a failer of payment to be cut in pieces and distributed to the Creditors (which cruel Law, saith Quintilian, 
Quintilian lib. 5. ca 6.  Mos publicus repudi●vit, The kindness of Mankind one unto another could not endure to be put in Execution) did in lieu thereof, appoint a seizure or Execution against the Goods of the Debtors, and that in the course and Process of Arrest: It was by a Constitution of the Praetor or Lord Chief Justice ordained (which unless in Cases of Writs of Outlary, and where the Doors are not open is to this day observed in our Laws) Ne quis ex domo sua in Jus vocari vel pertrahi posset; 
Ritterhusius Commentar. ad 12. Tabul. cl. 1. Gothofr●dus ad Tabul. de in Jus 〈◊〉▪  That no man should be arrested or forcibly taken out of his House.  
And the Civil or Caesarean Law, when according to the Custom of some Countries, in Towns or Places of Trade, as in Holland and the United Provinces, Arrests in Actions of Debt were at the first not much accustomed, where the Debtor hath a Domicilium or fixed Habitation, doth not withstanding in the notion or interpretation of a Suspectus de fuga, warranting a present incarc●rstion or Arrest of a Debtor, if he be not a Freeholder or Man of a very visible Estate, appear to be so willing at this day to gratify and secure the fears and jealousies of Creditors, & avoid those Circulations, Inconveniences & Delays, which would otherwise happen if they should tarry, as they do sometimes under that Law, to receive the debate before a Judge, whether the Debtor was a Freeholder, likely to run away, deserving to be arrested, or to have his Body to be secured, as it hath allowed no less than 20. Exceptions, against a Debtors not being to be exempted from it, viz. First, That he hath no freehold or ability to pay the Debt. 2. Is a Foreigner, Incerti Laris, or a Vagabond. 3. Hath made his Estate to be notoriously worse than it was formerly. 
Peregrinus Janninius Tract. de Citat. real. lib. 1. ca 2. ab §. 141. ad 199. & lib. 2. ca 1.  4. Accepit Pecunias sub gravibus Vsuris, gave too great Interest or brocage to borrow Money. 5. Keeps ill Company. 6. Hath met with some great misfortune since his Debt contracted. 7. Is a great Liar and Deceiver, and suspected to be a Bankrupt. 8. Doth waste his Estate, and intendeth to defraud his Creditors. 9 Is a Gamester. 10. Hath all the signs of a suspicious Person. 11. Makes use of many Men to be bound or engaged for him. 12. Engageth himself in many business. 13. Is looking out or providing for another Habitation. 14. Is turned Informer. 15. Keeps his Shop shut up. 16. Is a Man of ill life or conversation. 17. Or hath been so formerly. 18. Hath been an Offender in Criminal matters. 19 Lodgeth his Goods in some secret place. 20. And is packing up to be gone.  
But they that can dream of Tyranny and Oppression in our Process of Arrest and Outlawry, and know not how to prove it, will rather than miscarry in their design of Metamorphosing our Laws, and putting them into as many new fashions as the variety 〈◊〉 vanity of their clothes and Habits, w●ll, if those accusations must vanish and never be able to make them any good return, seek out some other way to alter or abrogate those kind of Law proceedings, and therefore to pretend that the Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 〈◊〉▪ giving Process of Capias and Outlawry in Actions of Debt, is either by the Act of Parliament of 28 E. 3. ca 3. or 42 E. 3. ca 1. repealed.   

CHAP. XIV. That the Statute of 25 E. 3 ca 17. which giveth Process of Capias and Bxigen● in Actions of Debt, and other Actions therein mentioned, is not repealed, either by the Acts of Parliaments of 28 E. 3. ca 3. or 42 E. 3. ca 1. there being no ind●●venim●● or prejudice to the public good in those kind of Law proceedings, which might deserve a repeal by those or any other Acts of Parliament.  
WHen it cannot come within the virge of any probability, that the said Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. should in the same Parliament (those grand Assemblies being then & long before usually shout, and of no long continuance) be made when the Statute of 25. E. 3. ca 4. was made▪ That none should be taken by Petition or Suggestion to the King or his Council, 
25 E. 3. ca 4.  but by 〈◊〉 Indictment, Presentment, or Process made by Writ original. If it had not been believed to have been consistent with it, or the meaning of our Magna Charta ca 29. or if the Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. had been repealed by the shortly after following Statutes of 28 E. 3. or 4● E. 3. ca 1. such a repeal should not be taken notice of, by those that lived in those times or near unto them; or that if there had been any grievance found or perceived in that Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. or that the said Statute of 28 E. 3. had repealed it, the Statute made by the aforesaid King E. 3. in the 36. year of his Reign, 
36 E. 3. ca 1.  would have ordained the Confirmation of the great Charler, and the Char●er of the Forest, and commanded that the other Statutes mode in his time, 
The Oath of a Freeman of London, and Acts of Parliament for confirmation of their Liberties.  and in the time of his Progenitors, be well and surely holden and kept in all points; or that the Citizens of London, who in their Courts of Justice in their City, have for so many Centuries of years last passed, to their very great advantages made use of the Process of Arrest as a lawful and beneficial Custom, and constrained all that were to enjoy the largely comprehensive Freedom of that City, to take an Oath to maintain the Franchises and Customs thereof, would have made it their business to get many an Act of Parliament to confirm them, if they had supposed it to have been prejudicial to them: And that the People of England should, in so many several Ages since those pretended Acts of repeal, not only have petitioned for several Acts of Parliament, for Process of Arrest and Outlawry in several Actions, but through so many past Ages and Generations Arrest and imprison one another in the way to Justice, and not at all think themselves guilty of betraying their own Liberties, and never complain of it: Or that the Justice of the Nation should in all that long course of time be so sleepy or mistaken, as to continue and put in Execution an Act of Parliament repealed, and maintain and continue a grievance.  
O● that our Ancestors, who were not all restrained by that Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. from the former more usual course of proceedings in Actions of Debt, 
In Archivis in albo Tur●i London, & in receipt. Thesaurat. Scaccarii post 25 E. 3.  by Writs of Summons, Pone, and Distringas (for there were Writs of Summons, Pone, and Distress made use of in Debt and Account after the making of that Statute, where there was such a visibility of Estate, as the Sheriff could not safely return, that the Defendant had nothing whereby he might be summoned (it having been in Easter Term, 
Pas 22. E. 1. London rot. 3.  in the 22 year of the Reign of King Edward the 1. declared to be a constant rule in Law, Quod nullus qui habet terras debet arrestari per Corpus, ad reddendum compitum set per terras cum habeat sufficientiam. No Man that had Lands sufficient was to be arrested by his Body, in an Action of Account) as there may be at this day if the Plaintiffs have a mind unto it, and would rather proceed by a longer way about then a shorter.  
And should of themselves have made an Election of the way of Capias, Arrest or Outlawry, and continue it for above three hundred & fifty years without any thing like a complaint against it, if they could have believed that that Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17. had been repealed, and a long and undeniable experience had not informed them, that it was a much better and expedite way of bringing Men to Justice, or that if the Writs of Pone and Distress had been the better way, the Statute made in the Seventh year of the Reign of King Henry the Fifth, 
7 H. 5. ca 1.  which was sixty-nine years after, to give Process of Arrest and Outlawry in Actions or Writs for forging of Charters or Evidences, would have esteemed it to be for the Common good of the People to have enacted it; or if after the making of that Statute, the course of Capias, Arrest, and Outlawry had not been believed to be the most beneficial, the Statute made in the 19th. year of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh, 
19 H. 7. ca 6.  for giving of Process of Arrest and Outlawry in Actions of the Case, which was made 84. years after, would have declared the way of Pone and Distress to have been the Cause of great delays, or that the Act of Parliament made in the 23th. year of the Reign of King Henry the vl, 
23 H. 8. ca 14.  for giving Process of Capias in Writs of Annuity, which was made twenty-eight years after the making of that Statute, would have said, there were many delays in Actions of Annuities, because no Writ of Capias did lie in that Action (Acts of Parliament in those days, and long before & after, having by our Kings been granted upon the Petitions and Request of their Subjects, and penned, advised or carefully perused by the Reverend Judges of the Land, and Council in Law of our Kings and Princes, before they were passed and ratified) and that so many of our Forefathers, who for so many years and Ages have in every year been arrested, or voluntarily put in Bail to appear and avoid it, should be so senseless as not to understand the said Act of Parliament of 2● E. 3. ca 17. to have been repealed, if any such thing had been, or deem it to be a grievance to be compelled to appear in a Court of Justice, or that all the Plaintiffs in those kind of Actions should be so wicked, as to continue that course and kind of Process: 
Trin. 21. Eliz. rot. 113. in Banco Regis.  If they could have understood it to have been a grievance, the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln would not have prescribed for a Liberty in their Court, to Arrest in all personal Actions, and the Lieutenant of the Tower of London the like, nor the Judges have allowed those prescriptions, and all Cities, Burroughs, and Corporations where they have connusance of Pleas, 
Old Book of Entries tit. false Imprisonment fol. 320.  would not upon a nihil habet returned, (for that is so always done of course in Cities and Corporations to warrant their Arrests) have claimed and exercised a power to Arrest as well Inhabitants as Foreigners coming thither; or that the Judges of the Admiralty, in Seafaring and Maritime Causes would have permitted, as they have anciently done, Arrests to be made upon Debts, Contracts, Charter parties or the like, or have been allowed to do it, if it had deserved to have been called a grievance, 
Welwade Sea-Laws 27. 63.  or that it ought not to have been done by the aforesaid supposed Acts of Repeal.  
And that none of so many thousand, or more than ten hundred thousand Defendants should by Pleas, Demurrers, or otherwise signify so much, or so many Advocates, and so many learned Judges, Sergeants, and Sages of the Law, which have been since the making of that Statute of 25 E. 3. for the giving of Process of Outlawry in Actions of Debt, should not of themselves have found out or have sought it from our Kings and their Parliaments some remedies, or would not have forborn the granting or acting by such kind of Process, if they had conceived that the Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17. had been replealed, or that such kind of Process had been a grievance.  
And that more than one hundred thirty and seven Parliaments, which have been since the making of that Statute.  
And so many Parliaments and Assemblies of Wise Men, before and at the making of that Statute, which met only to be wise, and find out fit helps and remedies for grievances, and things amiss should not foresee it to be a grievance, or be so careless as not after to procure some Law or Act of Parliament, to give the People ease in it, or a fuller notice of the repeal thereof.  
When in the Parliament of the 38th. year of the Reign of King Edward 3. the Commons did pray, 
38 E. 3. ca 1.  that the King would not grant Protections, whereby Men could not recover their Debts; which was as they alleged, A thing to the destruction of the People, and against Common right.  
Or that in so many Petitions in all those so many Parliaments for the redress of Grievances, made and committed by Sheriffs, 
Petitions Parl. 38 E. 3.  Under-Sheriffs, and their Bailiffs, and that all Estates might enjoy their Liberties, if no Law be to the contrary saving to all Men their rights, and the justly denied Petitions against the payment of Fines upon original Writs, issuing out of the Chancery; nor in that of the Commons in Parliament, in the 46th. year of the Reign of that King, 
Rot. Parl. 46. E. 3.  that Writs of Trespass in the Court of Common Pleas, although long before then used, might be made as well by that Court as by the Court of King Bench; for that the Court of King's Bench was removable at the King's pleasure; and that the Great Charter, and the Charter of the Forest, and all other Statutes made by the King and his Progenitors, for the amendment of the Realm and tranquillity and ease of his People, might be kept and duly put in Execution in all points▪ Or in the Petitions of the Commons of the County of Kent, to that King in the Parliament, 
Rot. Parl. 50. E. 3  in the 50th. year of his Reign, against his Officers of the Castle of Dover, for arresting by their Catchpoles out of their Jurisdiction; or in the before mentioned great Complaint of the Clergy, made in Parliament upon the death of Robert de Hauley, in the 2d. year of the Reign of King Richard the 2d. slain at the High Altar in the Church of Westminster Abby, when he being arrested and pursued by Bailiffs, had taken Sanctuary there, and the great debate thereupon before the King, 
7 H. 4. ca 13.  or at the making of the Act of Parliament, in the Seventh year of the Reign of King Henry the Fourth, that impotent persons outlawed might make their Attorneys, and the Acts of Parliament, made in the 10th. and 18th. years of the Reign of Henry the 6th. upon complaints, 
10 H. 6. & 18 H. 6. ca 9  That Men were outlawed, and could not know where to find either the Plaintiffs or their Attorneys, and remedies ordained; Or in the Petition in the Parliament, in the 33th. year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth, 
Inter Petitiones Parl. 33 H. 6. n. 57  against the multitude of Attorneys in the City of Norwich, and Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, for their inciting and stirring up the People to suits in Law, there should be no mention of that supposed grievance by the Writs of Capias and Process of Outlawry, if it had then been thought or believed to have been one.  
And that in the thirty times petitioning in several Parliaments of our Kings and Princes, for the Confirmation of Magna Carta (which as to that part of it, in the Chapter or Article twenty-nine, is the most excellent and the best of all our Laws. The People of England should not understand the aforesaid Act of Parliament, made in the 25th. year of the Reign of King Edward the 3. for giving Process of Arrest and exigent in Actions of Debts, and other Actions therein mentioned (if it could be interpreted, to be any violation of it) or that in all their Petitions for redress of grievances, and procuring of good Laws to be made, there appears nothing at all to have been alleged, That by the Common Law the Person of a Debtor was not arrestable or that there is no positive Statute Law in force, for the continuing of the Capias and Exigent, against Persons in Debt and merely Civil causes, since the fancied repeal of the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17. by the said Statute of 28 and 42 E. 3.  
But they who are so loath to part with their causeless affrights or are so unwilling to lose the content of being the Founders of a change, or alteration in the Body politic, be it never so dangerous or of most certain evil consequences, and are willing enough that their Fellow Subjects, of whom they pretend to take so much care, should be at the trouble, hazard, and charge of the experiments, may do better to understand, or if they cannot, give leave to others to help them to understand.  
That the purport intent, and true, proper and genuine signification of the words of our Magna Carta ca 29th. was to secure the People, that the King might not take or imprison any Man, Nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae, which if extended to the People, in their affairs one with another, and made to be as obligatory and binding unto them, as it is and aught to be to the King, can have no other just interpretation then what Sir Edward Coke hath given us in his Comment thereupon (published after his death, 
Coke 2. part. Institutes 50, & 51.  in the later end of March 1641. or the beginning of the year 1642. Which is, saith he, as the Statute of 37 E. 3. ca 18. expoundeth it by due Process of Law; and what that kind of Process was, hath been already determined and proved, to be as well by Writs and Process of Arrest, as by Summons, Pone and Distress, though the latter, as the condition and course of the affairs of the Nation then stood, was much more frequent and usual, and it appeareth by that part of Magna Carta ca 29. and the Exception therein, that there was a Process or proceeding in Law, besides the Legale Judicium, or Trial by Peers or Jury; and the Process where Defendants were not willing to come to Judgement, and have their Controversies determined (which but in very seldom Cases never was or is likely to be otherwise, there was and will ever be a necessity of compelling them by Process to appear in Judgement, when they delayed or refused it: For as the great and learned Grotius hath said upon another occasion, 
Posthuma Grotii in Epistola quadam.  The Liberties claimed from a Prince, aught to be such as competere possint subditis, might accord with his Superiority and their duty of Subjects; for our so eager clamours of Liberty, cannot certainly be so nailed to any of their extravagant opinions and desires, as to induce them to think it either to be lawful, rational or consistent with the Great Charter, to deny the King or his subordinate Courts of Justice, a power to Imprison any that shall be guilty of Contempt, against His Person or Authority, and to constrain them to appear in Judgement.  
For the way which the Judges and Interpreters of our Laws have hitherto used, in the Construction and understanding of Parliaments (nothing appearing to the contrary) hath been an Inquiry into the occasion and purport of them, commonly expressed in the preambles and reason thereof, and into the sense as well as the words of them, for the preamble of an Act of Parliament, saith Dyer, sometimes Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, is the Key to open the minds of the Makers of the Act, and of the mischiefs which they did intend to remedy; 
Plowdens Comment. 363, 369, & 469.  and a Man ought not to dwell upon the letter, nor to think that when he hath the letter on his part, that he hath the Law on his part, say the Judges in the Resolution of the Case between Easton and Studde, in regard that the rule in the expounding of Statutes, is to search out the mind of the Lawmakers, what Construction they would have made of it, 
Ibid. 46, & 467.  if they were living: And that Acts of Parliament ought to be understood, by a reasonable Construction to be collected out of the words thereof, according to the true intention and meaning of the Makers of the Act; that Statutes in the affirmative do not regularly take away Statutes precedent in the affirmative, 
Coke 5. Report. 2. part 5, & 6.  unless in some special Cases and Statutes referring to other Statutes, do not make any alteration in Law, but unto the points unto which they do Refer, 
Coke 3. Relat. Case deal fines.  nor doth a latter Act with Negative words, say our Laws, take away a former, if it be not contrary in matter: And the Parliaments of this Nation have always taken care to use, express and clear words of repealing any Statutes, which they intended to Repeal by plain and certain mention thereof, with the times wherein they were made & sometimes repealed, but a part of some former Acts by a new Act of Parliament, and enlarged and proceeded further than the former Acts did extend unto, as in the Act of Parliament, concerning Servants and Artificers wages, made in the fifth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
5 Eliz. ca 4.   
The words and meaning of the Statute 28 E. 3. ca 3. being no more then, 
28 E. 3. ca 3.  That no man of what Estate or Condition that he be shall be, put out of Land or Tenement, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor does inherited, nor put to death without being brought to answer by due Process of the Law.  
And in that of 42 E, 3 ca 1. It is assented and accorded; 
42 E 3. ca 1.  that the great Charter, and the Charter of the Forest be holden and kept in all points, and if any Statute be made to the contrary that shall be holden for none. And being a confirmation in general of all the thirty-seven Points, Articles, or Chapters of Magna Carta, granted in the Ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the Third (some of which did concern the King in his profits) did neither only intent that particular Chapter of Magna Carta ca 29. to be made void or repealed, or declare that what was done, or to be done by lawful Judgement of Men by their Peers (which could not be without some kind of Process or proceedings then in use) or that what was done or to be done by the Law of the Land, should be repealed as contrary thereunto; but did so not at all then intent to do it, or to affirm the due Process of the Law to be contrary unto Magna Carta, either as to that twenty-nineth Chapter, or to any other, the Points, Articles, or Chapters of Magna Carta.  
As that some of the People being at the time of the making of the said Act of Parliament of 42 E. 3. ca 3. or not long before too busy in Arresting, Imprisoning and vexing one another by false Accusations, made to the King and his Council that Chapter or Branch of 42 E. 3. ca 3. was made for the redress thereof, and for the good Government of the Commons, as that Act doth import, having these words: To eschew the mischiefs and damage done by false Accusers, which oftentimes have made their Accusations more for revenge and singular benefit, then for the profit of the King, or his People, of which accused Persons some have been taken, and sometimes caused to come before the King's Council by Writ, and otherwise upon grievous pain against the Law: It is assented and accorded, That no Man be put to answer without presentment before the Justices, or matter of Record, or by due Process or Writ original, according to the old Law of the Land; and if any thing from henceforth be done to the contrary, it shall be void in the Law and holden for error.  
