Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1832, by WILLIAM E. DEAN, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. STEREOTYPED BY SMITH & WRIGHT, 216 Wm. St. N. Y. PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. THE COMMENTARIES OF BLACKSTONE continue to be the text book of the student and of the man of general reading, notwithstanding the alterations in the law since the time of their author. The great principles which they unfold remain the same, and are explained in so simple and clear a style, that, however much the details of the law may be changed, they will always be read with interest. It is no small commendation of Blackstone, that many of the modern improvements adopted in England and in the United States were suggested by him: and that the arrangement which he used in treating the different subjects, has been followed in a great degree by the Revisers of the Statutes of New-York. This edition shows the late alterations of the law in England, as furnished by the notes of Lee, Hovenden, and Ryland, in the last London edition. Notes have also been added, briefly explaining the difference between the law of England and of New-York. Those not engaged in the practice of law find it difficult, while reading the Commentaries, to make this distinction: this difficulty, it is hoped, is now in some degree removed. It was deemed inconsistent with the original object of the work to introduce any other than brief notes. The American notes are therefore generally short, leaving those who wish an extended knowledge of the subject, to the statutes and authorities. But as the English statutes or authorities may not be accessible to the general reader, the Enggenerally retained without any abbreviation. This is done, because it is considered that the readers of Blackstone generally wish to know, not only what the law of England was, but also lish notes are what it is. In the abbreviations and in these volumes, R. S. refers to the Revised Statutes of New-York, of 1830; U. S. is used for an abbreviation of the United States; N. Y. for New-York. New-York April 8, 1832. THE following sheets contain the substance of a course of lectures on the Laws of England, which were read by the author in the university of OXFORD. His original plan took its rise in the year 1753; and, notwithstanding the novelty of such an attempt in this age and country, and the prejudices usually conceived against any innovations in the established mode of education, he had the satisfaction to find, and he acknowledges it with a mixture of pride and gratitude, that his endeavours were encouraged and patronised by those, both in the university and out of it, whose good opinion and esteem he was principally desirous to obtain. The death of Mr. VINER in 1756, and his ample benefaction to the university, for promoting the study of the law, produced about two years afterwards a regular and public establishment of what the author had privately undertaken. The knowledge of our laws and constitution was adopted as a liberal science by general academical authority; competent endowments were decreed for the support of a lecturer, and the perpetual encouragement of students; and the compiler of the ensuing Commentaries had the honour to be elected the first Vinerian professor. In this situation he was led, both by duty and inclination, to investigate the elements of the law, and the grounds of our civil polity, with greater assiduity and attention than many have thought it necessary to do. And yet all, who of late years have attended the public administration of justice, must be sensible that a masterly acquaintance with the general spirit of laws and principles of universal jurisprudence, combined with an accurate knowledge of our own municipal constitutions, their original, reason, and history, hath given a beauty and energy to many modern judicial decisions, with which our ancestors were wholly unacquainted. If, in the pursuit of these inquiries, the author hath been able to rectify any errors which either himself or others may have heretofore imbibed, his pains will be sufficiently answered and if in some points he is still mistaken, the candid and judicious reader will make due allowances for the difficulties of a search so new, so extensive, and so laborious. Nov. 2, 1765. POSTSCRIPT. NOTWITHSTANDING the diffidence expressed in the foregoing Preface, no sooner was the work completed, but many of its positions were vehemently attacked by zealots of all (even opposite) denominations, religious as well as civil; by some with a greater, by others with a less degree of acrimony. To such of these animadverters as have fallen within the author's notice, (for he doubts not but some have escaped it), he owes at least this obligation that they have occasioned him from time to time to revise his work, in respect to the particulars objected to; to retract or expunge from it what appeared to be really erroneous; to amend or supply it when inaccurate or defective; to illustrate and explain it when obscure. But, where he thought the objections ill-founded, he hath left and shall leave the book to defend itself: being fully of opinion, that, if his principles be false and his doctrines unwarrantable, no apology from himself can make them right; if founded in truth and rectitude, no censure from others can make them wrong. LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE was born on the 10th of July, 1723, in Cheapside, in the parish of St. Michael le Querne, at the house of his father, Mr. Charles Blackstone, a silk-man, and citizen and bowyer of London; who was the third son of Mr. John Blackstone, an eminent apothecary in Newgate-street, descended from a family of that name in the west of England, at or near Salisbury, and who died some months previous to the birth of William, the author of these justly esteemed Commentaries. