** It is best, in this act, to lay down principles only, in order that it may not for ever be undergoing change:  and, to carry into effect the minuter parts of it; frame a bill ’for the employment and government of felons, or male-factors, condemned to labor for the Commonwealth,’ which may serve as an Appendix to this, and in which all the particulars requisite may be directed:  and as experience will, from time to time, be pointing out amendments, these may be made without touching this fundamental act.  See More’s Utopia pa. 50, for some good hints.  Fugitives might, in such a bill, be obliged to work two days for every one they absent themselves.

And where persons, meaning to commit a trespass* only, or larceny, or other unlawful deed, and doing an act from which involuntary homicide hath ensued, have heretofore been adjudged guilty of manslaughter, or of murder, by transferring such their unlawful intention to an act much more penal than they could have in probable contemplation; no such case shall hereafter be deemed manslaughter, unless manslaughter was intended, nor murder, unless murder was intended.

* The shooting at a wild fowl, and killing a man, is homicide by misadventure.  Shooting at a pullet, without any design to take it away, is manslaughter; and with a design to take it away, is murder. 6 Sta. tr. 222.  To shoot at the poultry of another, and thereby set fire to his house, is arson, in the opinion of some.  Dalt. c. 116 1 Hale’s P. C. 569, contra.

In other cases of homicide, the law will not add to the miseries of the party, by punishments or forfeitures.*

* Beccaria, Sec. 32.  Suicide.  Homicides are, 1.  Justifiable. 2.  Excusable. 3.  Felonious.  For the last, punishments have been already provided.  The first are held to be totally without guilt, or rather commendable.  The second are, in some cases, not quite unblamable.  These should subject the party to marks of contrition; viz. the killing of a man in defence of property; so also in defence of one’s person, which is a species of excusable homicide; because, although cases may happen where these also are commendable, yet most frequently they are done on too slight appearance of danger; as in return for a blow, kick, fillip, &c; or on a person’s getting into a house, not anirno furandi, but perhaps veneris causa, &c.  Bracton says, ’Si quis furem noctupnum occiderit, ita demum impune foret, si parcere ei sine periculo suo non potuit; si autem potuit, aliter erit.’  ’Item erit si quis hamsokne qua; dicitur invasio domus contra pacem domini regis in domo sua se defenderit, et invasor occisus fuerit; impersecutus et inultus ramanebit, si ille quem invasit aliter se defendere non potuit; dicitur enim quod non est dignus habere pacem qui non vult observare earn.’  L.3. c.23.  Sec. 3.  ’Qui latronetn Occident, non tenetur, nocturnum vel diurnnm, si aliter periculum evadere non possit; tenetur ta-men,