Both of which Statutes will be best expounded by Sir Edward Coke, 
Coke Comment. super Magna Chart.  who in his Exposition and Comment. upon Magna Carta ca 29. and all the other parts thereof (for out of that most commendable Law those two Acts of Parliament of 28 E. 3. ca 3. and 42 E. 3. ca 3. do seem to have been drawn, and are but as Confirmations of it) saith that by the Law of the Land, is to be understood, the Common Law, Statute Law, and Customs of England; which though they be in the Negative, have no reference or contrary matter unto that of 25 E. 3. ca 17. and do not prohibit the former allowed, and due Process of the Law, or declare them to be contrary to Magna Carta, or any Article or point thereof, nor have any express words, or so much as any preamble, which may signify any purpose that they had to repeal it; for all that is forbidden by those two Statutes of supposed repeal, is to prevent the mischiefs complained of by suggestions to the King and his Council, and that no man be disinherited, put to death, or out of his Land taken, imprisoned, or brought to answer, but by due Process ●f the Law, according to the old Law of the Land. 
37 E. 3. ca 18.  And the Statute of 37 E. 3. ca 18. giving an order of pursuing a Suggestion made unto the King, doth mention the great Charter, and the words therein contained, That no Man be taken, nor imprisoned, nor put out of his freehold without Process of the Law. For if our Records and Law-books, and the reason thereof, and all that hath been learned and believed hitherto do not fail us, those Statutes or either of them cannot be interpreted, to intend to take away any lawful and necessary Arrests, and Imprisonments in Actions of Trespass, which were in use long before the making of Magna Carta, or the arresting or restraining of the persons & liberties of Defendants, in Actions of Debt and the like; or for a Contempt of the King or his Courts of Justice, in not appearing when they were summoned or cited, or when they had no visible Estate to satisfy, or were likely to fly or run away, the true intent and meaning of those Statutes of 28 E. 3. and 42 E. 3. tending rather to confirm and establish that Act of 25 E. 3. ca 17. then to repeal or take it away, the main scope or purpose of them being only to restrain any arbitrary Government, or any Lawless proceedings of the People one against the other; for it is impossible by any sense or reasonable Construction of those Statutes, to conclude any the least design in them, or either of them to take away or alter a Law or Custom of the Nation, which was not then at all so much as complained of, when by forbidding to do that which was against the Law, they must of necessity be understood, to allow of that which was the Law or consistent with it.  
For it hath been said and never denied, to be a rule in our Common Law as well as in the Civil Law, that Exceptio firmat regulam in Casubus non exceptis, The exception or saving doth preserve and allow of that to be the Law which is excepted, otherwise if the exception should be (as certainly it is not) nugatory and serves for nothing, the meaning of our Magna Carta itself, and all those very many Statutes of Confirmation afterwards enacted, must be (as they can never be rightly taken to be) that be the matter or cause Civil or Criminal, Treason, Murder or Felony, no Man is at all to be disseised, or put out of his Lands, arrested, imprisoned, or compelled to answer, and the King, who is sworn to administer Justice to his Subjects, must by Magna Carta itself be denied, and debarred the use of means to do it, and the People thereby put into a condition not to be able to obtain Justice one against another.  
And if no Laws concerning Process in Debt, or other personal Actions, which have been enacted or allowed by Acts of Parliament, subsequent to those before mentioned, and supposed repealing Acts of Parliament, made in the 28. and 42 E. 3. or derived by necessary deduction from reason (which ought to be the Soul and Constituting part of all Laws) shall not be allowed or taken for Laws, the Parliaments of England (wherein all manner of grievances, and many times very small and inconsiderable, were seldom omitted to be complained of or petitioned against) have by making of the Statute of 7 H. 5. for giving Process of Arrest and Capias in Actions of forging of Charters of 9 H. 7. in Actions of the Case and 23 H. 8. in Actions of Annuity not only not remedied but enacted grievances, and all our other Laws which have been since made, concerning the taking or imprisoning of men's Bodies, in Actions of Debt or other Civil and personal Actions, or been put in Execution have been no other than abuses, and transgressions of the Law, and all that so many learned conscientious and Reverend Judges of the Law, and sworn to judge according to it, have since those times done or permitted to be done, in pursuance of those latter Laws, have been but as so many great mistake to the oppression of the People.  
And the Parliament of 3 Car. primi, whereof the very learned Selden, and that great Lawyer Sir Edward Coke, and many very worthy Men and Lovers of our English Laws and Liberties were Members (some of which had not long before made themselves Prisoners to secure a pretended Liberty) would have been guilty of a great oversight and inadvertency, in not getting better Provisions in the Act of Parliament, made upon that which was called the Petition of Right, wherein that aforesaid part of Magna Carta ca 29. and the Statutes of 37 E. 3. ca 9 17 R. 2. ca 6. and the very Act of 28 E. 3. ca 3. now so much insisted upon, are confirmed. And the Acts of Parliament of 37 E. 3. ca 18. 38 E 3. ca 9 42 E. 3. ca 3. and quoted in the margin of the said Act, are declared to be good Laws and Statutes of the Realm; and it was ordained, That no Offender, of what kind soever, be exempted from the proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm.  
All those Acts of Parliament being then expounded and understood, to be only intended against the Imprisonment of Men, by the King or his Council, without cause shown; and the same Parliament did then procure divers Acts of Parliament to be repealed, but not that of 25 E. 3. ca 17. which neither was repealed in that nor any other Parliament, in Terms or words intelligible, or by implication or otherwise, and did never yet deserve to be so since the making thereof.  
Nor would that Parliament, labouring so much for liberty, have at the same time allowed of that Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17. for the Process of Capias, and Exigent or Outlawry in Actions of Debt, if it had been a grievance, or not understood as it ought, to be a legal and necessary part of the Laws of the Land, or have omitted so often and daily happening Concernments of themselves and their Posterity, if they could have thought that way of Process and proceedings at Law, either was or could have been a grievance, when as they did then so much believe all the grievances of the Nation, to be by that abundantly satisfactory Act of Parliament, made upon that Petition of Right, to be banished and their fears quieted, as they caused public rejoicings and Bonfires to be made for it.  
And if it had not been so understood, by the Reverend and Learned Judges, and Sages of the Law, who were then in being, and have been since entrusted with the Administration of Justice, such Process and proceedings would never certainly have been made when the Petition of Right prayed, That in the things aforesaid all his Majesty's Officers, should serve him according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm, as they would tender the honour of His Majesty, and prosperity of the Kingdom; and the King in his answer thereunto, and giving it the life and power of a Law, did will that right should be done according to the Laws and Customs of the Realm, and that the Statutes be put in Execution, that His Subjects may have no cause to complain of any Wrong or Oppression, 
Petition of Right in 3 Car. primi.  contrary to their just Rights and Liberties.  
For it must be a more than an ordinary Hypochondriacal Melancholy, that can persuade any Man to think, that if the Process of Arrest or Outlawry could by any foresight or prospect have been believed, to have been either a grievance, or illegal, or any Seminary of ill Consequences, that ever to be lamented unhappy Parliament begun in November 1640. would in that fatal Remonstrance of theirs, published to the People the 15th. day of December following, wherein they were so willing to amass every thing that might but look like a grievance of the People, and were so effascinated in their evil purposes, as they crowded in amongst them many essentials and necessaries of Government, have omitted such an important and often happening grievance (if any could with any colour of Law or reason have believed it; or that in the nineteen high and mighty Propositions sent by them unto him in June 1642. or in the Message or Commit of the Lords and Commons then remaining at Westminster, sent unto him at Oxford in Anno 1643. by the Earl of Northumberland, William Peirpont Esquire, and others; or in the Treaty and Propositions at Uxbridge for Peace, betwixt the King and that misnamed Parliament in the year 1644. such a necessary, if it had been thought to have been one, should have been neglected; or in the Message of the Lords and Commons, in the then so called Parliament, sent unto him when he was a Prisoner at Holimby in the year 1647. with propositions for Peace, nothing should have been desired to prohibit Arrests; but on the contrary an Act of Parliament was required, for confirmation of all Customs, Charters, Liberties, and Franchises of the City of London, which for many hundred of years before had been approved: Or that in the Bills and Propositions sent unto Him in the same year to the Isle of Wight, when he was there a close Prisoner: 
Vide Act of Common Council.  Or in an Act or Ordinance, made by the Lord Major and Common Council of London in the year 1660. for the better regulating of that City's Courts at Guildhall, in which notice was taken of their ancient Customs, and divers abuses committed by Sergeants at Mace and their Yeomen, in arresting of Men, there should be no mention made of any original Grievances or Illegality by or in the Process of Arrest, nor any orders made or desired to be made against it.  
Until therefore this invisible and untelligible repealing Act of the Statute of 25 E 3. ca 17. shall be pleased to appear and show itself, the Founders of that fancy may do well to build no further upon it, but silence their causeless out-cries against it: And when such or the like imaginations shall offer themselves, think rather that Acts of Parliament (according to the advice and opinion of the Judges in Doctor Foster's case) which have been established with so much solemnity, wisdom, 
Coke 11. Reports Doctor Foster's case.  gravity, and universal consent for the good of the Weal public, ought not by any strained construction or ambiguous words (if there had any been) in any subsequent Act to be laid aside, disused, or abrogated; and that doubtful aequivocal words (if there had been any) ought according to the rule in Gregory's Case, 
Coke 6. Reports.  to be interpreted in the better and more likely sense.  
And not trouble themselves as they have lately done for before the year 1640 and 1641. (when Liberty ran mad, and the Factious part of the People did too much read the Books of Plunder and Sequestration, and admired the Models and Contrivances of Hugh Peter, Huson the Cobbler, Pride the Drayman, and every Mechanic and Tradesman, and every Mercenary Red-coat Rebel-Souldier, who would by his indigested conceptions be a Solon or Lycurgus) they did not to subvert, as they endeavoured to do, our long experimented & approved Laws & Customs, to make room for their own ungodly advantages, and sordidly ignorant alterations, and at the same time allow the Caption and Horning of that by them Conquered and once illegally Covenanting Scotland to be lawful.  
Nor vex themselves and others, as they have done with the Chimeras and fancies of that never to be found repealed Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 17. and their so much mistaken Gorgon's head, and affrights of their Liberties being likely to be lost by that or other our Laws, when our Laws and the due Execution thereof are and have been by our Kings and Princes, and their just authority the only means under God to preserve them.  
Or be so over-lavish in shooting their Bolts, in undertaking to assert, That England is impoverished more than a Million of Money Sterling every year by Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Sergeants, Marshals-men, Proces-makers, Habeas Corpus, Rules, Writers, etc. (As a late Anonimous Champion of those kind of Liberty mongers terms them) for which he would decoy as many inconsiderate People as he could, into an opinion and belief, that the Creditor is not the better one Penny for it; which is as impossible to be proved or believed, as that Bears are enabled by Nature to fly and usually do it; or that the Mountains of Mountains the Alps, those highest Hills of the Christian World, do usually at every Jubilee leap to Rome, to obtain an Indulgence or Pardon from that Holy Father, for being so highminded.  
And what ever far lesser Sum of Money those Officers Fees (which as to the Process-makers are very small and dearly enough earned) do amount unto yearly, it will be very difficult for that Man of confidence, whosoever he be to prove that none or very many of the Creditors did not receive satisfaction of their Debts and charges, or more than a Penny, or were not the better for it (for the Defendant, where there is any ability to answer and pay them, do most commonly bear the burden of them) and that the Defendants Charges in a year do amount to a Million of Money Sterling, or any such vast Sums of Money, as his monstrous and incredibile guess, betwixt sleeping and waking, hath calculated it, and will be as wide of any truth or probability as if he had said, That he had in a Foreign Country seen two Phoenixes roasted, and brought to eat in a dish, and had been in a colder Climate, where the extremity of cold was so great as the words spoken over night did freeze, and were legibly to be read in the Air the next Morning.  
And those Sons of Rapine, who are so given to change, and do make it their business to hunt our Laws, like the Ermyns for the booty of their skins, may better employ their time in a sad and serious repentance of that dirt, and many scandals which they have most injuriously flung upon them, & in throwing amongst the People those, though foolish, yet infectious tales and opinions, that There are now ten thousand Men in Prison for Debt, and that the Process of Outlawry have done more mischief to the People of England, than the Writs of Capias (which neither he nor any other can ever prove to have been primarily or causally and per se guilty of it) or then the Bills of Middlesex or Writs of latitat, which must either be done in his humour or natural of telling rampant or impossible tales, or on purpose to cast those legal Process and proceedings, into an Odium or hatred, and will appear to be as much misled by his ignorance, as he was before in his overhasty Arithmetic, when he adventures to say, that a noble Man, by being outlawed, is made incapable to sit in the house of Peers, a Clergyman may forfeit his Benefice, or a Lawyer be made incapable of pleading at the Bar, when our Laws do remember no such matters; and a Noble man and Peer of Parliament cannot in any Civil action, or ordinary Trespass by our Laws be outlawed; and although some other Persons may by abuse or error happen to be outlawed, when they should not be outlawed, and by some evil accident never be able to find the Plaintiff or his Attorney, whereby to recover his damages, yet it is so seldom as it is very rare; and our Laws as they did never undertake to prophesy, or to have a prescience or certain knowledge of things to come, so they never provided against raro contingentia, things seldom happening, or of little consequence, neither can our or any other Laws be able at all times, to prevent all the tricks and evil actions, which the deceitfulness of men's hearts do too often put in practice. And that nameless Author may, upon his better acquaintance with our Laws, inform himself, and those for whom he so much busieth himself, that if an Outlawry should, as he surmiseth, be indirectly gained, the Court out of which it proceedeth do, when discovered, never fail severely to punish such an Offender, and give what remedies they can unto those that do suffer by it; and that there is a Statute, which was made in the Tenth year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth, 
10. & 18. H. 6. ca 9  and renewed in the 18th. year of the said Kings Reign, yet unrepealed to prevent and remedy it.  
And is as much out of the way when he saith, That Tenors in Villeinage were repealed by Act of Parliament, 
Rot. Parl. 5 R. 2.  when in the Parliament of the fifth year of the Reign of King Richard the Second, the Manumissions of Villains, which had been extorted from that Kingby Wat Tiler and his rout of Rebels, were declared to be void, and the wearing out of that Tenure, in the many Intestine Wars and Troubles of the Nation, and the favour and indulgence of our later Kings and Princes, and the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom, is to be ascribed more thereunto, and a desuetude & length of time, then unto any thing else, which hath so washed many a jolly Gentleman that would be, and Men of great Estates, whose Extractions and Originals (were at the first lodged in those Tenors) in the Waters of Lethe and Oblivion, as there are now very few or none to be found of them.  
And is as little to be excused when he saith, That the Mortmaineses of Abbeys were taken away by Acts of Parliament, unless that he means by the total dissolution of them, which happened long after those Mortmaineses, and is as wide from the mark, in his impertinent Account of the Money or profits of the Bishop's Courts, as he is of any proof or certainty, that they are a burden, and can hardly instance any one Attorney (but certainly not many) that hath in one Writ of Privilege, named or sued one hundred Defendants, and held them to special Bail, whereas such a vexation would have been remedied by an Appeal unto any Judge of the Court, out of which such Writ issued, who had by the Law a power in his discretion, to order whether any special Bail should be given, as the case required.   

CHAP. XIV. That the Nation hath not been base or slavish, ever since the making of the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17.  
ANd is to prove, when he can, that many Men have languished to death for fear of an imprisonment; for some one or few melancholic Persons, may in their retirements, sad apprehensions or multiplied fears, have endangered their healths, which makes not the Justice or Laws of the Nation to be any more guilty or cause of it, or deserve to be abrogated: Then the sacred Scripture is to be blamed, for that some Persons have by the reading of it, or hearing of it preached, been so disturbed with an affright of conscience, as they have been distracted, or laid violent hands upon themselves.  
Or that His late Majesty of glorious Memory (if not misinformed by the concealed Author of such frivolous, feigned and false complaints, or by some of his Proselytes) had so deep a sense of his Subjects sufferings, by such Writs and Process as he intended the enlargement of Prisoners for Debt, and the abolishing of all Arrests and Outlawries for the future, by the then Parliament, if he could have received any recompense for the remitting of all forfeitures, and other profits arising to His Crown; nor doth give us any evidence for such wild imaginations, nor ever will be able to do it; or that the Nation hath been base and slavish since the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca 17. and other Acts of Parliament since made, which our Laws, Records, and Histories; will abundantly confute, and our Neighbour Nations envying our Glory, Freedom, Peace and Plenty, may decry as an ingrateful and horrid falsity, deserving to be had in everlasting detestation.  
Unto which bundle of untruths, and feverish deliriums, are likewise to be added those giddy Assertions; that the People are unsecure in their Estates, and that their good and welfare depends upon their being manumitted and enfranchised in their persons, and made Noble and free by Abolishing of the Process of Arrest and Outlary. And that such an Act of Grace will be accounted by all goodmen and their posterities, a sufficient recompense for all the Subjects past sufferings, and be the greatest mercy that ever any King of England extended to his Subjects, since they were a Nation.  
Which should it take effect, may be as little successful to the pretended Advocate and his Party, and the Trade and Interest of the Kingdom; as the Eagles carrying in another Case, the burning Coal in the Apologue to her Nest: And until they could have been sure of a better, which they are never like to be, might have forborn their Snarling and Barking at our Laws, of which that Act of Parliament of 25. E. 3. ca 17. Was accounted to be a part, which until the Distemper which seized upon a seditious part of the people, in the unhappy year of 1641. were▪ so well beloved and deservedly commended, as Thirning, 
Coke in prefat' 8. Report.  Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, publicly declared in the 12th. year of the Reign of King Henry the 4th. that the Laws of England were in the Reign of King Edward the 3d. In the greatest perfection, that ever they were the Judges Sage, and learneds and the pleading, the greatest Honour and Ornament of the Law, were in that King's Reign of that excellency as those of former times were but feeble unto them. 
Fortescue de laudibus legum Angliae.  Sir John Fortescue Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, in the Reign of King Henry the sixth, by comparing of our Laws and Government, with the Laws and Government of France and other Nations, hath in his learned Book! Written on that Subject, proved and demonstrated that our Laws of England, Do deserve the Pre-eminence over all other Laws, and do more secure the People in their Estates, Liberties, and Properties than those of France, or any other Nation.  
Queen Elizabeth, who made it her constant and usual Charge to her Judges, to do Justice, and not to disturb or delay it. Governed her people by her Laws, in Plenty, Peace, and Prosperity, to the World's admiration, Terror of her Enemies, and the Comfort and Support of her Friends and Allies; did so after her death Reign and live in her people's hearts, as they in or about London have to this time, from the Coronation or beginning of her happy Reign, now above one hundred and sixteen years ago, in a grateful acknowledgement of it, never omitted to Celebrate that day, with the Ringing of Bells, some legacies having been given in some places also, 
Coke 2. Relat in prefat.  for the perpetuating thereof; King James had a great care of the expedition and execution of the Laws, in whose peaceable and plentiful Reign, ten years have passed without any Tax or Assessment of the people: And King Charles his Son, made a great part of his Coin to wear the Inscription, that he fought against a Rebellious part of his Subjects, to maintain the Laws, privileges of Parliament, and liberties of the people, and died a Martyr, because he would not betray, or deliver them up to a Lawless, unlimited, and ever to be dreaded Arbitrary power.  
