Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/1487

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ATKINSON v. R. [1785]
III BROWN.

Case 4.—Christopher Atkinson,—Plaintiff; The King,—Defendant (in Error) [1st July 1785].

[Mews' Dig. iv. 1902.]

The seals of the justices of oyer and terminer are not essentially necessary for the removing or authenticating a record transmitted to the Court of King's Bench. The return of the justices to a certiorari is a mere ministerial act, which the court requires to be authenticated in a particular form; but as it is a form prescribed by no positive law of land, the court which requires it may receive and adopt any other authentic certificate that the record transmitted is the genuine record of the court below, and the omission of the particular form can only be objected to by the court itself.—It is not the ordinary practice of any court of criminal jurisdiction, to make the day upon which execution of any corporal punishment is to be done, a part of the original sentence. The time of inflicting such punishment is usually left either to the discretion of the officer to whom the execution of the sentence belongs, or is appointed by a particular rule of the court [or statute; see 26 & 27 Vict. c. 44] which awards the punishment.

At a general session of oyer and terminer holden for the county of Middlesex, at the Session House for the said county, on the 24th day of February, in the 23d year of the reign of his present majesty, before William Mainwaring, Esq. the Reverend Sir George Booth, Bart. Thomas Cogan, George Alcock, John Staple, Esqrs. and other justices named in his majesty's commission of oyer and terminer, under the great seal of Great Britain; a bill of indictment was found by the grand jury there, against the said Christopher Atkinson, for wilful and corrupt perjury, in the following words; that is to say,

Middlesex to wit. The jurors of our sovereign lord the king, upon their oath, present, that Christopher Atkinson, late of Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, Esq. for divers years now last past, hath carried on and exercised the trade and business of a cornfactor; and that the said Christopher Atkinson, whilst he so carried on and exercised the aforesaid trade and business, and before the making of the affidavit herein-after mentioned as such cornfactor, purchased for and supplied the commissioners of our said lord the king for victualling his majesty's navy for the time being, with divers large quantities of malt and grain: and the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present, that the said Christopher Atkinson, contriving and intending to aggrieve and injure one William Bennett, on the 7th day of February, in the 21st year of the reign of our said present sovereign Lord George the third, King of Great Britain, and so forth, in order to obtain a rule of the [518] court of our said lord the king, before the king himself, against the said William Bennett, whereby it might be ordered by the said court, that a day should be given to the said William Bennett, to show cause why an information should not be exhibited against him the said William Bennett for certain misdemeanors, in publishing certain supposed scandalous libels concerning the said Christopher Atkinson, as such cornfactor, in purchasing and supplying the said commissioners for victualling his majesty's navy, did come in his the said Christopher Atkinson's proper person into the said court of our said lord the king before the king himself, (the said court then being at Westminster aforesaid, in the county of Middlesex aforesaid,) and did then and there produce to the said court a certain affidavit in writing of him the said Christopher Atkinson, to be exhibited to the said court for the purpose aforesaid, and then and there, before the same court, was duly sworn, and took his corporal oath upon the holy gospel of God concerning the truth of the matters contained in the said affidavit, (the same court then and there having a lawful and competent authority to administer the same oath to the said Christopher Atkinson, and to take and receive the said affidavit of the said Christopher Atkinson;) and that the said Christopher Atkinson being so sworn as aforesaid, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, and having no regard to the laws and statutes of this realm, nor fearing the punishment therein contained, did then and there, to wit, on the said 7th day of February, in the 21st year aforesaid, at

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