e exportation of
goods of English manufacture (_inter alia_, of gunpowder, when the price
did not exceed 5l. per cwt.).

Allow me, in connexion, with this subject, to refer to Cullum's _History of
Hawsted_, 1st edition, pp. 150. and 151., also to the statute 1 Jac. II. c.
8. s. 3., by which persons obtaining any letters patent for the sole making
or importing gunpowder are subjected to the pains and penalties of
praemunire.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge. {532}

* * * * *

FORMS OF JUDICIAL OATHS.

(Vol. vii., p. 458.)

Will you permit me to make a few observations in reply to the Queries of
MR. H. H. BREEN on this subject?

There is hardly any custom more ancient than for a person imposing a
promise on another to call on him to bind himself by an oath to the due
performance of it. In this oath the person swearing calls on God, the king,
his father, or some person or thing to whom he attaches authority or value,
to inflict on him punishment or loss in case he breaks his oath. The mode
of swearing is, in one particular, almost everywhere and in every age the
same.

When a father, a friend, a sword, or any corporeal object is sworn by, _the
swearer places his hand upon it_, and then swears. When a man, however,
swore by the Deity, on whom he cannot place his hand, he raised his hand to
heaven towards the God by whom he swore.

When Abraham made Abimelech swear to obey him, he caused him to place his
hand under his thigh, and then imposed the oath; and when Jacob, by his
authority as a father, compelled his son Joseph to swear to perform his
promise, he ordered him to go through a similar ceremony. (Genesis, ch.
xxiv. v. 5., and ch. xlvii. v. 29.)

In the prophet Daniel we read that--

"The man clothed in linen which was upon the waters, held up his right
hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for
ever and ever," &c.--Daniel, ch. xii. v. 7.

In the Revelation we also find--

"And the angel, which I saw stand upon the sea and the earth, lifted up
his hand to heaven and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever,"
&c.--Revelation, ch. x. v. 5, 6.

Your correspondent inquires how oaths were taken prior to their being taken
on the Gospel.

Among the nations who overthrew the Roman empire, the most common mode of
swearing was on the relics of the saints. In England, I think, the most
common mode was to swear on the corporalia or