So as that seducing Author, might have found a better employment, then to throw dirt at our Laws before he understands them, and might have been able to have given a better account of his time, if he had followed the advice of Sir Edward Coke; Who was so much a well-willer to the Process of Arrest and Utlary, as whilst he was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, he did never dislike or refuse the putting his name and Teste to such kind of Writs, under the Kings Seal entrusted to his custody; and being afterwards made Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, had so good an opinion of the Process of Arrest, and the necessity and usefulness thereof, as that to maintain and support the Writs of Latitat and Bills of Midlesex in Actions of Debt, and other personal Actions then too often made by that Court, which had no Jurisdiction or Conusans thereof; but in Case of a Defendants present imprisonment, or of privilege of some of their Members to hold Pleas in such kind of actions, he feigned a prescription to be made and used in the declarations thereupon, that the Defendant was in Custodia Marr' Marescalli Curiae and actually a Prisoner, when he neither was so at the time of the making of the said Writs, or the time of the Defendants giving Bond for his appearance to the Sheriff, or at the time of the Plaintiffs declaring against him, as he did publicly declare in Print, That every man ought, next to his duty to God and his King, to yield a due reverence and obedience to the Common Laws of England, for that of all Laws humane they were most equal, most certain, of great antiquity, lest delay, most beneficial, and easy to be observed; And That he could defend them against any Man, that is not malicious without understanding, and make it manifest to any Man of judgement and indifferency, by proofs pregnant and demonstrations, and by Records and testimonies luculent and irrefragable.  
Which just and due value and estimation of our Laws may well be credited, when if a Jury of the Subjects of our Neighbour Nations, Kings and Princes, or of the Republic of Holland, that Corporation of Kings, were impanelled and fitted with the knowledge, and understanding of the excellency of them, they could not either as to the imposing or payment of Taxes, or to any other particulars, refuse to give a Verdict upon Oath, that our Laws and Customs do in their perfection, and right reason generally far excel those by which they are governed, and that the Subjects of England and Wales are by the happiness of a well tempered Monarchy, and our Laws as secure from any danger of arbitrary power as any people under Heaven.  
And he would find it to be a difficulty insuperable to ptocure our Merchants of England, or any of those who do undertake to insure the hazardous adventures of those that do go or send to Sea, and see the wonders of the deep and adventure their personal Estates upon the choleric waves thereof, not seldom accompanied with humorous and raging winds, to give him an assurance and certainty, that the people shall not be ruined by that his goodly indigested project, which in its folly and inconveniencies, as to the credit, reputation and Justice of the Nation, exceeds that of Jack Cade, that great Master of Ignorance, who had persuaded his Rablerout to believe, that it would be an excellent piece of Reformation, and much for the good of the people, to suppress all learning and dispatch all business and affairs by the help only of the Score and the Tally.  
And will howsoever be as incertain of the success, which none but mad Men, and such as the Turks and Men of Mecha do usually adore, can believe to be answerable to the end of public good; as he may sooner adventure to make an Affidavit, if any credit could be given unto it, of the possession infallible of the imaginary Elixir or Philosopher's Stone, the only Essay of the gaining whereof, hath undone and emptied the Purses and Estates of many more learned than ever he will be, then that the People of England have either lived in Slavery since the making of that Statute of 25. E. 3. ca 17. or that there will such an happiness and mercy arrive or redound, as he pretends unto them, by the abolishing of the Process of Arrest and Outlawry, when seven parts of eight, the whole to be divided into no more, shall be ruined in their present Estate, and future hopes of a better for want of credit and trust: And all the Men of Money lent out and trusted, which are the smaller number, shall be in danger enough of losing it; And the Freeholders' of Lands, which comparatively, are far the smaller part of the Nation, shall be only the Men, and perhaps not half, or a quarter of them, that may be trusted or compelled to appear to any Actions of Debt, or for Money which shall be commenced or brought against them; And the Trade of the Nation which is now not so much outward as it either should or ought to be, shall be very little stocked, or driven with ready Money for want of trust, or such a Process as may with any certainty, or expedition compel the performance of it.  
Or that His late or now Majesty, when our Kings and Princes were wont in many of their Writs and Rescripts, to acknowledge that they were Debitores Justitiae, Debtors to their people in matters of Justice, & Astricti, bound and obliged unto it by their Coronation Oaths, could ever think it to be agreeable to their interests, or correspondent to their Oaths, and other obligations to God and Man, to throw the Justice of the Land, with which they have been by God entrusted, into a Chaos and confusion, to gratify the humours of a smali or inconsiderable number of his Subjects, the quondam Rebels, and most factious and ignorant part of them, and ruin the multitude, who are as much committed to their cares as the other, Ne cum parti alicui placeant reliquas deserant, Lest when they seek to please a few, they do forsake and abandon those who are much the major part, and greater number.  
Howsoever let Sir Edward Coke say and write all that he can, in the never to be denied just praises and commendations of our Laws, those that without any cause or knowledge do too much malign and hate them, adore a resolved infatuation, and believe their Fort of Fancies to be impregnable, and out of the danger of any Assaults, or being taken, will by their good wills, rather than forsake their designs, and the hopes they have of some new employments, oblige and tie him to his former mistaken opinions, delivered in the aforesaid Sir William Herbert's Case, and likewise in his Comment▪ upon Magna Carta ca 29. That the Imprisonment of the body for Debt, unless in the King Case, was not by the Common Law before the making of the Statute of 25 E. 3. ca 17. although in all his Reports and Comments, and other his learned Writings, he hath not at all inveighed against the Process of Arrest and Outlawry in Actions of Debt, or other personal Actions, or declared or made any mention, that they were either illegal or a grievance: And when he said, That Imprisonment of the body for Debt, unless in the King's Case, was not before the making of the aforesaid Act of Parliament, did no where say, that it was not before that time, upon Contempts of Courts of Justice, or the Writs or Mandates thereof, or upon a probability of a Defendants running away; and are the more pertinatious in it by Sir Edward Coke's being so much enamoured on a Manuscript, called the Mirror of Justice, which as to the Copy, which he follows and citys in his aforesaid Comments upon Magna Carta, and that so called Mirror of Justice, which was afterwards printed and published in the year one thousand six hundred forty-six, by William hugh's of Grayes-Inn Esquire, Flagranti bello, when the Laws and Liberties of the People were by a wicked Rebellion, under a pretence of Reformation of Religion for some years before endeavoured, to have been destroyed, and said to be translated out of an old French Copy, which hath been justly suspected, & in many important matters proved to be fictitious, & to Men of Learning, and those that have traced the paths or fields of Learning and Manuscripts, and observed the contrariety, omissions, additions, transcriptions, mistake, interpolations, annotations, impostures and words, therein creeping out of the margin into the Text; and those many counterfeit Books and Manuscripts, which even in the primitive times of the Church and after Ages, have been imposed upon Posterity, and too often are and may be seen; will administer no matter of wonder.  
They therefore who do so cherish and delight in the novelty of opinions, and are most pleased with those which are likeliest to answer their expectations of gain and profit, or may serve to engage the protection and favour of some hopeful and prevailing Party and Faction, may do an Act of Justice to themselves and others, to pause a while and look a little more, into the aforesaid opinions of Sir Edward Coke, although he must be acknowledged to have been a very great Rabbi in our Laws, and consider well the Grounds, Authorities and Reasons, upon which he hath founded them, before they do Jurare in verba Magistri, and espouse or build upon them.   

CHAP. XV. An Examination of the opinions of Sir Edward Coke, in his Report of the said Sir William Herbert's Case, touching the Process of Arrest used in our Laws, and the many Errors appearing in the Book or Manuscript, called the Mirror of Justice, and the fictitious matters and relations mentioned therein.  
FOr although in Criminalibus & Capitalibus causis, in Criminal and Capital causes, an Arrest or real Citation, as the Civil Lawyers call it, is and hath ever been used by the Laws of God, Nature and Nations: There shall not be such gentle Process or Proceedings, by way of Attachment as is usual in other Cases, but such Malefactors are presently to be arrested, and the Goal or Prison is to be their Sureties, until they defend or clear themselves; yet▪ those kind of necessary proceedings can have no other original or ground to support or warrant them, but what proceeds from the before recited grounds or causes, or some of them; because until the Fact be tried, it is but an accusation, and not always so much as a probability, but a change or suspicion that it was done by him that is accused, and there will be always a magis and minus, and variatioe of Circumstances in such kind of Offences, which may either lessen or heighten them; Nor do those Rules which are given by Bracton▪ for the reason of Arrests or Restraints of liberty in personal Actions before judgement, that a Habeas Corpus, which amounteth in effect to a Capias or Restraint of the person or his liberty, 
Bracton lib. 5. ca 33.  is presently to be granted propter privilegium eruce signatorum & mercatorum, in respect or favour of those that were to go to the Holy War, or were Merchants; or propter causam sive necessitatem, for some urgent cause or necessity of dispatch; or in Trespass, propter atrecitatem injuriae, the horridness or evil of the Offence, or propter personam contra quem injuriatum est, ut si injuriatus sit Domino Regi vel Reginae, vel eorum liberis, vel Fratribus, vel Sororibus, vel eorum Parentibus & Propinquis, in respect of the Person against whom the wrong is done; as the King, Queen, their Children, Brothers, Sisters, or their Parents or Kindred; come up to the Rules of Justice for urgency of Affairs, necessities, or occesions, considerations, or respect of Persons, can of themselves be no cause of making Justice, which is not to be a respecter of Persons to be Eccentrick, or go a step out of her way, or to do any thing in one case, which should not or ought not to be done in other Cases, having the like ground of reason and justice, attended with the same circumstances; neither can atrocitas facti vel injuriae, the grandeur and oughliness of the offence, be the sole cause or ground of Arrest, in common or petty actions of Trespass, or for words, if there could properly be any atrocitas or heinousness in them, or where it is done involuntarily; as in Cases of Trespass, or damage done by a man's Cattle, for Trespass may be greater or lesser; and if every Trespass could be understood to be of the greater size or magnitnde, and so horrid and enormous; yet there can be no reason to make the Caption or Arrest to be in part of Corporal punishment, before the Judge or Magistrate be ascertained of the guilt of the Party, or instructed how to keep the order which the Laws of God, Nature and Nations, and our Magna Carta have enjoined; that is to say, to punish only secundum quantitatem delicti, according to the nature of the offence.  
And that supposed ground or reason given by Sir Edward Coke, will be as deficient that the Common Law of England, abhorring all force as the capital Enemy to it, subjects the body to imprisonment until it hath made agreement with the Party, and fined to the King, bring any better reason with it.  
For if the King shall (as he conceiveth) punish force by a Capias to Arrest the body before the party be permitted to defend himor a Trial had by Jury, whether he be guilty or not, that would be more against Magna Carta, than any Process of Capias or Arrest in Debt can be dreamt or fancied to be, and a Capias pro fine, after a Trial and finding guilty, will either show that it was not the arresting of the body in Trespass, which was intended or inflicted for the punishment, but the Capias pro fine; and if both, the Capias in Trespass before Judgement, and the Capias pro fine after Judgement, should be inflicted for one and the same offence.  
They would not be secundum modum sive quantitatem delicti, proportionate to the offence, and the Capias to Arrest would be before the King or his Courts of Justice, could be ascertained that there was an offence.  
Nor will that other cause or ground given by him in the Report of the said Sir William Herbert's Case, that the King may by the Common Law arrest the body of the Debtor, for that Thesaurus Regis est vinoulum & bellorum nervus, The Money and Treasure of the King is the Bond of Peace, and Sinuwes of War obtain the conclusion which he aims at: For that were to make a King or supreme Magistrate, which ought to be Lex viva, and Justice itself, to destroy that which he was sworn to protect, and give him licence to break Laws, who is not in ordinary Cases against the Rules of Justice, and right reason, to give such a liberty to himself or any others, or to do an act for an advantage or necessity, which the even and adequate Rules of Justice, common right, or right reason cannot allow.  
So as by the favour of so great an authority in our Laws as Sir Edward Coke is, and with as much reverence as is or can be due to so great a lover of the Laws of England, and the veneration which he justly merits: I must of necessity, by what appears in the Cabinet and Treasury of time and Antiquity, and what is clearly to be perceived in those pure streams, which the Fountains of Justice and right reason have imparted unto Mankind, assert what I have done, and conclude that he was a man, and hath as the best Authors may in their Books sometimes do, which are not Scripture and Canonical, erred in averring that there was no Process of arresting the body of a Debtor, either before or after judgement, until the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. which gave Process of Outlawry in Actions of Debt.  
When in allowing Process of Arrest in debt in the King's Case, as he doth in Actions of Trespass, he must acknowledge the same reason and necessity, (which is a just and rational coercion to appear before the Tribunals of Justice, and of caution to be given to abide their judgements, to be in Actions of Debt, and other personal Actions.  
And he himself in many of his Books and Writings hath as well as the Civil Law, and our Common Law, and the Law of Nations affirmed, that the same Reason may claim the like Law; For the reason that Joseph would have imprisoned his Brethren, upon a suspicion that they were come to espy the Land, 
Genesis 42. v. 16, & 36.  and kept Simeon a Prisoner until their words (and denials) were proved, gives us the reason, necessity, and justice of arresting in personal Actions and Debt, as well as Trespass, until cause or caution be given of appearing in Courts of Justice, and performing the judgements.  
And that learned Judge could, if he were now living, very well remember, that he hath often said as well as found, that many of our Acts of Parliament are but declaratory of the Common Law, and that which was long before used, and understood to be as it was reasonable.  
That the matter or thing excepted in an Act of Parliament, is not included in any purvieu or provision of it, but is out of the reach and gunshot thereof; and that when in the Statute of Magna Carta made in 9 H. 3. ca 29. it is said, That no Freeman shall be taken and imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise destroyed, but by lawful judgement of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. And by 25 Ed. 3. ca 4. That no Man shall be taken by Petition or suggestion, but by Indictment or Presentment, or by Process made by Writ original at the Common Law.  
He is in his Comment upon Magna Carta, 
Sir Edward Coke in Mag. Chart. 50, 51, 53.  and that Statute of 9 H. 3. of opinion, that the words Per legem terrae, do refer to all the procedent matters in that Chapter or Statute, that that Statute was but declaratory of the old Law of England, That a Commitment by Lawful warrant either indeed or in Law is accounted in Law a due process or proceeding of Law, and by the Law of the Land as well as by force of the Kings writ: and that if a man be suspected, and he flieth or hideth himself, it is a good cause to arrest him, that in many cases a man may be by the Law of the Land taken and imprisoned by force of the Kings writ upon a suggestion made; and that against those that attempt to subvert and enervate the King's Laws there lieth a writ to the Sheriff in nature of a Commission ad capiendum impugnatores juris Regis, 
Register 64. Rot. pat 21. E. 3. part 1.  & ad ducendum eos ad Gaolam de Newgate, to arrest the Impugners of the King's Laws, and to bring them to the Gaol of Newgate, and if he had not been of that opinion, the words of Magna Charta in that Statute of 9 H. 3. can if they were put upon the rack and tortured, bear no other genuine sense or interpretation then that no man shall be taken or imprisoned but by lawful judgement of his Peers, or by the law of the land, And those words of the Statute of 25. Ed. 3. ca 4. that no man shall be taken by petition or suggestion, but by indictment or presentment, or by process made by writ original at the Common Law can receive no other construction, but that a man may be taken by process made by writ original at the Common Law, of which nature are the process or writs of Capias in the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, which are made upon original writs issuing out of the Chancery, have been in use upon occasion, and are matters of record before the Justices in this Kingdom, long before the making of those Statutes. And such an universal approved Ancient long and continued Praxis founded and fixed upon the Laws of God, Nature and Nations, in order to the preservation of Faith and Justice; those grand Supporters of humane Societies, should need no Advocate to plead and justify the necessary use thereof, but be sufficient to persuade the opponents to acquiesce in the reason and legality of it.  
And that great Lawyer Sir Edward Coke, might have had more laurels to have encompassed and grown up by his urn, and had not so much Eclipsed that great reputation which he had gained in his Studies, and Profession of the Laws as he hath; if he had not without a due and serious examination so much taken upon trust, Caressed, Magnified, and recommended to posterity that Manuscript, called the Mirror of Justice, and some other Manuscripts so often by him appealed unto, and vouched in his 2. part. of the Institutis, or Comment upon Magna Charta: In which Consarcination called the Mirror of Justice, that Mirror of Justice, Maker or Deviser dreameth truly to have recited some exemplary Judgmeets, or direful punishments inflicted by King Alured, or Alfred, upon 44. Judges of his; times for supposed Errors and Misdemeanours by them committed, And hanged them, who with great probability may be believed not yet to have been hanged by that King or any other, for that if any such remarkable things or Examples of Justice, had ever been done by him, they could not in all likelihood have escaped our old Historians, simeon, Dunelmensis, Ailredus Abbas Rievalensis, John Brompton, William Malmesbury, Henry Huntingdon, Roger Hoveden, Henry Knighton, Matthew of Westminster, Ingulphus, and all our other Ancient times, Remenbrances, nor would have been unrecorded by Asser Menvensis,, who for the fame of his Learning being sent for out of Wales, to come and live with him, was preferred by him and made a Bishop, and residing in his Court, Wrote his life and recommended to Posterity, his most memorable Actions, excellent Qualities and Endowments, but was so far from the Registering of any such Severeties, as on the contrary he doth make mention of the extraordinary clemency and lenity of that Virtuous Prince, who although he was a most diligent inquisitor of any male administration of Justice by his Judges; yet saith Asser Menevensis, Leniter Advocatos aut per scipsum, aut per alios suos fideles quoslibet Interrogabat quare Ita, nequiter, Judicassent utrum per ignorantiam aut propter aliam malevolentiam: id est utrum pro aliquorum amore vel Timore, 
Asser Menevensis de Alfredi rebus gestis 21.  aut aliquorum odio aut etiam pro alicujus pecuniae cupiditate. Gently calling them to him, he did by himself or others whom he might trust demand of them: Wherefore they had given such Judgements, whether ignorantly or for any ill will, or for love, fear, hatred, covetousness, or love of Money, Denique si illi Judices profiterentur propterea se talia Ita: Judicasse eo quod nihil rectius, de his rebus scire poterint tunc ille discrete, & moderanter, illorum imperitiam, & insipientiam redarguens aiebat; Ita inquiens nimirum admiror vestram hanc insolentiam eo quod dei dono & meo, sapientium gradus usurpati sapientiae autem studium & operam neglexistis. But if those Judges did confess that they had so Judged, or done because they knew no better, than he did discreetly and moderately show them their ignorance, and say unto them, truly I do very much wonder at your folly; for that by God's gift and mine, you have taken upon you the degree of my wise men and Judges, but the study of the Laws you have neglected. Qua propter aut terrenarum potestatum ministeria quae habetis illico, dimittetis aut sapientiae studiis multo devotius docere & studiatis impero: Wherefore I command you either suddenly to leave your places, or give your minds more unto study. Quibus auditis verbis perterriti veluti pro maxima vindicta Correcti Comites & praepositi ad aequitatis discendae studium totis viribus se vertere nitebautur, ita ut mirum in modum illiterati ab infantia Comites pene omnes prepositi & ministri litteratoriae arti studerent malentes insuetam disciplinam quam laboriose, discere quam potestatum ministeria dimittere. Whereupon they viz. His Earls and subordinate Judges, being as much terrified as if they had been actually punished, did wholly addict themselves to the study of the Laws, so as to a wonder the Earls and Judges aforesaid; many of whom from their youth were ignorant and illiterate, did by study endeavour to make themselves more able, choosing rather the hardship thereof then to be put out of their places.  
