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country for the surplus produce of another usual to dispense with many formalities country is the object of all foreign com- at the custom-houses of the ports of demerce. The profit of the individual mer-parture and entry, and to remit the paychant is the moving force which impels the ment of certain dues and port charges machinery of this commerce, but the end is which are levied upon ships having carthat each country may consume what it goes on board. would otherwise go without. In this point of view, every country is a gainer by its foreign commerce; and if this gain could be estimated by figures, every country which exchanges its products with another country would have a favourable balance of trade: for both individuals and nations exchange that which they do not want for other things that they do want; and when both parties continue to carry on such exchange, it is clear that both are gainers. Which gains most is a question that cannot be settled, and would be of no use if it could be settled.

But gold and silver are in one sense the most valuable products, because they have a universal value, and a nation which in its trade can get all it wants and gold too, will be richer than other nations. It will always have a great quantity of a material that is commercially more valuable than corn or manufactured articles. England has received a large part of its precious metal thus, in which it abounds above all countries; and this is invested in articles of use and ornament, and also gives employment to a vast mass of people, who receive for their wages a commodity of universal value. It also enables us to base our paper-money on the sound principle of convertibility for the precious

metal.

BALLAST (Danish, Baglast: German, Dutch, and Swedish, Ballast; French, Lest; Italian, Savorra; Spanish, Lastre; Protuguese, Lastro; Russian, Balast), a term used to denote any heavy material placed in a ship's hold with the object of sinking her deeper in the water, and of thereby rendering her capable of carrying sail without danger of being overset. Ships are said to be in ballast when they sail without a cargo, having on board only the stores and other articles requisite for the use of the vessel and crew, as well as of any passengers who may be proceeding with her upon the voyage. In favour of vessels thus circumstanced it is

A foreign vessel proceeding from a British port may take on board chalk as ballast; and by 3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 52, shall not be considered as other than a ship in ballast in consequence of her having on board a small quantity of goods of British manufacture for the private use of the master and crew, and not by way of merchandise; but such goods must not exceed in value 201. for the master, 107. for the mate, and 5l. for each of the crew (§ 87). The masters of ships clearing out in ballast are required to answer any questions put to them by authority of the custom-house touching the departure and destination of such ships (§ 80).

Regulations have at various times been made in different ports and countries determining the modes in which ships may be supplied with ballast, and in what manner they may discharge the same; such regulations being necessary to prevent injury to harbours. It has likewise been sometimes attempted to convert the supply of materials for ballast into a monopoly. In vol. xx. of Rymer's Fordera, p. 93, of the year 1636, we find a proclamation by King Charles I., ordering "that none shall buy any ballast out of the river Thames but a person appointed by him for that purpose," and this appointment was sold for the king's profit. Since that time, the soil of the river Thames from London Bridge to the sea has been vested in the corporation of the Trinity House, and a fine of 10l. may be recovered from any person for every ton of ballast which he may take out of the river, within those limits, without the authority of that corporation. Ships may take on board "land ballast" from any quarries or pits east of Woolwich, upon paying one penny per ton to the Trinity House. For river ballast, the corporation areauthorized by Act of Parliament (3 Geo. IV. c. 111) to make certain charges. The receipts of the Trinity Corporation from this source were 33,5917. in 1840, and their expenses were 31,6221. The ballast of all

ships or vessels coming into the Thames must be unladen into a lighter, and if any ballast be thrown into the river, the master of the vessel whence it is thrown is liable to a fine of 201.: some regulation similar to this is usually enforced in every port. (Hume's Laws of the Customs; Report of Committee of House of Lords on Lights and Harbour Dues.)

BALLOT. [VOTING.]

BAN, a word found in many of the modern languages of Europe in various senses. But as the idea of "publication" or “proclamation" runs through them all, it is probable that it is the ancient word han still preserved in the Gælic and the modern Welsh in the simple sense of "proclaiming."

