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A47058
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The crie of blood, or, A confutation of those thirteene reasons of the felicers at Westminster for the maintenance of their illegall capias for debt by which is discovered the great benefit and freedome that will accrew to the people of the common wealth by the reformation of that destructive law / by Joht [sic] Jones of Neyath in Com. Brecon, gent.
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Jones, John.
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1653
(1653)
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Wing J964B; ESTC R33617
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21,569
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96
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THE CRIE OF BLOOD OR A Confutation of those Thirteene Reasons of the Felicers at Westminster for the maintenance of their illegall Capias for Debt By which is discovered the great benefit and freedome that will accrew to the people of the Common wealth by the reformation of that destructive Law Luk. 11.46 Woe unto you Lawyars for ye lade men with burthens grievous to be borne c. By Joht Jones of Neyath in Com Brecon Gent. LONDON Printed for Thomas Matthewes at the Cock in St. Pauls Church-yard 1653. To his Excellence OLIVER CROMWEL Lord General of the puissant Armie of the PARLAMENT of ENGLAND Renowned Sir AS your Command is general so are your cares troubles sufferings actions and endeavors all general for the general good of this Nation in general Nor is the case and number of the Prisoners for Debt in England and Wales for whom you have been and are a sollicitous although yet improsperous mediator to the Hous of Parlament so small a particular but that as the prudent King Philip of Macedon who accompted his bodie but small to the rest of his endowments and knew it to be mortal desired to be dailie remembred he was mortal to the end he should not more glorie in what he had well done than persevere in well-doing and finishing his wel-begun enterprises that so he might immortalise his fame and illustrate the faculties of his immortal virtues that posteritie might speak of him not like Pythagorists of their master ipse dixit but ipse fecit nay more ipse perfecit I hope likewise your Excellence will not be offended with me one of the heartiest though of the meanest of your Honors wel-wishers to mind you of the neglected miseries of the said prisoners now more then ever likelier to be continued and increased then relieved or abated by the generation of Lawyers overswaying the mildeness of those Parlament Members that have long promised you to be merciful to such Prisoners and to hasten their enlargement out of their wrongful imprisonments which if you see performed as hereafter is desired wil be an action of no less Divinitie then Charitie and no lesse profit then Honour to your self in particular and the Common-wealth in general The Officers in Law have latelie presented the Parlament with 13. Reasons or the maintenance of Arrests and Imprisonment for Debt contrarie to Magna Charta and the Petition of Right as I have eftsoons proved elswhere and repugnant even to Reason it self as I have here following farther declared in answer to their said Reasons in the Prisoner's behalf in which and whose names I likewise humbly dedicate the same to your Honor with a copie of the said Reasons hereunto first annexed as it came to my hands and next an answer to their preamble and afterward particular answers to their particular Ratiocinations and lastly the Prisoner's humble Petition to your Honor all which I could not have readie before Colonel Pride's departure whom God prosper in your Service and the Common-wealth's whose welfare hee preferreth above all worldlie ends but have now presumed to send them unto you beseeching your Honor that your Lieutenant General Colonel Fleetwood a man of no less worth then eminence or some other like publik spirit may act in this matter and others of the like nature in your Honor's absence according to your directions and the people's necessitie from time to time that no opportunitie bee lost and more lives of Prisoners bee saved and your care thereof to the uttermost expessed The Lord President of the Council of State and Col. Martin are conceived to bee no less willing then able to procure such a Commission as the Petitioners desire and Law would afford if your Honor would be pleased to write to them which I humblie submit to your Honor's consideration So wisheth your dailie Orator John Jones REASONS for the continuance of the process of Arrests for the good of the Common-wealth THe proceedings by waie of Arrest at the King's Suit and in all actions that were Quare vi Armis between the subjects are as ancient as the Common Law of this Land but the process for the people in other Actions was Summons Attachment and distress which Cours as to recover Debts did prove delatorie and manie times fruitless to the great hinderance of Marchandise and other Commerce in this Nation and therefore former Parliaments did provide as appears by divers Statutes the writ of Capias to an Arrest as a full remedie and most necessarie for this Common-wealth 3 Rep. 12. Sir Will Herbert's Case 52 Hen. 3. in Accomp 1267.25 Edw. 3. c. 17. An. Dom. 1350. 1. Becaus attaching the person doth secure the Petitioner's debt either by present paiment or causing other satisfaction which the proceedings by summons do not and as a man will give all for his life so hee will do much for his libertie 2. When men are deteined upon the Arrest which is but seldom for few are arrested in comparison and then it is ordinarilie but for a short time until they have given securitie to answer the Action or som warrant to appear 3. If men may not proceed by Arrest it will much hinder Trade and other dealings for men will not adventure to trust where there is much libertie for the debtor to stand out and Merchants and Trades men manie times look upon the Person as the best securitie and the remedie by Arrest the speediest to gain their debts without which Trade will necessarilie decaie 4. The process to Arrest doth end most suits before the Person bee attached and before appearance as experience doth shew for when men will not regard a summons they will take cours before they will suffer an Arrest 52 Hen. 3. cap. 23. 5. Men will take occasion from the summons as formerlie they have done to be gon from one Countrie to another and to make awaie their estates and though the Plaintiff know it yet hee cannot help himself which the Arrest doth prevent And the Law-makers of this Land have ever held it more reasonable to provide for the satisfaction of the Creditor then the libertie of the Debtor 6. England is an Island compassed with manie Port Towns where there are manie Merchants and men that go abroad and trade by Sea who buie wares upon Credit there wil bee continual occasion of suits against divers persons of this sort who will not much regard the summons but will betake themselves and their estates to Sea again and the Creditor can have no remedie whereas if the parties maie bee Attached they wil make satisfaction 7. Whereas divers tradesmen subsist upon their Credits and take up great summes of Monie for which they can give no other securitie then their persons and by advantage thereof manie times attein to great estates but if the process of arrest bee taken awaie they can hope no more to bee intrusted which apparentlie tend's to their ruine 8. And that proceedings by Arrest maie not seem
