of such goods from either country to the other, shall state whether the original importation into the exporting country was a British or foreign vessel, or directly from the place of growth or not; the purpose of these acts is to prevent the evasion of the higher duties payable on the original importation, if made in foreign vessels, &c.

Corn, meal, malt, flour, and biscuit, are exempted from the operation of the union acts, so that all these, except malt, were declared free between Great Britain and Ireland, under 46 Geo. III. c. 97. The intercourse of malt between the two countries is regulated by statute 50 Geo. III. c. 34, 53, and the countervailing duties are ascertained by the several acts imposing the interual duties.

In 1823 several alterations were made under the authority of parliament for facilitating the repeal of the countervailing duties, and placing the commerce between the two countries on the footing of the coasting trade.

5. Of taxation. The sinking funds, and the interest of the national debt of each country, according to the union acts, are to be defrayed by each separately. And, for the space of twenty years after the union, the contribution of Great Britain and Ireland towards the public expenditure in each year was directed to be in the proportion of fifteen to two, subject to future regulations.

Under the 56 Geo. III., c. 98, amended by 57 Geo. III., c. 48, one general consolidated fund of the united kingdom has been established, charged indiscriminately, whether in the exchequer of Great Britain or Ireland, with the whole of the interest and sinking funds of the national debts of Great Britain and Ireland, as one joint consolidated national debt, interest and sinking fund; with all other charges on the former separate consolidated funds; and, subject to such charges, to be indiscriminately applied to the service of the united kingdom.

Regulations are made for the issue of money out of the Irish exchequer, under warrant of the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and the issues out of the treasury of Great Britain, from the growing produce of the consolidated fund; and the balance of joint contributions between Great Britain and Ireland are declared to be cancelled. 6. Of the administration of justice.-By the statute of union it is also enacted that all the laws and courts of each kingdom shall remain the same as they were then established, subject to such alterations by the united parliament as circumstances may require; but that all writs of error and appeals shall be decided by the house of lords of the united kingdom, except appeals from the court of admiralty in Ireland, which shall be decided by a court of delegates appointed by the court of chancery in Ireland.

7. Apprehension of criminals in one country for offences committed in the other.-By 44 Geo. III., c. 92, persons against whom warrants have been issued in Ireland, who shall escape to, or be in, England or Scotland, or where persons shall escape from England or Scotland to Ireland, any justice of the peace, of the place where such person shall escape to, shall indorse the warrant,

and the person charged may be apprehended where such warrant is indorsed, and carried into England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may require, to be proceeded against according to law.

In offences not bailable, the original warrant shall be indorsed, according to 45 Geo. III. c 92. If bailable, the party shall be bailed in the •place where he is apprehended, by duplicate bonds, one to be transmitted to the proper officer of the place where the warrant was issued, and the other to the court of exchequer in the country where the party is bailed; and the penalty may be levied in the county where the bond is taken, on certificate of the breach thereof to the exchequer there.

Witnesses may be served in England with subpoenas, to compel appearance in Ireland in criminal prosecutions, and may be served in Ireland to compel appearance in England, 45 Geo. III., c. 92, sect. 3, 4. And by the 54 Geo. III., c. 186, sect. 2, 3, it is provided that warrants signed in England, Scotland, or Ireland, may be indorsed and acted upon in any part of the united kingdom, in the same manner as directed by 13 Geo. III., c. 31, as to warrants in England and Scotland; and judges in Ireland may indorse Scotch letters of second deliverance, for compelling attendance in Scotland of witnesses, in criminal cases, resident in Ireland.

ADDENDA.

OF ISLANDS SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

There are several adjacent islands which are subject to the crown of the united kingdom. Some of them, viz. the Isles of Wight, of Portland, of Thanet, &c., are comprised within some neighbouring county, and are therefore to be looked upon as annexed to the mother Island, and part of the kingdom of England. But there are others which require a more particular consideration.

