42. Many other great foreign authorities might be referred to, and I cannot help mentioning COVARRUVIUS, who is spoken of by JUDGE HALE, and who expresses himself upon the subject in these words: "The reason why a man in extreme necessity may, _without incurring the guilt of theft or rapine_, forcibly take the goods of others for his present relief, is because his condition _renders all things common_. For it is the ordinance and institution of nature itself, that inferior things should be designed and directed to serve the necessities of men. Wherefore the division of goods afterwards introduced into the world doth not derogate from that precept of natural reason, which Suggests, that the _extreme wants of mankind may be in any manner removed by the use of temporal possessions_." PUFFENDORF tells us, that PERESIUS maintains, that, in case of extreme necessity, a man is compelled to the action, by a force which he cannot resist; and then, that the owner's consent may be presumed on, because humanity obliges him to succour those who are in distress. The same writer cites a passage from St. AMBROSE, one of the FATHERS of the church, which alleges that (in case of refusing to give to persons in extreme necessity) it is the person who retains the goods who is guilty of the act of wrong doing, for St. AMBROSE says; "it is the _bread of the hungry_ which you detain; it is the _raiment of the naked_ which you lock up."
43. Before I come to the English authorities on the same side, let me again notice the foul dealing of Blackstone; let me point out another instance or two of the insincerity of this English court-sycophant, who was, let it be noted, Solicitor-general to the queen of the "good old King." You have seen, in paragraph 28, a most flagrant instance of his perversion of the Scriptures. He garbles the word of God, and prefaces the garbling by calling it a thing "_certified_ by King Solomon himself;" and this word _certified_ he makes use of just when he is about to begin the scandalous falsification of the text which he is referring to. Never was anything more base. But, the whole extent of the baseness we have not yet seen; for, BLACKSTONE had read HALE, who had quoted the two verses fairly; but besides this, he had read PUFFENDORF, who had noticed very fully this text of Scripture, and who had shown very clearly that it did not at all make in favour of the doctrine of Blackstone. Blackstone ought to have given the argument of PUFFENDORF; he ought to have given the whole of his argument; but particularly he ought to have given this explanation of the passage in the PROVERBS, which explanation I have inserted in paragraph 27. It was also the height of insincerity in BLACKSTONE, to pretend that the passage from CICERO had anything at all to do with the matter. He knew well that it had not; he knew that CICERO contemplated no case of extreme necessity for want of food or clothing; but, he had read PUFFENDORF, and PUFFENDORF had told him, that CICERO'S was a question of the mere _conveniences_ and _inconveniences_ of life in general; and not a question of pinching hunger or shivering nakedness. BLACKSTONE had seen his fallacy exposed by PUFFENDORF; he had seen the misapplication of this passage of CICERO fully exposed by PUFFENDORF; and yet the base court-sycophant trumped it up again, without mentioning PUFFENDORF'S exposure of the fallacy! In short this BLACKSTONE, upon this occasion, as upon almost all others, has gone all lengths; has set detection and reproof at defiance, for the sake of making his court to the government by inculcating harshness in the application of the law, and by giving to the law such an interpretation as would naturally tend to justify that harshness.