ing to work under price. Thus went on tice,-when lo! by ftatute 13, Car. II. it is that the true cause of action should be ex the body of the writ or procefs. This act on the courts in a violent manner, made th trive every poffible means of preserving crative business; therefore, in the plen their wisdom, they contrived a clause of and alfo to a bill of debt, which is politely pra two courts, taking the defendant for felo only holding him for debt. It seems before poor Sir Edward Coke, making oppofition court of King's Bench iffuing the writ of t catch debtors contrary to law, got himself tu of the chief justiceship of the Common Pleas all the meannefs and fervility that a lawyer is of, he folicited his friends, and at length g felf feated as chief justice of the court of

Bench; but loving money better than just faid they had turned him out of the warm and placed him in the cold ball; howeve knowing whence the grift arose, he enco any kind of plaintiff to fue in his court fo and did not fcruple to iffue the writ of trefp

he made the cold ball as comfortable as the warm kitchen; and being famous for his publication of that great common-law writer, Littleton, and his own notes illustrating many paffages, it has been deemed by other judges fince his time an affront to Coke's confequence to differ from him in opinion; and honefty they have ever efteemed unworthy the profeffion of the law: and as this ftatute of Charles the Second (though contrary to common law) gives a fanction to their proceedings, the iniquitous bufinefs of arreft goes on without remorfe. But they could not avoid an interloper. It seems that the court of the Marfhalfea was originally holden before the fleward and marfhal of the king's house; and was inftituted to administer justice between the king's domestic servants, that they might not be drawn into other courts, and thereby the king lose their service; it was formerly held in, though not a part of, the Aula Regis; and when that was fubdivided, remained a diftinct jurifdiction: holding plea of all trefpaffes committed within the verge of the court, where only one of the parties is in the king's domestic service (in which cafe the inquest shall

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be taken by a jury of the country); a debts, contracts and covenants, where bo contracting parties belong to the royal and then the inqueft fhall be compofed the houfhold only. By the ftatute of ft. 1. c. 3. in affirmance of the common verge of the court in this refpect ext twelve miles round the king's place of re and no writ of error lay from it to the Bench, but only to Parliament. But th being ambulatory, and obliged to follow t in all his progreffes, fo that by the remova houshold, actions were frequently difcontinu doubts having arifen as to the extent of it diction, king Charles I. in the fixth year reign, by his letters patent created a new record, called the Curia Palatii, or Palace to be held before the fteward of the houfho knight marshal, and the steward of the co his deputy; with jurifdiction to hold plea manner of personal actions whatsoever, whic arife between any parties within twelve mi his majesty's palace of Whitehall. This c now held once a week, together with the a

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court of Marshalfea, in the borough of Southwark. At the time I allude, of the courts of Common Pleas and King's Bench having established proceedings by their fictitious writs of trefpafs, and on the cafe, we find that although they acquiefced in the court of Exchequer iffuing their writ of quo minus, and taking part of their profits, yet they could not conceive that the knight marshal, being originally a military officer, had the power of interfering, being contrary to the constitutional law for plea of debt between subject and fubject; they therefore determined to call this new made judge to an account. Accordingly, it feems the chief justice of the Common Pleas, the chief judge of the King's Bench, and the chief baron of the Exchequer being affembled, they fent a meffage to the knight marfhal to requeft his presence on business of importance. Who having complied; they asked him, who made him a judge? He answered to the two chiefs of the King's Bench and Exchequer, as good authority as made them in matters of debt; and that as for the chief justice of the Common Pleas, it was fhameful in him, who ought to be the guardian of the civil rights

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of the people, to connive at falíhood and extortion in other courts, that he might promote it in his own; and with a martial air he told them, if they got money by locking up men for fools, he would have his fhare for locking up cowards, who had degenerated from the noble blood of their anceftors. The force of the knight marfhal's argument had its due effect on the three judges; they asked their new made brother pardon: and fince that time, the public have had retailed to them the vinegar of the four thieves.

A plaintiff has now his choice of proceeding in the Common Pleas; he may have three writs out; his attorney will forge the fheriff's return for Middlefex, where the defendant does not live, and then the teftatum capias is directed to the fheriff of Berkshire, where the defendant does live; who takes his body directly, notwithstanding the lie on the face of it, that the defendant lurks, wanders, and runs about in your county: here is a sample of English juftice, three forgeries and a lie to take a man's person for a trefpafs he never committed! The parliament of France are terribly alarmed at the continuance of their king's power of iffuing lettres