As a part of the common speech of the English nation, the word is now so rarely used that it is put into some glossaries of provincial or archaical words, as if it were obsolete, or confined to some particular districts or particular classes. Yet, both as a substantive and a verb, it is found in some of our best writers; among the poets, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakspere; and among prose-writers, Knolles and Hooker. By these writers, however, it is not used in its original sense of 'proclamation," but in a sense which it has acquired by its use in proclamations of a particular kind; and it is in this secondary sense only that it now occurs in common language, to denote cursing, denouncing woe and mischief against one who has offended. A single quotation from Shakspere's tale of Venus and Adonis' will show precisely how it is used by writers who have employed it, and by the people from whose lips it may still

66

sometimes be heard:

All swollen with chafing, down Adonis sits, Banning the boisterous and unruly beast. The improvement of English manners having driven out the practice, the word has nearly disappeared. But in the middle ages the practice was countenanced by such high authority, that we cannot wonder at its having prevailed in the more ordinary ranks and affairs of life.

When churches and monasteries were founded, writings were usually drawn up, specifying with what lands the founder and other early benefactors endowed

them; and those instruments often conclude with imprecatory sentences in which torments here and hereafter are invoked on any one who should attempt to divert the lands from the purposes for which they were bestowed. It seems that what we now read in these instruments was openly pronounced in the face of the church and the world by the donors, with certain accompanying ceremonies. Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, who has left one of the best of the early chronicles of English affairs, relates that when King Henry III. had refounded the church of Westminster, he went into the chapel of St. Catherine, where a large assembly of prelates and nobles was collected to receive him. The prelates were dressed in full pontificals, and each held a candle in his hand. The king advanced to the altar, and laying his hand on the Holy Evangelists, pronounced a sentence of excommunication against all who should deprive the church of any thing he had given it, or of any of its rights. When the king had finished, the prelates cast down the candles which they held, and while they lay upon the pavement, smoking and stinking (we use the words of the author who relates the transaction), the Archbishop of Canterbury said aloud, "Thus, thus may the condemned souls of those who shall violate or unfavourably interpret these rights be extinguished, smoke, and stink:" when all present, but the king especially, shouted out "Amen, Amen.'

This, in the English phrase, was the banning of the middle ages. Nor was it confined to ecclesiastical affairs. King Henry III., in the ninth year of his reign, renewed the grant of Magna Charta. In the course of the struggle which was going on in the former half of the thirteenth century between the king and the barons, other charters of liberties were granted. But for the preservation of that which the barons knew was only extorted, the strongest guarantee was required: and the king was induced to preside at a great assembly of nobles and prelates, when the archbishop pronounced a solemn sentence of excommunication against all persons of whatever degree who should violate the charters. This was done in

Westminster Hall, on the 3rd of May, 1253. The transaction was made matter of public record, and is preserved in the great collection of national documents called Rymer's Fœdera.

But besides these general bannings, particular persons who escaped from justice or who opposed themselves to the sentence of the church, were sometimes banned, or placed under a ban. In the history of English affairs one of the most remarkable instances of this kind is the case of Guido de Montfort. This Guido was the son of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, and grandson of King John. In the troubles in England, in which his father lost his life, no one had been more active in the king's service than Henry of the Almaine, another grandson of King John, and the eldest son of Richard, that king's younger son, who had been elected King of the Almains. This young prince, being at Viterbo in Italy, and present at a religious service in one of the churches of that city, was suddenly assaulted by Guido de Montfort, and slain upon the spot. A general detestation of the crime was felt throughout Europe. Dante has placed the murderer in the Inferno :

He in God's bosom smote The heart still reverenced on the banks of Thames. The murderer escaped. Among the rumours of the time, one was that he was wandering in Norway. This man the pope placed under a ban; that is, he issued a proclamation requiring that no person should protect, counsel, or assist him; that no person should hold any intercourse with him of any kind, except, perhaps, some little might be allowed for the good of his soul; that all who harboured him should fall under an interdict; and that if any person were bound to him by an oath of fidelity, he was absolved of the oath. This was promulgated throughout Europe. A papal bull in which the proclamation is set forth still exists among the public records in the chapter-house at Westminster. A copy of it is in Rymer's Fadera. The pope uses the very expression forbannimus: "Guidonem etiam forbannimus."

This species of banning is what is meant when we read of persons or cities being placed under the ban of the empire,

a phrase not unfrequently occurring in writers on the affairs of Germany. Persons or cities who opposed themselves to the general voice of the confederation were by some public act, like those which have been described, cut off from society, and deprived of rank, title, privileges, and property.

