victed of the same, and such offence shall have been made punishable with death by any of the said several Acts, but shall not be made punishable with death by this act, in every such case the person convicted of such offence shall not suffer the punishment of death, but shall in lieu thereof be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be transported beyond the seas for life, or for any term not less than seven years, or to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding four, nor less than two years. By sect. 32, this Act shall commence and take effect on the 21st July, 1830. By the same statute, sect. 1, no forgeries shall continue capital unless made so by this Act; and all forgeries not declared capital by this Act shall be punished with transportation or imprisonment, except as to the coin. But by the subsequent statute, 2 & 3 W. IV. c. 123, § 1, reciting the former statute, persons afterwards convicted of offences punishable under the former statute with death, shall be transported for life; Except, sect. 2, persons convicted of forging or altering wills and certain powers of attorney. By 1 W. IV. c. 66, § 23, the punishments of 5 Eliz. c. 111, shall be repealed, and other punishments substituted. By sect. 26, the court may order hard labour or solitary confinement. By sect. 2, forging the great seal, privy seal, privy signet, royal sign manual, &c., is treason and capital. By sect. 3, forging an exchequer bill, exchequer debenture, East India bond, bank note, will, bill of exchange, promissory note, or warrant or order for payment of money, is capital. By sect. 4, if any instrument, however designated, is in law a bill of exchange, &c., the forger of such instrument may be indicted under this Act. By sect. 5, making false entries in the books in which the accounts of public stock are kept, or transferring public stock in any other name than the true owner's, is capital. By sect. 6, forging a transfer of any public stock, or of certain other stock; power of attorney to transfer the same, or to receive the dividends thereon; transfer of stock, or receipt of dividends, by false personation, is capital. By sect. 7, personating the owner of any public stock, or certain other stock, and endeavouring to transfer, or to receive the dividends, is punishable with transportation for life, &c. By sect. 8, forging the attestation to any power of attorney for the transfer of stock, &c. is punishable with transportation for seven years, &c. By sect. 9, clerks in the bank wilfully making out dividend warrants for a greater or less sum than is really due, may be transported for seven years, &c. By sect. 10, forging a deed, bond, receipt for money or goods, or an accountable receipt, or an order for delivery of goods; is punishable with transportation for life, &c. By sect. 11, fraudulently acknowledging any recognizance, bail, fine, recovery, or judgment, in the name of another, is punishable with transportation for life, &c. By sect. 12, knowingly purchasing, receiving, or having in possession forged bank notes, is punishable with transportation for fourteen years. By sect. 13, making, or having, without authority, any mould for making paper with the words "Bank of England" visible in the substance, or for making paper with carved bar lines, &c. or selling such paper; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years. Sect. 14, contains a proviso as to paper made for bills of exchange, &c. By sect. 15, engraving on any plate, &c. any bank note, blank bank note, &c., or using or having such plate, &c., or uttering or having paper upon which a blank bank note, &c. shall be printed, without authority; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years. By sect. 16, engraving on any plate, &c. any word, number, or ornament resembling any part of a bank note, &c., or using or having any such plate, &c., or uttering or having any paper on which there shall be an impression of any word, number, &c. ; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years. By sect. 17, making, or having in possession, any mould for manufacturing paper, with the name of any bankers appearing in the substance; manufacturing or having such paper, or causing the name to appear in the substance of any paper; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years, &c. By sect. 18, engraving on any plate, &c. any bill of exchange or promissory note of any bankers, or any words resembling the subscription subjoined thereto, or using any such plate, &c. ; or uttering or having any paper upon which any part of any such bill or note shall be printed; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years, &c. By sect. 19, engraving plates, &c. for foreign bills or notes; using or having such plates, &c.; or uttering any paper on which any part of such foreign bill or note may be printed; is punishable with transportation for fourteen years, &c. By sect. 20, inserting any false entry in any register of baptisms, marriages, or burials; forging or altering any such entry; uttering any false or forged entry; destroying, &c. the register; forging any license of marriage; is pu nishable with transportation for life, &c. By sect. 21, rectors, &c. shall not be liable to any penalty for correcting, in the mode prescribed, accidental errors in the register. By sect. 22, inserting in any copy of a register of baptisms, marriages, or burials, transmitted to the registrar, any false entry; or forging, or verifying any copy knowing it to be false; is punishable with transportation for seven years, &c. By sect. 24, all forgers and utterers may be tried in the county where they are apprehended or are in custody. Sect. 25, regulates the punishment of principals in the second degree and accessaries. Sect. 27, directs the mode of trial of offences committed at sea. Sect. 28, gives a rule of interpretation as to criminal possession, and as to parties intended to be defrauded. By sect. 29, this Act shall not extend to Scotland or Ireland. By sect. 30, this Act shall apply to the forging or uttering in England documents purporting to be made, or actually made, out of England; and to the forging or uttering in England bills of exchange, promissory notes, bonds, &c. purporting to be payable out of England. 