The Isle of Man is a distinct territory from England, and is not governed by our laws: neither does any act of parliament extend to it, unless it be particularly named therein, and then an act of parliament is binding there. It was formerly subject to the kings of Norway. Afterwards to England, under John and Henry III. Subsequently to Scotland, and again to England. Henry IV., by right of conquest, disposed of it to the earl of Northumberland. Several changes of dominion occurred until the year 1735, when the duke of Athol succeeded to the title, as heir of earl Derby. Though the title of king had been long abolished, the lords of the island had the power of making laws; and no process from England was available, until the year 1765, when the property in the island was purchased by the British government. It retains, however, its peculiar laws, except those of the revenue.

The islands of JERSEY, GUERNSEY, SARK, ALDERNEY, and their appendages, are also governed by their own laws. The king's writ, or process from the courts of Westminster, is there of no force; but his commission is. They are not bound by common acts of our parlia

3. Of Protestants and Roman Catholics.-The churches of England and Ireland are declared by the union to be united in one Protestant episcopal church, to be called the united church of England and Ireland, according to the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the church of England.

The laws, so far as regard the Protestant church, have been stated in the former parts of this article, and need not here be repeated.

Though the laws relating to Roman Catholics apply to all parts of the united kingdom, yet we deem it appropriate to introduce them in this place, on account of their general relation and great importance to the people of Ireland.

Of the Roman Catholic Clergy, and their church observances.-The Roman Catholic clergy, notwithstanding the removal of many disabilities, are still prohibited from officiating in any place of worship having a steeple and a bell. An exception in this respect, however, has been made in favor of places of worship in Ireland. Neither can they wear the habit of their order, except in places allowed by the statute (43 Geo. III.) or in a private house, where there are not more than five persons, besides the family. A Catholic priest cannot teach in an endowed school, nor can he receive into his school the child of any Protestant parent.

No Roman Catholic can found any religious order or society bound by monastic vows, or any school or college. All uses, trusts, and dispositions of property remain still unlawful.

Formerly the Catholics in Ireland were not allowed to bury their dead in any suppressed monastery or convent, nor to bury in the burial grounds of the established churches, unless the Protestant service was celebrated by a minister of the established church. But these restrictions are now removed (5 Geo. IV. c. 25), and Catholics may be buried in suppressed religious houses, or in Protestant church-yards, according to the Catholic ceremonial.

Catholics, having taken the oaths prescribed by the statutes 31 and 43 Geo. III., are not liable to prosecution for attending or performing mass, or other ceremonies of the church of Rome. But the place must be certified to the sessions, and the minister's name registered. The Catholic clergy are exempted from serving on juries and parochial offices.

Of the Roman Catholic laity.-Roman Ca

But

For twenty years from the union, i. e. until 1st of January, 1821, certain manufactured articles, viz. apparel, cabinet-ware, pottery, sadlery, &c., were subjected to a duty of £10 per cent, Salt, hops, coals, calicoes, and muslins, &c., to certain duties specified. Articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture of either country, subject to internal duty, or to duty on the materials of which they are composed, are made subject, by certain schedules in the acts, to the countervailing duties there specified. And it is provided that all articles subject to such internal duty, shall from time to time be subjected on their importation into each country respectively, from the other, to such duty as shall be sufficient to countervail such internal duty in the country from which they are exported; and that, upon the export of the like articles from one country to the other, a drawback shall be given equal in amount to the countervailing duty payable on such articles, if they had been imported into the country whence they are exported. All articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture of either country, when exported through the other, are made subject to the like charges, as on exportation directly from their own country.

All duty on the import of foreign or colonial articles into either country, shall, on their export to the other, be drawn back; and this is confirmed by 59 Gea. III. c. 52, § 8, and c. 83, § 9.

By statutes 55 Geo. III. c. 83, 59 Geo. III. c. 52, and 83, foreign or colonial goods, imported into Great Britain or Ireland from each other, shall pay such duties as on their first importation, according as they were imported either by British or foreign ships, or directly or not directly from the place of their growth; and for this purpose the clearances on the exportation

of such goods from either country to the other, shall state whether the original importation into the exporting country was a British or foreign vessel, or directly from the place of growth or not; the purpose of these acts is to prevent the evasion of the higher duties payable on the original importation, if made in foreign vessels, &c.

Corn, meal, malt, flour, and biscuit, a are exempted from the operation of the union acts, so that all these, except malt, were declared free between Great Britain and Ireland, under 46 Geo. III. c. 97. The intercourse of malt between the two countries is regulated by statute 50 Geo. III. c. 34, 53, and the countervailing duties are ascertained by the several acts imposing the internal duties.

