(from the French forger, i.e. accidere, fabricare, "to beat on an anvil, forge, or form,") may be defined at common law, to be "the fraudulent making or alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right;" for which the offender may suffer fine, imprisonment, and pillory. And also, by a variety of statutes, a more severe punishment is inflicted on the offender in many particular cases, which are so multiplied of late as almost to become general. We shall mention the principal instances.

By statute 5 Eliz. c. 14, to forge or make, or knowingly to publish or give in evidence, any forged deed, court-roll, or will, with intent to affect the right of real property, either freehold or copyhold, is punished by a forfeiture to the party grieved of double costs and damages; by standing in the pillory, and having both his ears cut off, and his nostrils slit, and seared; by forfeiture to the crown of the profits of his lands, and by perpetual imprisonment. For any forgery relating to a term of years or annuity, bond, obligation, acquittance, release, or discharge of any debt or demand of any personal chattels, the same forfeiture is given to the party grieved; and on the offender is inflicted the pillory, loss of one of his ears, and half a year's imprisonment: the second offence, in both cases, being felony without benefit of clergy.

Besides this general act, a multitude of others, since the revolution (when paper-credit was first established), have inflicted capital punishment on the forging, altering, or uttering as true when forged, of any bank bills or notes, or other securities; of bills of credit issued from the exchequer; of south-sea bonds, &c.; of lottery tickets or orders; of army or navy-debentures; of East India bonds; of writings under seal of the London or royal-exchange assurance; of the hand of the receiver of the pre-fines, or of the accountant-general and certain other officers of the court of chancery; of a letter of attorney or other power to receive or transfer stock or annuities; and on the personating a proprietor thereof, to receive or transfer such annuities, stock, or dividends; also on the personating, or procuring to be personated, any seaman or other person, intitled to wages or other naval emoluments, or any of his personal representatives; and the taking, or procuring to be taken, any false oath in order to obtain a probate or letters of administration, in order to receive such payments; and the forging, or procuring to be forged, and likewise the uttering or publishing, as true, of any counterfeited seaman's will or power; to which may be added, though not strictly reducible to this head, the counterfeiting of Mediterranean passes, under the hands of the lords of the admiralty, to protect one from the piratical states of Barbary; the forging or imitating of any stamps to defraud the public revenue; and the forging of any marriage register or licence: all which are, by distinct acts of parliament,