TO THE HONORABLE WILLIAM PRESCOTT, LL.D. SIR, It affords me sincere gratification to be allowed to dedicate this work to you, upon your retirement from the Bar, of which you have been so long a distinguished ornament. More than one third of a century has elapsed since, upon my first admission to practice, I had the honor of forming an acquaintance with you, which has ripened into a degree of friendship of which I may be truly proud. It has been my good fortune, through the whole intermediate period, to have been a witness of your professional labors, labors equally remarkable for the eminent ability, untiring research, profound learning, and unsullied dignity with which they were accompanied. They have brought with them the just reward due to a life of consistent principles and public spirit and private virtue, in the universal confidence and respect which have followed you in your retreat from the active scenes of business. This is a silent but expressive praise, whose true value is not easily overestimated. I trust that you may live many years to enjoy it, for the reason so finely touched by one of the great jurists of antiquity: Quia conscientia bene actæ vitæ, multorumque benefactorum recordatio jucundissima est. CAMBRIDGE, December, 1835. JOSEPH STORY. PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION. THE present edition of this work is printed from the last one to receive the author's revision, the fourth, published in the year 1846. In later editions a practice had grown up of making changes in the original text and notes in one way or another, generally by bracketed interpolation. Now and then this has had the effect of interfering seriously with the continuity of a particular discussion, or with the connection of the parts of a whole statement of law. Then too in process of time the brackets had sometimes dropped out of place, or dropped out altogether, and the result was that the work of the author could not always be distinguished from that of his editors. This evil is now removed, and in the present edition the original text and notes reappear intact (save the correction of some misprints), entitled to speak again with all the weight of authority of Mr. Justice Story. Further, the editor's notes (here printed in double columns) have been rewritten back to the same fourth edition. The editions since the fourth had generally been edited as so many distinct pieces of work, with the natural result of an accumulation of a mass of notes, sometimes discordant and always perplexing. This evil too has now been done away. For better or worse, each note of the present edition is a unit. Many of the annotations too on the more important subjects have taken the form, and the editor hopes may prove to have some of the merits, of monographs. These, it may be remarked, should be read through to be fully understood, at least by the student. For valuable help the editor tenders his best thanks to Mr. George J. Tufts of the Boston Bar. BOSTON, February 1, 1886. M. M. B. ADDENDA. To the authorities cited, vol. i. p. 116, note, in the paragraph beginning Other cases,' add, Green Bay Canal Co. v. Hewitt, 62 Wis. 316, a case however of construction.' Add to note (b), § 308, See Tate v. Williamson, L. R. 2 Ch. 55, in regard to what makes a relation of confidence.' At the close of the note ending for minute examination,' vol. i. p. 316, add, With this compare, in regard to gifts to strangers, Cooke v. Lamotte, 15 Beav. 234; Hoghton v. Hoghton, Ib. 278, 298.' After Dawson v. Collis, vol. ii. p. 19, add, See Behn v. Burness, 3 Best & S. 751, and note, Am. ed.' After Hammersley v. De Biel, vol. ii. p. 290, add, Alderson v. Maddison, 5 Ex. D. 293, 298.' |