FROM JANUARY TERM 1799, TO JANUARY TERM 1803, BOTH

INCLUSIVE;

TOGETHER WITH CASES DETERMINED IN THE

COURT FOR THE CORRECTION OF ERRORS,

DURING THAT PERIOD.

BY WILLIAM JOHNSON,

COUNSELLOR AT LAW.

Legum interpretes, judices; legum denique idcirco omnes servi sumus, ut liberi esse possu-
mus.-CICERO.

SECOND EDITION; WITH MANY ADDITIONAL CASES NOT INCLUDED IN THE
FORMER EDITION, FROM THE ORIGINAL NOTES OF THE LATE HON.

JACOB RADCLIFF, ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME

COURT DURING THE TIME OF THESE REPORTS.

WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND REFERENCES

TO THE AMERICAN AND ENGLISH DECISIONS.

BY LORENZO B. SHEPARD,

COUNSELLOR AT LAW.

VOLUME I.

CONTAINING THE CASES FROM JANUARY TERM 1779, TO JULY
TERM 1800, INCLUSIVE.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY BANKS, GOULD & Co.
LAW BOOKSELLERS, NO. 144 NASSAU STREET:
AND BY GOULD, BANKS & GOULD,
NO. 104 STATE STREET, ALBANY.

1846.

District of New York, ss. Be it remembered, That on the fourth day of October, in the thirty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, William Johnson, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words and figures following, to wit:

"Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of New York; from January term 1799, to January term 1803, both inclusive together with Cases Determined in the Court for the Correction of Errors, during that period. By William Johnson, Counsellor at law. Legum interpretes, Judices legum denique idcirco omnes sumus, ut liberi esse possumus.-Cicero. Vol. 1. containing the cases from January term 1799, to July term 1800, inclusive."

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 such copies, during the times therein mentioned," and also to an act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act entitled an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints."

EDWARD DUNSCOMB, Clerk of the District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-six, by BANKS, GOULD & Co., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

NEW YORK: PRINTED BY A. 8. GOULD,

No. 144 Nassau Street

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

MANY years have elapsed since this work was issued, in a former edition, and it has passed entirely out of print. Yet no library can be complete without it, for no similar collection of cases reported from term to term wears more justly the impress of acknowledged authority. Some branches of the law were peculiarly subject to judicial investigation during the period of these reports. Marine Insurance may be named as one; for most of the leading doctrines of that learning were comprehensively examined and accurately discussed.

The frequent calls upon the publishers for this work, by members of the profession, from all parts of the country, have induced them to publish a second edition, which the editor ventures to hope has been made more extensively useful by many references to the English and American authorities.

The editor has bestowed much labor upon the annotations yet he has not sought more than to present in a compendious form, and from those obvious sources of reference which are near to every lawyer's hand, the leading authorities that bear directly and collaterally upon each principal case.

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He has also carefully compared each case with the original notes of Judge Radcliff, and in a number of instances ventured to re-write and amplify the marginal notes of Mr. Johnson, but only where they seemed inaccurate or failed to present an abstract of the case sufficiently large to answer the convenience of the profession.

The cases which are added from the MSS. of Judge Radcliff are reserved for publication in the third volume, and the editor will there refer to the peculiar circumstances under which they are brought before the public.

In conclusion the editor may truly say, that this work has been achieved beneath the pressure of many engagements, both personal and professional, and therefore while it is not in any high degree satisfactory to him, he knows it must be still less so to those who have no motive to judge it elseway than by its merits. To such he appeals in the language of Fitzherbert, Ne moy reproues sauns cause car mon entent est de bon amour.