TRIAL OF THE BRAES CROFTERS. 53 



would have relieved him of a considerable deal of personal 

 responsibility ; but it was not what he desired, but what was 

 really the law on the point. It was quite true, and it had 

 been the opinion of most distinguished lawyers in this 

 country, that there was no point less fixed than as to when 

 a trial was to be by jury or not. In the present case, even 

 should he have been of opinion which he was not that 

 the nature of the offence as detailed in the complaint before 

 him was unfit for summary trial, he did not think he could 

 interfere with the discretion of the public prosecutor in 

 trying under the Summary Procedure Acts, as the penalty 

 craved did not extend beyond the limits set forth in these 

 Acts. 



Mr. Macdonald then stated that he objected to the relev- 

 ancy of the indictment. The libel amounted to this that 

 Angus Martin, who lived at Portre'e, proceeded on a certain 

 day towards, or in the direction of, certain townships ; and 

 that on the way there, at a certain place, he was met by 

 certain people, and had his warrants taken from him. The 

 question for his lordship was whether that amounted to 

 deforcement. The act charged in the indictment, Mr. 

 Macdonald contended, might be theft, or mobbing and 

 rioting, or assault, but it was not deforcement. To be 

 deforced, an officer must be assaulted, and be in bodily fear 

 while in the execution of his duty ; but in the libel it was 

 not mentioned that Martin ever made an attempt to execute 

 the warrants he carried. There was nothing to show that 

 the officers had got near to the residences of any of the 

 persons upon whom they meant to serve the summonses 

 nothing even to show that even on the road they were near 

 to any of the men against whom they held summonses. He 

 quoted from Hume, Alison, and Macdonald's works on 

 Criminal Law to show that an officer could only be deforced 



