ABRIDGMENT OF THE CASES ARGUED AND DETERMINED IN THE COURTS OF KING'S BENCH, COMMON PLEAS, EXCHEQUER, AND AT NISI PRIUS; AND OF THE RULES OF COURT, FROM THE RESTORATION IN 1660, TO MICHAELMAS TERM, 4 GEO. IV. WITH IMPORTANT MANUSCRIPT CASES, ALPHABETICALLY, CHRONOLOGICALLY, AND SYSTEMATICALLY WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND REFERENCES TO THE YEAR BOOKS, ANALOGOUS ADJUDICATIONS, SPECIFYING WHAT DECISIONS HAVE BEEN Comprising, under the several Titles, A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE COMMON LAW. BY CHARLES PETERSDORFF, ESQ. OF THE INNER TEMPLE. VOLUME I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY. ΤΟ SIR JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, His Majesty's ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR ENGLAND, &c. &c. &c. THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED AS AN IMPERFECT TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR HIS GREAT PROFESSIONAL ATTAINMENTS. ADVERTISEMENT. A PRACTICAL and elementary abridgment of the Common Law Reports, from the period they assumed a useful and intelligible form, has for a series of years been an increasing desideratum. Rules of Law are never universal. There are always some limits affixed to their specific application. An acquaintance with the first principles which constitute the basis of our system of jurisprudence, without a corresponding knowledge of the facts and circumstances which gave rise to their establishment and promulgation, has been, therefore, at all times considered rather a source of difficulty and embarrassment than of utility to the practitioner. A comprehensive knowledge of the important qualifications engrafted upon those primary rules, when applied to particular facts, can alone be attained by consulting either the diffusive reports of the cases themselves in which the doctrines were originally propounded, or those in which they have been subsequently confirmed, or by having recourse to a practical and elementary abridgment, in which the material facts, the pleadings, and the judgments, are concisely yet accurately developed. To practitioners of learning and experience, who by their constant and regular attendance in the Courts, are acquainted with every new modification or extension of the Law produced by each succeeding decision, the Report Books are the most satisfactory and authentic medium of reference: but to the majority of the profession, whose opportunities of acquiring legal knowledge have been limited, and whose practice has been circumscribed, no mode of obtaining information can be |