Mode of conveyance.

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No estate in joint tenantcy in lands, mefsuages, tenaments, or hereditaments, can be held or claimed by or under any grant, devise, or conveyance whatsoever, unless the premises are expressly directed to pass, not in tenantcy in common, but in joint tenantcy; and every such estate, unless otherwise expressly declared as aforesaid,

shall be deemed to be tenantcy in common.

CHAP. CHAP. VIII.

Of the Method of authenticating Letters of Attorney---Affidavits, &c. &c. for the Recovery of Debts, with Precedents, Practice, &c.Method of levying Executions in Barbadoes, &c. &c.

A

LL affidavits transmitted to the States Affidavit. or Colonies for the purpose of recovering debts, must pursue the direction of the sttatute of 5. Geo. II. c. 7.

ney.

When a power of attorney is tranfmitted Power of attor at the same time with an affidavit, they are both annexed together, and certified under the common feal of the city or borough, or town corporate where, or next to which the perfon making the affidavit or affirmation happens to reside. Where it is tranfmitted without an affidavit, it may then either be certified under such common feal as aforesaid; or it may be executed in the prefence of persons going to the

place

place to which the power is directed, and in that cafe one of the subscribing witnesses proves the execution of the letter of attorney before a judge of the state or colony, in which the letter or power of attorney is intended to be enforced.

Statute of 5.
Geo. 2.

Preamble.

An Act for the more easy Recovery of Debts in his Majesty's Plantations and Colonies in America*.

WHEREAS his Majefty's fubjects trad

ing to the British plantations in Ame

rica, lie under great difficulties for want of more easy methods of proving, recovering,

i

* This act took its rise from the complaints of some merchants in the city of Bristol, who not receiving their returns from America so quick as they defired, obtained this Bill which went through both Houses without one dissenting voice.

It has been thought by many that this statute was virtually repealed by the independence of the colonies, but the United-States having established it as a rule for the government of their courts of justice, to regard all the laws of England theretofore used and approved, as still in force, and this statute having been long used and approved, can now never legally be shaken; but even this muft rest too much on the temper of the judges and the approbation of the people,

and

and levying debts due to them, than are now used in some of the said plantations; and whereas it will tend very much to the retrieving of the credit, formerly given by the trading subjects of Great-Britain to the natives and inhabitants of the said plantations, and to the advancing of the trade of this kingdom thither, if such inconveniencies were remedied; may it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majefty, * by and with the advice and consent of the

* It is to be observed that by one of the oldest laws extant in Barbadoes, all bonds and other specialities attested to have been proved on oath under the corporation seal of the lord mayor, or any other mayor or chief officer of any city or town corporate, shall be taken, deemed, and judged as sufficient in law in any of the courts of justice in the island, as if the fubscribing witnesses had been there, and perfonally proved the fame. And, by an act for establishing a court of King's-Bench, Common-Pleas and Errors, in Antigua, made in 1721, there is a clause to the fame effect.

Here provision is made only for debts on specialities which does not extend to debts on simple contract, and those on open accounts, both of which are included in the late remedy.

Merchants and traders in England do not send their effects directly to the planters in the colonies, but have generally their correspondence on the spot, who act as factors for them, and dispose of the goods among the inhabitants for which they are allowed commission. These agents are presumed to be men of probity and substance, in whom their employers can confide,

and

•

the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the fame, That from and after the twenty-ninth day of September, which shall be in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty two, in any action or fuit then depending or hereafter to be brought in any court of law or equity in any of the said plantations, for or relating to any debt or account wherein any person refiding in Great-Britain shall be a party, it shall and may be lawful to and for the plaintiff, or defendant, and also to and for any witness to be examined or made use of in such action or fuit, to verify or prove any matter or thing by affidavit or affidavits in writing, upon oath, or in cafe the perfon making fuch affidavit be one of the people called Quakers, then upon his or her folemn affirmation, made