Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839,

BY SAMUEL MILLER, JR.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

3-18-32 LUB

Gift

Tappair Prest. Ass.

12-10-1931

PREFACE.

A FEW words will suffice to explain the general character of the following work. The reporter was requested to undertake the preparation of it, and hopes that he has done some service to the cause of truth, and justice, and religion, in perpetuating a full record of the case. A strict impartiality, the highest recommendation to such a work, he has carefully endeavoured to maintain; and he thinks that a candid examination will satisfy every reader, that the idea of its being a party publication, an idea to which the supposed bias of his private opinions and feelings may give rise, is entirely erroneous.

A verbatim report of the whole argument, both that upon the trial at Nisi Prius, and that on the motion for a new trial, before the Court in bank, would have swelled the book to an ungainly size: it could not conveniently have been compressed into the compass of a single volume. Selection and condensation were therefore absolutely necessary, but the principles which here governed the reporter in this part of his labour should be fully explained, that all responsibility may rest where it properly belongs. First, however, he would say a few words in regard to the other parts of the volume. Judge Rogers' charge to the jury, with the exception of the introductory paragraph, which was not written, and the final opinion of the Court, have been taken from the original manuscripts, and great care has been exercised to insure their accuracy. The parol testimony is given without curtailment, in the precise language of the witnesses and the counsel, so far as that could be preserved. It is reported, for the most part, in the usual method-not by way of dialogue, as much of it was given in, which would unnecessarily have swelled the work, but by connecting together the questions and answers, as if the witnesses had spoken continuously. In some cases, where the nature of the dialogue seemed to require, it has been given at length.* The documentary evidence has been copied in full, excepting where mere references, for reasons elsewhere explained, have been thought sufficient. The

* This matter may be more fully explained by an example. See, at the bottom of page 109, post, the first two questions and answers of the dialogue between Mr. Sergeant and Mr. Adair. That part of the testimony, if reported as a great deal of the rest is, would appear thus:

"Mr. Adair. I think an appeal may, under some circumstances, be out of order. I have no experience as to whose business it is to declare it out of order."

Much of the evidence, however, given on the examinations in chief, was given in a narrative form, without questions being put. The reader can generally distinguish between the

two cases.