Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by

D. M. BATES,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

JAMES & WEBB, PRINTERS.

WILMINGTON, DEL.

PREFACE.

205

These Reports are published under authority of a Joint Resolution of the General Assembly of Delaware, adopted, March 29th 1871, directing the Chancellor to "collect and publish such equity cases, heretofore determined in the Court of Chancery of this State, as, in his judgment, should be proper for public information; " also providing for the continued publication of such equity cases as should be thereafter determined. The present volume contains cases selected and prepared from the manuscript notes of the Chancellors, from the year 1814 to 1833. No manuscript notes are known to be in existence, of any equity cases adjudged between the organization. of the Court of Chancery, under the constitution of 1792, and the year 1814-the date of the first case reported in this volume. The reporter has published all the cases found among the manuscripts, from 1814, to 1833, which seemed to be of any value to the profession, and in which there were written opinions.

It may not be amiss to add that the opinions have not, in every case, been published literally and fully, as they were found in the manuscript. In some instances, minute discussions of the evidence are omitted, the conclu- sion of the Chancellor upon the state of facts being sufficient to make clearly intelligible the legal principles decided in the cause. In a few instances, some transpositions of sentences and changes of phraseology have been made; but this has been done sparingly, and only when necessary to make clearer the meaning of the text. The (RECAP)

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arguments of counsel are not reported literally. The notes of argument in a cause made by a Chancellor, for his own use only, would not bear a literal publication. They present but the thread of the argument, sufficient to refresh the memory of the Chancellor in his investigation of the cause, but meagre to the reader. It was necessary, either to omit the arguments or to supply much which was lacking in expression, though evidently comprehended in the arguments as made. The latter course has been adopted, in order to satisfy the generally expressed interest of members of our Bar in the arguments of cases reported. The arguments reported in this volume are substantially as found in the manuscript notes; but they must of course fall short, both in force and fullness, of those actually made by the counsel,—able, and eminent in their profession, as all of the counsel were.

The reporter attempted to verify the citations of authorities made in the arguments of counsel and opinions of the Court, but not with full success. The references to adjudged cases in the Chancery Reports were tested, and are believed to be correct as printed; but the text books of the period covered by these reports have, many of them, since passed through successive editions, and the original paging cannot be traced. The effort to find the corresponding pages in later editions proved so unsatisfactory, that it became necessary to abandon it, and to leave the references as they stand in the manuscripts.

March, 1876.