REPORTS AND لا دیرے DISSERTATIONS, IN TWO PARTS. PART I. REPORTS OF CASES DETERMINED IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF PART II. DISSERTATIONS ON THE STATUTE ADOPTING THE COMMON LAW OF ENGLAND, THE WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING FORMS OF SPECIAL PLEADINGS IN SEVERAL CASES; FORMS OF BY NATHANIEL CHIPMAN, Late Chief Justice. SECOND EDITION. RUTLAND: PUBLISHED BY TUTTLE & CO., DISTRICT OF VERMONT, TO WIT. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-first day of January, in the Seventeenth year of the Independence of the United States of America, the Hon. Nathaniel Chipman, of Rutland, in the said District, Esq., hath deposited in this office, the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in the words, letters and figures following, to wit: REPORTS AND DESSERTATIONS, IN TWO PARTS. PART I. Reports of Cases determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Vermont, in the years 1789, 1790 and 1791. PART II. Dissertations on the Statute adopting the Common Law of England the Statute of Conveyances, the Statute of Offsets, and on the Negotiability of Notes. WITH AN APPDNDIX, Containing Forms of Special Pleadings in several cases; Forms of Recognizances; of Justice Records, and of War rants of Commitment. BY NATHANIEL CHIPMAN, Late Chief Justice. In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to the authors and proprietors of said copies during the time therein mentioned." FREDERICK HILL, Clerk of the District of. Vermont. PREFACE TO THE REPORTS. I Do not apprehend any apology, for publishing the following reports, to be necessary. In our mole of practice, a doubt lest the principles of some determinations may have been erroneous, ought not to be a reason for withholding their publication. It is well known that the maxins anl precedents of the English law do not, with us, apply in all cases. From a difference of Government and a difference of customs, the reason of cases frequently differs. The English common law writers fail us in many instances. It becomes necessary, therefore, to investigate principles, and establish precedents for ourselves. While former decisions rest only in the memory of the judge, overburthened in term, and perplexed with a multiplicity of cases; or in the memory of the counsel, frequently under a powerful bias, in the recollection and statement, little assistance, in establishing uniform principles, can be expected from precedents. Such is the order of Courts and the mode of practice in this State, that the Judges can have little opportunity for deliberation. They are necessitated to form their opinions, as I may say, in transitu, and on the urgency of occasion. It is, therefore, of importance to them, and to the public, that they should have an opportuntity of reviewing as well what is wrong as what is right in their decisions. This may enable them to correct their former errors, and, at leisure, to discover those principles of justice, and the exceptions and limitations of each, which might have escaped their utmost sagacity in the hurry of the Circuit. It may assist them, no less, in tracing, establishing and rendering familiar, on every emergency, those permanent principles, of which they had, perhaps caught only a glance on the occasion. In the following cases there is but one instance of a difference of opinion with the Judges. It was not practiced for the Judges to give their opinions seriatim on those points in which they were agreed. I conceived it necessary to mention this, lest I should be thought to have omitted the arguments of my brethren on the bench. RUTLAND, September 3, 1792. |