And the names of those Judges, which were said to have been hanged, do if there were any such very much favour of later times, or if any of them were Earls (for so most of the provincial Judges then used to be) should if guilty, by the custom of this and other Nations, unto which this of ours may in that and many other things be found not to have been altogether a stranger, not in all likeilhood have been subjected to so vile and vulgar a punishment, and the offences for which those imaginary Judges are by that Author said to have been hanged, were such of which there were then for aught appears no Laws, in being to make them guilty of the breach thereof.  
For all the Laws of King Ina, which have come unto us who reigned here in the year of our Lord 712. and next preceded King Alfred, 
LL. Inae ca 6.  and most of the Laws of King Alfred and the Saxon and Danish Laws of their several Kings, which reigned after him did ordain and inflict their punishments by pecuniary mulcts with relation to their Capitis estimationes valuation of their Qualities and Estates, and there were certain known and appointed Rates for the redemption of Lahshlite or Manbote for Manslaughter, or the death of a man, he which killed a Stranger forfeited 2. parts of esiimationis Capitis to the King, and the 3. part to the Children or kindred of the party slain. Theft was punished by the Laws of King Alured, who reigned in the year 871. ratione 60. hidarum, so as if the offender had been the owner of 60. hides of Land he which stole any thing out of the Church was to pay the value of the thing, 
LL. Alured cap. 6. ●3.  and to have his hand cut off and there was a Capitis estimatio, for a Nun taken by force out of a Nunnery, or Killing a woman great with Child, a man having for some Criminal offence forfeited his liberty, or being adjudged to be a Slave for Felony was not to be hanged until the 2. offence, 
LL. Inae. ca 23.  and it was in the accuser's option or choice to have him only beaten; of which book compiled out of many fragments, the Author doth not seem; to be well pleased with our Magna Charta, and appears to be a great fault finder and complainer of the abuses of too many things in the Laws of the time wherein he lived, and doth not well agree with himself in some of his own positions: as where he saith it was forbidden that none should be distrained by their move able Goods, 
Mirror of Justice cap. 1. §. 3. and cap. 5. §. 5. and Articles upon the Statute of Westud. 2.  but by their Bodies or Fees. In another place concludeth that the Imprisonment of the Body of a man is an offence if not for tortuous Judgements. That no man is imprisonable for Debt, and none to be utlawed if not for mortal Felony and menmentioneth the use of Justices in Eire when Sir. Henry Spelman saith, 
Mirror of Justice ca 5. §. 2.  the Justice's Itinerant, or in Eire, 
Spelmans glossar' in verbo Justicia & Eire.  were not here instituted until the reign of our King Henry the 2.  
And might have remembered if he had been so conversant, as he pretended with King alfred's Laws, 
LL. Alured cap. 1.  that Imprisonment of the body in Civil actions was not unusual in the time of his reign; For that by one of his Laws, if a man had given a pledge upon oath and promised (which was not then infrequent) quoth just & legitime praestare potuisset neque prestiterit arma fortunasquae, suas omnia amicorum fidei concredito ipse in custodiam Regiam per 40. dies mittitor subiturus supplicii quod ei Episcopus pro meritis imposuerit sin spatio haud plene confecto fugam agitarit fugientem que ante verterunt per 40 dies in Carcerem ut quidem antea fieri oportuit conjicitor verum si fuga elapsus fuerit ab omni legis patrocinio destitutus habetor: atque in omnibus Christi Ecclesiis Anathema esto. Quod si quisquam alius pro se fidem dederit penas fide jussonis violatae dato & imperatum subito. That which he might justly, perform, and did neglect, and not do it, his arms and all his Estate and Fortunes should be sequestered into the hands of his friends, and himself imprisoned in the King's Prison, by the space of 40. days, there to undergo such punishment as the Bishop according to his desert shall impose upon him, but if before that time elapsed, he shall escape and be taken again, let him be imprisoned for 40. days as he should before, And if he shall again escape, then let him be out of the protection of the Law, and excommunicate, but if any have been his surety let him pay the forfeiture.   

CHAP. XVI. That the late incessant needless complaints against our Laws, and the proceedings in our Courts of Justice, had in the bottom of it a design of overturning Monarchy and Government, and to create offices places and employments, and profits to, the contrivers thereof, and their Party.  
BUt there must be something else that hath made all this stir and inquietude, in the minds of those Causeless kind of Murmurers, and hath so far transported themselves out of themselves, as to forsake the reason of mankind; for otherwise it cannot easily get admittance into any man's apprehension and belief: That Land-Souldiers, Seamen, Mariners, Merchants, Mechanics and, some Tradesmen for of some of every of those sorts were too many, of our late Church and State, and Law reformers composed, should if they would not be at leisure to consider that public utility and necessity, do in many Cases both by the Laws of God Nature and Nations, sometimes Curb restrain lessen or take away the free use of properties, so patiently and willingly without any mutining endure the rigorous penalties, forfeitures and severities of the Laws of War and Navigation, and the arbitrary exactions and impositions of their Companies, and Governors of Trade; And not at all rear the cry of Oppression and Invasion of their Liberties, and yet so kick and wince at the legal and far more easy Rules of Justice, and may therefore require some search to be made for the fountain and rise of that popular Frenzy and distemper, and that so much mistaken late outcry against the Writts, and Process of Arrest, and Outlawry, when the arguments which are framed and brought by that vulgar and levelling race of people, do abundantly declare that they have not much troubled themselves with the reading and true understanding of those Laws, which they do so labour to scandelize, and the Records of the nation who do bear witness of them.  
In the Inquest whereof the late pious Martyr King Charles, hath pointed out the way unto a more full discovery of their designs, when he did foresee it, as in a Declaration published for the better satisfaction of his people, in December 1641. After that the house of Commons had made their aforesaid unhappy Remonstrance, he did not omit to give them to understand that he feared that a malignant party in that house did go about by discountenancing the present Laws, 
Exact Collection of the King's Speeches & Declarations.  to loosen the bonds of government; to the end, that all disorder and confusion might break in upon him.  
And in his answer to the above mentioned 19 propositions sent unto him by both houses of Parliament the 2. of June 1642. Declared unto them that those that had the conduct of that affair, 
Ibidem.  thought fit to remove a troublesome rub out of their way, viz. (the Law) to the end they might undermine the very foundation of it.  
Which every day after grew more and more visible, when they being called together to council and advise him, could not by their Votes, which they would make as binding and obligatory, as if they were Laws made and established by their Sovereign, wrest and take from him the Militia, or Sword wherewith he should protect and defend his people; took it to be not a little advantageous to their purposes, to ravel and dislocate the method and proceedings of his Laws and Justice; By which his Throne was established, that by overturning the long approved Laws and Customs of the Kingdom, upon which the best Monarchy in the World was built, they might open a passage to let in that gain and Anarchy which they aimed at, which being once made known to their Emissaries, and so much encouragement given by their members of that which was then untruly called a Parliament, who rather than fail of Petitions unto them from the sons of Zerviah and Shimei out of every Country, City, Corporation, and Market Town, caused Printed Bills to be affixed upon the Posts and Corners of the Streets in London, whose multitudes of Inhabitants in Masters, Apprentizes, Tapsters, and other Illiterate and Vulgar kind of people could readily afford them good store of such, as had been borne or lived in every County, City, and Corporation of England and Wales, to give a meeting at a place appointed to some Members of Parliament, for the framing of Petitions unto it; And thus the Hounds being uncoupled and let loose to chase the Royal Hart, and the Presbyterian Ministers like Huntsmen busied in the ha loo, lo ho, ha loo loo, so ho. Whooping and following to cheer and set them on, and busying themselves to remove all things that might hinder the pursuit of their Petitions, for the presenting whereof Pulpit Granado men were employed to procure them to be brought with 100 or 200 or more of the factious on Horseback, with the Petitions ready printed, or Tacked to their Hats or Hatbands, with Swords by their sides: The London Porterswere set on to Petition against the Militia, when they were only told it was against the Watermen for carrying Trunks and other Burdens by Water. And a Schoolmaster at Stamford, was so wickedly Ingenious as to make his Boys subscribe a Petition to that Parliament against Episcopacy▪ as if their Parents had actually done it.  
In the mean time, the Diurnals, News Books, and seditious Pamphlets the Stationers: Arrows and Artillery were day by day shot to wound him, and incense the people against him; and some of the Parliament men were heard to say, That they could not do their work without them; And the design was carried on so prosperously, as too many thought their time best of all bestowed, to pull down or take in pieces either all our old Laws, or such a part of them, as might not only undermine the frame and constitution of the Monarchy, but innovate and introduce so much of their own Models and Inventions, as might either directly lead to a republic, or some new devices of Anarchy.  
A Book called the pollution of University Learning, printed in 1642. Marched in the van, together with another Book called the Observator and his Jesuitical principles, Quod efficit tale est magis tale, and that the King was singulis Major, but universis Minor, and those kind of Engines, were greatly encouraged in their attempts by a Book; of Junius Brutus, his vindiciae contra Tirannos, translated out of Latin into English, to infect the people with Treasonable Doctrines. And a Book entitled Maxims Unfolded, That the Election of the Kings of England; aught to be by the consent of the people. The Royal and politic power in all Causes, and over all persons, is properly the Parliament The Oath of Supremacy, binds not in Conscience to the King against the Parliament, but the Pope: And another book written by Mr. William Prynn, 
prynn's sovereign power of Paliarments.  an utter Barrister of Lincoln's Inn; Entitled the Sovereign power of Parliaments and Kingdoms, Printed at London in the year 1643. Wherein with heaped quotations, and much Learning, and reading the wrong way, he was willing to invite his Readers to believe that the Court of Parliament had a lawful power to question the King's Patents, Charters, Commissions, Proclamations, Grants, Warrants, Writts, and Commandments, whether they be legal, and to Cancel and repeal them that be illegal or mischievous and onerous to the subject, not only without but against his consent. It is lawful for the people submitting themselves to prescribe the King and his successors, what Laws they please; the Sheriffs of every County were anciently elected by the Freeholders, and had power to raise the Militia, that the Navy, Ammunition, Arms, and Revenue of the King, though they be in his possession, are the Kingdoms; That Kings and their great Officers, Counsellors, and Justices, were at the first created and elected by the people, that the King hath an absolute Negative voice in the passing of Bills of common right and Justice for the public good, that the Parliaments present necessary defensive war is just and lawful, both in point of Law, Divinity and Conscience, and no Treason or Rebellion: the Parliament hath a right and Jurisdiction to impose Taxes and Contributions upon the subjects, for defence of the King in case of the King his wilful absence, or Arming against them. Seconded by a Book entitled Lex Rex, written as believed by one Rutherford a Scottish Divine, Printed at London by John Field, and published in the year 1644. By the then usurped authority, wherein he falsely endeavoured to maintain against all the grounds and fundamentals of Law and Religion: That Kings and their Families have no calling to the Crown; but only by the people, Royalty is not transmitted from Father to Son, 
rutherford's Lex Rex.  if the people may limit the King, they give him the power, who is the servant of the people, both objectively and subjectively, and is inferior unto them; who cannot make away their power, but do retain the fountain power of making a King, that to swear non self preservation, and to swear self Murder, is all one: The King is a Fiduciary Life-Renter, not a Lord or Heritor, the conscience of the people is immediately subordinate to God, not to the King mediately or immediately, the Judges are the immediate Vicars of God, not of the King; The Parliament hath more power than the King, The Crown is the Patrimony of the Kingdom, not of him who is King or of his Father: The Parliament are not Judges by derivation from the King: Who cannot make or unmake Judges Inferior Judges, are more necessary than a King: Parliaments may conveen and Judge without a King: Are coordinate Judges with him, not advisers only. Subordination of the King to the Parliament, and Co-ordination are both consistent: The King transgressing in a heinous manner, is under the coaction of Law: Defensive Wars are lawful: And there may be a distinction betwixt the King's person and his Royal power. The Physical act of taking away the life of offending persons, when commanded by the Law of self-defence is no Murder. Wars raised by the Subjects and Estates for their own just defence, against the King's bloody Emissaries are lawful: Parliament power, is a fountain power above the King: Who is but a noble Vassal of the Kingdom: Is not head of the Church. The people in some Cases may convene without the King: Subsidies are the Kingdoms endue rather than the Kings.  
And thus provided, and the scaling ladders made ready to storm the Laws, which were the Forts and Bulwarks of the King and Government, and heretofore made it their business to give help or shelter to the King, the Deformers rather than Reformers, do hasten one another to be up and doing. And therefore in a Pamphlet entitled Liberty vindicated against Slavery. Printed in the year 1645. the Author declared that Imprisonment for Debts, is against the foundamental Laws of England. Propositions were shortly after made unto that company of Monarchy underminers, called the Parliament for the laying aside the six Clarks in Chancery, and the employing their under Clarks at Cheaper Rates.  
In the year 1646. Mr. John Cook of Gray's Inn, who sufficiently deserved to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as he was afterwards as a Traitor, in a Book dedicated to the most high and most honourable Court of Parliament, the supreme as he calls it Judicatory of the Kingdom, saith that the alteration of fundamental Laws, as Sir Edward Coke saith, produces many inconveniencies, as in that statute of imprisoning men's bodies for Debt. And there must needs be good work in that their sport of pulling down and setting up, when it hath been as truly said as verified, that the King's Parliament began in 1640. and continued with some freedom of Votes, until December 1641. From thence it was governed by the City of London and their Tumults, Propositions, and Petitions, unto December 1643. And from thence by the Scots and their rebellious League and Covenant, unto the Month of June 1647. When the Presbyterians had the ascendant and predominancy, and that was not unjustly called the Apprentices Parliament; And after that Sir Thomas Fairfax his Parliament, which was governed by his Army, and their Addresses, Declarations, and Proposals, wherein the Independent party were Superior, and aught to be called the Agitators Parliament.  
The King in the mean time, in his great desire of peace with those whose wicked designs never intended it, not making that right use which he otherwise might have done, of the successes which God had given him in the just defence of himself and his Loyal Subjects, and the Laws, Liberties, and Religion of his People, tired with the treachery of those that too often betrayed, and sold his just advantages, and overpowered with an Army of Covenanting Scots, who came to assist their brother Rebels of England, and believing himself to be something safe in their Oaths and Promises, and flying to them for Succour, was by a party of them contrary to the Laws of God and Nations, sold to the English Rebels, for two hundred thousand Pounds Sterling, Too great a sum of Money to be restored again, as Judas did the thirty pence, the wages of his sin for the betraying of our Lord and Saviour, and by tricks and devices carried Prisoner from place to place, until he was barbarously Murdered. And the Heir and Royal Issue driven out of their Inheritance, and then every Mechanic head was set on work to frame a new Government, in which there were as many diversities of opinions, as there were Ignorances' and Sinister ends, to advance their particular ambitions or advantages, and a mart being kept of Whimsies, some being much in love with the Balletting box used at Venice, others with the Rota and Mr. harrington's Oceana, and all or too many thus busied, Sedition and Ignorance sat in their Triumphal Chariots with the Laws▪ Learning and Religion of the Nation like so many Captive Kings in Chains attending, all which did not fully correspond with the Votes and expectation of the Presbyterians, when as Cromwell the g●●at Encourager of the Independents or Fanatic party, than the more numerous, feeling his own strength and having a prospect of a better design of establishing himself, did so delay and trifle with the Parliament his Masters in their desires of disbanding the Armies, as the Presbyterian Soldiers in the mean time selling their Debenturs, the wages of their Rebellion and wickedness, at 16 d. or 18 d. a pound, with a long Interest, to the Independents, who were thereby easily enabled to buy King, Queen and Princes, the Bishops, and Dean and Chapters, Nobility and Delinquents Lands, as they miscalled them; and that party being so well gratified, were not afterwards unwilling to Lackey after his hypocrisy, and permit him to frame and make his own Instrument and method of a more arbitrary Government then our Laws permitted, or any of our Kings or Princes exercised, and to be as a single person Protector of all the Knaves and Fools in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, withal their fancied and supposed Liberties, which as they used them were but to hunt and chase all that were loyal and honest, and thought they might do any thing to the Amorites, Moab and Amalek, and that all the Scripture was contained in Gain, being [as they supposed] Sanctified into a pretence and outward semblance of Godliness.  
In the later end of the year 1648. some thousands of Well-affected, as their Sedition persuaded them, inhabiting the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark, and Hamlets, supposing the Time to smile upon their purposes, did Petition that which when the King was murdered was no Parliament, that they would consider the many thousands that were ruined by perpetual imprisonment for Debt, and provide for their enlargement.  
In the year 1649. one Thomas Faldoe of Grays-Inne Esq was so loath to have his Conceits and Opinions lag behind, as in a Pamphlet entitled, Reformation of Proceedings at Law, published on the behalf of himself and the Commonwealth of England, he complained, That the Law of Property was depressed and useless, by the colour of the Statute of Imprisonment, and sacrificed to all the Birds of prey, even to Covetousness the mother of Cruelty, in the several Offices and Instruments of Justice.  
And in the same year came out a Representation of divers as they called themselves Well-affected persons in or about the City of London, petitioning the Parliament, That all tenors in Capite, and all inferior Jurisdictions, being great grievances and oppressions, might be taken away, the Laws translated into English, the Six Clarks, Head Registers, Masters of Chancery, and the Petty-bag, Affidavit Office, Prothonotaries, and all other grand Monopolies and Patentees, might be abolished, no man's life taken away for Felony, unless accompanied with Murder; that the eldest Sons in every Family might have a double Portion in the Father's Estate, and the rest be divided amongst the younger Children; that no Fines be paid to any Cursitor, or upon any Original Writ, but may be quite abolished; that no man's person might be imprisoned for Debt, but his Estate made liable to satisfy the same: it being more suitable to the Turkish or Heathenish practice, then to Christian English Professors of the Gospel, to rack and grind the bodies of men in prison.  
