ssions, and which was, in the main, repugnant to the
general genius of the constitution; and that the lives; the personal
liberty, and the properties of all his subjects were less secured by law
against the exertion of his arbitrary authority than by the independent
power and private connections of each individual.

[* We learn from the extracts given us of Domesday
by Brady in his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the
boroughs of England had suffered in the shock of the
conquest, and had extremely decayed between the death of the
Confessor and the time when Domesday was framed. * Gross. in
verb. Justicium Dei. The author of the Miroir des Justices
complains that ordinances are only made by the king and his
clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict
the king, but study to please him. Whence, he concludes,
laws are oftener dictated by will than founded on right.]

It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a
tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry,
under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be
suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process
of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.

A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of
sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and
dependants more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state
and the great officers were commonly o their sovereign. He often
maintained in his court the parade of royalty, by establishing
a justiciary, constable, mareschal, chamberlain, seneschal, and
chancellor, and assigning to each of these officers a separate
province and command He was usually very assiduous in exercising his
jurisdiction, and took such delight in that image of sovereignty, that
it was found necessary to restrain his activity, and prohibit him by law
from holding courts too frequently.[*] It is not to be doubted but the
example set him by the prince, of a mercenary and sordid extortion,
would be faithfully copied; and that all his good and bad offices, his
justice and injustice, were equally put to sale. He had the power, with
the king's consent, to exact talliages even from the free citizens who
lived within his barony; and as his necessities made him rapacious, his
authority was usually found to be more oppressive and tyrannical than
that