In 1823 several alterations were made under the authority of parliament for facilitating the repeal of the countervailing duties, and placing the commerce between the two countries on the footing of the coasting trade.

5. Of taxation.-The sinking funds, and the interest of the national debt of each country, according to the union acts, are to be defrayed by each separately. And, for the space of twenty years after the union, the contribution of Great Britain and Ireland towards the public expenditure in each year was directed to be in the proportion of fifteen to two, subject to future regulations.

and the person charged may be apprehended where such warrant is indorsed, and carried into England, Scotland, or Ireland, as the case may require, to be proceeded against according to law.

In offences not bailable, the original warrant shall be indorsed, according to 45 Geo. III. c 92. If bailable, the party shall be bailed in the place where he is apprehended, by duplicate bonds, one to be transmitted to the proper officer of the place where the warrant was issued, and the other to the court of exchequer in the country where the party is bailed; and the penalty may be levied in the county where the bond is taken, on certificate of the breach thereof to the exchequer there.

Witnesses may be served in England with subpoenas, to compel appearance in Ireland in criminal prosecutions, and may be served in Ireland to compel appearance in England, 45 Geo. III., c. 92, sect. 3, 4. And by the 54 Geo. III., c. 186, sect. 2, 3, it is provided that warrants signed in England, Scotland, or Ireland, may be indorsed and acted upon in any part of the united kingdom, in the same manner as directed by 13 Geo. III., c. 31, as to warrants in England and Scotland; and judges in Ireland may indorse Scotch letters of second deliverance, for compelling attendance in Scotland of witnesses, in criminal cases, resident in Ireland.

ADDENDA.

UNITED KINGDOM.

Regulations are made for the issue of money out of the Irish exchequer, under warrant of the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and the issues out of the treasury of Great Britain, from the growing produce of the consolidated fund; and the balance of joint contributions between Great Britain and Ireland are declared to be cancelled. 6. Of the administration of justice.-By the statute of union it is also enacted that all the laws and courts of each kingdom shall remain the same as they were then established, subject to such alterations by the united parliament as circumstances may require; but that all writs of error and appeals shall be decided by the house of lords of the united kingdom, except appeals from the court of admiralty in Ireland, which shall be decided by a court of delegates appointed by the court of chancery in Ireland.

7. Apprehension of criminals in one country for offences committed in the other.-By 44 Geo. III., c. 92, persons against whom warrants have been issued in Ireland, who shall escape to, or be in, England or Scotland, or where persons shall escape from England or Scotland to Ireland, any justice of the peace, of the place where such person shall escape to, shall indorse the warrant,

There are several adjacent islands which are subject to the crown of the united kingdom. Some of them, viz. the Isles of Wight, of Portland, of Thanet, &c., are comprised within some neighbouring county, and are therefore to be looked upon as annexed to the mother Island, and part of the kingdom of England. But there are others which require a more particular consideration.

The Isle of Man is a distinct territory from England, and is not governed by our laws: neither does any act of parliament extend to it, unless it be particularly named therein, and then an act of parliament is binding there. It was formerly subject to the kings of Norway. Afterwards to England, under John and Henry III. Subsequently to Scotland, and again to England. Henry IV., by right of conquest, disposed of it to the earl of Northumberland. Several changes of dominion occurred until the year 1735, when the duke of Athol succeeded to the title, as heir of earl Derby. Though the title of king had been long abolished, the lords of the island had the power of making laws; and no process from England was available, until the year 1765, when the property in the island was purchased by the British government. It retains, however, its peculiar laws, except those of the revenue.

The islands of JERSEY, GUERNSEY, SARK, ALDERNEY, and their appendages, are also governed by their own laws. The king's writ, or process from the courts of Westminster, is there of no force; but his commission is. They are not bound by common acts of our parlia

ment, unless particularly named. All causes are originally determined by their own officers, the bailiffs and jurats of the islands; but an appeal lies from them to the king in council, in the last resort.

For the law relating to the plantations and colonies in America, and the East and West Indies see PLANTATIONS and WEST INDIES.

