11

cause it is said a party cannot be committed for one offence
and afterwards, without being called to answer, be committed
for another and a different offence.

This may be true, but it must be rembered that we are here
dealing with the proceedings of a Court of record, and to the
records of the Court the Warden refers in verification of the
truth of his return. The records have been produced and con-
form to the return in this particular. If the charges upon
which the parties were arrested were stated in the original
warrants, respectively, and appear upon the records of the
Court, it is not necessary they should be stated in the war-
rants of commitment.

In 2 Burns' Jus., 604, it is said "that in a commitment by
the sessions or other Court of record, the record itself or the
memorial thereof, which may at any time be entered of record,
is sufficient without any warrant under seal."

Here the first commitment in general words, "in default of
bail to appear and answer," must be intended to refer to the
offense charged in the original warrant of arrest, and appear-
ing on the records of the Court, and to amend the warrant of
commitment afterwards, by truly stating therein the offense
charged, is not in any sense committing the party for a new
and different offense. This objection to the returns is not sus-
tained, and my duty is to deal with them in the light ol the
evidence adduced, and to determine whether for any and for
what causes alleged, the petitioners are lawfully detained,
and to decide whether they are entitled to be discharged with
or without bail.

I proceed now to consider the legal effect of the returns,
and to decide how far they are conclusive under the laws of
Maryland regulating proceedings under these writs. In pas-
sing upon this question, it seems to me altogether immaterial
to consider what may have been the power of the Court, act-
ins; under the writ at the common law, or the power of the
Judge under the statute of 31 Charles 2d. Our act of 1809,
chapter 125, was in its terms like the statute of Charles, and
if I were now governed by the provisions of the act of 1809,
many of the authorities cited in argument by the respondents'
counsel would be conclusive and binding upon me. But the
provisions of the act of 1809 were materially changed by the
act of 1813, chapter 175, and by the Code, which last, although
not in the identical wards, I consider the same in construction
and effect as the act of 1813.

Mr. Hurd, in his work on habeas corpus, after stating the
various decisions of the English Courts, under the statute of
Charles, and the conflict of opinion among the Judges as to
its true construction, concludes as the result of the whole .
"That in commitments for criminal or supposed criminal
matters, the truth of the facts stated in the return, upon
which the commitment was founded, could not, either at com-