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Lovelace Bigg, Esquire, of Chilton Foliot, in Wiltshire; she died before the learned commentator attained his twelfth year. Sir William had three brothers, Charles, John, and Henry. John died an infant, Charles and Henry were educated at Winchester, under the care of their uncle Dr. Bigg, who was warden of that society, and were afterwards both fellows of New College, Oxford; Charles became a fellow of Winchester, and vicar of Wimering in Hampshire: Henry, after having practised physic some years, went into holy orders, and died in 1778, vicar of Adderbury in Oxfordshire, a living in the gift of New College. The being early in life deprived of both parents proved, in its consequences, the reverse of misfortune to our author: to that circumstance probably he was indebted for his future advancement, and that high literary character and reputation in his profession, which he has left behind him; to that circumstance the public too is probably indebted for the benefit it has received, and will receive, as long as the law of England remains, from the labours of his pen. For, had his father lived, it is most likely, that the third son of a London tradesman, not of great affluence, would have been bred in the same line of life, and those parts, which have so much signalized the possessor of them, would have been lost in a warehouse or behind a counter. But, even from his birth, the care both of his education and fortune was kindly undertaken by his maternal uncle, Mr. Thomas Bigg, an eminent surgeon in London, and afterwards, on the death of his elder brothers, owner of the Chilton estate, which is still enjoyed by that family. The affectionate, it may be said the parental, care this worthy man took of all his nephews, particularly in giving them liberal educations, supplied the great loss they had so early sustained, and compensated in a great degree for their want of more ample fortunes. And it was always remembered, and often mentioned by them all, with the sincerest gratitude. In 1730, being about seven years old, William was put to school at the Charter-House; and in 1735 was, by the nomination of Sir Robert Walpole, on the recommendation of Charles Wither, of Hall, in Hampshire, Esquire, his cousin by the mother's side, admitted upon the foundation there. In this excellent seminary he applied himself to every branch of youthful education, with the same assiduity which accompanied his studies through life. His talents and industry rendered him the favourite of his masters, who encouraged and assisted him with the utmost attention; at the age of fifteen he was at the head of the school, and, although so young, was thought well qualified to be removed to the University; and he was accordingly entered a commoner at Pembroke College in Oxford, on the 30th of November, 1736, and was the next day matriculated. At this time he was elected to one of the Charter-House exhibitions by the Governors of that foundation, to commence from the Michaelmas preceding, but was permitted to continue a scholar there till after the 12th of December, being the anniversary commemoration of the founder, to give him an opportunity of speaking the customary oration, which he had prepared, and which did him much credit. About this time also he obtained Mr. Benson's gold prize medal of Milton, for verses on that poet. Thus, before he quitted school, did his genius begin to appear, and receive public marks of approbation and reward. And so well pleased was the Society of Pembroke College with their young pupil, that, in the February following, they unanimously elected him to one of Lady Holford's exhibitions for Charter-House scholars in that house. Here he prosecuted his studies with unremitting ardour; and although the classics, and particularly the Greek and Roman poets, were his favourites, they did not entirely engross his attention: logic, mathematics, and the other sciences were not neglected; from the first of these (studied rationally, abstracted from the jargon of the schools,) he laid the foundation of that close method of reasoning he was so remarkable for: and from the mathematics he not only reaped the benefit of using his mind to a close investigation of every subject that occurred to him, till he arrived at the degree of demonstration the nature of it would admit; but he converted that dry study, as it is usually thought, into an amusement, by pursuing the branch of it which relates to architecture. This science he was particularly fond of, and made himself so far master of it, that, at the early age of twenty, he compiled a treatise, entitled Elements of Architecture, intended for his own use only, and not for publication, but esteemed by those judges who have perused it, in no respect unworthy his maturer judgment, and more exercised pen. Having determined on his future plan of life, and made choice of the law for his profession, he was entered in the Middle Temple on the 20th of November, 1741. He now found it necessary to quit the more amusing pursuits of his youth, for the severer studies to which he had dedicated himself, and betook himself seriously to reading law. How disagreeable a change this must have been to a young man of brilliant parts, and a fine imagination, glowing with all the classical and poetical beauties he had stored his mind with, is easier conceived than expressed he alone, who felt, could describe his sensations on that occasion; which he did in a copy of verses, since published by Dodsley, in the 4th volume of his Miscellanies, intituled, The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse; in which the struggle of his mind is expressed so strongly, so naturally, with such elegance of sense and language, and harmony of versification, as must convince every reader, that his passion for the Muses was too deeply rooted to be laid aside without much reluctance, and that, if he had pursued that flowery path, he would not perhaps have proved inferior to the best of our English poets. Several little fugitive pieces, besides this, have at times been communicated by him to his friends, and he has left (but not with a view of publi |