the Petition, they do occur, over and over again, in the
arguments used in the House of Commons by "the framers of the Petition
of Right," to employ the phraseology of the judgment recently delivered
in the Privy Council by the Lord Chancellor.

2. The prohibition contained in the Petition, so far from being
"absolute and unqualified," is perfectly specific. It refers expressly
to "Commissions of like nature" with certain Commissions lately
issued:--

"By which certain persons have been assigned and appointed
Commissioners, with power and authority to proceed within the
land, according to the justice of martial law, against such
soldiers or mariners, or other dissolute persons joining with
them, as should commit any murder, robbery, felony, mutiny,
or other outrage or misdemeanour whatsoever, and by such
summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and
is used in armies in time of war, &c."

The text of these Commissions, the revocation of which is demanded by
the Petition, is still extant.

3. The Petition neither affirms nor denies the legality of martial law
in time of war; although its advocates were agreed that at such a time
martial law would be applicable to soldiers.

4. A war carried on at a distance from the English shore as was the war
with France in 1628, did not produce such a state of things as was
described by the advocates of the Petition as "a time of war." "We have
now no army in the field, and it is no time of war," said Mason in the
course of the debates. "If the Chancery and Courts of Westminster be
shut up, it is time of war, but if the Courts be open, it is otherwise;
yet, if war be in any part of the Kingdom, that the Sheriff cannot
execute the King's writ, there is _tempus belli_," said Rolls.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Oxford, December 31 (1901).

THE PETITION OF RIGHT

Sir,--In a letter which you allowed me to address to you a few days ago,
I dealt with two perfectly distinct topics.

In the first place I pointed out that the words occurring in a recent
judgment of the Privy Council, which were cited by Mr. Jenks as a clear
example of an assumption "that the Petition of Right, in prohibiting the
exercise of martial law, restricted its prohibition to time of peace,"
imply, as I read them, no assumption as to the meaning of that document,
but merely contain an accurate statement of fact as to the lin