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- 