It is manifest that out of this use of the word has sprung that popular sense in which now only the word is ever heard among us, as well as the Italian bandire, French bannir, and the English banish. [BANISHMENT.]

In some parts of England, before the Reformation, an inferior species of banning was practised by the parish priests. "In the Marches of Wales," says Tyndal, in his work against the Romish Church, entitled The Obedyence of a Christen Man, 1534, "it is the manner, if any man have an ox or a cow stolen, he cometh to the curate and desireth him to curse the stealer; and he commands the parish to give him, every man, God's curse, and his; 'God's curse and mine have he,' sayeth every man in the parish." Stow relates that, in 1299, the dean of St. Paul's accursed at Paul's Cross all those who had searched in the church of St. Martin in the Fields for a hoard of gold. (London, p. 333.) Tyndal argues against the practice, as he does against the excommunicatory power in general. Yet something like it seems to be still retained in the Commination Service of the English Church.

In France the popular language has not been influenced by this application of the word ban to the same extent with the English. With them the idea of publication prevails over that of denouncement, and they call the public cry by which men are called to a sale of merchandise, especially when it is done by a beat of drum, a ban. In time of war a procla mation through the ranks of an army is the ban. In Artois and some parts of Picardy the public bell is called the bancloque, or the cloche à ban, as being rung to summon people to their assemblies. When those who held of the king were summoned to attend him in his wars, they were the ban, and tenants of the secondary rank the arrière-ban; and out of this

feudal use of the term arose the expres-
sions four à ban, and moulin à ban, for a
a lord's mill, at
lord's bakehouse, or
which the tenants of a manor (as is the
case in some parts of England) were
bound to bake their bread or to grind
their corn. The banlieue of a city is a
district around it, usually, but not always,
a league on all sides, through which the
proclamation of the principal judge of the
place has authority. A person submitting
to exile is said to keep his ban, and he who
returns home without a recall breaks his
ban.

The French use the word as the Eng-
lish do, when they speak of the ban, or,
as we speak and write it, the banns of
marriage. This is the public proclama-
tion which the law requires of the inten-
tion of the parties named to enter into
the marriage covenant. The law of the
ancient French and of the English church
The procla-
is in this respect the same.
mation must be made on three successive
Sundays in the church, during the time
of the celebration of public worship,
when it is presumed that the whole parish
is present.

The intent of this provision is twofold: 1. To prevent clandestine marriages, and marriages between parties not free from the marriage contract, parties within the prohibited degrees of kindred, minors, or excommunicates; and, 2. to save the contracting parties from precipitancy, who by this provision are compelled to suffer some weeks to pass between the consent privately given and received between themselves and the marriage. Both these objects are of importance, and ought to be secured by law. The ban, or banns, may, however, be dispensed with. In that case a licence is obtained from some person who is authorized by the bishop of the diocese to grant it, by which licence the parties are allowed to marry in the church or chapel of the parish or parochial chapelry in which either of them resides, in which marriages are wont to be celebrated, without the publication of banus. The law, however, takes care to ensure the objects for which the publication of banns was devised, by requiring oaths to be taken by the party applying for the licence, and certificates of consent of

| parents or guardians in the case of minors. Special licences not only dispense with the publication of banns, but allow the parties to marry at any convenient time or place. These are granted only by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in virtue of a statute made in the twenty-fifth year of King Henry VIII., entitled an act concerning Peter-pence and dispensations.

It is not known when this practice began, but it is undoubtedly very ancient. Some have supposed that it is alluded to in a passage of Tertullian. Among the innovations introduced in France during the time of the first Revolution, one was to substitute for this oral publication a written announcement of the intention, affixed to the door of the town-hall, or in some public place, during a certain time. But when it is considered how liable these bills are to be torn down or defaced, and the questions which may arise in consequence, it would seem that it is not a mode which there is much reason to prefer to that which has so long been established in Christian nations.

BANISHMENT (from the French Bannissement), expulsion from any country or place by the judgment of some court or other competent authority.

