make choice between these two modes of procedure. The leniency of
modern governments has of late usually resorted to the process by
indictment; and the crown, waiving all the privileges which appertain
to the kingly office, appears before the constituted tribunals of the
land, as the redresser of the public wrongs, invested with no powers,
and clothed with no authority beyond the simple rights possessed by
the meanest of its subjects. We shall, for this reason, take no
further notice of the _ex officio_ information; and as treasons form a
class of offences governed by laws and rules peculiar to itself, we
shall also exclude this head of crime from our consideration, and
confine ourselves solely to the ordinary criminal process by which
offenders are brought to justice.

In, general, the first step in a criminal prosecution, is to obtain a
warrant for the apprehension of the accused party. In ordinary cases,
a warrant is granted by any justice of the peace upon information, on
the oath of some credible witness, of facts from which it appears that
a crime has been committed, and that the person against whom the
warrant is sought to be obtained, is probably the guilty party, and is
a document under the hand and seal of the justice, directed generally
to the constable or other peace-officer, requiring him to bring the
accused, either generally before _any_ justice of the county, or only
before the justice who granted it. This is the practice in ordinary
cases; but in extraordinary cases, the warrant may issue from the Lord
Chief Justice, or the Privy Council, the Secretaries of State, or from
any justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. These latter warrants are,
we believe, all tested, or dated England, and extend over the whole
kingdom. So far the proceedings have been all _ex parte_, one side
only has been heard, one party only has appeared, and all that has
been done, is to procure or compel the appearance of the other. The