Note 236 — Chapter XV · ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

Foster, 198. He seems to concur in Hale's opinion, that words which being spoken will not amount to an overt act to make good an indictment for compassing the king's death, yet if reduced into writing, and published, will make such an overt act, "if the matters contained in them import such a compassing." Hale's Pleas of Crown, 118. But this is indefinitely expressed, the words marked as a quotation looking like a truism, and contrary to the first part of the sentence; and the case of Williams, under James I., which Hales cites in corroboration of this, will hardly be approved by any constitutional lawyer.