AND THE LORD SAID UNTO— 39
are exempt from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The question still comes round. What jurisdiction is here contemplated? Is it that jurisdiction to issue high prerogative writs, which cannot be abolished without positive enactment; or is it that jurisdiction to decide those controversies between party and party, which the law designates by the name of suits and actions ? Sir Elijah must have referred to the latter in the case where he permitted please to the jurisdiction to be freely pleaded.
It was then argued, that because this Act of the 21st Geo. 3, cap. 70, enacted (section 11) that “Governor-General and Council should cause the name, description and place of usual abode and all natives employed in the service of the East India Company, in the offices therein mentioned, to be entered in a book or books to be alphabetically disposed,” that those precautions would hardly have been taken to ascertain what natives should be subject to the jurisdiction, if all natives without exception were. But in a limited sense of the word, we have no objection to admit that certain classes alone are within the jurisdiction. The registry of all the persons described is equally desirable for this purpose, whether our argument in favour of its embracing all in its more liberal sense, be well or ill founded.
Having spoken of the high prerogative writs in general, we proceed to speak of the writ of habeas corpus in particular. In the year 1818 the doctrines held concerning that writ were examined by Lord Eldon, in Crowley’s case, 2nd Swanston, p. 1. A person had been committed by commissioners of Bankrupt for not answering satisfactorily, a motion was made for a writ of habeas corpus in vacation, and the question whether he possessed such a power was discussed by him with great care. He found a case in point decided by Lord Chancellor Nottingham (Jenkes’s case, 1676, 6 How St. Tr. 1189); but he resolutely overruled that decision when he found it inconsistent with the principles of the law of England. He treated it there as known law, that no man’s liberty should be invaded without the supreme legal authority having power to pronounce immediately on the reason of that restraint; and that this prerogative of the King might be called into action at any time, and could not be affected by general words in a statute.
The case of Moro Ragonath (1 Knapp, 8) gave rise to the extraordinary interference of the Governor and Council of