C32 



LAW. 



Of guaran- 

 tees. 



compensations to be made, or whether the principle of 

 of Nations. jj, e u ([ posiidelis has been adopted. 

 """Y""" The treaty concludes with specifying the timeivhen, 

 and sometimes the place where, the ratifications are to 

 be exchanged. 



4. Sometimes foreign powers are called in as gua- 

 rantees of a treaty. A guarantee may extend to the 

 treaty in general, or be confined to some particular ar- 

 ticle or articles of it ; in the former case it is called gene- 

 ral, in the latter particular. It may also be for one 

 of the contracting parties only, or for all of them. 



In general a guarantee engages to maintain the 

 treaty, by promising to lend assistance to the party who 

 shall complain of an infraction of it, and who shall de- 

 mand such assistance. 



A guarantee has no right to oppose the alterations 

 that the contracting parties may afterwards make in 

 the treaty by mutual consent; but neither is he oblig- 

 ed to guarantee the treaty wh*en so altered. 



5. The treaty of peace being signed and ratified, it only 

 remains to publish and put it in execution. The former 

 is generally done with solemnity ; the latter often meets 

 with a great deal of difficulty, particularly when an in- 

 vaded territory is to be evacuated, or provinces, &c. 

 are to be ceded to a power that is not in possession of 

 them at the time of making the treaty of peace. These 



Of the exe- 

 cution of 

 - treaties. 



difficulties sometimes occasion particular conventions, L 

 and even congresses of execution ; and it_is fortunate if of Nation* 

 by such means the embers* f war are entirely extin- '" - "Y" W 

 guished. f, 



Such of our readers as may wish to extend their in 

 quiries on this subject, may consult the following 

 works : 



Cumberland's Treatise on the Lam of Nature, Latin, 

 translated by the Rev. J. Towers, with Notes, 4to. 1750. 



Grotius De Jure Br-lli ac Pads. There is a trans- 

 lation in folio, 1738, with all the valuable notes of 

 Barbeyrac. 



Heineccins, System nf the Law of Nature and Na- 

 tinns, translated from the Latin, with Notes by Dr. 

 Turnbull, 2 vols, Svo. 17^3. 



Puffendorff 's Law of Nature and Nations, translated 

 from the Latin by Carew, with Barbeyrac's Notes, folio, 

 1749- 



Burlamaqui's Principles nf Natural and Political Law, 

 in French, translated by Nugent, 2 vols. Svo. 1763. 



Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws. 



Mably's 'Droit Publique de I' Europe. 



Wicquefort's Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions. 



Vattel's Droit des Gens, translated, with Notes, 1797, 

 Svo. 



PART III. OF THE LAW OF ENGLAND. 



Law FOLLOWING the method of Justinian's body of the 



of England. Ron 5311 kw, modern writers of digests or institutes of 

 *~Y*w the codes of their respective countries, have commonly 

 arranged their subject under the three great titles of 

 Rights of Persons, Rights of Things, and Actions, or 

 the several sorts of legal process. This division is ei- 

 ther not logical in itself, or is expressed with great in- 

 accuracy. All law relates to rights of persons only. 

 Things have no rights ; and to them, therefore, as pos 

 sessing rights, law can have no relation. Actions, also, 

 or the different kinds of legal process, are nothing else 

 than a particular class of rights, of which the several 

 members of the community may avail themselves as 

 much as of their rights of any other description. But 

 if, on the other hand, Justinian, and the writers who 

 have followed him, mean only by rights of persons, 

 rights of things, and actions, three great classes of rights 

 comprehending the whole subject of law, there seems 

 no good objection to the arrangement, although the ex- 

 pressions they have used are sufficiently inaccurate, and 

 liable to misapprehension. 



Certain rights arise from the status, condition, or rank 

 of men in society, as the ecclesiastical and military 

 states, from their more usual and intimate relation to 

 one another, as governors and governed, husband and 

 wife, &c. and from kindred or affinity, as parer.t and 

 child. From this status, relation, and affinity, proceed 

 what may be called, in a more limited and peculiar 

 sense, the rights of persons. 



Another class of rights is more immediately connect- 

 ed with property ; and this being divisible into two 

 great species, real and personal property, hence a cor- 

 respondent distribution of this class of rights into the 

 two subordinate divisions of real and personal. This 

 class of rights may be denominated rights arising from 

 property. 



A third class of rights may be arranged under the 



title of actions, being the several modes of judicial pro* Law ( 

 cess to which every member of the state lias right as of England 

 the means by which he may claim or defend all or any '""Y"""' 

 of his other rights. 



We shall, accordingly, in the following abstract, ob- 

 serve this threefold distribution of rights. But as it 

 may sometimes serve to place the rights both of per- 

 sons, strictly so denominated, and those arising from 

 things, in a stronger point of view, we shall occasionally 

 regard them in a negative or violated- state, or, as it is 

 more usually expressed, under the aspect of private 

 ivrongs. The several modes by which these rights are 

 acquired and transmitted will also fall to be considered. 

 And under Actions, besides what is more proper to the 

 subject, we shall introduce some notice of the different 

 sorts of courts, their jurisdiction, &c. 



A. fourth division of our subject will relate to Crimes; 

 which may be regarded as the rights conferred by na- 

 ture, or derived from law, in a state of suck gross vio- 

 lation as occasions alarm, by occasioning insecurity, to 

 every member of the community. And hence this 

 branch of the subject has by writers on the law of Eng- 

 land usually been denominated public wrong.*. We shall 

 premise a brief Introduction on the sources and com- 

 ponent parts of the laws of England. 



Introduction. 



1. The municipal law of England, or the rule of Laws of 

 civil conduct prescribed to the inhabitants of that king- Kngiand 

 dom, may with sufficient propriety be divided into P" 



two kinds ; the lex non scripta, the unwritten or com- ^[{1"^, 

 mon law ; and the lex scripta, the written or statute ten. 

 law. 



2. The lex non scripta, or unwritten law, includes Unwritten, 

 not only general customs, or the common law properly 



so called, but also the particular customs of certain 