The term has its root in the word ban, a word of frequent use in the middle ages, which has the various significations of a public edict or interdict, a proclamation, a jurisdiction and the district within it, and a judicial punishment. Hence a person excluded from any territory by public authority was said to be banished-bannitus, in bannum missus. (Ducange, voc. Bannire, Bannum; Pasquier, Recherches, pp. 127, 732.) [BAN.]

As a punishment for crimes, compulsory banishment is unknown to the ancient unwritten law of England, although voluntary exile, in order to escape other punishment, was sometimes permitted. [ABJURATION.] The crown has always exercised, in certain emergencies, the prerogative of restraining a subject from leaving the realm; but it is a known maxim of the common law, that no subject, however criminal, shall be sent out of it without his own consent or by authority of parliament. It is accordingly declared by the Great Charter, that "no

freeman shall be exiled, unless by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land."

There are, however, instances in our history of an irregular exercise of the power of banishing an obnoxious subject by the mere authority of the crown; and in the case of parliamentary impeachment for a misdemeanor, perpetual exile has been made part of the sentence of the House of Lords, with the assent of the king. (Sir Giles Mompesson's case, in the reign of James I., reported by Rushworth and Selden, and cited in Comyns, Digest, tit. 66 Parliament," 1. 44.) Aliens and Jews (formerly regarded as aliens) have, in many instances, been banished by royal proclamation.

Banishment is said to have been first introduced as a punishment in the ordinary courts by a statute in the thirtyninth year of the reign of Elizabeth, by which it was enacted that "such rogues as were dangerous to the inferior people should be banished the realm;" but an instance occurs in an early statute of uncertain date (usually printed immediately after one of the eighteenth year of Edward II.), by which butchers who sell unsound meat are compelled to abjure the village or town in which the offence was committed. At a much later period the punishment now called transportation was sanctioned by the legislature, and has in other cases been made the condition on which the crown has consented to pardon a capital offence.

Some towns of England used to inflict the punishment of banishment from the territory within their jurisdiction, for life and for definite periods. The extracts from the Annals of Sandwich, one of the Cinque Ports, which are printed in Boys' History of Sandwich,' contain many instances of this punishment in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Banishment in some form has been prevalent in the criminal law of most nations, ancient as well as modern. Among the Greeks two kinds were in use:-1. Perpetual exile (pvyń), attended with confiscation of property, but this banishment was probably never inflicted by a judicial sentence; at least among the later Athenians a sentence of perpetual

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banishment appears only to have been pronounced when a criminal, who was accused of wilful murder, for instance, withdrew from the country before sentence was passed against him for the crime with which he was charged. The term phuge (puyn) was peculiarly applied to the case of a man who fled his country on a charge of wilful murder, and the property of such a person was made public. Those who had committed involuntary homicide were also obliged to leave the territory of Attica, but the name phuge was not given to this withdrawal, and the property of the exile was not confiscated. Such a person might return to Attica when he had obtained the permission of some near kinsman of the deceased. (Demosthenes, Against Aristocrates, cc. 9, 16.) 2. Ostracism, as it was called at Athens, and in some other democratical states of Greece, or Petalism, the term in use at Syracuse, was a temporary expulsion, unaccompanied by loss of property, and inflicted upon persons whose influence, arising either from great wealth or eminent merit, made them the objects of popular suspicion or jealousy. Aristides was ostracized from Athens for ten years, not because he had done any illegal act, but because people were jealous of his influence and good fame.

The general name for Banishment among the Romans in the Imperial period was Exsilium; and it was a penalty inflicted under the Empire on conviction in a Judicium Publicum, if it was also a Judicium Capitale. A Judicium Publicum was a trial in which the accused came within the penalties of certain laws (leges), and it was Capitale when the penalties were either death or exsilium. This Exsilium was defined by the Jurists under the Empire to be ": aqua et ignis interdictio," a sentence which deprived a man of two of the chief necessaries of life. (Paulus, Dig. 48, tit. 1, s. 2.) The sentence was called Capital because it affected the Caput or Status of the condemned, and he lost all civic rights. There was also Exsilium which was not accompanied by civil disabilities, and accordingly was not Capitalis: this was called Relegatio. The person who was relegated was either

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