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Attorney General, 1834; Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 1841; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1846; Lord Chief Justice of England, 1850; Lord Chancellor, 1859; died, 1861.

Lord Truro (Thomas Wilde), born, 1782; Solicitor General, 1840; Attorney General, 1841, and again, 1846; Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1846; Lord Chancellor, 1850; died, 1855.

Lord Cranworth (Robert Monsey Rolfe), born, 1790; Solicitor General, 1834; again, 1835; Baron of the Exchequer, 1839; one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, 1850; Vice-Chancellor, 1850; Lord Justice, 1851; Lord Chancellor, 1852; a second time, 1865; died, 1868.

Sir William Horne, born, 1774; Solicitor General, 1832; Attorney General, 1832; died, 1860.

Sir Charles Wetherell, born, 1770; Solicitor General, 1824; Attorney General, 1826; died, 1846.

Sir Samuel Shepherd, born, 1761; Solicitor General, 1814; Attorney General, 1817; Chief Baron of Court of Exchequer in Scotland, 1819; died, 1841.

Sir Herbert Jenner, Queen's Advocate; Judge of Prerogative Court, and Dean of Arches Court; died, 1852.

Sir John Dodson, born, 1780; Queen's Advocate, 1834; Judge of Prerogative Court and Dean of Arches Court, 1852; died,

1858.

Sir William Webb Follett, born, 1798; Solicitor General, 1834, and again, 1841; Attorney General, 1844; died, 1845.

Sir John Jervis, born, 1802; Solicitor General, 1846; Attorney General, 1846; Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1850; died, 1856.

Sir William Atherton, born, 1806; Solicitor General, 1859; Attorney General, 1861; died, 1864.

Sir John Dorney Harding, born, 1809; Queen's Advocate, 1852; died, 1868.

CASES AND OPINIONS

ON

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE COMMON LAW AND STATUTE LAW APPLICABLE TO THE COLONIES.

(1.) OPINION of MR. WEST, Counsel to the Board of Trade (afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland), that the Common Law of England is the Common Law of the Colonies. 1720.

The common law of England is the common law of the plantations, and all statutes in affirmance of the common law passed in England, antecedent to the settlement of a colony, are in force in that colony, unless there is some private Act to the contrary; though no statutes made since those settlements, are there in force, unless the colonies are particularly mentioned. Let an Englishman go where he will; he carries as much of law and liberty with him as the nature of things will bear.

(2.) JOINT OPINION of the Attorney and Solicitor General, SIR CHARLES PRATT and HON. CHARLES YORKE, that English subjects carry with them English laws.

In respect to such places as have been or shall be acquired, by treaty or grant, from any of the Indian Princes or Governments, your Majesty's letters patent are not necessary; the property of the soil vesting in the grantees by the Indian grants, subject only to your Majesty's right of sovereignty over the settlements, as English

B

settlements, and over the inhabitants, as English subjects, who carry with them your Majesty's laws wherever they form colonies, and receive your Majesty's protection, by virtue of your royal charters. C. PRATT.

C. YORKE.

(3.) OPINION of the Attorney General, SIR PHILIP Yorke, as to the extension of the Statute Law to a Colony. 1729. Quære. Whether such general statutes of England as have been made since the date of the Charter of Maryland, and wherein no mention is made of the plantations, and not restrained by words of local limitation, are, or are not, in force, without being introduced there by a particular Act of their own?

Opinion.-I am of opinion that such general statutes as have been made since the settlement of Maryland, and are not, by express words, located either to the plantations in general, or to the province in particular, are not in force there, unless they have been introduced and declared to be laws, by some Acts of Assembly of the province, or have been received there by long uninterrupted usage or practice, which may import a tacit consent of the lord proprietor and the people of the colony, that they should have the force of a law there.

P. YORKE.

By stat. 25 Geo. 2, c. 6, s. 10, it appears that the Legislature considered usage as sufficient to have extended an Act of Parliament to the colonies.

