of Christian Burial or a power to make a last Will and Testament the Friborghs or Tubings in every County so obliged men to an obedience to the Laws the publick 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 Mannors kept much of their demesnes in their own hands with great Stocks Herds of Cattel thereupon had their Bondmen and Bondwomen in their Families Villains Neifes regardant to their Mannors 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 Abbies and Religious Houses with their numerous Monks Fryers Nuns and all their Dependants and Servants belonging to them lived out of the reach of Writs and Proces 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 Proces 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 free-hold 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 Reignes 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 imployed 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 laicks 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 numbred or put into Ranks there would be 1. Free-holders 2. Copy-holders Lease-holders and such as have an Estate only in Tythes Annuities or Rent 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 mens 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 mechanicks 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 Free-holders 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 Copy-hold 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 Proces of Summons pone and Distress where the Defendants are Free-holders have a visible Estate and of Arrest in case of Contumacy and Contempt of Courts of Justice and suspition of Flight and Insolvencies CHAP. IV. The Ancient use as well as necessity of the Proces 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 causless 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 thiâ—gs Synonimous and of one and the same signification And that the procedings 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 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 because it was not declared what should be done unto him 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 thou art snared and taken with
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 Judgments 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 Kings Bench and Justice Reeve in the Court of Common Pleas to be such a vioviolation of our Laws as they Publickly declaimed against it and threatned to imprison any Attorney that should practice in such a manner And with great authority and warrant of our Lawes and right reason for that as it was justly and truely 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 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 lawdable 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 prancks 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 sudaine possession of some Lands or houses for one as bad as himself upon a judgment 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 Def t. or ejector in the name of a feigned Lessee upon a short Lease pretended to be made by his naughty Clyent and left at the house of the Tenant who not well apprehending the force and extent of the project a judgment by default was entred possession surprized and taken for which upon complaint made to the Judges of the Court of Kings Bench in which Court the action was supposed to have been laid and examination of the fact the judgment 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 shew his face in a Court of justice Howsoever getting himself afterwards enlarged and the confusion and troubles of the late civil Warrs 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 Littletons 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 Fathers Estate from the peril and danger of such a villany may well remember that a counterfeit record was in that pretended suit privatly layd 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 smal parcel of Knavery being in great respect with the Agitators of the then called Parliament Army Levellers other State moulders and stiling himself the Esquire at armes being somtimes a Prisoner in New-gate and somtimes 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 oftner followed then good by some of his proselites 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 indorced by the Attorney in the name of the incognito or casual ejector directed to the Tenant or Landlord requiring them to appeare and look to the action and confess Lease Ouster and Entry otherwise he must and would confess a judgment or let it pass by default As if such a judgment 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 parties contrivant severely punished Of which kind of irregularity in the Law and wandring 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 past caused a Writ of Latitat which antiently was used to be warranted by a VVrit Original of the Chancery to be awarded and sued out against the feigned ejector And it is not half a yeare agoe since the Pillory of Westminster proclaimed a Brewer to be more Crafty then wise or honest when to gain an indirect possession of some houses by Judgments upon defaults having fudled the Tenants with Drink and Tobacco And giving them peices of the declarations as waste paper when they knew not what had been written therein to give fire to their tobacco thought he had snapt them with judgments 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 sware to the contrary But unde or from whence soever it came or if this new manner of Law proceedings could have derived its pedegree from any more Noble an Ancestor It will if every Client and his Attorney who is no member of the court but only
or peremptory is by the Civilians themselves acknowledged to be a deviation à jure communi in casibus necessitatis tantum recepta quando alio modo quiâ— citari non potest Secondly Vbi locus non est â—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 detiâ—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 â—o desirable expedite or little chargeable as our Common Laws are which our Novellists would perswade 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 Glocester and others against Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland the Earl of Suffolk and others they denyed to proceed to Judgment thereupon according to the Law civil and declared que la Roialme de Angliterre ne estoit devant ces Heures ne al intent du Roy signiours de parlement unques ne serra 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 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 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 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 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 allowe a missio bonorum repleuisable as aforesaid may upon a further search and enquiry satisfie themselves and others that for the expedition of Justice put on and perswaded by the increase of trade and insolvency of debtors the Caesarean or Civil Law hath long ago forsaken their course of granting judgments for not appearing missionem rum and Seisure and found the Citatio realis captura incarceratio to be the more ready and less prejudicial way of compelling debtors or Defendants to appear in judgment For certainly to inforce perswade or give a libertie 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 streight and better conducing to their honest ends will be but to vex and tire 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 entred by the Filacers and ought yet if the cause or reason of their remitting that ancient part of their imployment 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 apparances entred were to be payed for by the Defendants And to the Trouble and charge of entring judgments and the hazard of the loss of charges poundage aud other fees payd to Sheriffs and Bayliffs 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 malitious contrivances cum muliis aliis which will increase and heighten the Bill of Charges And that goods Seized inventaried and sold by under Sheriffs and Bayliffs 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 judgment 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 frequâ—nt use of VVrits of Arrest and Outlawry then was before thi 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 Turky East and West Indy and Affrican trades not then or long after known or used Usury so horrid and damnable a Crime as it was a cause of Excommunication denyal
