ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, AND VARIOUS POINTS OF ENGLISH JURISPRUDENCE, Collected and Digested from Official Documents and other Sources; WITH NOTES. BY WILLIAM FORSYTH, M.A., Q.C., STANDING COUNSEL TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE IN COUNCIL OF INDIA, LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. "Hominum peritorum responsa sunt nobis cognoscenda." Cic. Epist. Fragm. apud Nizolium. LONDON: STEVENS & HAYNES, Law Publishers, 11, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. 1869. BIBL PREFACE. IN 1814 a book was published called "Chalmers's Opinions of Eminent Lawyers;" and, notwithstanding its faulty and inconvenient arrangement, and the quantity of useless matter with which it is encumbered, the work has always enjoyed a high reputation, and is still frequently consulted when cases occur involving questions of Constitutional Law. Lately an edition has been published in America. This is only what might have been expected with regard to a book which has made known to the world the legal Opinions, on many points of interest and importance, of such men as Lord Somers, Chief Justice Holt, Lord Hardwicke, Lord Talbot, Lord Mansfield, and others, given when they were the Law Officers of the Crown. Since then, however, there has been a complete silence and blank; and the Opinions of the Law Officers, given from time to time to the different Departments of the State during the last sixty or seventy years, have been consigned to oblivion, and buried in the dusty archives which have been practically inaccessible The idea occurred to me that I should be doing good service, not only to the Profession to which I belong, but |