a bill is next to be preferred to
the grand jury of the county, in which the nature of the crime is
properly set forth, and after hearing the evidence brought by the
prosecutor to support the charge, they return the bill to the Court,
marked_ Billa Vera _or_ Ignoramus. _In the first case the prisoner is
required to be tried by the petit jury of twelve, and to abide their
verdict; in case of the latter, he is to be discharged and freed from
that prosecution. But the grand jury must find or not find the bill
entire, for a_ Billa Vera _to one part and an_ Ignoramus _to another
renders the whole proceeding void and is of the same use to the prisoner
as if they had returned an_ Ignoramus _upon the whole._

_Many without knowing the Law have taken occasion to be very free with
its precedents, and to treat them as things written in barbarous Latin,
in which an unreasonable, if not ridiculous nicety is sometimes
required. But when this comes to be thoroughly examined, we shall find
that their proceedings are exactly conformable to reason, for if care
and circumspection be necessary in deeds and writings relating to civil
affairs, ought it not a fortiori to be more so where the life, liberty,
reputation and everything that is dear and valuable to the subject is at
stake? Therefore, since there are technical words in all sciences,
surely the Law is not to be blamed for preserving certain words to which
they have affixed particular and determined meanings for the expressing
of such crimes as are made more or less culpable by the Legislature.
Thus_ Murdravit _is absolutely necessary in an indictment charging the
prisoner with a murder;_ Caepit _is the term made use of in indictments
of larceny._ Mayhemaivit _expresses the fact charged in an indictment of
maim;_ Felonice _is absolutely necessary in all indictments of felony of
what kind soever;_ Burglariter _is the Latin word made use of to express
that breaking which from particular circumstances our Law has called
burglary, and appointed certain punishment for those who are guilty
thereof._ Proditorie _expresses the Act in indictments of treason, and
even if these are not Latin words, justified by the usage of Roman
authors, the certainty which they give to those charges in which they
are used, and which could not be so well expressed by circumlocutions,
is a full answer to that objection, since the proceedings before a Court
aim not at elegancy, but at Justice. But let us now go