He afterwards proceeds to specify among the different kinds of contempt, "the speaking ❝or writing contemptuously of the Court or "Judges, acting in their judicial capacity, and "in short any thing that demonstrates a gross

want of that regard and respect, which when "once Courts of Justice are deprived of, their "authority is lost among the people."

Lord Hardwicke also, in the case of Roach and Garvan, where he granted an attachment against the printers of two newspapers, for accusing a party to a suit in Chancery of perjury, states as the first of the three different sorts of contempt which he enumerates, "the scandali"zing the Court itself," and adds that "there "cannot be any thing of greater consequence

than to keep the streams of justice clear and “pure, that parties may proceed with safety to themselves and character."

The best illustration of this doctrine, is to be found perhaps, in a case which occurred in the year 1746.

Lieutenant Frye considering himself aggreived by the sentence of a Naval Court Martial,

2 Atkins, p. 471.

Martial, commenced an action against two of its members, and taking out a capias from the Court of Common Pleas, arrested them both while serving on another Court Martial of great importance.

The members of the Court Martial, thus interrupted, resented this proceeding as an outrage upon them, and passed some resolutions, characterizing in the most offensive terms the conduct of the Chief Justice, Sir John Willes, in whose name the capias had necessarily issued, and who had likewise publicly recommended that this action should be instituted,

To call these resolutions an obstruction of the process of the Court of Common Pleas would be absurd, for that had already taken its course and met with no resistance; but the judges felt that it was as much their duty to punish an insult against the dignity of the court, as it would have been to have enforced obedience to its authority.

Their tipstaff was therefore directed to take into custody all the members of the Court Martial, nor was their offence pardoned until they had personally delivered in Westminter Hall, a full and complete written submission, which was entered among the Records of the Court of Com

mon

mon Pleas, and published in the London Ga

zette.

This practice has continued uninterruptedly down to our own times. I believe the last case reported, is, that exparte Jones* where Lord Erskine granted an attachment for a libel published against the committee of a lunatic, and committed the authors and the printer to the Fleet prison; stating, at the same time, "it never has "or can be denied, that a publication not only "withan obvious tendency, but with a design to "obstruct the ordinary course of justice is a very

high contempt....... The book could be pub"lished with no other intention than to obstruct "the duties cast upon the petitioner, and to bring "into contempt the orders that had been made."..

But the clearest and fullest discussion of the whole doctrine of attachment is to be found in the argument which Sir Eardley Wilmot had prepared to deliver in the case of the King and Almon; with some extracts from which I shall conclude this part of the subject.

* 13 Vesey, 239.

Wilmot.

Published in the Appendix to the Life of Sir Eardley

"The power which the courts in Westmin"ster Hall have, of vindicating their own authority, is coeval with their first foundation and institution: it is a necessary incident to

66

every court of justice, whether of record or "not, to fine and imprison for a contempt to "the court, acted in the face of it. 1. Vent 1. "And the issuing of attachments by the supreme "courts of justice in Westminster Hall, for con"tempts out of court, stands upon the same im"memorial usage as supports the whole fabric of "the common law it is as much the "lex "terra," and within the exception of Magna "Charta, as the issuing any other legal process "whatsoever.

I have examined very carefully, to see if "I could find out any vestiges or traces of its in"troduction, but can find none. It is as ancient 66 as any other part

of the common law there is no priority or posteriority to be discovered "about it, and therefore cannot be said to in"vade the common law, but to act in an alliance "and friendly conjunction with every other pro"vision, which the wisdom of our ancestors has "established for the general good of society. And "though I do not mean to compare and contrast "attach

"attachments with trials by jury, yet truth com "pels me to say, that the mode of proceeding by "attachment stands upon the very same founda"tion and basis as trials by jury do,immemorial usage and practice: it is a constitutional remedy in particular cases, and the judges, in "those cases, are as much bound to give an activity to this part of the law, as to any other

*

part of it. Indeed it is admitted, that attach«ments are very properly granted for resistance. of process, or a contumelious treatment of it σε or any violence or abuse of the ministers, or κε others, employed to execute it. But it is said, "that the course of justice, in those cases, is ob"structed, and the obstruction must be instantly removed that there is no such necessity in the "case of libels upon courts or judges, which may "wait for the ordinary method of prosecution, "without any inconvenience whatsoever. But "when the nature of the offence of libelling

judges, for what they do in their judicial capa « cities, either in court or out of court, comes to "be considered, it does, in my opinion, become more proper for an attachment, than any other

"case whatsoever.

"In the moral estimation of the offence, and