Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/152

136 gerous to the commonwealth, than uch as are made upon the peronal liberty of the ubject. To bereave a man of life, or by violence to conficate his etate, without accuation or trial, would be o gros and notorious an act of depotim, as mut at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the peron, by ecretly hurrying him to goal, where his ufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a les public, a les triking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government. And yet ometimes, when the tate is in real danger, even this may be a neceary meaure. But the happines of our contitution is, that it is not left to the executive power to determine when the danger of the tate is o great, as to render this meaure expedient. For the parliament only, or legilative power, whenever it ees proper, can authorize the crown, by upending the  act for a hort and limited time, to imprion upected perons without giving any reaon for o doing. As the enate of Rome was wont to have recoure to a dictator, a magitrate of abolute authority, when they judged the republic in any imminent danger. The decree of the enate, which uually preceded the nomination of this magitrate, ”,” was called the . In like manner this experiment ought only to be tried in caes of extreme emergency; and in thee the nation parts with it’s liberty for a while, in order to preerve it for ever.

confinement of the peron, in any wie, is an imprionment. So that the keeping a man againt his will in a private houe, putting him in the tocks, arreting or forcibly detaining him in the treet, is an imprionment. And the law o much dicourages unlawful confinement, that if a man is under dures of imprionment, which we before explained to mean a compulion by an illegal retraint of liberty, until he eals a bond or the like; he may allege this dures, and avoid the extorted bond. But if a man be lawfully imprioned, and either to procure his dicharge