At the heels whereof was brought to that Assembly at Westminster, (who named themselves a Parliament, and to cherish such doings seldom failed by their Speaker to give thanks in the name of the House to all Petition and Declaration-drivers) a Petition of the Well-affected in the County of Buckingham, said to be a Representation of the middle sort of men within the three Chilterne Hundreds of Disborough, Burnam and Stoke, and part of Alesbury Hundred, declaring, That they had waited eight years in the pursuance of their just Rights and Freedom, with which God had invested them and the whole Nation, kept from them by Arbitrary power and Tyrannical factors of the Nobility, Courtiers, Episcopal Priests, cheating Lawyers, Impropriators, Patentee men, Lords of Manors, and all illegal Courts, and other diabolilical interessed parties, and desire that all Licences, Commissions, etc. and Grants from the late King, whose first predecessor was that Outlandish Bastard William the Conqueror, from whence proceeded the original of all their slavery both in Tenors, Laws, Terms, Customs, etc. in an Outlandish tongue, the Lawyers being the chief Instruments of their misery, might be abolished; and protesting against all arbitrary Laws, Terms, Lawyers, Impripriators, Lords of Manors, Privileges, Customs, Tolls, Tithes, going to the Terms at Westminster, payment of Heriots, Quitrents, Head-Silver, Lawyer's Fees, and the whole Norman power, being a burden too intolerable to bear; did invite all men to enter upon Commons, and cut and fell the Wood growing thereon, and desired (which they would not be willing to do if they had been Lords of Manors, and other the parties struck at) to go by the golden rule of Equity, viz. to do as they would be done by, not to tyrannize over any, or to be tyrannised over.  
Another Pamphleteer feared he should be taken to be ill affected to the babe of Sedition, if he also should not be doing somewhat, in a Modest Plea as he terms it, dedicated to the High Court of Parliament, which he would have to be the Supreme Authority of the Nations, prayed, that there might be an equal Commonwealth against Monarchy; wherein there is a Lift against the Universities, College Lands, Tenors, Hereditary Nobility, Church Revenues, Churches and Bells, Mercenary Lawyers and Tithes, with an Apology for Younger Brothers, and desires a restitution of the Tenors in Gavelkind.  
In the same year, the Lord General Fairfax, Lieutenant General Cromwell, the Lord Mayor of London, Colonel Harrison, Mr. Francis Allin, Colonel Martin, and others, were empowered to place and displace any Judges of the Courts at Westminster, and all Officers thereunto belonging, and all Sheriffs and Justices of Peace.  
Mr. John Hare being unwilling to stay behind such Company, in a Pamphlet sent out upon that design, desired, that the Norman yoke might be taken off; and saith, that the Norman Innovations are destructive to the honour, freedom, and other unquestionable Rights of the Nation.  
In the same year, the Officers and Soldiers in the Regiments of Colonel Scroop, Sanders and Walton, and the Soldiers in the Garrisons of Arundel, Rye and Chichester, did petition the Lord General Fairfax, that the abuses in the Courts of Justice be reform, that there be a Registering of Deeds and Contracts, Tithes abolished, Six Clarks in Chancery taken away, and their Clarks sworn Attorneys.  
Mr. Sadler a Lawyer, and a man in such favour with the Usurper, as he was by them made one of the Judges for the proving of Wills and Testaments, in his Book entitled, The Rights of the Kingdom, and Custom of our Ancestors, saith, that the Writs of Capias as now used were very mischievous, did not lie at the Common Law in Actions of Debt; citys Sir Edward Coke opinion in Sir William Herbert's Case, and declared, that in Debt the Mirror of Justice did pronounce the Outlawry to be a great abuse.  
In the year 1650. S. D. then an Attorney, (but since his Majesty's happy Restauration and the altering of the Scene, Knighted and put into several places of Honour and Trust,) having convened and gathered together some Tides-men, and small understanding Clarks and Attorneys, that were well inclined to set their Watches by Cromwell's new Court-diall, did in order to the Regulation of the Law, propound a Law to be made against Fines to be paid upon Original Writs, for that (the best reason that they could give against it) it was against the reason of the Fundamental Laws of England, which never imposeth any Fines but against offenders; and the like against utlaries, which were unnecessary, and did tend only to Charges and delay; and that a second Summons being served upon a Defendant and left at his house, and by the Sheriff or his Officer returned upon Record, the first Summons being made seven days before the day of Appearance, in which time the Plaintiff may enter his Declaration in Court, and if no Appearance entered within eight days after, than a new Summons in the nature of a Scire facias to be awarded upon the Imparlance roll, to summon him to appear at a certain day to come, when not appearing and pleading within eight days after Judgement shall be given by default.  
Mr. John Jones of Nayoth in the County of Brecon, in a Book printed and published in the same year, entitled, Judges Judged out of their own mouths, or the Question resolved by Magna Charta who have been England's Enemies, King-seducers, and the People's destroyers, from King Henry the 3d. to King Henry the 8th. and before and since, stated by Sir Edward Coke late Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings-Bench, wherein that mighty Cambro-Britain in his own opinion doth with as little Law as Reason charge the Judges and Professors of the Law, with the destruction of honest men whom it should save, and the saving of all those whom it should destroy or punish for unlawful respects and considerations, tending to their own profits and ends: And that by Prerogative Statutes devised by mercenary Lawyers to steal from the people their Birthright, contrary to Magna Charta, and the Common Law of England, they are become an intolerable mischief to the Commonwealth, and do deserve exemplary punishments; and citys the said Sir Edward Coke opinion in his Comment upon Magna Charta, cap. 29. that the Custom of England declared by Magna Charta doth not extend to the imprisonment of any Debtors but the Kings.  
And assisted those his wicked and false Rabshakesmes with another little Book, called the Cry of Blood, dedicated to Oliver Cromwell, General as he styled him of the puissant Army of the Parliament of England, wherein charging the crime of Murder, and of the blood of the righteous Abel, as he is almost frantically pleased to fancy it, upon the Process of Arrest and Outlawry, and that innocent and most necessary way of compelling men to Justice, he styleth them a course of Sin, and the Offices of those who do make them the gift of the Devil, and the Lawyer's liars; although Mr. John Cook of Grays-Inne, before the Devil had entered into him and engaged him to be a prosecutor of his Sovereign, even to the Murder of him, did in his Book printed in the year 1646. entitled, A Vindication of the Professors and Profession of the Law, dedicated to the then Parliament, declare, that he was confident that the Common Lawyers of England are as understanding rational men, as any Practisers of any Profession whatsoever in the world; and he durst say, that there are more Godly religious Lawyers, Attorneys and Solicitors in England, then in all that habitable part of the world called Christendom.  
Mr. William Leach of the Middle-Temple proposed, that no Defendant should be enforced to appear unto any Action, before a Penal Summons, and a Declaration first filled, unless in case of likelihood to depart the Land, or to make away his Goods; and in such case, upon an affidavit to be made before a Justice of Peace by any Officer to be arrested.  
Isaac Pennington the younger, the Son of that man of Faction his Father, offered in a Pamphlet to assert, that the Rights, Liberties and safety of the people were in themselves, and derivatively in the Parliament their Substitutes and Representatives, and that the people ought well to look to their rectifying right, that it may have its free current.  
Mr. Henry Robinson in his public Proposals for a cheap and easy distribution of Justice, would have a public Country Registry for Lands, and another for Debts, and that in every City, Corporation and Division in each County, Judges may be appointed with an yearly Salary.  
By a Petition of many calling themselves a Free-people, promoted by John Wildman and John Lilburne Gent. they do require that all the Laws, Process and Inrolments of England be written in English, and a Roman or Secretary hand.  
Hugh Peter, a Prompter at a Playhouse long before he was a my micke Preacher and the abuse of the Pulpit, having made many a Renegado Voyage from England to Holland, thence to New-England, and from thence in the company of other Birds of Prey perching here again in England, was so unwilling not to be as busy in the ruin of his Country, as other men of the Trinkets and new Fangles were, as in his Book entitled, Endeavours (as he saith) aiming at the Glory of God, that Peace and Truth may meet together, undertaketh to prove, that Government by succession from Father to Son was none of God's institution in the first and purest Times, that Custom hath worn out Truth, but we were to inquire for the old and good ways, and Christ saith it was not so in the beginning.  
And in June 1651. in his Book entitled, Good Work for a Good Magistrate, would have Registers to be settled in every Parish of all Mortgages, 
Heugh Peter's Good Work for a Good Magistrate.  Alienations, etc. and from thence transmitted to the County or Shire-Town; that in every County every Hundred do choose three men to be Peacemakers for a year, to determine all common controversies without Appeal; Wills and Testaments to be acknowledged before two next Justices, and entered in the Parochial Registries; five or seven in every Town or Hundred to be yearly chosen to determine all Debts or Strifes, whereof three to give sentence without Appeal; that Summons instead of Arrests may be left at men's houses, none to distrain for Taxes or Debts, but the Debtors outward doors to be taken away and carried to the Townhouse, and as many other new doors as shall be set in the place; every man plead his own cause, and if he think himself too weak, let him have liberty to take a Friend or Neighbour to plead for him, but no Advocates or Seriveners to plead for any man; if any Lawyers be continued, let them be allowed and paid by the State; all Suits in London and great Cities to be determined in a week. Which being done, it was very advisable to burn all the old Records, even those in the Tower, the monuments of Tyranny.  
And had so in a short time after haled on his design of destroying all the Records and memorial of the Laws of England, to make way for his new contrivances, as a Sergeant at Arms of the then miscalled Parliament, or one of their Mock-Majesty Mace-bearers, had an express order (happily diverted by some other affair when it was ready to be put in execution) to throw all the Records remaining in the Treasuries at Westminster into the River of Thames.  
And the Law that it might the better be baited and abused, (as if no Foreigners could ever have occasion to read, understand, or make use of them) must with its Writs, Records, Process and Proceedings, for the time to come be written in English, many of the Law-books being in order thereunto, by the factious and greedy avarice of many of the Booksellers and Stationers, procured to be mercenarily translated into English, and exposed to the rude eyes and hands of the ignorant, and the little reason that the Owners of it do use to have, whereby to make it a Ludibrium, and the wonder of their lesser Intellect, which might easily happen where they wanted the keys and assistance of other Learnings; and every thing their shallow apprehensions could not reach or fathom, was by them supposed to be Norman slavery, Antichristian, or Idolatry; the Records must no more be written in the long-lasting and durable Court and Chancery hands, or manner of writing, made out of the old Saxon, Gothick, and Reunick Characters, as they were wont to be, and had been for many ages before, but in a Secretary hand, not that strong and legible hand heretofore used, but a kind of Jack-an-Apes hand, composed of Antic frisking undistinguishable letters, so written with the side of a Pen and small slit, as that scratching rather then writing hath been often seen, not to be able to keep company with the Parchment it was wrote upon, the small period of Oliver Cromwell's wickedly usurped Dominion.  
Which needless change and novelty, with other the doings of the Factious and Rebellious, so wrought upon the minds of the ruder sort of the people, to the joy and comfort of those who thought themselves to be specially Godly, as the Lawyers could not pass in the Streets without many reproaches, and not always without the scorn of being asked if they had any Latin, by those that did never understand it, or were ever likely or in a capacity to do it. And Pride the Drayman, turned by an accursed Rebellion into a Colonel, could say, that he hoped shortly to see, or it would never be well until the Lawyer's Gowns were like the Scottish Colours hung up in Westminster hall. So great was his and his partisans malice and hatred to those Laws, which once they seemed to be so much in love with, professed and covenanted to maintain.  
In the same year that so remarkable Thomas Elsliot, calling himself a member of Jesus Christ, and of the English Commonwealth, a freeborn person of the English Nation, Esquire at Arms, Conqueror of the Gentlemen of the Long Robe, now or late the Satan of the Commonwealth, in his Book entitled The true Mariner, with his Metaphorical and Hieroglifical Ship demonstrating the way to Paradise, dedicated to Oliver Cromwell, saith the Prothonotaries and Registers in the Courts of Justice are immense Foxes, the Attorneys and Clarks Kindle-coals, the Bum-bailiffs, Sergeants at Mace and Marshals-men, Serpents, Toads, Rats and Mice.  
James Stocall Colonel of a Regiment of fifteen hundred men in the Isle of Jersey, proposed, that if a man be overburdened with Debts and imprisoned, and his Estate not able to pay, he ought if he come into Court and affirm it upon his Oath, to be freed of all his Creditors, so as he do leave them what he hath whereby to satisfy every Creditor according to the priority of every man's Debt.  
Shortly after followed Proposals by some Chancery Clarks, aiming to hurt their Masters the Six Clarks in Chancery, and make what benefit they could for themselves, that twelve ancient practising Clarks to be chosen two out of every Office, by the major votes of the Clarks, and presented to the Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor, or Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, and out of them to be chosen some Overseers or Superintendents, and to have an Annual stipend; the Subpoena Office to be nulled, and those Writs to be made by the Chancery Clarks; the Affidavit Office to be taken away, Lawyers Fees to be ascertained, and none to take any more Fee in that Term for any particular Cause, and no matters to be referred to Masters of Chancery but Accounts.  
Charles George Cock would have utlaries abolished, and no Arrest, and that there be only a Summons without a Writ or attaching the person, and if twice summoned let him be proceeded against upon his Goods.  
In the year 1652. Gerrard Winstanley published his opinion, that the King's old Laws cannot govern a free Commonwealth, and it is not possible for a people to be too free; and in a Book entitled, The Law of Freedom, or true Magistracy restored, complaineth, that Tolls in the Market are a burden, that the Gentry do oppress the Common people, live idly upon their labours, and carry away all the comfort and livelihood of the Earth; that the powers of Lords of Manors do remain still over their Brethren, requiring Fines and Heriots, beating them off the free use of their Commons; the Commoners have cast out the King, therefore they are in equity free from the slavery of that Lordly power, and that it will blast the power of the Parliament and Army to see the Government of the Commonwealth to be built upon the Kingly Laws and Principles; and that all slaveries and oppressions which have been brought upon mankind, have been by Kings, Lords of Manors, Lawyers, Landlords & Divines, who ought to be cast out; and prayeth that there may be a Judge in every Shire, Peacemakers in every Town, Overseers and a band of Soldiers attending them.  
Another proposeth, that instead of an Arrest a Summons might be sufficient, and if no Appearance Judgement and Execution to pass.  
In the year 1653. in a Book entitled, a supply to a draught of a Systeme proposed by a Committee for the Regulation of the Law, it was desired, that none be arrested, attached, molested or troubled by any Original or other Writ.  
And thus whilst too many addleheaded Reformers were labouring to establish wickedness by a Law or Authority, and the major part of the Members of the miscalled Parliament having as they thought reared their designs to that height and nearness of accomplishment, that they took themselves to be Officers of Righteousness, elected and chosen to do wonderful things, that Gods will might be done on earth as it was in heaven, that every one might be holy, and the Pots, yea the Bells upon the Horses, as they were pleased to phrase it, might be holiness unto the Lord, and that God might reign and be all in all; they (did in that hurry and fit of Zeal, without any solid or rectified reason, cause or consideration, without the hearing of any defences to be made against their supposed to be infallible Judgements, (Vote that the High Court of Chancery, and all the other Courts at Westminster-hall, should be dissolved and no more made use of; and a Member of that Society, and a Burgess for the Town or University of Cambridge, who might have done well to have dissuaded his Election until he had learned more wit, was so willing to have the Civil Laws here used to be destroyed, or set packing with the Common Laws, as he could not forbear crying out, Mr. Speaker, one word I beseech you, for Jesus Christ let the Civil Law also be put down. But that not well according with the sentiments and purposes of Cromwell their man of Sin, who had designed to trepan them to deliver up their fancied Parliamentary Government, and to bless God for the yoke and Instrument of his own making, whereby he as a single person had with many kerbing contrivances a future absolute lawless and unlimited power and Authority, he did for the better preserving of the Justice of the Nation, for the administration whereof he intended to make himself an allowance of Two hundred thousand Pound, per annum, and well understood to be as necessary in a Commonwealth as it had been in the best of Monarchies, and some other his reasons of State, whilst those Dreamers of Godly Reformations had upon his Summons and Command refused to dissolve or come out of their opinionated Senate or Parliament-house, cause some of his Janissaries or Red-coat Soldiers to pull them out of the House, and lock up the doors.  
And their ungodly and particular interests having thus enticed the vulgar and less considerate part of the people, too many of them made all the hast they could to pull in pieces the frame, and the noble ever to be admired constitution of our Government, where they could be sure of hopes of gain, and losing nothing by it, and joining with some Lawyers of the smaller size that wanted Practice, and expected employments by a Renverse of our Old Laws and setting up New, the finews and foundations of our Laws were endeavoured to be cut, Monarchy, Justice and our Laws enforced to dwell in the Tents of Mesech and Kedar, and lying amongst the Pots, and the Wolves made the Guardians of the Sheep and Lambs; the Tenth Commandment in the Decalogue was bid to stand off, and not trouble itself with their business, until they could be at more leisure to talk with it or understand it; every one was rooting up the foundations, and like those that are too busy in breaking bulk, or taking the spoil of a distressed wrecked Ship, the wild Boar broke into the Vineyard, and the Swine into the Garden and Bed of Spices, unto whom the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Vallies, the charming Hyacinth and Tulips, and gloriously adorned other flowers, and the filth of a Dunghill were in their grunting capricious sense of an equal if so much value and estimation.  
And Mr. John Dury a Scotish Minister, who had before in the reign of King Charles the Martyr by good approbation of divers of our Bishops and Learned men of this Nation, and many learned and worthy of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas, endeavoured a better agreement betwixt the Lutheran and Calvinists, had no time or labour spare to bring his Countrymen and their mad Brethren of England into their wits again, but for some Preferment had or promised was so well contented to ring the Changes with them, as he could not let such things pass without some blessing or Grace said unto them, or a box of what he took to be a more special Balm of Gilead, bestowed upon them for the ease and comfort of such a small number as should be troubled with tender and puling Consciences, as he did in his Reproposals licenced by Mr. Joseph Caryl, declare, that God by an extraordinary way of providence had shaken the foundations of this Kingdom, 
Mr. Jo. Dury's Reproposals.  and turned in into a Commonwealth, believed that the just Judgement of God had brought it upon those who without any respect to tender Consciences, did press the ensnaring former Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and the Covenant, and laid them as stumbling-blocks before their Brethren; conceived that the requiring a general promise from Subjects, to perform an undeniable and unquestionable duty to the Commonwealth wherein they live, by those that have the power of affording or refusing Civil protection, is not in the same nature with those former Oaths and Subscriptions: And that he should pray and intercede for such as are under the trouble of their own Spirits, and fear of sinning, that the many years experience of their quiet behaviour and faithful services may be accepted towards a● just degree of security and assurance for future peaceableness.  
In the same year Mr. 〈◊〉 Grace, a prisoner in the Compter of Woodstreet in London for the not payment of Tithes, would persuade as many as would be so foolish as to believe him, that Tithes were a curse to all Nations but Cana●n, and a vexation to all people but the Hebrews.  
