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is not applicable to the present case. Here is no crime, unless the being born in a foreign dominion be so; and there can be no punishment where there is no guilt, no command neglected, no prohibition broken. Here is no act of parliament to impute it as a crime, with respect to the public; no prohibition, no condition annexed to a gift, to impute it as a contravention of the private law of the donor. Here is no loss, no forfeiture, no right to be divested; for the appellant took nothing originally, but for the benefit of the Crown; and it has been held, that the Crown may sue in equity for lands vested in a subject, for the benefit of an alien. 3. That it does not appear that his Majesty has any estate in the premises; nor can any act done by the Court give him any estate therein. But supposing the fact of the appellant's being an alien, which for the present purpose is admitted by the demurrer, the King has a clear right to her estate in the premises; he has likewise a clear remedy for it by commission, as before-mentioned: this is his legal suit for recovery, and in the present case it is commenced; nor can there be a reason given why this remedy, the only one which the Crown has, should not be entitled to the like equitable assistance in point of discovery, as other legal remedies are.

But it was added further at the bar, by way of objection, that it is not a vested estate in the Crown till an office found. To this however it may be answered, that it is a right, and therefore must have a remedy; and that the discovery is connected with, and part of that remedy. It is at least a right to a commission, which carries along with it, as an incident, a right to the means of making that commission effectual. But if it was not so certain a right as it is, if it was a bare chance, possibility, or belonging to an infant in ventre sa mere, it still is the subject of a suit in equity, and consequently of a discovery.

As to the demurrer to the discovery of the infant's being an alien, the cause alledged is, that the appellant may be a witness. But she is interested also, having £300 a-year dependent on the fact. It was therefore hoped, that the order would be affirmed, and the appeal dismissed.

After hearing counsel on this appeal, the following question was put to the judges, viz. "Whether the legal disability of an alien to hold lands, be a penalty or forfeiture?" And the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas having delivered the opinion of the judges in the negative, it was thereupon ordered and adjudged, that the appeal should be dismissed, and the order of the Court of Exchequer therein complained of, affirmed. (Jour. vol. 28. p. 49.)

By several letters patent, and by several statutes confirming the same, and particularly by an act passed in the 9th year of King William III. and by letters patent, dated the 5th of September, in the 10th year of his reign, the sole trade in, to, and from the East Indies, in the countries and parts of Asia and Africa, and the islands, ports, havens, cities, creeks, towns, and places of Asia, Africa, and America, or any of them beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Streights of Magellan, in the said letters patent and statutes mentioned, were solely vested in the East India Company.

By an act passed in the 7th year of King George I. intitled, An act for the further preventing his Majesty's subjects from trading to the East Indies under foreign commissions, and for encouraging and further securing the lawful trade thereto, and for further regulating the pilots of Dover, Deal, and the Isle of Thanet, it was, among other things, enacted, That it should be lawful for his Majesty's Attorney General for the time being, at the relation of the Company, or