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 of an “Act of State.” For a breach by the state of a contract made between the state and a subject the remedy of the subject is, as a general rule, not by action against the agents of the state who acted for the state with reference to the making or breach of the contract, but against the Crown itself by the proceeding called Petition of Right (see ).

While as a generic term “action” in its proper legal sense includes suits by the Crown and “criminal actions” (see Co. Litt. 284b; Bracton, de Legibus Angliae, bk. iii. ch. v. f. 1046; Bradlaugh v. Clarke, 1883, 8 App. Cas. 354, 361, 374), in popular language it is taken to mean a proceeding by a subject and is now rarely applied in England even by lawyers to criminal proceedings. What are now known as “penal actions,” i.e. proceedings in which an individual who has not suffered personally by a breach of the law sues as a common informer for the statutory penalty either on his own benefit or on behalf also of the Crown (qui tam pro rege quam pro se ipso), bear some analogy to the actio popularis of Roman law, from which they are derived (see the statute 4 Hen. VII. 1488); but they are now treated for most purposes as civil and not as criminal proceedings. The law of Scotland follows the lines of the civil law, and the expression “criminal action” is in use to distinguish proceedings to punish offences against the public as distinguished from civil action, brought to enforce a private right.

In the United States, and the British colonies in which English law runs by settlement, charter, proclamation or statute, the nature of an action is substantially the same as in England. The differences between one state of the Union and another, and one colony and another, depend mainly on the extent to which the old procedure of the common law has been abolished, simplified or reformed by local legislation.

ACTIUM (mod. Punta), the ancient name of a promontory in the north of Acarnania (Greece) at the mouth of the Sinus Ambracius (Gulf of Arta) opposite Nicopolis, built by Augustus on the north side of the strait. On the promontory was an ancient temple of Apollo Actius, which was enlarged by Augustus, who also, in memory of the battle, instituted or renewed the quinquennial games called Actia or Ludi Actiaci. Actiaca Aera was a computation of time from the battle of Actium. There was on the promontory a small town, or rather village, also called Actium.

History.—Actium belonged originally to the Corinthian colonists of Anactorium, who probably founded the worship of Apollo Actius and the Actia games; in the 3rd century it fell to the Acarnanians, who subsequently held their synods there. Actium is chiefly famous as the site of Octavian’s decisive victory over Mark Antony (2nd of September 31 ). This battle ended a long series of ineffectual operations. The final conflict was provoked by Antony, who is said to have been persuaded by Cleopatra to retire to Egypt and give battle to mask his retreat; but lack of provisions and the growing demoralization of his army would sufficiently account for his decision. The fleets met outside the gulf, each over 200 strong (the totals given by ancient authorities are very conflicting). Antony’s heavy battleships endeavoured to close and crush the enemy with their artillery; Octavian’s light and mobile craft made skilful use of skirmishing tactics. During the engagement Cleopatra suddenly withdrew her squadron and Antony slipped away behind her. His flight escaped notice, and the conflict remained undecided, until Antony’s fleet was set on fire and thus annihilated.

ACT OF PARLIAMENT. An act of parliament may be regarded as a declaration of the legislature, enforcing certain rules of conduct, or defining rights and conferring them upon or withholding them from certain persons or classes of persons. The collective body of such declarations constitutes the statutes of the realm or written law of the British nation, in the widest sense, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. It is not, however, till the earlier half of the 13th century that, in a more limited constitutional sense, the statute-book is generally held to open, and the parliamentary records only begin to assume distinct outlines late in the reign of Edward I. It gradually became a fixed constitutional principle that an act of parliament, to be valid, must express concurrently the will of the entire legislature. It was not, however, till the reign of Henry VI. that it became customary, as now, to introduce bills into parliament in the form of finished acts; and the enacting clause, regarded by constitutionalists as the first perfect assertion, in words, of popular right, came into general use as late as the reign of Charles II. It is thus expressed in the case of all acts other than those granting money to the crown:—“Be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same.” Where the act is a money grant the enacting clause is prefaced by the words, “Most gracious Sovereign, we, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, towards making good the supply which we have cheerfully granted to Your Majesty in this session of Parliament, have resolved to grant unto Your Majesty the sums hereinafter mentioned; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted, &c.” The use of the preamble with which acts are usually prefaced is thus quaintly set forth by Lord Coke: “The rehearsal or preamble of the statute is a good meane to find out the meaning of the statute, and, as it were, a key to open the understanding thereof” (Co. Litt. 79a). Originally the collective acts of each session formed but one statute, to which a general title was attached, and for this reason an act of parliament was up to 1892 generally cited as the chapter of a particular statute, e.g. 24 and 25 Vict. c. 101. Titles were, however, prefixed to individual acts as early as 1488. Now, by the Short Titles Act 1892, it is optional to cite most important acts up to that date by their short titles, either individually or collectively. Most modern acts have borne short titles independently of the act of 1892. (See ; .)

ACTON (JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG ACTON), (1834–1902), English historian, only son of Sir Richard Acton, 7th baronet, and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral,  (q.v.), was born at Naples on the 10th of January 1834. His grandfather, who had succeeded in 1791 to the baronetcy and family estates in Shropshire, previously held by the English branch of the Acton family, represented a younger branch which had transferred itself first to France and then to Italy, but by the extinction of the elder branch the admiral became head of the family; his eldest son, Richard, had married Marie Louise Pelline, the daughter and heiress of (q.v.), a naturalized French noble of ancient German lineage who had entered the French service under Napoleon and represented Louis XVIII. at the congress of Vienna in 1814, and after Sir Richard Acton’s death in 1837 she became (1840) the wife of the 2nd Earl Granville. Coming of a Roman Catholic family, young Acton was educated at Oscott till 1848 under Dr (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, and then at Edinburgh, and at Munich under Döllinger, whose lifelong friend he became. He had wished to go to Cambridge, but for a Roman Catholic this was then impossible. By Döllinger he was inspired with a deep love of historical research and a profound conception of its functions as a critical instrument. He was a master of the chief foreign languages, and began at an early age to collect a magnificent historical library, with the object, never in fact realized, of writing a great History of Liberty. In politics he was always an ardent Liberal.