in Law, is nearly the same in the crown-office, as what in other courts is called a declaration. See PROSECUTION.

Informations are of two sorts; first, those which are partly at the suit of the king, and partly at that of a subject; and secondly, such as are only in the name of the king. The former are usually brought upon penal statutes, which inflict a penalty upon conviction of the offender, one part to the use of the king, and another to the use of the informer. By the statute 31 Eliz. c. 5, no prosecution upon any penal statute, the suit and benefit whereof are limited in part to the king and in part to the prosecutor, can be brought by any common informer after one year is expired since the commission of the offence; nor on behalf of the crown, after the lapse of two years longer; nor, where the forfeiture is originally given only to the king, can such prosecution be had after the expiration of two years from the commission of the offence.

The informations that are exhibited in the name of the king alone, are also of two kinds: first, those which are truly and properly his own suits, and filed ex officio by his own immediate officer, the attorney-general; secondly, those in which, though the king is the nominal prosecutor, yet it is at the relation of some private person, or common informer; and they are filed by the king's coroner and attorney in the court of king's bench, usually called the master of the crown-office, who is for this purpose the standing officer of the public. The objects of the king's own prosecutions, filed ex officio by his own attorney-general, are properly such enormous misdemeanors, as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger his government, or to molest or affront him in the regular discharge of his royal functions. For offences so high and dangerous, in the punishing or preventing of which a moment's delay would be fatal, the law has given to the crown the power of an immediate prosecution, without waiting for any previous application to any other tribunal: which power, thus necessary, not only to the case and safety, but even to the very existence, of the executive magistrate, was originally reserved in the great plan of the English constitution, wherein provision is wisely made for the due preservation of all its parts. The objects of the other species of informations, filed by the master of the crown-office upon the complaint or relation of a private subject, are any gross and notorious misdemeanors, riots, batteries, libels, and other immoralities of an atrocious kind, not peculiarly tending to disturb the government (for those are left to the care of the attorney-general), but which, on account of their magnitude or pernicious example, deserve the most public animadversion. And when an information is filed, either thus, or by the attorney-general ex officio, it must be tried by a petit jury of the county where the offence arises; after which, if the defendant be found guilty, he must resort to the court for his punishment. See a history and vindication of this mode of prosecution in the work cited on the margin, vol. iv. p. 309—312.