(4.) JOINT OPINION of the Attorney and Solicitor General, SIR ROBERT HENLEY, and HON. CHARLES YORKE, as to how far subjects emigrating carry with them the Statute Law. 1757. MY LORDS,-In obedience to your Lordships' commands, signified to us by Mr. Pownall, by letter dated April 1st, 1757, accompanied with an enclosed letter and papers, which he had received from Jonathan Belcher, Esq., Chief Justice of his Majesty's colony of Nova Scotia, relating to the case of two persons convicted in the courts there, of counterfeiting and uttering Spanish dollars and pistareens, and requiring our opinion, in point of law, thereon; we have taken the said letters and papers into our consideration, and find that the question upon which the case of those two per

sons convicted of high treason depends, is this: Whether the Act of Parliament, 1 Mar. c. 6, entitled "An Act that the counterfeiting of strange coins (being current within this realm), the Queen's sign-manual or privy seal, to be adjudged treason," extends to Nova Scotia, and is in force there, with respect to the counterfeiting Spanish dollars and pistareens in the said province?

And we are of opinion, first, that it doth not; for that the Act is expressly restrained to the counterfeiting of foreign coin current within this realm, of which Nova Scotia is no part.

Secondly, we are of opinion that the proposition adopted by the Judges there, that the inhabitants of the colonies carry with them the statute laws of this realm, is not true, as a general proposition, but depends upon circumstances: the effect of their Charterusage-and Acts of their Legislature; and it would be both inconvenient and dangerous to take it in so large an extent.

And thirdly, we are of opinion that the offence can only be considered as a high misdemeanor, unless there are any provisions in any charter granted to that province, which make it a greater offence, to which we are entirely strangers.

May 18, 1757.

R. HENLEY.

C. YORKE.

(5.) JOINT OPINION of the Attorney and Solicitor General, SIR WILLIAM DE GREY and SIR EDWARD WILLES, on the .extension of Acts of Parliament to the Colonies, when they are mentioned generally, as dominions of the Crown. 1767.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS,-In obedience to your Lordships' commands, signified to us by Mr. Pownall's letter of the 12th of June, that we would take into our consideration an Act of Parliament, passed in the 12th of Queen Ann., stat. 2, c. 18, entitled, "An Act for the preserving of all such ships and goods thereof which shall happen to be forced on shore upon the coasts of this kingdom or any other of Her Majesty's dominions;" also, one other Act of Parliament passed the 4th of Geo. 1, c. 12, entitled "An Act for enforcing and making perpetual an Act of the 12th year of her late Majesty, entitled 'An Act for preserving all such ships and goods thereof as shall happen to be forced on shore or stranded upon the coasts of this kingdom or any other of His

Majesty's dominions,' and for inflicting the punishment of death on such as shall wilfully burn and destroy ships;" and that we would give our opinion whether the said Acts do extend to, and are in force in, his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America; we have taken the same into our consideration, and are of opinion that as the title of the Act of the 12th of Ann. stat. 2, c. 18, expressly imports to be "An Act for preserving ships and goods thereof forced on shore, or stranded upon the coasts of this kingdom or any other of Her Majesty's dominions," and the enacting part has words extending to her Majesty's dominions in general, the said Act of the 12th of Ann. extends to and is in force in his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, notwithstanding the special promulgation of the law; and some other provisions in it are applicable only to this kingdom.

We are likewise of opinion that so much of the Act of 4th Geo. 1, c. 12, as declares the 12th of Ann. to be perpetual, extends to America. But the third clause of that Act, which introduces a new crime, by a provision altogether independent of the former part of the Act, and made to render an Act of the 1st of Ann. more effectual, we are inclined to think, does not extend to his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, that clause being expressed in general terms, without any reference to the colonies; and the 11th of Geo. 1, c. 29, s. 7, which directs the mode of prosecution of those offences, when committed within the body of any county of this realm, or upon the high seas, making no mention of the manner of trial, if such offences should be committed in any of his Majesty's plantations or colonies in America.

June 25, 1767.

W. DE GREY.
E. WILLES.

(6.) JOINT OPINION of the King's Advocate, SIR CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, and the Attorney and Solicitor General, SIR WILLIAM GARROW and SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, as to the powers of Government vested in the Crown with respect to the Colony of Berbice. 1817.

MY LORD, We are honoured with your Lordship's commands of the 27th ultimo, transmitting the charter of the colony of Berbice, being the conditions on which their High Mightinesses the

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