13 fals Reasons for the supportation of their innumerable falsities wee shall descend to fist those Reasons as followeth 1. The first is all fals for the attaching of persons secureth no part of the Plaintiffs debts by paiment or other satisfaction but commonly their debtors bodies to miserable deaths and their estates from their heirs and creditors to Lawyers and Officers For the proceedings by Summons wee have answered before And for Prisoners that are able to give for their libertie or their Gaolers they have as much as they desire and paie for out of their creditors rights and their own Frie and not the Plaintiffs or their heirs have their Gaoler's leavings 2. The second is like the first for it is not a few that are deteined for debt when Sir Jo. Lenâ—hal hath in his custodie or list one thousand persons the Warden of the Fleet as many the Gaols of London Westminister and Liberties adjoining few less and in the rest of all the Gaols of England and Wales will bee found many more They that accompt so many few declare their desire is to have all the Free-men of England and Wales except themselves in the same case why and with whom els do they make the comparison but becaus they conveiv there are more persons out of prison then in their detention is not seldom but frequent and so are murthers and hurts committed as well before and at as after arrests by reason thereof they are not deteined for a short time but ordinarily till death as aforesaid Warrant of Atturnie if they need any Atturnies they ought to give to whom they pleas and not to whom any Court appointeth And for appearance no Free-man oweth it to any Court out of his Decenarie Hundred or Countie 3. The third is but a blockhead-ship's Proëm as untrue as the former and so demonstrated in our answer thereunto before No Trade but Lawyers nor such but Westmonasterians will bee hindered by taking away the Capias It was the lawless use thereof that caused more Usurers then Merchants to look after men's persons It never was nor could bee the speediest waie for Plaintiffs to gain their debts but the most delatorie to recover and the most readie and usual to lose them so as the repetition of the decaie of Trade if the Capias were taken off is but tautologie for want of reason and an abuse of Parlament to bee offered such untruths to hear or look upon punishable as aforesaid 4. The fourth is as bad as all the former for the attaching of a man's person where he hath neither means to paie nor friends to bail produceth no end but Imprisonment Summons and Attachments of men's goods where they have to paie conduce to the speediest end between Debtor and Creditor Hee that hath of his own to paie will regard Summons lest if that hee bee attached hee shall lose all and if submitted to his Creditor's mercie hee may save som Hee that hath enough or more then sufficient to paie his Creditors of his own estate will neither regard Summons nor fear Arrest but desire it beeing sure of what libertie hee pleaseth paying his Gaoler and to leav what his Gaoler leaveth to whom hee list as aforesaid whereby more Creditors are cheated then by any other deceit and more undon then debtors of that kinde who commonly live too plentifully and leav somthing when their Creditors have nothing whereby to live or whereof to leav 5. The fifth is as untrue as the rest for a debtor that is worth the Summoning can live no where better then in his Decenarie where hee is best known and hath his pledges answerable for his honestie nor can hee transfer his estate to any other Countie but to his loss And his avoiding the due cours of Law is a misdemeanor that depriveth him of the benefit depriveth him of the benefit thereof which beeing certified by a Testatum a Capias of cours ensueth to pursue him from Countie to Countie till hee bee found or outlawed which was ever lawful against such as waved their Law and freedom to anser it in its due cours and such a Certificate of the Sheriff of that Countie whence hee fled ought to make to the Chancerie whence hee had his Justices to determine the matter and the Chancerie ought to send the Capias to the Sheriff in whose Countie hee doth latitare discurrere and so the alias Plures Exigent and Outlawrie till hee bee forced to return himself to the first Sheriffs to have his caus determined there by his Peers as it ought all which affording fifteen daies between Process and Process is feasible in half a year and what hee shall bee then found to have left of his personal estate his creditors must have all and two parts of his real with less then a tenth part of the fees and delaies used at Westminster which old cours of Law beeing restored and so known will make everie able debtor submit to Summons and farther Process especially Outlawries more terrible and odious then now when they are but scare-crows reversable and extinguishable by their grantors for their gain at their pleasures For the debtor that is not worth the summoning up on the Sheriffs return of Non est inventus nihil habet the Law is ended as aforesaid until God enable him And in the interim wheresoëver hee lurketh or liveth by lawful endeavors Cantabil vacuus coram latrone viator no debtor justly indebted can or ought to bee suffered by any just law or equitie to make away his estate before hee paie his just debts for it is not his own but his creditor's and such Conveiances ought to bee adjudged fraudulent although the fraudulent makers of that fraudulent Statute have inserted the words honlifide for themselves and their imps who never had good faith or honestie to expound for their profit as aforesaid for good faith can do no man wrong but fals Lawyer 's interpretations thereof and of the Law commonly wrong all men and enrich onely themselves The Lord coke in the Third part of his Institutes upon the Writ de odio atia declareth these men to bee lier that charge the Law or its makers with more regard of men's debets then their liberties 6. The fixth is of the same stuff and in substance answered before Do more Merchants trade out of England by sea becaus it is an Island then into it out of larger and Forrain lands where the Capias for debt was never known Do not these men buy wares upon trust and trade to sea as often as the English and having no Capias have their creditors no Laws to recover their debts is it not better to attach their debtor's goods or their then their bodies And so hath London used to do by Custom and other Towns and Ports ought to have don so aswel and the Law of the Admiraltie hath its cours of Justice within its jurisdiction Wil common Lawyers have no Law but their