28 COBBETT'S [No. 



there mentioned the foul conduct of BLACKSTONE, the 

 author of the "Commentaries on the Laws of Eng- 

 land." I will not treat this unprincipled lawyer, this 

 shocking court sycophant; I will not treat him as he 

 has treated King Solomon and the Holy Scriptures ; 

 I will not garble, misquote, and belie him, as he gar- 

 bled, misquoted, and belied them ; I will give the 

 whole of the passage to which I allude, and which 

 my readers may find in the Fourth Book of his Com- 

 mentaries. I request you to read it with great atten- 

 tion ,; and to compare it, very carefully, with the pas- 

 sage that I have quoted from SIR MATTHEW HALE, 

 which you will find in paragraphs from 19 to 21 

 inclusive. The passage from BLACKSTONE is as 

 follows : 



35. " There is yet another case of necessity, 

 which has occasioned great speculation among the 

 writers upon general law; viz., whether a man in 

 extreme want of food or clothing may justify steal- 

 ing either, to relieve his present necessities. And 

 this both GROTIUS and PUFFENDORF, together with 

 many other of the foreign jurists, hold in the 

 affirmative; maintaining by many ingenious, hu- 

 mane, and plausible reasons, that in such cases the 

 community of goods by a kind of tacit concession of 

 society is revived. And some even of our own law- 

 yers have held the same ; though it seems to be an 

 unwarranted doctrine, borrowed from the notions of 

 some civilians: at least it is now antiquated, the law 

 of England admitting no such excuse at present. 

 And this its doctrine is agreeable not only to the sen- 

 timents of many of the wisest ancients, particularly 

 CICERO, who holds that c suum cuique incommodum 

 ferendum est, potius quam de alterius commodis cle- 

 trahendum;' but also to the Jewish law, as certified 

 by King Solomon himself: ' If a thief steal to satisfy 

 his soul when he is hungry, he shall restore seven- 

 fold, and shall give all the substance of his house:' 

 which was the ordinary punishment for theft in that 

 kingdom. And this is founded upon the highest rea- 

 son: for men's properties would be under a strange 