In the year 1654. Mr. John Rogers, once a Minister of the Church of England, but afterwards a fiery zealot of Rebellion, by his Book fuller of railing then truth or reason, entitled, 
Mr. John Rogers Sagrir.  Sagrir, or Doomsday drawing nigh with Thunder and Lightning, in an Alarm for New Laws and the People's Liberties, from the Norman and Babylonian yokes, wherein he calling the Lawyer's Tyrants and Locusts, saith, that it is high time and more than time for the people to know their Rights, Privileges and Freedom, that all that are past Children and Fools should call for them, and that it concerns all to write, print, publish and declare against the Norman Tyranny of Laws and Lawyers, and that he doth it with as much assurance and confidence as if he had a halter about his neck, and were to endure the penalty of the Locrian Laws for failing in what he should allege against them; that the Lawyers are Antichrists State Army of Locusts, and that the people have been robbed of their Rights to this day by the Income of corrupt Laws and Lawyers, the true rise of their interest, Inns of Court, and trades by Sin; that none are suffered to plead but Lawyers, or such as are brought up in their Courts and Inns, in their trade, cheats and tricks, to sell the Law at a large rate to Chapmen called their Clients; and would make it to be no small grievance, that▪ men are imprisoned for Debt, every man may not plead his own cause, and that there are not County Judicatories to hinder the great charges put upon the Nation to prosecute their Suits at London and Westminster.  
Mr▪ Boone an Attorney, or something of a Lawyer, with his name wrapped up in an Anagram, in his Book entitled Examen Legum Angliae, published in the year 1656. whose reading of good Authors mentioned in his Quotations might have better informed him, and made him of another opinion, will not allow of any of our Laws that do not agree with the Mosaical, or were not derived from them, or of any which were made or allowed of in the times of Popery, 
Boons Examen Legum Angliae. ca 3 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13.  but saith, that the Law of England as it is now in use is a departure from the Law of God, and a taking of a Law from Heathens and Idolaters; that the whole body of Popery is in a manner comprehended in Littleton's Book so much commended by Sir Edward Coke, and that the old Statutes made in the affirmance of the Common Law, and the Books and Entries whereof he makes mention, are stuffed with all manner of impieties & errors, that Magna Charta & Charta Forestae do not appear to be any Acts of Parliament, although they be so called; that chiefly therein was intended the advancement of the Romish power in a Tyrannical Government; that the Statutes of Marlebridge, Westminster the first, and the rest of the old Statutes said to be declaratory of the Common Law, do savour of the power of Antichrist, and do contain in them manifold impieties and superstitions; that the Statute of 24 E. 1. concerning Ecclesiastical Judges, and the Statute made in 9 E. 2. concerning Prohibitions, Clarks convict, Prelates, Spiritual Courts, Excommunications, Abjurations, power of the ordinary Fees of the Church, Superstitious Houses, Monasteries, Parsons, Parsonages, containing sixteen Chapters, are nothing else but Popery, and the advancement thereof; and the like may be said of 25 E. 3. ca 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 concerning lapses of Benefices, Clarks convict, Ordinaries, etc. that such causes as do chiefly require remedy in a Court of Equity, may easily be determined by Judges in Courts of Law; Common Recoveries for assurance of Lands, are nothing but a pack of lies; that the Theory of the Common Law, and some of the Statutes now in force, do contain matters repugnant to the Law of God; that most of the old Statutes, as well such as are said to be in affirmance of the Common Law, as others introductory to new Laws, do contain in them great oppressions and wrong to the people, and aught to be amended; that the general execution of the Laws, as it is now practised, is an oppression to the whole Nation; that trivial and impertinent Suits are brought out of the Countries to Westminster, and thereby all inferior Courts are destroyed: and proposed a public Registry to be in every County of all Entails, Mortgages and Statutes, that before any cause or Action ●e entered in any Court, or come before the Judges, peace he offered by the Plaintiffs, and that wise men be appointed to take up Controversies; that all the Tithes and Glebe Lands with other things called Church-duties, may be sold, and a competent means provided for the Ministers of the Gospel.  
In a Book entitled England's safety in the Laws Supremacy, and published in the year 1659. it was amongst other things required as a Law including the people● Liberties, that no man be imprisoned for Debt, but that all Estates real and personal be liable for discharge of Debts.  
In the same year in a Pamphlet entitled, the humble desires of a Free Subject, it was desired, that not any of the free people of the three Nations and Territories thereunto belonging, should not be molested or imprisoned, or have any violence offered to their persons, but shall have full power and liberty to seek for their redress unto the Law, and the Courts of Justice, according to the ancient constitutions of the Laws of the three Nations.  
In another owned by one Mr. James Freeze, entitled, the outcry and just Appeal of the enslaved people of England, to be delivered from the insupportable oppression of lawless yokes of misery, it complains, that thousands of people are ruined and robbed in their Estates, Liberties and Lives, by Arrests and Outlaries, and prayeth that the Writs of Capias may be abolished, and the imprisoned set free, which would work the total downfall of Satan's throne of Injustice, cruelty and oppression, even of the four Fairs kept in Westminster-hall by the engrossers of pretended Justice, where and by whom men are daily bought and sold in their Estates, Rights and Liberties.  
Some of the Inhabitants of Hull did petition, that the Laws by which the Commonwealth is to be governed, may be those holy, just and righteous Laws of the great and wise God; and declaring, that the Nobility are the Pillars and Buttresses of Monarchy, and Citadels of Pride and Tyranny, aught to be only during life; that the Divines, the Lawyers, and hereditary Nobility, are irreconcilable Antagonists to a Free-State; adviseth an Agrarian Law, that the proportion of Lands be stinted, and a rotation of all Offices and employments, that those which are capable may taste of rule, as well as subjection.  
In a Book called A Rod for the Lawyers, they are called the grand robbers and deceivers of the Nation, greedily devouring many millions of the people's money; and it allegeth, that there are in England & Wales of Judges, Lawyers, Officers, Clarks, Attorneys, and Solicitors, above 30000, (a quarter of that number, at the largest reckoning, being not to be found of them) which admitting that each of them do get 250 l. per annum, (very many of them not getting 100 l. per annum, many not 50 l. per annum, and many not 10 l. per annum, or so much as the Rag-gatherers in London-streets do, who take it to be an ill week that yields them not 10 s.) it will saith that Calculator amount unto seven millions and an half per annum, besides the charges of riding to and from London; whereas if ever there were such a number to be proved, there are greater numbers of Carpenters and Smiths, who do yearly gain as much as the smaller sort of the Law Profession do by their as necessary labours.  
In a Declaration and Proclamation of the Army (as they called themselves) of God, published in the same year, they did declare and resolve, 
Declaration of the Army in Anno 1659.  by the help of God that there should be liberty of Conscience, but not of Sin; Godly Laws to be enthroned, but not the Jews; Judges to be in every City, but not imposed; Prison doors should be set open, to let out Debtors to labour towards the payment of their Debts; and looked upon it as the voice of God calling upon them, and giving them an opportunity; and therefore desiring assistance in so great an enterprise, by as many persons of note and ability as God hath made willing and able, together with themselves, to put in sufficient security for the performance thereof, did entreat them to send in their names to Mr. Livewell Chapman, Bookseller in Popes-head-alley by the Exchange, who hath promised to keep them secret until by sober and frequent meetings the matters may be digested fit to be presented to the Parliament and chief Officers of the Army.  
Where if the Propositions do prove acceptable, there will be a sum of 500000 l. ready towards performance of the same.  
And in the Plea called the Army's Plea it is alleged, that the people's safety is the chief Sovereignty of all Laws, Statutes, Acts and Ordinances, Covenants, Engagements, Promises, Subscriptions, Vows, Oaths, and all manner of obligations and expressions thereof, and are only binding to the Public safety, and not to the persons of the Governors or forms of Government, but with reference thereunto, and as principles of truth and right reason brought to light by the late Parliament.  
And one being willing to come on as fast as he could, and keep company with those goodly assertions, saith, that it is not lopping the branches, or cutting off the Top branch of Monarchy, that will deliver a Nation from bondage, unless the Axe be laid to the root thereof, to the evil root of bitterness whence springs all our misery, to the root of every usurping and domineering Interest, whether in things Civil or Divine.  
The number of Freeholders being much increased, hath had a natural and strong tendency towards a Commonwealth; no Government can be fixed in this Nation, but according to the Balance of Land; that Prince that is not able neither by his own or the public Revenue, in some measure to counterpoise, if not overbalance the greater part of the people, must necessarily be Tenant at will.  
Another in his Arguments and fancied Reasons against the office and title of Kingship, published in the year aforesaid, saith, that the Office of a King makes way for an Act of resumption, and the unsettling of men's Estates; that the abolishing of Episcopacy and Peerage, and the establishing of Liberty for Tender consciences, were not the ground of the Wars, for nothing appeared at the first but the Militia, the Negative voice, and the removing of Evil Counsel, the other things were brought into the quarrel in the progress of the contest, by an higher hand of providence than man's purpose.  
One of the same company and School of contrivances desired publicly, that no man should be imprisoned for Debt, except such as are doubted to be running away, and then not above three days, and to be maintained by the Plaintiff at 3 s. a day in the mean time.  
In a Book styled the Good Old Cause dressed in its Primitive lustre, said to have been written by R. Fitz-Brian, it was insinuated, that the distempers of the Nation being so great, as they could not admit of a redress and conserve still their old frame things must unavoidably wheel about and fix themselves upon another Basis; Providence united the honest party of the victorious Army, so as it was resolved that the poor who had nothing to pay their Debts, should be freed from the bondage of a perpetual Confinement; the corruption of the Laws were become at once both the shame and impoverishment of the Nation, and some Expedient was to be had for the freeing of it from so horrid a Cheat; Divine providence did by degrees point out a necessity of the change of Government, and Kingship being laid aside as unnecessary, chargeable and dangerous, it was devolved into a Commonwealth: It being a certain rule, that corrupt and degenerate States cannot be perfectly healed and regulated, but by stepping into those forms which are the farthest distant from that wherein they were corrupted.  
Backed by an Anonymous Author, who being desirous to try an experiment, as well projected as that of the cutting the Moon into Stars, to make the greater light, and save the expense and trouble of Candles; and to contrive a way for the ruining at once of many of our fundamental Laws root and branch, doth in a Book entitled a Chaos, or frame of a Government by way of a Republic, printed by the said Livewel Chapman, endeavour a creation of new Laws out of a confusion of his own making, wherein as a well-willer to the Public, as he styles himself, but a greater to all at home, he doth in order and respect (which there will be no reason to believe) to the Lawyer's profit, and to the people's enjoyment of Magna Charta, propound National, Provincial, Subprovincial and Parochial Registries, to which Courts all causes of Civil concernment are to be reduced; all Suits in Law or Equity to be determined in six months, upon a penalty to the Judges, and loss of Cause to the Client, whether Plaintiff or Defendant, if guilty of delay; the Judges in Chancery to sit the die in diem, the Itinerant Judges to determine all Causes that shall be tried before them, and a Term of a month to be at Westminster-hall after every Circuit, for the determination of matters of Law, with rules to be given for the Jurisdiction of each Registerial Court; a National Registry to be appointed at Westminster, to consist of a Register and six Clarks Assistants or Deputies, which may have each as many writing and examining Clarks under him as the business shall require; each County of England to be one entire Province, and those allotted to the Jurisdiction of the said several six Clarks and Deputies, viz. so many Counties as are comprised within the several Circuits of the Judges; in every Shire-Town a Provincial Register, and he to have two Clarks assistants, who shall as to the employment divide the Province, only Yorkshire is to have three Clarks assistants, who are to divide according to the Ridings; Subprovincial Registers to depend upon the Provincial, and to have one Clerk assistant; every Parish, or two where one is too little, to have one Register and a Clerk assistant; every person having Estates in two or more Counties, shall enter their Estates and Annual values in the National Registry of each Circuit; and all that have any claim or right in possession or reversion of Lands of Inheritance of the yearly value of 1000 l. or upwards, shall enter it accordingly, and of the yearly value of 100 l. and under 1000 l. either in possession or remainder, are to enter it with the Provincial Register; all persons having Estates above the clear yearly value of 10 l. and under 100 l. are to enter them in the Registry in the Hundred or Wapentake of the Province, and all not exceeding 10 l. per annum, to be entered in the Parochial Registry; all Debts exceeding 1000 l. to be entered with the National Registry, all above 100 l. and not exceeding 1000 l. with the Provincial Registry, all above 10 l. and not exceeding 100 l. with the Subprovincial Registry, and all under 10 l. with the Parochial Register where the Debtor inhabiteth, or his Estate lieth: And when such Entries are perfected, the National Register shall within 14 days certify it unto the Provincial, who shall within 8 days certify it to the Subprovincial, and he within 6 days to the Parochial Register: And where several claims under several titles shall be made unto one and the same thing, the Register shall give notice thereof to the several Inhabitants and Tenants thereof; the Parochial Register shall likewise certify to the Subprovincial, the Subprovincial to the Provincial, and the Provincial to the National Registry; the Seal of the National Registry shall be the Great Seal of England, to be kept by the Register and his six Clarks, and nothing to be sealed but in the presence of the National Register, and two of his Clarks assistants; each several Province shall have his peculiar seal, whereon shall be the Arms or cognisance of the Province, City or Corporation wherein the Registry is, and shall be in the custody of the particular Register or his Assistants; and in like manner for the Subprovincial and Parochial Registries. The several Registers where no double claim is entered, shall give Certisicates under their seals of any Entries which shall be desired; Claims not entered within three months, unless in case of Infancy, Death, or being beyond Sea, shall be an absolute bar; Entry to be made within three months after the establishing of the Registries; Certificates to be made under seal to any that shall desire it, which shall be a sufficient warrant for the recovery thereof, without any further trouble to the Creditor then to make his claim thereunto. All manner of Bargains and Contracts, w●ere any Estate of Inheritance, Mortgage or Lease shall be made, or any right transferred from one to another, all Covenants, Conditions, Considerations, and Times of payment in the presence of the several parties, shall be made before the several Registers, certified under his seal, delivered to the Creditor, and Counterparts to the other parties. And Entries made of payments and discharges of Bargains personally by the parties in the presence of two known witnesses, unless where the parties Bargaining shall be sufficiently known to the Register or his Deputy; all Marriages to be entered in the Parochial Register, the Covenants and Conditions of the Marriage to be entered and certified under the seal of the Register, who is also to enter the Christening of every Child, deaths and burials of all persons, all Wills and Testaments; the hiring and wages of Servants to be entered in the Parochial Registries, and Certificates under seal given thereof; the Fees for entering any Estate of Inheritance in the National Registry 20 s. per page, for the two first pages, and 40 s. for every page more; for all Leases, Mortgages, Jointures, Dowers or Debts, 10 s. for the first page, and 20 s. for the following pages, including the Fees for the Certificates; for all Entries of Inheritances in Fee in the Provincial Registry, 10 s. for the two first pages, and 20 s. for every page more; for all Leases, Mortgages, Jointures, Dowers or Debts, 7 s. 6 d. for the first page, and 15 s. for every following page, Certificates included; for the entry of every Inheritance in Fee in the Subprovincial Registry, 7 s. 6 d. for the first page, and 10 s. per page for every page after; and for all Leases, Mortgages, Jointures, Dowers or Debts, 5 s. for the first page, and 7 s. 6 d. for every following page; for the entries of Inheritances in Fee in every Parochial Registry, 5 s. for the first page, and 7 s. 6 d. for every page more; and for all Leases, Mortgages, Jointures, Dowers or Debts, 2 s. 6 d. for the first page, and 5 s. for every following page: And in case any of the Entries of Debts, Leases, Mortgages, Jointures or Dowers, shall not exceed 6 lines Registerially wr●t in the Parochial Registry, the Fee thereof shall be but 1 s. the Fees for the Certificates excepted; the Fees for Entry and Certificate of every Birth, Christening, Death, Burial, in the Parochial Registry, if it exceed not 6 lines, to be only 6 d. as also for the retainer of any Servant or Apprentice; but if it shall exceed, the● the Fees to be according as was allotted per page.  
No money shall be recoverable upon any Bargains or Contracts whatsoever, unless the same be entered in the Registries as aforesaid, within: he times limited; the Fee of the Seal of the National Registry, in all cases of settlement of any Estate, Lease, Mortgage, Jointure or Dower, to be 5 l. in all cases of Debt, not exceeding 2000 l. the Fee to be 50 s. otherwise 5 l. the Fee of every Provincial Seal in the cases aforesaid 50 s. in all cases of Debt 25 s. and in all cases of Debt, Mortgages, etc. to be 12 s. 6 d.  
In the National Registry 3 4th. parts of the Seal shall be to the Commonwealth, and a 4th. to the Register, and his assistants and Clarks, for all entries of each two first pages of every particular Entry, and for all the following pages an 8th. part only; in each Provincial Registry 3 4th. parts of the Fees for the Entries, and for Seals also, to be to the Commonwealth, and the 4th. to the Register, his assistants and Clarks; in the Subprovincial Registry 2 parts of 3 of the Entries and Seals to be to the Commonwealth, and the 3 to the Register; in the Parochial Registry 2 parts of 3 of the Seal to the Commonwealth, and the 3 of all the Fees of Entries to be to the Register, his Clarks and Deputies.  
Every Clerk, Assistant or Deputy of the National Registry, shall have six sworn Attorneys or Messengers, whose care shall be to transmit his several Certificates to the several Registries of the Provinces, solicit the causes in the said Registerial Court, and have for every cause in every Court-day, besides all charges, 7 s. 6 d. and no more; every Clerk assistant in each Provincial Registry shall have 3 Attorneys or Messengers, who are to officiate as in the National Registry, and have for every cause in which any of them shall be employed 5 s. for Fee and no more, besides charges and expenses; each Subprovincial shall have 2 Attorneys, who shall do the same work, and for every Court day shall have for Fee in every cause 4 s. besides all charges; each Parochial Registry shall have 2 Attorneys, (which according to the number of 9725 Parishes in England and Wales, will make almost 20000 Attorneys, besides their Clarks, which with Solicitors and their Clarks added unto them, will more than three times exceed the number of Attorneys, Solicitors and Clarks, if truly accounted, now in being) whose Fee shall be for every Court day 3 s. besides charges, and shall do the like as is before directed; every Attorney shall be punished for fraud or neglect, and make satisfaction to the Client for all damages; and if not able to do it, shall be dismissed of his place, another chosen, and the Client restored to his former condition; the Clarks assistants to be chosen by the respective Registers, upon security to be given, and they are to give directions unto them, and be responsal for them; each Clerk assistant in the Provincial Registry shall make choice of one Attorney, and the Register of two.  
The Judges in the several Parish Courts shall be the Register, the Minister, and the Constable and Churchwardens for the time being, whereof in all hear two to be present, with the Register or his Deputy; the several Courts to be kept every Thursday fortnight, and all matters to be brought to hearing the 3d. Court day, and to hold pleas of all Debts not exceeding 10 l. principal, and all Estates under 10 l. per annum, lying in the same Parish; 12 Judges learned in the Law to be appointed by Parliament to attend the National Registerial Court; 21 Judges be appointed to attend every Provincial Registerial Court, where one Judge at least is to be present, with the Register and one Clerk assistant, when all matters are to be ●eard; every month shall be a Court Provincial, upon the Tuesday in every week, the Subprovincial Court every Friday 3 weeks, and the Judges to be the Register and his Assistant, and the Minister of the Parish.  
All Summons to be granted upon motion of the party or his Attorney, (giving security to defray the charges of the party to be Summoned, if his Action he not good, or cause just) by the respective Registers, their Clarks Assistants or Deputies, in writing under their hands, unto which of Appearance shall be given either in person or by Attorney, the Cause is to proceed; but if no Appearance shall be given, a second Summons is to be granted under the seal of the Register, to which if no Appearance shall be given, Judgement shall be given the second day of Appearance, and entered in the Court Registry; and if agreement intervene not before the next Court day, and be entered with the Register, Execution shall be granted, and the Registers seal put thereon, not to be reversed or any appeal admitted.  