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 accompt be otherwise made before the making of that Statute nor can be since without a nihil habet returned by the Sheriffe unless the Coâ—â—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 VVrits Commanding the not Impanâ—lling of one above the age of 70 years to be of a Jury a VVrit to replevin or Bayl a man which was Imprisoned upon a moderata misericordia against a Steward or Bayliffe of a Manour for amercing too much against a Sheriffe 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 accompt 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 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 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. when a man could not have a VVrit 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 for jurisdictions saith the civil Law are maintained and upheld by such kind of coercions 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 assessements 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 inclosures 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 busie it self 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 alledg'd 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 cryed up and publickly professed to be their birth-right 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 then 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 Fore-fathers 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 Proces made by Writ origynal at the common Law or to be prejudicial unto them or their posterities and in the 38 year of the Reign of that Kiâ—g Although great mischiefes did as was complained to that King in a Parliament holden in the seven and thirtieth year of his Reign often happen and dayly come because that Escheators Sheriffs and other the Kings Ministers did seise the Lands Goods and Chattels of many surmising that they were Out-Lawed where they were not because they did beare such names as those that were Outlawed the benefits of the aforesaid Statute of 25 E. 3 for Process of Utlary by VVrits of Capias and Exigend which was made but two years before did so over ballancâ— that or other inconveniences as might happen in some mens particulars as the VVisdom 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
day to their utter ruine 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 Plaintif to be saved harmless and where the Estate doth lye 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 puzled to know into whose Room he shall enter or upon whose property he seizeth and his Serjeants or Bailifs 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 lye 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 Rent it at all will be hardly got and those that do malice or maligne him will if they may not have it at cheap Rates be unwilling to adventure the hazard of actions of trespas 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 Plaintif 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 easie 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 Bailifs 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 Indempnity 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 Proces of Distringas will be much more inconvenient and destructive to Trade and Trades-men when they become Creditors or shall be made Defendants and be distrained by Proces 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 trespas where in no adjudication of the value of the Action can be had before a Trial or Writ to enquire of dammages and one hundred Pounds worth of Goods may be taken or spoiled upon an Action of less then so many Shillings for the Sheriff to have enough will not fail to seize more if he can come at it then the Demand of the Writ or the Plaintifs 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 Trades-man was never easie 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 then 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 likelyhood of breaking to endeavour more then they should to be most commonly before-hand with their Creditors make away their Goods and Wares lodge them in other Mens 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 Proces may appear to be no over nicely guessed or strained consequences if if shall be but considered what an abundance of hideous and remediles mischiefs and inconveniences would every day and long ago have happened to Shop-keepers and Men of Trade and Credit in the City of London and the Suburbs thereof if the Proces issuing out of the Courts of Common Pleas and Kings 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 Trades-man Shop being many times other Mens who upon some allowance of share have employed or
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 inferiour Courts are destroyed and proposed a publick Registry to be in every County of all Entails Mortgages and Statutes that before any cause or Action â—e entred 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 entituled Englands safety in the Laws Supremacy and published in the year 1659 it was amongst other things required as a Law including the peopleâ— 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 entituled 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 Freez entituled 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 Satans throne of Injustice cruelty and oppression even of the four Fairs kept in Westminster-hall by the ingrossers 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 Common-wealth 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 ought 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 imployments that those which are capable may tast 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 peoples money and it alledgeth 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 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 look'd upon it as the voice of God calling upon them and giving them an opportunity and therefore desiring assistance in so great an enterprize 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 intreat them to send in their names to Mr. Livewell Chapman Book-seller in Popes-head-alley by the Exchange who hath promised to keep them secret untill 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 Armies Plea it is alledged that the peoples safety is the chief Soveraignty 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 Publique safety and not to the persons of the Governours 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 fix'd in this Nation but according to the Ballance of Land that Prince that is not able neither by his own or the publique Revenue in some measure to counterpoise if not over-ballance 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 unsetling of mens 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 then mans purpose One of the same company and School of contrivances desired publickly 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