determine, that an action in itself innocent or indifferent was attended with a criminal intention. Such an inference, my Lords, was never made in a free country, nor under any government but that of a tyrannical as well as arbitrary administration. “Another security for our liberties is that no subject can be imprisoned unless some felonious and high crime be sworn against him. If the crime be not in itself atrocious, or if there be only a suspicion sworn against him, the greatest hardship he can be subjected to is to be imprisoned till he gives bail for his appearance; and if any of our inferior judges refuse to admit him to bail, the subject so aggrieved may immediately apply by Habeas Corpus to the King’s Courts in Westminster Hall, the judges of which are now, by the late happy Revolution, put above being influenced by any authority but that of justice and the established laws of the country; nor awed by anything but that of their own reputation or an impeachment in Parliament, which would certainly be the consequence if they refused justice to any of the least of his Majesty’s subjects. This, my Lords, with respect to private persons, is the very foundation-stone of all our liberties, and if we remove it, if we but knock off a corner, we may very probably overturn the whole fabrick. “Having premised these observations upon our constitution, and upon the nature of a free government, give me leave, my Lords, to apply them to that clause in this bill which subjects every man[50] in this kingdom to the danger, nay, I may say certainty, of being committed to prison by a single justice of peace, without bail or mainprize, and of being convicted and transported as a smuggler; and all this without his having been guilty of any one overt act, except that of travelling properly armed for his defence, and having perhaps the misfortune to meet with two of his friends upon the road armed in the same manner, in case any two[51] rogues of informers shall swear that this honest man and his friends were assembled and armed in order to be aiding and assisting in the landing of prohibited goods. This regulation, when stripped of that multiplicity of words which render obscure the meaning and interest of every clause of an Act of Parliament, really seems to me to be the most terrible and the most entrapping regulation that was ever proposed in any country. If it passes into a law, I am sure it will not be quite safe for any three gentlemen in the kingdom to be seen in company together. It is evident at first view that this regulation is repugnant to all the maxims of free government. The wearing of arms is in itself an act not only innocent but commendable, therefore no presumption of any crime can thence be inferred.[52] And for this reason the admitting of witnesses to prove that any three men were so armed for purposes of smuggling, is admitting witnesses to prove an intention without any one