Two Vacations in the whole year to be in t● National Registry, as to the trying of Causes, the one from the first of December to the 10th. of February, and from the last day of May to the first day of September.  
But that Chaos-maker or good man, if any one could find any cause or reason to call him so, or some of his Partisans, when they shall have remembered it themselves, or have heard it from others, that the Noble and innocent Earl of Strafford was by false witnesses and accusations; remote and improbable inferences, strained constructions, and never like to happen consequences, hunted to death upon a supposition of subverting the Laws, when if it had been either possible or true, it could upon an Accumulation of all ●his pretended Crimes have extended no farther than an endeavour to subvert one of our Fundamental Laws, may be their own Judges, convict and justly condemn themselves for unpardonable faults, in seeking to subvert so many of our Fundamental Laws uno Ictu, with one stroke, and at once, which they themselves ●ave sworn to maintain and defend.  
Notwithstanding all which Oliver Cromwell did so well understand his own interest and single-personship.   

CHAP. XVII. That neither Oliver Cromwell or his Son Richard, the second mock Protector or little Highness, did conceive it to be reasonable, or had any intention to deliver up the Justice of the Nation to those ignorant giddy and ever changing kind of Refermations.  
ANd that the administration of Justice was a great end, and one of the principal parts of Government, and remembered that the men of Westminster (of which he was too great a member and director) calling themselves after the murder of the King, 
Declaration of Parliament 9 Feb. 1648.  a Parliament, did the 9th. day of February 1648 declare, that they were fully resolved to maintain, and should and would uphold; preserve and keep the Fundamental Laws of this Nation, for and concerning the preservation of the lives, properties, and liberties of the people, 
Declaration of the Parliament of England 17 March 1648 expressing the grounds of their settling the present Government in the way of a Free-State.  with all things incident thereunto, and required all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs, Officers and Ministers of Justice to proceed in their respective places and offices accordingly; and did the 17th. day of Mar●h then next following, declare, That our Laws being duly executed, are the most just, free, and equal of any other Laws in the world, and that they were very sensible of the excellency, great antiquity and equality of them, and that the liberty, property, and peace of the Subjects were fully preserved by them, did so little believe it to be for the good and honour of the Nation to hearken or yield unto the product of those windmill, giddy, and vertiginous brains; or by the persuasion of some idle and ridiculous Pamphlets, written and contrived by such as would for their own advantages plow up the Laws and reasonable customs of the Kingdom, to settle and set up a Weathercock Government ridiculous to all other Nations, as he did in his Speech to that which he called his Parliament upon his Dissolution of them the 12th. day of September 1654. declare, that in every Government there must be somewhat fundamental, 
Cromwel's Speech to his Parliament upon his Dissolution of them the 12th. day of September, 1654.  somewhat like a Magna Charta that should be unalterable, that some things are Fundamentals, which he should deal plainly with them may not be parted with, but were to be delivered over to posterity, else every succeeding Parliament would be disputing to change and alter the Government, and we shall be as often brought into Confusion as we have Parliaments; and he and his Parliaments in the time of his hypocritical Government did so little relish the taking away of the process of Arrest and Utlary, as they ordered only prisoners to be discharged out of prison, if they made Oath that they were not worth five pounds after their Debts paid, and undertake to pay their Debts when they should be better enabled, which to procure their liberty, made many lustily to Forswear themselves, and had no great cause to be in love with their pretended Reformations, when the fiery Mr. John Jones of Nayoth was after his abusing and railing upon our Laws found guilty of deceits, and committed by them a prisoner to the Fleet.  
And when in the year 1653. or beginning of the next ensuing, 
Remonstrance of the prisoners for Debts to the Parliament concerning the injustice of the Committee fitting at Salters-Hall in London for relief of Creditors and Prisoners.  by an Act of Parliament had for the relief of Creditors, constituted a Committee for London and the Suburbs thereof to sit at Salters-Hall, and several other Committees in all the Counties of England and Wales, and empowered them to be the only Judges, though not Sworn, to hear and determine matters of Debt, and escape to fine for breach of trust and concealments, imprison, set at liberty, remaund to prison, adjudge to the Pillory, or house of Correction, grant, lease, or sell the Estates of the prisoners, were to admit of no legal forms, but proceed in a summary way, and to be responsible to none but the Parliament, and sell dead prisoners Estates as well as if they were living, whether the Lands were Entailed or not. It was upon complaint of some prisoners of Note and Worth, alleged and offered to be proved that one of those kind of Judges at Salters-Hall having two Brothers practising before that Committee, the one as a Solicitor, and the other as a Councillor at Law, would bring his party with him, whisper unto his Fellow-Judges, arise from the Bench, and go and sit by the Clerk, and make the Orders as he pleased and liked those his doings so well, as he was heard to say he did not doubt but to make his place worth 1000 l. per Annum unto him before he had done with it, and might be in good hopes of it, when besides those his ungodly Extraordinaries, large Salaries were allowed to him and his Brethren of that Committee for their Sons and Agents, and the gain which they and their Confederates might have by the sale, or indirect purchase thereof in other men's names, that Committee were to have distributed amongst them two pence in the pound upon the sale of any prisoners Lands or Estates.  
The pretending Gospel-Improvers in South-wales had shut up most of the Churches, 
The distressed condition of the Inhabitants of South-Wales.  and gathered in the mean time one hundred & fifty thousand pounds into their private purses, and therefore both Oliver, and Richard Cromwell, & their Council & Parliaments did only receive those unquiet Innovators Petitions, and as they did in the determining of what should be Encumbrances fit to be put into a public Registry, or the taking away of Tithes make a show of intending great matters, when they only hung them upon long delaye's, and an everlasting deliberation, never to be brought to any conclusion.  
And our Laws having thus long fought with Beasts like St. Paul at Ephesus, might by his Majesty's happy Restauration have given them no small assurance that they should have deserved some rest and tranquillity; but it seems as the wrongs done unto them were unrepented, so were their patience and sufferings to be prolonged.  
And the professors of our, or any other good Laws should not be so contemptible, when that blessed Apostle could be no less than a Lawyer, when he sat and had been Educated at the feet of Gamaliel, and was afterwards by his Apostolical Office, and great Endowments in all manner of Learning, such a darling and beloved of God Almighty, as he had in his life-time the inexpressible joys and wonders of the Third Heaven communicated unto him, when they were before, and that time, and long after in better Ages of such an esteem and usefulness amongst the wiser and better sort of mankind, as they were justly called Sacerdotes Justitiae, Ministers that sacrificed for the people at the Altars of Justice, their Houses were as Oracles, to which they came for council and advice, and were accounted to be Laudabile genus hominum, 
Linwood in constitutionibus Othoboni.  a praiseworthy kind of men, and being secular men, did in Campo Justitiae tanquam Athletae militare, as their Champion's labour to obtain Justice for their Clients; but those abusers of our Laws and Lawyers were too much in love with their projects to forsake them, and like.   

CHAP. XVIII. What occasioned the continuance of the former Projects, and groundless Complaints against our Laws since his Majesty's happy Restauration.  
THe Snakes had but cast their skins, either for that the Fancies which had brooded in the heads of these troublers of our Israel had as lesae Imagi●nationes usually do in men oppressed with Melancholy, stuck so fast, and brought them to such a habit or custom as they could not easily remove them, or had a desire to maintain and uphold an heretofore contracted or espoused error, or to add wrongs to wrongs, lest they whom they had so much abused should after seek to bring them under the censure and justice of those Laws which they had so much injured, or were vexed that they had so unexpectedly lost their prey, and the opportunities of building up again their Bethel, where their Calves were well fed & worshipped for their seditious bleat, and were the more emboldened by his Majesty's over-easy pardoning the wickedest Rebellion that ever was hatched in Hell, and permitting all but some few not only to enjoy all their former real Estates, and all their personal Estates, which had been gotten by Blood, and the Rapine and Depraedation of all the honest people in his Three Kingdoms, but to creep into most of the profitable Employments of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, (which would better have been managed by his more honest and loyal Subjects) eat the children's bread, and get all that could be any ways gained or cozened from them.  
And too many of them have grown so impudent as to offer to palliate their wickedness by a base and senseless Equivocation to cover their Woolvish doings by the putting on of sheep's clothing, and make as many as could be so mad to believe it, that they were always for the late King the Martyr, and loved and honoured him; as if those their great Armies that fought against him in the bloody Battles at Edge-hill, Marston-moor, and Naseby, took his Towns, Castles, and Garrisons, Imprisoned and Murdered him, were some invisible Fairies phantasms, or spectres; and became so much Elated in the success which they met with, by getting as much or more by counterfeiting of Loyalty after their Rebellion, as they did before in their acting and height of it as they hoped that they had now an opportunity put into their hands of accomplishing their wickedly designed works of Reformation preparative to a Republic, some of their party being at this time, so more than they should be confident of it as they keep in the expectation of their Good Old-Cause as they do dreamingly call it, the Conveyances and Grants which they lately had of the Usurpers of the Kings, Queens, Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Nobility and Loyal Gentry's Lands, as any other Evidences of their Estates, and do think it to be no bad exchange or bargain too, give double or triple the value of some of Oliver Cromwell's gold or silver-Coyn as precious Relics to put them in mind of that great Stork, who if he had lived longer, would have taught the Frogs what they were to expect of him; & too many of that Tribe or silly persuasions have lately been emboldened publicly to offer to maintain the lawfulness of those their ungodliest of all Wars, and might suppose themselves to be in no bad condition, when they were not like the Gibeonites after they had deceived Joshua with their mouldy bread, 
Josh: 15,  rend and tottered garments, with old shoes▪ put to be ho●ers of Wood, and drawers of Water for the House of God; but whilst they were inwardly in their hearts and endeavours the greatest Enemies of it, did eat of the ●at of the Flock, and enrich themselves with the most profitable Offices and Preferments of the Kingdom, and not only deceive the King's loyal Subjects of their Blessing due to the Birthright of their Allegiance, and a privilege inheritable to prosecute their actions and suits at the Common Law, 
Calvins' case in Coke 7 Reports, and Lord Ellesmeres post nati Mic: 12 E. 4. 22.  but of the benefit of their ancient, good, and equitable Laws, which is another part of their Inheritance, and did therein worse than Jacob did by his Elder Brother Esau, who did not lose all, but had a Mess of Pottage for it.  
Or did in the pursuance of the former evil designs of themselves or their fantastical well-willers think it necessary to persecute our Laws by false suggestions, out-cries, scandals, and clamours, as Boys have used to do in their hunting of Squirrels by noise and shoutings, and to speed as well therein as they, or many of the Rebellious rout did in their designs against Episcopacy, & the Militia, and to pull in pieces the Royal and ever to be approved Monarchical Government. Or some of the Stationer's having some of those Pamphlet projects and squibs against Monarchy and Regal Government lying upon their hands unsold, did to put them off in some approaching or sitting Parliaments of his Majesty, cause a new date or Year of our Lord to be instead of that which was before (some of that society or company being so egregiously wicked, as many Books have been sent abroad in a Masquerade in six or seven several Disguizes, or new Dresses and Titles to abuse the people and cozen them of their money; and a Primerhinder & a Stationer may be named if an undertaken, to be proved Information do not prove to be otherwise, that have caused the Pamphlet that carried the Device of Summons, and banishing Arrests and Outlaries which had been long before published, to be re-published or printed, which like some Paper-kite with a lantern & candle in the tail or end of it had not long before made the men of Novelty and Ignorance stand at a gaze at it. And it hath since his Majesty's happy Restauration been often observed, that too many of that Trade and Faction have been very dull in the preferring as they c●ll it, or offering to sale any Books which concerned the vindication of any of his Majesty's Rights, or the real good of his Subjects, but have been nimble enough to promote the vent or putting off any Books which tended to Faction, or the unhinging of the Government.  
Or the Witchcraft of their Rebellion had with their Ignorance so captivated their understandings (if ever they were Masters of any that tended to good) as to make them to be like too many of the Laplanders, who are said to bequeath their Devils, or evil Spirits to their Children, 
Shefferus History of Lapland, cap: 11.  or any who should succeed them, more willing than they should be, to transmit their sins and unquietness of Spirit unto all that would make any Title to their rude and indigested Opinions.  
Howsoever from some or all of these Causes, not a few of the former wicked and never to be justified Principles, ignorant and unwarrantable endeavours and complaints have since Monarchical Government, and our Laws and Liberties were so happily restored, sprung up again; and no sooner was our David brought back over Jordan, but many a railing, cursing, and rebellious Shimei that had done more than cast stones against him and his Royal Father, made haste, and came with the men of Juda and Loyal party to meet him, and as if they had not remembered all the mischiefs which they had done unto him, his Brethren, Royal Father, Family, and good people, pretended that they had been greatly instrumental in it, and having gained a very large and extensive Act of general Pardon and Oblivion, (which as to treason, murder, felony, faction, and rebellion, the Loyal party needed not) an Act of Parliament for confirmation of what their abusive Courts of Justice had done in matters of Judicature betwixt party and party in the inter regnum, and times of Usurpation; and another Act of Parliament to make honest & free many Parents on earth from Adultery or Fornication, and legitimate and un-bastared▪ many of their Children begotten in a wrong way of Marriage solemnised in despite of the Laws and our Church of England, before a Justice of Peace, not in a Church, but an Hall, Parlour, or Chamber, where that kind of Magistrate was a Knight, or Gentleman, or many times in a Shop when he was a Tradesman, which the King's faithful Subjects abhorred; and some of them having warmed themselves by the Farming of the King's Revenue and those grand and ever to be detested Artifices of Advance and defalcation, which have so much cankered, decayed, and ruined it; and others that li●ed their consciences with plunderings and sequestrations, and Committee, ungodly Emoluments did fall again to their former Trade and Engines of subverting our Laws, and turning the Justice of the Kingdom into their Abortive projects, and newfound Politics, and hoped in the end to recompense the loss of their possession of the Lands of the King, Queen, Prince, Nobility, Gentry, Bishops, Dean and Chapters, which they having purchased at an easy rate, were taken from them, and enforced to be restored; and their hopes of gaining the Lands and Endowments of the Universities and Colleges, which by a failing of Providers, and some mistakes as they wickedly thought of Divine Dispensations, or some Errors of their new lights they had unexpectedly lost.  
And therefore summoned & got together their misapprehensions and Invectives against that ancient, very legal & rational custom of Fines to be Paid upon Original Writs where the Debt or Damage exceeded Forty Pounds, which from the Year 1651. unto his Majesty's happy Return unto his Throne, had by their Rebellions and ungrounded clamours against the payment of them, to make a misplead people the more willing and able to continue and contribute to a War against their consciences and eternal happiness been taken away, or laid to sleep.  
In order whereunto in a Book Entitled the Wants of England Printed in the year 1667. it was among other things offered to the consideration of both Houses of Parliament, that according to the law of God and other Christian States, Christian clemency, gentleness and mercy, and the ancient Laws and Customs of this Kingdom, no person be for any new debt cast in prison, but be left at liberty to work out his Debt by industry.  
In the year 1669. a Petition was exhibited to the King and both Houses of Parliament, that in Actions of Debt there may be no Arrest or Imprisonment of the Debtors Body, but a Summons made at his House, or hung at his door, and for want of an Appearance his Goods and real Estate to be seized, and the like in the year 1671. And in the same Year a Bill for an Act of Parliament was with great Importunity desired for the Registering of all Encumbrances of Land, and of all Debts and Engagements, than which nothing could have more undone the greatest part of an Impoverished Nobility and Gentry by the late Wars, and Taxes nor any thing more have Bankrupted Citizens and Tradesmen, whose Estates do consist in a great deal more in Credit and Opinion, than in reality and substance. But the promoters of those Innovations who endeavoured to pull in pieces our wellestablished Laws concerning Arrests and Outlaries, did in those their Attempts speed no better than Balaak the King of Moab did by sending for Balaam to curse the children of Israel, when notwithstanding his Erecting of several Altars, and all his solicitations and promises of Rewards, he could not hinder him from blessing instead of cursing them, for the wisdom of the King and Parliament, and his Privy Council did think it to be more for the good of the people to suspend their desires and Devises, until the King might understand that there could be any reason, cause, or ground to alter or forsake the old Fundamental Laws, so for many Ages well approved to comply with their humours & ill designs, but being willing to give what reasonable content he could to that small complaining part of the people without pre●judice & damage to the universality & greater number of his Subjects, did as the fittest expedient, and all that the Law could permit, and his reason and Sovereignty persuade him to do for the allaying that distemper which had seized upon a sort of ignorant, seditious, & unquiet spirited people whom no reason can satisfy, but would set up their new devices which are never like to perform their Promises and Intendments. And needed not (as touching the taking away of the Process of Arrest & Utlary) to have troubled his Majesty and Parliament, and themselves and others with such unwholesome and improbable Remedies for that which their Ignorance and Vain Imaginations only told them were Grievances, but should rather have acquiesced in a due consideration that his Majesty did not hold it to be agreeable to Justice to abolish the Process of Arrest or Outlary, or to change or take away the Fundamental Laws which established or allowed of those Ancient and legal kinds of Law proceedings as grant in the Year of our Lord 1664. by the advice of his Privy Council his Commission for the relief of Poor and Distressed Prisoners, under the Great Seal of England to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops of London, Winchester, Rochester, Lord Mayor of London for the time being, Judges and Justices of the Courts of King's Bench, Master of the Rolls Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, Barons of the Exchequer, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Masters of Requests, and Chancery, Attorney and Sollicitor-General, and Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, Deans of St. Paul, & Westminster, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, Bishops, Chancellors, with the Advocats of the Court of the Arch Bishops of Canterbury, and Bishop of London for th● time being, etc. and divers other Commissioners therein named, to call before them such Prisoners and their Creditors in and upon Actions of Debt, Gaze, Trespasses, Trover, Detinue, or other Personal Actions, Judgements and Executions whatsoever thereupon, and to treat for Compositions and Agreements, (some of the Judges of the Court out of which such prisoners have been committed to be privy to such Compositions and Agreements) to the end that the said Prisoners night be relieved, and have such reasonable years, days and times of payment for such debts and damages as they shall not be presently able to satisfy, and with such Security for payment thereof, as in equity and good Conscience, having respect to the ability of the Prisoners, and charge of Wife and Children, and other incidents to pious Cases considered: And if any Creditor should refuse to appear before them, the Commissioners were empowered to punish them, and take such Order for their Appearance as they should think meet, and to use all lawful ways to make them take such reasonable Compositions as to any Three or more of them should be thought meet. And his Majesty therein Declared, that his meaning was to be aiding and assisting with his Grace and Favour to the misery and calamity of such as be truly poor and distressed; and not unto such as lie in Prison rather of wilfulness and obstinacy, and out of a resolution to retain large and ample Estates to themselves, and therefore straightly charged the said Commissioners to be very vigilant and circumspect therein; and did in the said Commission mention that Queen Elizabeth did upon the supplication of the Prisoners in the Prisons of the Fleet, and King's Bench in the Eight and twentieth Year of her Reign Authorise certain Commissioners under the Great Seal of England for the ordering and compounding of the Controversies and Causes between the distressed Prisoners and their Creditors, and such others by whom tbey were detained Prisoners, or in Execution, and contined the said Commission nntil her Decease. And that King James being informed that certain Clauses in the said Commission were Derogatory to the Common▪ Laws of England, and that by colour of the said Commission which was intended for the Charitable relief of poor, miserable, and distressed Prisoners, certain refractory and obstinate Debtors which rather wanted will then means to satisfy their just Debes, took occasion to molest and trouble their Creditors, did to prevent all occasions of Inconveniencies to his loving Subjects, especially such as tended to the breach of his Laws, forbear for many years to renew the said Commission; and finding that his forbearance had wrought a good effect by discouraging obstinate and wilful Debtors that sought nothing more than Evasions to avoid the payment of their just Debts, so also that for want of that, or some other charitable course for the relief of such as were truly and indeed poor, distressed, and miserable, and wanted means to satisfy their Creditors, it had been occasion to pester and fill his Prisons with the bodies of such persons whose punishment could no way avail their Creditors, but rather was an hindrance to the satisfaction of their Debts, for that during the time of their restraint they were no ways able to go about or attend their lawful business, but must of force consume themselves and that little that they had miserably and in Prison, did by his Commission under the Great Seal of England in the Sixteenth Year of his Reign, by the advice of the then Lord Chan●cellor of England, and also of divers of his principal Judges of his Courts at Westminster, authorise the Commissioners therein named to proceed according to the Tenor of the said Commission for the relief of the said poor Prisoners in the said Prisons; and afterwards being informed that his said Commission had not taken that good Effect which was expected, renewed the said Commission, and thereby prescribed and directed such a moderate course as that neither the Insolence of wilful and obstinate Debtors should be thereby encouraged to the derogation of his Laws, nor yet his Grace and Clemency be wanting unto such to whom it should be meet to Extend the same, did upon the humble suit of the distressed Prisoners in the Prisons of the Marshalsea and other Prisons in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, and the places near adjoining to the same, whose Cases were as much to be commiserated and lamented, as the said Prisoners in the said Prisons of the King's Bench, and the Fleet, by another Commission under the Great Seal of England in the Two and twentieth Year of his Reign authorise certain Commissioners therein named for the Ordering and Compounding of the Causes of the distressed Prisoners in the Prisons within the places aforesaid; and that his Majesty's Royal Father did by Two several Commissions under the Great Seal of England, the one bearing Date in the Fourth Year of his Reign, and the other in the Sixth, empower divers Persons therein named, to the same or the like purpose.  
