COMMISSION FOR THE VERGE. 97 



add, for so I conceive of the law, the child to the 

 father or the mother; and this the law terms petty 

 treason. 



The second is, Where a man is slain upon fore 

 thought malice, which the law terms murder ; and 

 it is an offence horrible and odious, and cannot be 

 blanched, nor made fair, but foul. 



The third is, Where a man is killed upon a sud 

 den heat or affray, whereunto the law gives some 

 little favour, because a man in fury is not himself, 

 * ira furor brevis,&quot; wrath is a short madness ; and 

 the wisdom of law in his majesty s time hath made a 

 subdivision of the stab given, where the party stabbed 

 is out of defence, and had not given the first blow, 

 from other manslaughters. 



The fourth degree is, That of killing a man in 

 the party s own defence, or by misadventure, which 

 though they be not felonies, yet nevertheless the law 

 doth not suffer them to go unpunished : because it 

 doth discern some sparks of a bloody mind in the 

 one, and of carelessness in the other. 



And the fifth is, Where the law doth admit a 

 kind of justification, not by plea, for a man may not, 

 that hath shed blood, affront the law with pleading 

 not guilty ; but when the case is found by verdict, 

 being disclosed upon the evidence ; as where a man 

 in the king s highway and peace is assailed to be 

 murdered or robbed ; or when a man defending his 

 house, which is his castle, against unlawful violence; 

 or when a sheriff or minister of justice is resisted in 

 the execution of his office ; or when the patient dieth 

 VOL. vi. H 