LAW LANGUAGE.

All law proceedings in England were formerly written, as indeed all public proceedings were, in Norman or law French, and even the arguments of the counsel and the decisions of the court were in the same barbarous dialect: an evident and shameful badge, it must be owned, of tyranny and foreign servitude; being introduced under the auspices of William the Norman, and his sons; whereby the ironical observation of the Roman satirist came to be literally verified, that Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos. This continued till the reign of Edward III.; who, having employed his arms successfully in subduing the crown of France, thought it unbeseeming the dignity of the victors to use any longer the language of a vanquished country. By a statute therefore passed in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, it was enacted, that for the future all pleas should be pleaded, shown, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue; but be entered and enrolled in Latin. In like manner as don Alonso X., king of Castile (the great-grand-father of our Edward III.) obliged his subjects to use the Castilian tongue in all legal proceedings; and as in 1286 the German language was established in the courts of the empire. And perhaps if our legislature had then directed that the writs themselves, which are mandates from the king to his subjects to perform certain acts or to appear at certain places, should have been framed in the English language according to the rule of our ancient law, it had not been very improper. But the record or enrollment of those writs, and the proceedings thereon, which was calculated for the benefit of posterity, was more serviceable (because more durable) in a dead and immutable language than in any flux or living one, The practisers, however, being used to the Norman language, and therefore imagining they could express their thoughts more aptly and more concisely in that than in any other, still continued to take their notes in law French; and of course when these notes came to be published under the denomination of reports, they were printed in that barbarous dialect; which, joined to the additional terrors of a Gothic black letter, has occasioned many a student to throw away his Plowden and Littleton without venturing to attack a page of them. And yet in reality, upon a nearer acquaintance, they would have found nothing very formidable in the language, which differs in its grammar and orthography as much from the modern French, as the diction of Chaucer and Gower does from that of Addison and Pope. Besides, as the English and Norman languages were concurrently used by our ancestors for several centuries together, the two idoms have naturally assimilated, and mutually bor

rowed from each other; for which reason the grammatical construction of each is so very much the same, that an Englishman (with a weeks' preparation) would understand the laws collected in their grand coustumier as well, if not better, than a Frenchman bred within the walls of Paris.

The Latin which succeeded the French for the entry and enrollment of pleas, and which continued in use for four centuries, answers so nearly to the English (oftentimes word for word) that it is not at all surprising that it should generally be imagined to be totally fabricated at home, with little more art or trouble than by adding Roman terminations to English words. Whereas in reality it is a very universal dialect, spread throughout all Europe at the irruption of the northern nations, and particularly accommodated and moulded to answer all the purposes of the lawyers with a peculiar exactness and precision. This is principally owing to the simplicity, or (if the reader pleases) the poverty and baldness of its texture, calculated to express the ideas of mankind just as they arise in the human mind, without any rhetorical flourishes, or perplexed ornaments of style; for it may be observed, that those laws and ordinances, of public as well as private communities, are generally the most easily understood, where strength and perspicuity, not harmony or elegance of expression, have been principally consulted in compiling them. These northern nations, or rather their legislators, though they resolved to make use of the Latin tongue in promulging their laws, as being more durable and more generally known to their conquered subjects than their own Teutonic dialects, yet (either through choice or necessity) have frequently intermixed therein some words of a Gothic original; which is more or less the case in every country of Europe, and therefore not to be imputed as any peculiar blemish in our English legal Latinity. The truth is, what is generally denominated law Latin is in reality a mere technical language, calculated for eternal duration, and easy to be comprehended both in present and future times; and on those accounts best suited to preserve those memorials which are intended for perpetual rules of action. The rude pyramids of Egypt have endured from the earliest ages, while the more modern and more elegant structures of Attica, Rome, and Palmyra have sunk beneath the stroke of time.

a

As to the objection of locking up the law in strange and unknown tongue, this is of little weight with regard to records, which few have occasion to read, but such as do, or ought to, understand the rudiments of Latin.

