A pardon may be either absolute or subject to any condition which the crown may think proper to annex to it , and in the latter case, the validity of the pardon will depend upon the performance of the condi tion. Until the recent improvements in the criminal law of England, almost all felonies were nominally capital; and in the numerous cases where it was not intended that the sentence of death should be exe cuted, the criminal obtained a pardon upon condition of his submitting to transportation or some other punishment. At the present day, where the crown interferes to mitigate or commuto a sentence, the mode by which it is effected is by granting a conditional pardon.
It was formerly necessary that a pardon should be under the great seal ; but by etat. 7 & 8 Geo. IV., c. 23, a. 13, it is now sufficient, if under the sign manual, and countersigned by one of the secretaries of state.
The effect of a pardon is not merely to prevent the infliction of the punishment denounced by the sentence upon the offender, but to give him a new capacity, credit, and character. A man attainted of felony ceases to be probus et kgulis liomo, and can neither bring an action for damages nor be a witness or a juror in any legal proceeding; but upon receiving a pardon, all these legal disabilities are removed. In this
respect a pardon by the law of England differs from the abolitio of the Roman law, to which in other points it bears a near resemblance. According to the latter, " Indulgentia, quoe liberat, notat; nec in famiam criminis tollit, sed pxnm gratiam facit." (` Cod.' lib. ix., tit. 43.) By the English law a distinction is made as to the effect of a. pardon where the incapacity is part of the legal sentence, and not merely a consequence of attainder, as in the case of perjury under the statute 5 Elizabeth, c. 9; where the incapacity or infamy is part of a statutory sentence, a pardon from the crown has been held not to restore the party, and in such a case nothing less than an act of parlia ment will have that effect. Some doubt has been expressed, and the point has not yet received a judicial determination, whether a pardon will fully restore a person convicted of a crime, such as perjury, which is considered infamous at the common law. This subject is elaborately discussed, and all the authorities carefully examined in Mr. Hargrave 's Argument on the Effect of the King's Pardon of Perjury.' (Hargrave's Juridical Arguments, vol. ii., p. 221.)