251 CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE MEANS OF PREVENTING OFFENCES. of preventing We are now arrived at the fifth general branch, or head, of the means under which I proposed to consider the subject of this book offences, as, of our Commentaries; viz. the means of preventing the commission of crimes and misdemesnors. And really it is an honour, and almost a singular one, to our English laws, that they furnish a title of this sort; since preventive justice is, upon every principle of reason, of humanity, and of sound policy, preferable in all respects to punishing justice (a); the execution of which, though necessary, and in its consequences a species of mercy to the commonwealth, is always attended with many harsh and disagreeable circumstances. to keep the of good beha This preventive justice consists in obliging those persons, recognizances whom there is a probable ground to suspect of future misbe- peace, or to be haviour, to stipulate with and to give full assurance to the pub- viour. lic, that such offence as is apprehended shall not happen; by finding pledges or securities for keeping the peace, or for their good behaviour. This requisition of sureties has been several times mentioned before, as part of the penalty inflicted upon such as have been guilty of certain gross misdemesnors: but there also it must be understood rather as a caution against the repetition of the offence, than any immediate pain or punishment. And indeed, if we consider all human *punish- [*252] ments in a large and extended view, we shall find them all rather calculated to prevent future crimes, than to expiate the past since, as was observed in a former chapter (b); all punishments inflicted by temporal laws may be classed under three heads; such as tend to the amendment of the offender himself, or to deprive him of any power to do future mischief, or to deter others by his example; all of which conduce to one and the same end, of preventing future crimes whether that can be effected by amendment, disability or example. But the caution, which we speak of at present, is such as is (b) See page 11. (a) Beccar. ch. 41. These securities [*253] intended merely for prevention, without any crime actually committed by the party, but arising only from a probable suspicion, that some crime is intended or likely to happen: and consequently it is not meant as any degree of punishment, unless perhaps for a man's imprudence in giving just ground of apprehension. By the Saxon constitution these sureties were always at hand, by means of king Alfred's wise institution of decennaries or frankpledges; wherein, as has more than once been observed (c), the whole neighbourhood or tithing of freemen were mutually pledges for each other's good behaviour. But this great and general security being now fallen into disuse. and neglected, there hath succeeded to it the method of making suspected persons find particular and special securities for their future conduct: of which we find mention in the laws of king Edward the confessor (d); "tradat fidejussores de pace et legalitate tuenda (1)." Let us therefore consider, first, what this security is; next, who may take or demand it and lastly, how it may be discharged. 1. This security consists in being bound, with one or more securities, in a recognizance or obligation to the king, entered on record, and taken in some court or by some judicial officer; whereby the parties acknowledge themselves to be indebted. to the crown in the sum required, for instance 100%. with condition to be void and of none effect, if the party shall appear in court on such a day, and in the mean time shall keep the peace; either generally, towards the king, and all his liege people; or particularly also, with regard to the person who craves the security. Or, if it be for the good behaviour, then on condition that he shall demean and behave himself well, or be of good behaviour, either generally or specially, for the time therein limited, as for one or more years, or for life. This recognizance, if taken by a justice of the peace, must be certified to the next sessions, in pursuance of the statute 3 Hen. VII. c. 1, and if the condition of such recognizance be broken, by any breach of the peace in the one case, or any misbehaviour in the other, the recognizance becomes forfeited or absolute; and, being estreated or extracted (taken out (1) He must give sureties for preserving the peace, and for good behaviour. from among the other records) and sent up to the exchequer, the party and his sureties having now become the king's absolute debtors, are sued for the several sums in which they are respectively bound (2). any conservator his own discre 2. Any justices of the peace, by virtue of their commission, may be taken by or those who are ex officio conservators of the peace, as was of the peace at mentioned in a former volume (e), may demand such security tion, or may be according to their own discretion (3); or it may be granted at him: (e) See vol. 1, page 350. demanded of (2) By 7 G. IV. c. 64, § 31, reciting, "that the practice of indiscriminately estreating recognizances for the appearance of persons to prosecute or give evidence, or to answer for a common assault, or in the other cases thereinafter specified, had been found in many instances productive of hardship to persons who had entered into the same;" it is enacted, "that in every case where any person bound by recognizance for his or her appearance, or for whose appearance any other person shall be bound, to prosecute or give evidence in any case of felony or misdemeanor, or to answer for any common assault, or to articles of the peace, or to abide an order in bastardy, shall therein make default, the officer of the courts by whom the estreats are made out shall, and is hereby required, to prepare a list in writing, specifying the name of every person so making default, and the nature of the offence, in respect of which every such person, or his or her surety, was so bound, together with the residence, trade, profession, or calling of every such person, and surety, and shall in such list distinguish the principals from the sureties, and shall state the cause, if known, why each such person has not appeared, and whether, by reason of the nonappearance of such person, the ends of justice have been defeated or delayed; and every such officer shall, and is hereby required, before any such recognizance shall be estreated, to lay VOL. IV. CC such list, if at a court of oyer and terminer, or gaol delivery, in any county besides Middlesex and London, or at a court of great sessions, or at one of the superior courts of the counties palatine, before one of the justices of those courts respectively; if at a court wherein a recorder or other corporate officer is the judge, or one of the judges, before such recorder or other corporate officer; and if at a session of the peace, before the chairman or two other justices of the peace who shall have attended such court, who are respectively authorized and required to examine such list, and to make such order touching the estreating or putting in process of any such recognizance as shall appear to them respectively to be just; and it shall not be lawful for the officer of any court to estreat or put in process any such recognizance without the written order of the justice, recorder, corporate officer, chairman, or justices of the peace, before whom respectively such list shall have been laid." (3) But every recognizance must now be taken according to certain prescribed rules and forms. By statute 3 G. IV. c. 46, § 4, every justice, before whom any recognizance shall be entered into or taken, shall give, or cause to be given, at the time of entering into such recognizance, to the person or persons, surety or sureties, so entering into the same, and to each of them, a written or printed paper, or notice, in the form, or to the effect, |