also to the Public, if I were to rescue some of the most valuable of these Opinions from their obscurity, and publish Slightly varying a line of "Vixere fortes post Aga them with explanatory Notes. Horace, we may surely say, memnona multi;" and, great as were the lawyers whose Opinions have been preserved by Chalmers, there has been a succession of lawyers since equally great, who may worthily compete with them in acuteness of intellect and depth of legal knowledge. In the present Volume will be found, for the first time, the official Opinions of Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Abinger, Lord Truro, Lord Denman, Lord Cranworth, Lord Campbell, Lord St. Leonards, Lord Romilly, Lord Westbury, Lord Cairns, Lord Chelmsford, the present Lord Chancellor (Lord Hatherley), Sir William Garrow, Sir Samuel Shepherd, Sir James Marriott, Sir Christopher Robinson, Chief Justice Tindal, Chief Justice Jervis, Mr. Justice Keating, Sir William Follett, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Lord Chief Baron Kelly, Sir Frederick Pollock, and others. The labour and difficulty of collecting and arranging these have been greater than I am likely to get credit for. The Opinions of the Law Officers given to the Colonial Office down to a recent period are scattered over two or three thousand manuscript volumes which are kept in the Record Office; and there is no general index to assist the search. It would, in fact, have been impossible for me to bestow the time and endure the fatigue necessary to find them, if I had not had a clue to the labyrinth supplied to me by M. Halksworth, the Librarian of the Colonial Office. But this did not extend back earlier than 1813, and I was obliged, therefore, to limit my search to the period subsequent to that date. I regret this, as no doubt much valuable matter is to be found in the manuscript volumes. of an earlier date; and I hope that the same arrangement for facility of reference which has been adopted in the later volumes will be applied to the older ones, although it will be too late for my own Work, unless it should have the good fortune to reach another edition. I have now the pleasing duty to perform of acknowledg ing the great kindness and assistance I have received in the course of my Work. To Earl Granville, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, I especially desire to tender my thanks, for the liberality and courtesy with which he assented to my application to be allowed to examine the archives, and publish the Opinions of the Law Officers in that Department. It was a thing for which there was no precedent; and if there had been a stiff adherence to official routine, I should have met with a refusal which, I venture to say, considering the value of the Opinions here for the first time made known to the world, would have been a public loss. I must express also my thanks to the Lords of the Treasury, for allowing me to select and publish some Opinions of the Law Officers; and to my friend, Mr. Greenwood, Q.C., Solicitor to the Treasury, for the kind assistance he rendered to me. I regret that I cannot make a similar acknowledgment in the case of the Foreign Office. At the suggestion of high authority I wrote to the Earl of Clarendon a letter, which I am sure was unexceptionable in its tone, asking for permission-not to examine the archives of the Foreign Office, to which I felt there might very reasonably be an objection-but to be supplied with a few legal Opinions of old date, which could have no bearing upon any question in controversy at the present day. To my letter, however, I received no answer. I must express my thanks to Sir Frederic Rogers, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to Mr. Henry Holland, the Standing Counsel to that Department, for their 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. W. F. CONTENTS. } (1.) Of Mr. West, Counsel to the Board of Trade, that the Common Law of England is the Common Law of the Colonies (2.) Of the Law Officers, Sir Charles Pratt and Hon. Charles Yorke, that (4.) Of the Law Officers, Sir Robert Henley and Hon. Charles Yorke, as to how far subjects emigrating carry with them the Statute Law (5.) Of the Law Officers, 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 (6.) Of the Law Officers, Sir Christopher Robinson, Sir William Garrow, and Sir Samuel Shepherd, as to the powers of Government vested in the Crown with respect to the Colony of Berbice (7.) of the Law Officers, Sir James Scarlett and Sir N. C. Tindal, on certain inquisitorial powers claimed by the House of Assembly in (8.) Of the Law Officers, Sir William Horne and Sir John Campbell, as to provisions of Charter of Justice not being at variance with Terms of (9.) Of the Law Officers, Sir John Campbell and Sir R. M. Rolfe, as to seal- ing of writs issued for election of House of Assembly in Newfoundland (10.) Of the same Law Officers, as to power of the Queen in Council to make (11.) Of the same Law Officers, as to question of disqualification to sit in (12.) of the Law Officers, Sir John Campbell and Sir Thomas Wilde, on the (13.) of the Law Officers, Sir A. E. Cockburn and Sir Richard Bethell, on the power of the Legislature of St. Helena to pass an Ordinance con- (1.) Of the Attorney General, Sir Edward Northey, as to Roman Catholic (2.) of the Law Officers, Sir Philip Yorke and Sir Clement Wearg, on Con- vocations or Synods of the Clergy or Dissenting Ministers in New (3.) Of the Attorney General, Sir Edward Northey, on the right of presen- tation to benefices in Virginia (4.) Of the Attorney General, Sir Edward Northey, on the granting of Letters of Administration on the same Estate both in England and (5.) Observations by the King's Advocate, Sir James Marriott, on enforcing residence at a living in Barbadoes in the case of the Rev. Mr. Bar- (6.) Opinion of the King's Advocate, Sir Christopher Robinson, on a Marriage performed by a Methodist Minister in Newfoundland (7.) of the Law Officers, Sir Christopher Robinson, Sir J. S. Copley, and Sir Charles Wetherell, on the duties of the Governor and Bishop of a Colony in collating and instituting to benefices (8.) Of the King's Advocate, Sir C. Robinson, on the appointment of a (9.) Of the Law Officers, Sir John Dodson, Sir John Campbell, and Sir R. M. Rolfe, on the appointment of a Suffragan Bishop of Montreal (10.) Of the Law Officers, Sir John Campbell and Sir R. M. Rolfe, on the incorporation of a Roman Catholic College in Prince Edward's (11.) Of the Law Officers, Sir Frederick Pollock and Sir William W. Follett, on the authority of the Crown to interfere with and make regula- tions respecting the appointment of Roman Catholic Bishops in (12.) Of the Law Officers, Sir John Dodson, Sir Frederick Thesiger, and Sir FitzRoy Kelly, on the status of Clergymen of the Church of England, and the Jurisdiction of the Bishop, in Van Diemen's Land.. (13.) Of the Law Officers, Sir J. D. Harding, Sir Frederick Thesiger, and Sir F. Kelly, on the patronage of Benefices and appointment of |