obliging and ready assistance; also to Mr. Kingston, of the Record Office, for the very efficient aid he gave me in searching the manuscripts there; to my friend, Sir Travers Twiss, the Queen's Advocate, for the loan of two curious manuscript volumes which formerly belonged to Sir James Marriott, and of which I have made considerable use; and to my friend, Mr. Rothery, Chief Registrar of the Court of Admiralty, for two valuable manuscript Opinions.
I thought it right to obtain the consent of such Ex Law Officers as are still living before I made use of their Opinions; and I am happy to say that, except in two cases where I had no answer, I received the fullest and most unreserved permission to do so. And why should such Opinions not be published, provided they are of sufficiently late date to avoid questions at issue or in controversy now?
In the United States the Opinions of the Attorney Generals are published in eleven volumes, down even to the last two or three years; and surely no possible harm can ensue, but on the contrary much good may result, from knowing what the opinions have been, upon questions of Constitutional Law and public interest, of some of the greatest lawyers who have ever lived.
For reasons which will be easily understood, it was not thought expedient to publish Opinions of the Law Officers of a later date than 1856, or thereabouts; and my chief regret for this is, that I have thus been obliged to exclude the official Opinions of that distinguished lawyer and jurist, Sir Roundell Palmer. I hope that the Notes will be found useful, as I have endeavoured to bring down the law on each subject to the latest possible date.