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by the Mutiny Acts, and by the Articles of War framed under their authority, is made applicable by other statutes to the militia also (f) (except as regards punishments affecting life or limb); and no relief can be afforded by the ordinary courts of law from the sentences (however erroneous) of the courts-martial, in which that law is administered, so long as they exceed not their jurisdiction; the only remedy in such cases being that of an application to the sovereign in council, praying for a revision of the proceedings (g).

The establishment of such a system in this country involves (no doubt), notwithstanding the care with which its provisions are guarded, a partial departure from the principles of our free constitution; and this is in effect declared by the preamble of the Acts themselves, which set forth that no man can be forejudged of life or limb, or subjected in time of peace to any kind of punishment within this realm, by martial law (h), or in any other manner than by judgment of his peers, and according to the known and established law of this realm; a doctrine entirely conformable to, and apparently founded on, the Petition of Right, which enacts, that no commission shall issue to proceed within this land according to martial law (i). But the policy of this exception from ordinary rule may be easily defended, it being impossible by any other means to main

(f) 42 Geo. 3, c. 90, ss. 89, 103; 55 Geo. 3, c. 65, s. 4; 55 Geo. 3, c. 168, ss. 1, 2. It may be remarked, however, that the Articles of War affect none but military persons; Wolton v. Gavin, 16 Q. B. 48.

(g) Grant v. Gould, 2 H. Bl. 100, 101; In re Poe, 5 Barn. & Adol. 681, 684.

(h) Martial law may be defined as the law (whatever it may be) which is imposed by the military power; and has now no place in the institutions of this country, unless the articles of

war established under the acts just mentioned be considered as of that character. The court of chivalry, which had once jurisdiction over life and members in matters of arms (4 Inst. 123; 2 Hawk. 5, 9), has been long disused; and though our sovereigns formerly exercised the right of proclaiming martial law within the kingdom, that prerogative seems to be now denied to them by the Petition of Right.

(i) 3 Car. 1; et vide 31 Car. 2, c. 1; Hale, Hist. C. L. c. 2.

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tain the proper severity of military discipline and its legality is put beyond all question by the omnipotence of parliament; the authority of which would be at any time sufficient to supersede altogether the established course of justice, and to proclaim martial law in its stead (k).

For the benefit of the common soldiers of the realm, some humane provisions have been made, the most material of which is the allowance of certain pensions to those who are sick, hurt and maimed; and the establishment of the royal hospital at Chelsea for such as are worn out in their duty (/). And soldiers in actual military service may make nuncupative wills, and dispose of their goods, wages, and other personal chattels, [without those forms, solemnities and expenses, which the law requires in other cases (m). Our law does not indeed extend this privilege so far as the civil law, which carried it to an extreme that borders upon the ridiculous. For if a soldier, in the article of death, wrote any thing in bloody letters on his shield, or in the dust of the field with his sword, it was a very good military testament (n).] And thus much for the law relating to the military force of the crown.

(k) Thus by the statute passed in Ireland, in 1798, for suppression of the rebellion, it was provided that the lord lieutenant may during the rebellion, whether the courts of justice be open or not, issue his orders to the officers of the forces and others, to take the most vigorous measures for suppressing it, and to punish all rebels by death or otherwise, as to them shall seem expedient, &c., and to cause all persons arrested as rebels to be tried in a summary manner by courts-martial, &c. Upon the same principle, the Habeas Corpus Act may, upon emergency, be suspended by the joint consent of the crown and the two houses of parliament.

(1) As to the Royal Hospital at

Chelsea, see 47 Geo. 3, st. 2, c. 25; 55 Geo. 3, cc. 125, 136; 7 Geo. 4, c. 16; 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 106, ss. 3, 4; 5 & 6 Vict. c. 70; 6 & 7 Vict. cc. 31, 95; 9 & 10 Vict. cc. 9, 10; 10 & 11 Vict. cc. 4, 54; 11 & 12 Vict. cc. 84, 103. As to the Royal Military Asylum at Chelsea for reception of children of soldiers, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 61. As to Chelsea Hospital out-pensioners, 19 & 20 Vict. c. 15. As to military savings banks and benefit societies, 5 & 6 Vict. c. 71; 8 & 9 Vict. c. 27; 12 & 13 Vict. c. 71; post, bk. Iv. pt. III. Index, tit. "Savings Banks."

(m) Stat. 29 Car. 2, c. 3; 5 Will. 3, c. 21, s. 6; 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 26; vide sup. p. 202, et vol. 1. p. 597.

