Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu/421

Ch. 25. certainly indefenfible) they refolved not to touch a record any more ; but held that even palpable errors, when enrolled and the term at an end, were too facred to be rectified or called in quef- tion : and, becaufe Britton had forbidden all criminal and clan- deftine alterations, to make a record fpeak a falfity, they concei- ved that they might not judicially and publicly amend it, to make it agreeable to truth. In Edward the third's time indeed, they once ventured (upon the certificate of the juftice in eyre) to eftreat a larger fine than had been recorded by the clerk of the court below y : but, inftead of amending the clerk's erro- neous record, they made a fecond enrollment of what the juf- tice had declared ore tenus ; and left it to be fettled by pofterity in which of the two rolls that abfolute verity refides, which every record is faid to import in itfelf z . And, in the reign of Richard the fecond, there are inftances a of their refuling to amend the moil palpable errors and mif-entries, unlefs by the authority of parliament.

To this real fullennefs, but afFedted timidity, of the judges fuch a narrownefs of thinking was added, that every flip (even of afyllable or a letter 1 ") was now held to be fatal to the pleader, and overturned his client's caufe c . If they durfl not, or would not, fet right mere formal miftakes at any time upon equitable terms and conditions, they at leaft mould have held, that trifling objections were at all times inadmiflible ; and that more folid exceptions in point of form came too late when the merits had been tried. They might, through a decent degree of tendernefs, have excufed themfelves from amending in criminal, and efpe- cially in capital, cafes. They needed not have granted an amend- ment, where it would work an injuftice to either party j or where he could not be put in as good a condition, as if his adverfary

i I Hal. P. C. 647. c In thofe days it was ftriftly true, what z I Leon. 183. Co. Litt. 117. See pag. Ruggle ( in his ignoramus} has humoroufly 331- applied to more modern pleadings; " in b Stat. tyEdw.HI. c.tf. "turn." Rh
 * i Hal. P. C. 648. " no/Ira lege unum comma evertit totum flaci-