36 UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 



general union of laws to be too great a work to em 

 brace ; whether it were not convenient that cases ca 

 pital were the same in both nations ; I say the cases, 

 I do not speak of the proceedings or trials ; that 

 is to say, whether the same offences were not fit to 

 be made treason or felony in both places ? 



The third question is, whether cases penal, though 

 not capital, yet if they concern the public state, or 

 otherwise the dicipline of manners, were not fit like 

 wise to be brought into one degree, as the case of 

 misprision of treason, the case of &quot; praemunire,&quot; the 

 case of fugitives, the case of incest, the case of simony, 

 and the rest ? 



But the question that is more urgent than any of 

 these is, whether these cases at the least, be they of 

 an higher or inferior degree, wherein the fact com 

 mitted, or act done in Scotland, may prejudice the 

 state and subjects of England, or &quot; e converse,&quot; are not 

 to be reduced into one uniformity of law and punish 

 ment ? As for example, a perjury committed in a 

 court of justice in Scotland, cannot be prejudicial in 

 England, because depositions taken in Scotland 

 cannot be produced and used here in England. But 

 a forgery of a deed in Scotland, I mean with a false 

 date of England, may be used and given in evidence 

 in England. So likewise the depopulating of a town 

 in Scotland doth not directly prejudice the state 

 of England : but if an English merchant shall 

 carry silver and gold into Scotland, as he may, and 

 thence trnsport it into foreign parts, this prejudiceth 

 the state of England, and may be an evasion to all 



