INTRODUCTION. 



71 



John Woodworth, Jacob Sutherland, William L. Marcy, Samuel Nelson, Greene 

 C. Bronson and Esek Cowen. 



The office of attorney-general has successively devolved on Egbert Benson, 

 Richard Varick, Aaron Burr, Morgan Lewis, Nathaniel Lawrence, Josiah Ogden 

 Hoffman, Ambrose Spencer, John Woodworth, Matthias B. Hildreth, Abraham 

 Van Vechten, Martin Van Buren, Thomas J. Oakley, Samuel A. Tallcott, 

 Greene C. Bronson, Samuel Beardsley, Willis Hall and George P. Barker. 



While the legislature was busily engaged in modifying the municipal law, the 

 higher courts were not less assiduous in expounding the new statutes. But the 

 materials for writing the judicial history of the state previously to 1805, are very 

 scanty, and are chiefly traditionary. The practice in the supreme court was 

 modeled after that of the king's bench in England, and its complexity and un- 

 certainty rendered it difficult of attainment. Not only was the practice in the 

 court of chancery more mysterious, but the principles of equity, and the rules 

 controling their application, were to be learned by the few only who at that day 

 had access to expensive English works. The science of the law at that early 

 period was less understood than now, while its professors were held in high vene- 

 ration, as the priests of mysteries too profound to be explored by common minds. 

 In 1794, "A treatise on the practice of the supreme court of judicature of the 

 state of New- York, in civil actions," was published " by William Wyche, of the 

 Honorable Law Society of Grey's Inn, London, and citizen of the United States of 

 America," and with the motto " Lex mundi harmonia." This little work was 

 well executed, and there are yet some among us who found it useful in relieving 

 them from the difficulties of separating what was applicable here from the intri- 

 cate forms of practice in the English courts. 



William Coleman and George Caines, in 1794, commenced collecting reports 

 of cases of practice in the supreme court, and published the results in 1805. 

 George Caines also gathered notices of important cases adjudicated in the court 

 for the correction of errors. The same author, in 1808, published a treatise on 

 the practice of the supreme court. The occasional reports thus published, pre- 