(n) "Si milites quid in clypeo literis

The law relating to the naval forces is very similar to the former. [The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its antient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island; an army, from which, however strong and powerful, no danger can ever be apprehended to liberty: and accordingly it has been assiduously cultivated, even from the earliest ages.] And yet, [so vastly inferior were our ancestors to the present age in point of naval power, that even in the maritime reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke (p) thinks it matter of boast that the royal navy of England then consisted of three and thirty ships (q).]

[Many laws have been made for the supply of the royal navy with seamen; for their regulation when on board; and to confer privileges and rewards on them during and after their service.]

1. [First, for their supply. The power of impressing seafaring men for the sea service by the royal commission, has been a matter of some dispute, and submitted to with great reluctance; though it hath very clearly and learnedly been shown, by Sir Michael Foster (r), that the practice of impressing, and granting powers to the admiralty for that purpose, is of very antient date, and hath been uniformly continued by a regular series of precedents to the present time whence he concludes it to be part of the common law (s)]: and its legality is now so fully established, that it cannot admit of a doubt in any court of justice (t). Indeed

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it is recognized and made the subject of particular provisions in various acts of parliament. [The statute 2 Rich. II. c. 4, speaks of mariners being arrested and retained for the king's service, as of a thing well known and practised without dispute; and provides a remedy against their running away. By a later statute (u), if any waterman, who uses the river Thames, shall hide himself during the execution of any commission of pressing for the king's service, he is liable to heavy penalties. By another (x), no fisherman shall be taken by the queen's commission to serve as a mariner; but the commission shall be first brought to two justices of the peace, inhabiting near the sea coast where the mariners are to be taken, to the intent that the justices may choose out and return such a number of able-bodied men, as in the commission are contained, to serve her Majesty. And by others (y), especial protections are allowed to seamen in particular circumstances, to prevent them from being impressed (2).]

[But besides this method of impressing (which is only defensible from public necessity, to which all private considerations must give way) there are other ways] that tend to the manning the royal navy. [Great advantages in point of wages are given to volunteer seamen ;] and where they are already engaged in the merchant service, they are enabled to leave it without punishment or forfeiture, in order to engage in that of her majesty (a). To which it may be added, [that every foreign seaman, who during a war shall serve two years in any man of war, merchantman, or privateer, is naturalized ipso facto (b).]

(u) Stat. 2 & 3 Phil. & M. c. 16. (r) Stat. 5 Eliz. c. .

(y) See stat. 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 21; 2 Ann. c. 6; 4 & 5 Ann. c. 19; 13 Geo. 2, c. 17; 2 Geo. 3, c. 15; 11 Geo. 3, c. 38; 19 Geo. 3, c. 75, &c. Ex parte Boggin, 13 East, 549.

(z) As to the limitation of the time of service in the navy, see 5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 24; 16 & 17 Vict.

c. 69. By sect. 9 of the latter act the term of service may be extended as occasion may require, by her majesty's proclamation; and such bounty given in that respect as her majesty may think fit to direct.

(a) Merchant Shipping Act, 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 104), s. 214). (b) 13 Geo. 2, c. 3.

2. The method of ordering seamen in the royal fleet is closely analogous to that established for the government of the army; but there is this difference between them, that the scheme of naval discipline, instead of being provided for by annual acts, is laid down in a permanent statute, 22 Geo. II. c. 33, amended by 19 Geo. III. c. 17 (c), and 10 & 11 Vict. c. 59. [From whence this distinction arose, it is hard to assign a reason, unless it proceeded from the perpetual establishment of the navy, which rendered a permanent law for their regulation expedient; and the temporary duration of the army, which subsisted only from year to year.] But [whatever was apprehended at the first formation of the Mutiny Act, the regular renewal of our standing force at the entrance of every year has made this distinction idle. For if from experience past we may judge of future events, the army is now lastingly engrafted into the British constitution; with this singularly fortunate circumstance, that any branch of the legislature may annually put an end to its legal existence, by refusing to concur in its continuance.]

This system of regulations for the fleet, called the Articles of the Navy, after defining a great variety of offences, and fixing the appropriate punishment, concludes with a provision that all other crimes not capital, which are not mentioned in the act, or for which no punishment is thereby directed, shall be punished according to the laws and customs "in such cases used at sea;" but all the capital crimes (with many others) are defined in the act itself.

Even those of the capital kind are too numerous to be conveniently specified in this place, but, like those contained in the Mutiny Acts, they comprise the offences of

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