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