Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/282

 266 reckoned all peers, on account of their being counellors of the crown; all knights, who were bound to defend the kingdom from invaions; all eccleiatics, who were exprely confined by cap. 4. of the contitutions of Clarendon, on account of their attachment in the times of popery to the ee of Rome; all archers and other artificers, left they hould intruct foreigners to rival us in their everal trades and manufactures. This was law in the times of Britton, who wrote in the reign of Edward I: and ir Edward Coke gives us many intances to this effect in the time of Edward III. In the ucceeding reign the affair of travelling wore a very different apect: an act of parliament being made, forbidding all perons whatever to go abroad without licence, except only the lords and other great men of the realm; and true and notable merchants; and the king's oldiers. But this act was repealed by the tatute 4 Jac. I. c. 1. And at preent every body has, or at leat aumes, the liberty of going abroad when he pleaes. Yet undoubtedly if the king, by writ of ne exeat regnum, under his great eal or privy eal, thinks proper to prohibit him from o doing; or if the king ends a writ to any man, when abroad, commanding his return; and in either cae the ubject diobeys; it is a high contempt of the king's prerogative, for which the offender's lands hall be eied till he return; and then he is liable to fine and imprionment.

III. capacity, in which the king is conidered in dometic affairs, is as the fountain of jutice and general conervator of the peace of the kingdom. By the fountain of jutice the law does not mean the author or original, but only the ditributor. Jutice is not derived from the king, as from his free gift; but he is the teward of the public, to dipene it to whom it is due. He is not the pring, but the reervoir; from whence right and equity are conducted, by a thouand chanels, to every individual. The original power of judicature, by the fundamental prin- Rh