Nevertheless the Good Old Cause (as they are pleased to mis●name it) with all its hypocritical tricks of State must not by any means be abandoned, but they which did so much adore that Empusa or Witch called the Public Faith which (like the Golden Calf made by the Idolatrous children of Israel) helped them to great store of money▪ plate, and Rings, to furnish out and maintain a Rebellion, could not now forbear to be as violent as they could to pull Down the ever to be re●spected and honoured better Publiqe Faith and Justice of the Nation, and Disturb his Majesty & his subordinate Judges & Magistrates in the administration thereof, and therefore some Sinon or Trojan horse was of necessity to be made use of or introduced under a colour of public Good, or some stratagem or mine prepared to accomplish that by cunning and circumvention which by suit or force of Law, reason, and arguments they could not before be able to obtain, and for that had as they thought a pattern or way cut or chalked out by the beforementioned S. D. and some of his levelling Clerks and Attorney's associating with him in their aforesaid proposals presented to the Committee for Regulation of the Laws in the year 1650▪ wherein they alleged that what they had proposed was not that the Writ of Capias should be taken away first, 
Proposals of S. D. and divers Atorneys of the Court of Common Pleas to the Committee for the Regulation of the Laws 24 May 1650.  but humbly conceived that it would be better by finding out nearer and cheaper ways to bring the old road to be neglected▪ then to deprive the suitors of the Old before they can have experience of the new; and it was only proposed by way of supplement not to take away the ancient course of proceedings by way of Capias, and ●●igent if the case shall require it.   

CHAP. XIX. That the Proceedings at the Common Law desired by the new way of a peremptory Summons, or the old by Writs of Summons, Pone, and Distringas, or Writs of Capias at the Plaintiffs pleasure are not consistent or agreeable one with the other, and that Laws being to be binding are to be certain and positive, not Arbitrary.  
BUt such a State Essay, Bill of Comprehension, or rather Contradiction, whether the ancient legal and rational usage and custom of proceedings in the Law by Writs of Summons, pone and Distress to be legaly executed by Sheriffs where the Defendant hath a visible and certain Estate, which for Expedition of Justice, have by alteration of Times, Increase of Trade, and a necessity of Law and Reason not been so much used as heretofore it was, and is not yet forbidden by any Act of Parliament, or Rule of Law, and the process of Capias and Arrest which▪ for many Ages past have not only been allowed and approved by this Nation, but the greatest (if not all) of the civilised part of Mankind as a principal incident essential and necessary sine qua● non in the distribution of Justice where the Defendant hath not a visible Estate to secure him from the Sheriffs Return of a Nihil habet is a Fugitive, or likely to be such a one, or is not to be found, and hath nothing but his body to be a pledge or security, that he will Judicio sis●i & judicatum solvere, or that the process of Exigent in order to an U●●ary, which without 〈…〉 causing the U●●ary itself, do offer a lesser violence to the person of a Defendant then the Writ of Capias doth, can by any rule of 〈◊〉 reason be exchanged for peremptory Summons and seizures, or can be for the good of the people, to cause them to tear and tyre one another 〈◊〉 abundance of charges delays, and 〈◊〉 in a Cirque or Circle of Law contentions, who will certainly when they shall find the sad effects or event of it not think themselves well used to be decayed, or enticed to abandon their own good Laws for such new and troublesome devices▪ which may be to as little avail as to renounce skilful, able, and honest physicians to drive a trade with ignorant Empirics and Mountebanks when they are not sick, or need them, and may time enough believe that such a Novel way of peremptory Summons hath so many symptoms or marks of Evil upon it, and so easily discernible as their gain by it will be no more then to receive a Scorpion instead of a Fish, or to have Co●quintid● put into their pottage pot; and they that are so fond of it, and willing to produce such a mischief rather than a blessing for their fellow-subjects might have forecasted that evils are most commonly according to corrupt Nature better welcome, and more likely to receive entertainment then good, and do by their novelty or correspondence with bad humours, designs, our interests too often seize upon or inveigle the greatest and less prudential part of the people when cheapness or a pretence of expedition shall be some of the persuaders unto that which can arrive to no better a construction or event then to make the Lawmaker and Sovereign advising with his Two Houses of Parliament so incertain of the sequel or product hereof as to make one part of the Law repeal another at the pleasure of every particular man, and to Enact it as Adiaphorous, or indifferent this way or that way, whe● a very long course of time and experience● and the approbation of so many Laws and Ages past do record and witness the excellency of that which some busy 〈◊〉 would have to be exchanged for 〈…〉 and seminary of not to be expressed Inconveniences and Mischiefs, and such a device or fancied alteration cannot with our a Prophenity 〈…〉 it persuade▪ the most sanguine and easily credulous that it can be equally and fully as good as the other, or render it to be indifferent, or give any absolute or infallible assurance▪ that those likely hopes will ever bring them to their promised success, and if it be not to be ranked amongst the indifferents, must be either better than the former ancient courses which none have yet experimented, or worse, and then not at all to be Imposed upon the people.  
For Laws being R●cti praeceptiones & pr●●i depulsiones always intended by God and good men to advance that which is good, and suppress that which is bad, Aequum ab iniquo & licitum ab illicito separare, and to discern and divide betwixt good and evil, and said to be Laws a ligando, and to be properly no Laws if not Obligatory and binding, are to be certain and positive, not Arbitrary as unto those which ought to obey them, and as much as right reason will permit Immutable, especially if deduced from the dictates of nature, as that of the preserving the Authority of Courts of Justice and their administration of it, are to those that seek for help in the maintaining or recovery of just rights and Properties, but not to be ambiguous in certain latitudinarian or indifferent, for although there may be many who would be well enough content to be Judges of their own Causes, and the Executioners of their own Decrees, or if that would not be allowed, would be 〈…〉 to hale men to Justice, or by open clamours cry harow as the People of Normandy were anciently said to have done to their Duke Rollo when they cried to him for Justice who was wont never to fail them, which after a long process of Time gave us the Original of the word Hue and Cry yet much in use amongst us in matters of Felony. And the like was in the early days of the world not unusual amongst other Nations in their seeking to their Kings and Princes for redress of Wrongs before the more happy way of Establishing a fixed rule and course by Courts of Justice.  
Yet those their unfitting desires for such an Arbitrary Act and Indifferent Law ought to be allayed, and the more safe and sure paths of Justice kept according to the patterns and direction of the best of Precedents, for that God himself the wisest, greatest, and best of Legislators when he gave his righteous Laws to his people of Israel, and commanded that a Neighbour's raiment taken for a pledge should be restored unto him before the Sun go down for his covering to 
Exod. 22. v. 26.  sleep in, or the Command not to 〈…〉 the sentence of the Judge under no less penalty than the loss of life, 
Deut. 17. 12.  (from whence the reason and equity for every man to be obedient to the Authority of Courts of Justice in their legal Process may deduce its Original) was not left as a matter indifferent but absolute and positive.  
Where the Statute of Westminster 〈…〉 which giveth a Plaintiff his Election to ●ake his Execution upon a Recovery of a Debt by Writ of Fieri Facias, 
13 E. 1. Ca 18.  or Elegit, the plaintiff taking out his Elegit, 〈…〉 enter it as he ought upon Record, for that 〈◊〉 should be then debarred of any other remedy against the person of the Defendant by Capias 〈◊〉 a●iendu●●, & a man cannot by Law have Two Writs of Scire 〈◊〉 at once in a Common persons case, 
1 H. 4. 6.  whereby to have Damages twice recovered against him. After an Elegit, although the Sheriff return that he hath neither Lands or Goods, 
15 H. 7. 14, 15.  the plaintiff shall not have an Execution against the Body, a Capias ad satisfaciendum doth not lie after a Fieri Facias, 
45 E. 3. 19  until a Nulla bona returned, nor a Fieri Facias or Elegit after Imprisonment of the Defendants body.  
A Writ of Annuity purchased pending another, 
34 E. 3. Br. 922.  was abated where two brought Writs of Quare Impedit one against the other returnable at one and the same day, 
Pas. 22 E. 3. 4.  the one was discontinued, and they pleaded upon the other, 
Jones Reports, 255.  in the Case between Bery and Heard in the Seventh Year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr, it was in the Court of King's Bench adjudged, that where a man had his Election to seek his Remedy by the Commou Law, or by the Statute of Gloucester that gave an Action of Wast●, he could not do it by the one way and the other, for our Laws and Courts of Justice would never allow a Plaintiff to have two Actions or Remedies for one and the same thing at the same time, but were so careful to hinder it, as they suffered discontinuance of Process and Pleas in Abatements where one Action was brought depending another for the same matter: 
Bracton lib. 5. c. 17.  And Bracton saith, that where a man hath an Action depending, and bringeth another for the same thing, Cadit breve posterius, the later is to be quashed; agreeable whereunto at this day in Chancery where a man hath an Action depending at the Common Law, and seeks relief in Chancery upon the same Account, he is put to make his Election in which Court he will proceed.  
And therefore if such an Arbitrary Act of Parliament should be made to give the Plaintiffs their Election to proceed by the way of the new contrived way of peremptory Summons, the former ways of Summons, Pone, and Distraining, or Capias not being prohibited, the proceeding by process of peremptory Summons ought to be entered in a Court of Record, and entered may be more prejudicial to the Plaintiffs than they expected, for if they cannot resort or return again to the former better ways of proceedings, they may find cause enough to repent of their being so fond of a new way, when the old will appear to have been much better, which to reverse or discontinue cannot be, for the Interest of the King or his people, when it shall have no better reason or foundation for it.  
For if the Proposers could give unto themselves or any of their fellow Subjects any assurance that it will be probably for their good and benefit, yet if the King, who is supreme and superior to all the Judges in his Dominions, were but a subordinate Judge, 
Zeiglerus dicastice sive de Judicum officio conclus. 40. §. 1, 9, 46, 53  he would as the Civil Law declareth, transgress the rules of Justice and Right reason, if he should follow opinionem probabilem relicta & rejecta probabiliori, an opinion that is but probable, when there is an opinion to the contrary more probable; and S. D. and his then Confederates might have considered, that a Process against the Goods and Chattcls of a Defendant, is of a different nature from that which is against his Body, that duo contradictoria non sint nec possunt esse simul vera, contradictions neither do or can at one and the same time agree; and that Practica sunt speculativis praeferenda, what is in speculation of a possibility not at all experimented, is to give place to that which with an universal or major part of a consent hath been long practised.   

CHAP. XXI. That it will not be for the Interest of the King or his Subjects to give way to that Design which may open a passage to other Innovations and Designs as much if not more inconvenient and prejudicial.  
FOr that all his good people by the sad and inexpressible calamities and miseries which they have lately endured by the Wars and Tumults unjustly raised against thc King and his Laws, are not now to learn what a deep died hypocrisy and pretences for Reformation would have, or to believe the evil consequences which have risen from a too much yielding to those popular humours, which as that Royal Martyr hath in his Solitudes and Sufferings declared, served to give life and strength to the almost infinite activity of those men who studied with all diligence and policy to improve their Innovating designs, & how dangerous the permitting of Innovations would be, & how careful all Princes and wise men have heretofore been to avoid them; so that if there were nothing else to make the world out of love with them, the never to be satisfied inquietude of many of that sort of people in the matter of Religion and Church-government, and the swearing, liking, and shortly after disliking and hating the Solemn League and Covenant, the by too many as it may be feared intended standing Rule of Rebellion, and their unfixedness in every thing but their unwearied malice and ill designs against Monarchy and the present Government, do and will abundantly proclaim that whatever hath been condescended unto, (and by that a measure may be taken of the Future in giving them a liberty to play the Fools with the Sacred Scriptures,) hath but like the thirst, and always craving of an Hydropic sick person, increased and provoked a desire of having more.  
Wherefore they that built upon such wicked principles of overturning the State and Regal Government are if they had any reason, or were ever likely to have any for their demands to be content to be denied until they shall have renounced those pernicious ends and dangerous Tenants and positions, they began their works and deeds of darkness withal, and shall have proved that Justice ought to have no Sword to defend and protect herself and others, that Courts of Justice can be to any purpose without a certain power, constraining & punishing Authority, that the process of Arrest and Utlary are not incidents thereof, and to be necessary Attendants thereupon, that the Eternal and Almighty Law giver did not allow of that which the Greeks & Romans those great Engrossers of wisdom, after the many very many commotions of their people for their more severe way of enforcing the paymcnt of Debts, performance of Contracts, & preservation of the public Faith, and one man unto another, which Tully held to be so very necessary, 
Cic. Offic.  as he was of opinion, that nulla res vehementius rempublicam continet quam fides, that nothing more concerns a Commonwealth than the keeping of Faith & Credit, & therefore adviseth it by all means to be preserved and kept, have acknowledged to be the best and most contenting Expedient for an obedience to Judges and Courts of Justice, and the Civil Magistrates, and that all the Essays of an Indulgence to liberty made use of by some other Nations could never yet so far prevail as to make the most of the civilised Nations of the world not to continue and make use of it, when time and a long usage have upon so great and undeniable grounds of right reason adjudged the process of Arrest and of Utlary also in case of reiterated contempts to be necessary not only to Trade & Commerce, but to the supplying of men's necessities or occasions, or the borrowing of money upon the pledge or pawn of the body, or liberty, and it hath through the greatest part of the world been ab omnibus, 
l. 37. ff. de Legibus, l. 34. l. 114. ff. de Reg. Jur. Tob. Paurmester de Jurisdict. lib. 2. ca 6. num. 119.  & semper, & ubique in praxi & observatione. Et cum consuetudo sit optima legum interpres & observantia cum praxi subsecuta, when custom and long and constant experienced practices have followed the process of Arrest and Utlary may certainly deserve an Approbation, which to alter, or take away, or turn out of the course or Channel in which it hath so long and happily ran, can never answer the ends proposed, or be valid and sufficient to persuade his Majesty and his Parliament to suffer so essential and great a part of the justice and happiness of his Kingdom to be sullied and exposed to all the designs, fancies and mistakes of every one, who by dislocating good and ancient constitutions, would furnish out their hopes of procuring new Offices or Employments, and deliver it up as a prisoner to all the Knavery and Folly of every one who shall be either willing to deceive, or hath an Ignorance and Credulity easy to be deceived, especially when he shall thereby give opportunities and advantages to the rich to oppress the poor, and such as are in a weak or sinking condition of Estate, put the Lamb under the merciless paws of the Bear or Lion, snbject every man's credit by which he lived, thrived, and was snpported, to the domineering and tyrannical humours, pretences, designs and cruelties of Usurers, Brokers, or stonyhearted Creditors, who upon the advantage of some bargain, contract, or rigour of Law, would rather ruin men and their wives, children and families, then give a little time of respite by a Christian patience and forbearance.  
Nor is it to be expected that his Majesty would be willing to kindle and continue contentions, assist the knavish contrivances, malice or revenge of such as shall seek to enrich themselves by working upon the fears or necessities of men indebted.  
And disparage the Wisdom of former Princes, Parliaments, and Ages, and his own Authority, to grant an alteration of so profitable and well approved constitutions and customs, in order to the gratification of no body knoweth whom, why, or for what, or what is designed to be the effect of such alterations, by those who by a wicked combination with other Innovators, may by a choice of severally managing the grand design and first intention of changing the Government, make it their business to promote this as a part of it, and an inset to the other designs and desires of the rest of the promoters of that which they called the Good Old Cause, when it never deserved to be so accounted: And a Warwickshire Rebel, and Gentleman of a good Estate and Quality, before he was one of the murderers of his Majesty's Royal Father, was after that horrid fact committed, heard publicly to say in the presence of a witness whose testimony is unquestionable, that he thanked God that he had lived to see the ruin of Monarchy, for it had been his design and endeavour for eight and thirty years then last passed, ever since he came from Geneva; and another of that wicked party was not ashamed to say, that they fought not for Religion, but Estates; and hath so sadly as he hath understood the secret and restless machinations of that kind of people, and that his Blessed Father suffering multitudes of sorrows, and troubles, and a Martyrdom because he would not sacrifice the Laws of the Kingdom, and Liberties of his people to an Arbitrary Power of his Murderers, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, § 4. in his Soliloquies upon the 19 Propositions.  had reason enough to back and Fortify his Resolution, when he declared that he w●uld study to satisfy his Parliament and People, but would never for fear or flattery gratify any Faction how potent soever, for that were to nourish the Disease, and oppress the Body. Est enim virtus constans & perpetuum quid quod Justitia appellatur & quod perversis & deprevat●s hominum moribus & consuetudinibus nec potest, 
Varsevicus de legato 22.  nec debet unquam mutari.  
FINIS.