Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/278

 262 his rights or interets. For it would be of mot michievous conequence to the public, if the trength of the executive power were liable to be curtailed without it's own expres conent, by contructions and implications of the ubject. Yet where an act of parliament is exprely made for the preervation of public rights and the uppreion of public wrongs, and does not interfere with the etablihed rights of the crown, it is laid to be binding as well upon the king as upon the ubject : and, likewie, the king may take the benefit of any particular act, though he be not epecially named.

II. king is conidered, in the next place, as the generaliimo, or the firt in military command, within the kingdom. The great end of ociety is to protect the weaknes of individuals by the united trength of the community: and the principal ue of government is to direct that united trength in the bet and mot effectual manner, to anwer the end propoed. Monarchical government is allowed to be the fittet of any for this purpoe: it follows therefore, from the very end of it's intitution, that in a monarchy the military power mut be truted in the hands of the prince.

this capacity therefore, of general of the kingdom, the king has the ole power of raiing and regulating fleets and armies. Of the manner in which they are raied and regulated I hall peak more, when I come to conider the military tate. We are now only to conider the prerogative of enliting and of governing them: which indeed was diputed and claimed, contrary to all reaon and precedent, by the long parliament of king Charles I; but, upon the retoration of his on, was olemnly declared by the tatute 13 Car. II. c. 6. to be in the king alone: for that the ole upreme government and command of the militia within all his majety's realms and dominions, and of all forces by ea and land, and of all forts and places of trength, ever was and is the Rh