42 Ed. 3. lib. Assis. N° 5. a commission was sent out of the Chancery to one I. S. and others, to arrest the body and goods of A. B. and him to imprison. And the Justices gave judgment that this Commission was directly against the law, to take any man's body without indictment; and therefore they took the Commission from the Commissioners to the intent to deliver the same to the King's Council, quod nota.

And I do find also in the 24th of Ed. 3. this precedent; that a Commission was granted unto certain persons for to indict all those that were notoriously slandered for any felonies, trespasses, or for any other misdemeanors, yea although they were indicted for the same; and it was adjudged that this commission was directly against the law.

And [thus] I do conclude upon the whole matter that the Commission of Bridewell would be well considered of by the learned Counsell of the city; for I do not think the contrary but that there be learned that by their great knowledge in the law are well able either in a quo warranto, or any other action brought to defend the same, &c.

"These " in MS.

2 So in both MSS. I take the general meaning to be, that though he has given reasons for doubting the validity of the Charter, yet it may be that the City counsel may be able to defend it,

FINIS.

ARGUMENTS OF LAW.

PREFACE.

THE Dedication and first four of these Arguments were printed by Blackbourne in 1730, from Sloane MS. 4263., a MS. largely corrected by Bacon himself. The Dedication, as first copied in the uncorrected draft, must have been written while Coke was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, i. e. before Mich. Term, 1613; but, if I am right in identifying the Case of Impeachment of Waste with Lewis Bowles' Case, the transcript must have been made after Easter Term, 1615. Bacon's interlineations fix his revision as of the time when he was a Privy Councillor and Coke Chief Justice of the King's Bench, i. e. 1616, and before November of that year.

These four Arguments are given in the order of the MS. The others follow in their own chronological order.