oluntarily crossed the English frontier; that it was
no defence for them to say that they then had arms in their hands and
intended to murder the Queen's subjects."--_Life of Lord Campbell_,
ii.,119. It certainly would have been no _defence_; but would it not
have taken their conduct from under the definition of _treason_, and
made it an act of _piracy_?]

[Footnote 255: See Fox's words, quoted by Lord Stanhope.--_Life of
Pitt_, ii., 90.]

[Footnote 256: A couple of years after the period which is the boundary
of the present work, this Canadian constitution of 1841 was superseded
by a measure uniting Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in one
federal government, with, as the act recites, "a constitution similar in
principle to that of the United Kingdom." The act farther provided for
the admission of other dependencies of the crown in North America,
Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, and Rupert's Land
into the union, and established as the constitution of the whole one
scarcely differing from that of 1841, with the exception that both the
Houses of the Legislature--called in the act the Senate and the House of
Commons--were to be representative bodies, and that powers were
conferred on them so absolutely free and independent, that it was
thought necessary to add a clause providing that their "privileges,
immunities, and powers were never to exceed those at the passing of the
act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members
thereof."]

[Footnote 257: Lord Campbell, in his autobiography, puts the
transaction, in the phase at which it had now arrived, in a very serious
light: "Next came a proceeding which placed me in a most difficult
position; and the public never knew the danger which then existed of a
convulsion unexampled in our history. The sheriffs sued out a writ of
_habeas corpus_, directed to the Sergeant-at-arms, commanding him to
produce before the Court of Queen's Bench the sheriffs of Middlesex,
alleged to be illegally in custody, with the cause of their detention.
Wilde, the Solicitor-general, was strong for refusing to make any return
to the writ, and for setting the Court of Queen's Bench at defiance. Had
I concurred in this opinion it would certainty have been acted on. The
consequences would have been that the Sergeant-at-arms, even with the
mace in his hand, would have been sent to Newgate b