CON 
materials ; * tea, except by the India com- 
pany ; tobacco manufactured ; * utensils of 
war, without licence from the king; * cut 
whale-bone. 
Goods prohibited to be exported, are 
boxes, cases, or dial-plates, for clocks and 
watches, without the movement and makers’ 
names; bullion, without proper certificates, 
&c. ; frames for stockings; metal not of 
British ore, except copper-bars ; wool; scour- 
ing and fuller’s clay; sheep and sheepskins 
with the wool ; tallow ; utensils used in the 
silk and woollen manufactory ; white ashes, 
&c. 
N. B. Such goods in the preceding list as 
have an asterisk prefixed before them, be- 
sides the forfeiture in common with the rest, 
are attended with several penalties. 
CON T R A MAN D AT 1 0 placiti, coun- 
termanding what was formerly ordered, and 
giving the defendant further time to answer. 
CONTRACT, a covenant or agreement 
between two or more persons, with a lawful 
consideration or cause. Contracts are two- 
fold, either express or implied. Express 
contracts are, where the terms of the agree- 
ment are openly uttered, as to pay a stated 
price for certain goods. Implied, are such 
as reason and justice dictate, and which there- 
fore the law presumes that every man un- 
dertakes to perform: thus if a man takes up 
wares from a tradesman, without any agree- 
ment of price, the law concludes that he con- 
tracted to pay their real value. 2 Black 443. 
These are good contracts in law, because 
there is one thing in consideration for an- 
other; but if a person promises to give or 
pay 20s-. which afterwards, on being demand- 
ed, he refuses to pay, no action lies to recover 
it ; because such a promise will not amount 
to a contract, it being no more than a bare 
promise, termed in law nudum pactum. Yet 
if any thing was given in consideration ot 
such a promise, w'as it but to the value of a 
penny, it is deemed a good contract, and 
consequently will be binding. In contracts 
the time is to be regarded, in and from which 
they are made; and there is a difference 
where a day of payment is limited thereon, 
and where not: for when it is limited, the 
contract is good immediately, and an action 
lies on it without payment; but in the other 
case it is otherwise. 
Contract, usurious, is an agreement to 
pay more interest for money than the laws 
allow. See Usury. 
It is a devastavit in executors, to pay a 
debt upon an usui ious contract. 
CONTRA-HARMON IC AL proportion, 
in arithmetic, is that relation of three terms, 
wherein the difference ot the first and second 
is to the difference of the second and third as 
the third is to the first: thus, 3, 5, and 6, are 
numbers contra- harmonically proportional, 
for 2 : 1 : : 6 : 3. 
CONTRAST, the artificial opposition in 
works of painting and sculpture, of groups, 
attitudes/ or colours ; so as by their variety 
and striking difference, to enhance the value 
of each other. See Painting. 
CONTR ATE- WHEEL, in watch-work, 
that next to the. crown, the teeth and hoop 
of which lie contrary to. those of the other 
wheels, whence it takes its name. See 
Clock-work. 
C O NT R A V A ELATION, in the military 
art, implies a line formed in the same manner 
CON 
as the line of circumvallation, to defend the 
besiegers against the enterprises of the gar- 
rison; so that the army forming a siege lies 
between the lines of circumvallation and con- 
travallation. The trench of this line is to- 
wards the town, at the foot of the parapet, 
and is never made but when the garrison is 
numerous enough to harass and interrupt 
the besiegers by sallies. This line is con- 
structed in the rear of the camp, and by the 
same rule as the line of circumvallation, with 
this difference; that as it is only intended to 
resist a body of troops much inferior to a 
force which might attack the circumvallation, 
so its parapet is not made so thick, nor the 
ditch so wide and deep; six feet is sufficient 
for the first, with the ditch eight feet broad 
and five feet deep. 
CONTRAYERAA, in the materia me- 
dica, the name by which the root of the 
dorstenia plant is known in the shops. See 
Materia Medica, 
CONTRE, in heraldry, an appellation 
given to several bearings, on account of their 
cutting the shield contrary and opposite 
ways. Thus we meet with contre-bend, con- 
tre-chevron, cont re-pale, &c. when there are 
two ordinaries of the same nature opposite to 
each other, so as colour may be opposed to 
metal, and metal to colour. 
CONTRIBUTIONS facienda, in law, a 
writ that lies where tenants in common are 
bound to do the same thing, and one or 
more of them refuse to contribute their part; 
as where they jointly hold a mill pro indi- 
viso, and equally share the profits ot it, if the 
mill fall to decay, and one or more of the 
persons refuse to contribute to its reparation, 
the rest shall have this writ to compel them. 
