TRIAL OF THE BRAES CROFTERS. 55 



of deforcement, as Mr. Hume says, is not to the indi- 

 vidual, but to the officer and the law, which is violated 

 in his person ; and it lies in the hindrance of these formal 

 and solemn proceedings, which took place under regular 

 written authority, which it belongs only to an officer of the 

 law to perform. It therefore appears to me to.be indispen- 

 sable that the complaint should bear that the officer said to 

 be deforced was at or near the premises of the parties against 

 whom the writs were issued; or that the officer had assumed 

 that official character and entered on his commission, being 

 in the near and immediate preparation with proceeding to 

 the first formalities in the execution of that commission. 

 This complaint does not, in my opinion, contain those 

 essentials ; and therefore, to the extent that I have now 

 stated, the objection must be sustained. 



The Procurator-Fiscal In these circumstances, there is 

 no case of deforcement, and I propose now to proceed with 

 the case as one of assault. 



The Sheriff Of course the offence, though not deforce- 

 ment, may be assault and battery, aggravated certainly by 

 the station of the officer. 



Mr. Macdonald All that there is in the complaint re- 

 garding assault is the phrase, "as also of the crime of 

 assault". There is not a single word about aggravation. 

 I hope there will be no attempt to prove aggravation when 

 there is no aggravation libelled. 



The Sheriff The offence now to be tried is that of 

 assault. Assault, as we know, may be of various degrees. 

 It may be of such a character as would be met by the 

 minimum sentence, and it may be a serious assault. I used 

 the word "aggravated" in the popular rather than the 

 technical sense. The case to be tried was not an assault 