It was once observed by the late lord Ellenborough (certainly a very high authority, for he possessed a masculine intellect and great learning) that it was to be lamented, as a consequence of the statute for rendering the proceedings at law into English, that the literature of the inferior part of the profession (by which he meant the attorneys as compared with the barristers) had receded since that time. It is however somewhat questionable whether the knowledge of sufficient Latin to understand the language of

the old law proceedings could be a very decisive test of literature. Especially when it is recollected that the pleadings were formerly transcribed by the officers of the court, and not by the attorney, and in cases which varied from the ordinary routine the forms might be and probably were prepared (as they are now) by sergeants and counsel, or by special pleaders, and therefore but a scanty portion of legal learning would enable an attorney to pass through the customary practice of the profession. Besides, as Blackstone himself says, it may be observed of the law Latin, as the very ingenious Sir John Davis observes of the law French, that it is so very easy to be learned, that the meanest wit that ever came to the study of the law doth come to understand it almost perfectly in ten days without a reader.'

It is true indeed that the many terms of art, with which the law abounds, are sufficiently harsh when Latinised (yet not more so than those of other sciences), and may, as Mr. Selden observes, give offence to some grammarians of squeamish stomachs, who would rather choose to live in ignorance of things the most useful and important, than to have their delicate ears wounded by the use of a word, unknown to Cicero, Sallust, or the other writers of the Augustan age.' Yet this is no more than must unavoidedly happen when things of modern use, of which the Romans had no idea, and consequently no phrases to express them, come to be delivered in the Latin tongue. It would puzzle the most classical scholar to find an appellation, in his pure Latinity, for a constable, a record, or a deed of feoffment: it is therefore to be imputed as much to necessity, as ignorance, that they were styled in our forensic dialect constabularius, recordum, and feoffamentum. Thus again, another uncouth word of our ancient laws (for it is unnecessary to defend the ridiculous barbarisms sometimes introduced by the ignorance of modern practisers) the substantive murdrum or the verb murdrare, however harsh and unclassical it may seem, was necessarily framed to express a particular offence; since no other word in being, occidere, interficere, necare, or the like, was sufficient to express the intention of the criminal, or quo animo the act was perpetrated; and therefore by no means came up to the notion of murder at present entertained by our law; viz. a killing with malice aforethought.

A similar necessity to this produced a similar effect at Byzantium, when the Roman laws were turned into Greek for the use of the oriental empire. They studied more the exact and precise import of the words, than the neatness and delicacy of their cadence. And it may be suggested that the terms of the law are not more numerous, more uncouth, or more difficult to be explained by a teacher, than those of logic, physics, and the whole circle of Aristotle's philosophy, nay even of the politer arts of architecture and its kindred studies, or the science of rhetoric itself. Sir Thomas More's famous legal question contains in it nothing more difficult, than the definition which in his time the philosophers currently gave of their materia prima, the ground work of all natural knowledge; that

it is, neque quid, neque qua atum, neque quale, neque aliquid eorum quibus ens determinatur; or its subsequent explanation by Adrian Heereboord, who assure us that materia prima non est corpus, neque per formam corporeitatis, neque per simplicem essentiam: est tamen ens, et quidem substantia, licet incompleta; habetque actum ex se entitativum, et simul est potentia subjectiva. The law therefore, with regard to its technical phrases, stands upon the same footing with other studies, and requests only the same indulgence.

This technical Latin continued in use from the time of its first introduction till the subversion of our ancient constitution under Cromwell; when, among many other innovations in the law, some for the better and some for the worse, the language of our records was altered and turned into English. But, at the Restoration of king Charles, this novelty was no longer countenanced; the practisers finding it very difficult to express themselves so concisely or significantly in any other language as the Latin. And thus it continued without any sensible inconvenience till about the year 1730, when it was again thought proper that the proceedings at law should be done into English, and it was accordingly so ordered by statute 4 Geo. II. c. 26.

This provision was made, according to the preamble of the statute, that the common people might have knowledge and understanding of what was alledged or done for and against them in the process and pleadings, the judgment and entries in a cause. Which purpose Blackstone apprehends has not been answered; being apt, he says, to suspect that the people are now, after so many years experience, altogether as ignorant in matters of law as before. It may be observed, however, that the time at which the commentaries were written was too near the period of the change, fully to appreciate the general advantages which in the process of time might be expected to result from so apparently rational a course as that of using our native language in the forms of administering justice.