CONTROL, Comptrol, oi-Controle, 
is properly a double register kept of acts, 
issues, &c. of the officers or commissioners 
in the revenue, army, &c. in order to per- 
ceive the true state thereof, and to certify 
the truth, and the due keeping of the acts 
subject to the enregisterment. 
CONTROLLER, ah officer appointed to 
control or oversee the accounts of other offi- 
cers, and, on occasion, to certify whether or 
not things have been controlled or examin- 
ed. In England we have several officers of 
this name ; controller of the king’s house, con- 
troller of the navy, controller of the customs, 
controller of the mint, &c. 
Controller of the hanaper, an officer 
that attends the lord chancellor daily, in term 
and in seal-time, to take all things sealed in 
leather bags, from the clerks of the hanaper ; 
and to mark the number and effect thereof, 
and enter them in a book, with all the duties 
belonging to the king and other officers tor 
the same, and so charge the clerk of the ha- 
naper with them. 
Controller of the pipe, an officer of the 
exchequer, that makes out a summons twice 
every year, to levy the farms and debts of 
the pipe. 
Controllers of the pells, two officers 
of the exchequer, who are the chamberlain’s 
clerks, and keep a control of the pell of re- 
ceipt, and goings out. 
CONTUMACY, inlaw, a refusal to ap- 
pear in court when legally summoned, or the 
disobedience to the rules and orders of a 
court having power to punish such offence. 
In a criminal sense, the contumacious is con- 
demned, not because the crime is proved on 
CON 42J) 
him, but because he is absent. In England 
contumacy is to be prosecuted to outlawry. 
CONTUSION, in medicine and surgery, 
any hurt of the body that is inflicted by a 
blunt instrument; and since, in this case, an 
indefinite number of small vessels and fibres 
are injured and broken, a contusion may pro- 
perly be said to be a congeries of an indefinite- 
number of small wounds. See Surgery. 
CONVALLARIA, or lily of the valley, a 
genus of the monogynia order, in the hex- 
andria class of plants, and in the natural me- 
thod ranking under sarmentaceie, or 11th or- 
der. The corolla is sexfid ; the berry spotted 
and trilocular. The species are 11, two of 
which are natives of Britain, viz. the maialis, 
or May lily ; and the multifiora, or Solomon’s 
seal. They are plants of considerable beauty, 
and may be easily propagated by their creep- 
ing roots. 
CONVENTICLE, a diminutive of con- 
vent ; denoting properly a cabal, or secret 
assembly, of a part ot the monks of a con- 
vent, to make a brigue or party in the elec- 
tion of an abbot. From the ill use of these 
assemblies the word is come into disrepute ; 
and now stands for any mischievous, sedi- 
tious, or irregular assembly. The term con- 
venticle is said, by some, to have burn first 
applied in England to the schools ot Wick- 
lithe ; and has been since used to signify the 
religious assemblies of all in this country 
who do not conform to the established doc- 
trines and worship of the church of England. 
By 22 Car. II. cap. 1, it is enacted, that if 
any persons of the age of 16 years, subjects 
of this kingdom, shall be present at any con- 
venticle, where there are live or more assents 
bled, they shall be fined five shillings for. the 
first offence, and ten shillings for the second 
and persons preaching incur a penalty of 
twenty pounds. Also suffering a meeting to 
be held in a house, !kc. is liable to twenty 
pounds penalty. Justices ot the peace have 
power to enter such houses, and seize per- 
sons assembled, & c. and if they neglect 
their duty they shall forfeit one hundred 
pounds. And it any constable, &c. know of. 
such meetings, and do not inform a justice of 
peace, or chief magistrate, &c. he shall for- 
feit five pounds. But the 1st W. and M_ 
cap. 18, ordains, that protestant dissenters 
shall be exempt from penalties: though i£ 
they meet in a house with the doors locked,, 
barred, or bolted, such dissenters shall have 
no benefit from the act. Officers of the go- 
vernment, &c. present at any conventicle* at 
which there shall be ten persons, if the royal*, 
family be not prayed for in express words, 
shall forfeit forty .pounds, and be disabled,. 
Stat. 10 Anne, cap. 2. 
CONVENTUAL, in general, denotes, 
something belonging to a convent or monas- 
tery: thus monies who actually reside in a. 
convent are called conventuals, in contradis- 
tinction to those who are only guests, or in- 
possession of benefices depending on the- 
house. 
CONVERGING*, or convergent lines, in. 
geometry, are such as continually approach, 
nearer one another, or whose distance be- 
comes still less and less. These are opposed, 
to divergent lines, tiie distance of which be- 
comes continually greater : those lines which, 
converge pne way diverge the. other. 
Converging hyperbola*. is one vvjio.e: 
