Quis denique adstrictis istis et compositissimis Actionum, Exceptionum, Præfat. ad Brissonium, de Formulis. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WELLS & LILLY. 1828. DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT: District Clerk's Office. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty-fourth day of May, A. D. 1828, in the fifty-second year of the Independence of the United States of America, Charles Jackson, of the said district, has deposited in this Office the Title of a Book, the Right whereof he claims as Author, in the words following, to wit: "A Treatise on the Pleadings and Practice in Real Actions; with Precedents of Pleadings. By Charles Jackson. Quis denique adstrictis istis et compositissimis Actionum, Exceptionum, atque totius Judicii ordinandi peragendique formulis, multo celerius feliciusque, quam hodierna illa in foro garriendi licentia, terminatas esse lites non fatea tur. Præfat. ad Brissonium, de Formulis." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an Act, entitled, " An act supplementary to an Act, entitled An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching Historical, and other Prints." JNO. W. DAVIS, PREFACE. ment. IT is more than three centuries since the common real actions have been almost wholly disused in England; their place being supplied by the action of ejectThe real actions have consequently for many years past attracted very little of the attention of the profession in that country; and the law concerning them is to be sought chiefly in some few ancient writers, and in the Year Books, and other early reports. The action of ejectment has never been in common use in this part of our country; the writ of entry on disseisin being found a more convenient and effectual remedy, and being maintainable in every case in which ejectment would lie. When the claimant has lost his right of entry, so that he cannot maintain ejectment, his only remedy, in England as well as in this country, is by the appropriate real action. The only inconvenience that has attended the use of these real actions with us, has arisen from the want of some digest of this branch of the law, and of a manual of pleadings adapted to our jurisprudence and modes of proceeding, which might guide the researches and abridge the labour of students and practitioners. In an early stage of my professional life I experienced on several occasions the inconvenience arising from this circumstance, and began many years ago to make collections for my own use from the ancient books on this subject. As the matter gradually accumulated on my hands, it was natural and convenient to digest it in a regular order; and thus a large part of the following book had acquired its present shape, long before I had thought of ever making it publick. On quitting the bench, I proposed to myself, if my health should be sufficiently restored, to resume at some future time this my favourite study; and accordingly on my return from Europe was meditating a renewal of this undertaking; when I found that the learned Professor of law in Harvard University was publishing a work on the same subject. This of course prevented any further prosecution of my purpose; and for a long time I had abandoned all thought of making the additions necessary to prepare my book for publication. Afterwards, however, on comparing more particularly my compilation with the work of Professor Stearns, it appeared to me that the plans on which the two books were composed were so different that they would not much interfere with each other. Whilst his lays down and explains the principles and general rules of the law on this subject, mine enters more into the details, and gives the forms, which serve to illustrate those principles, and to show their practical application. In short, although if my book had not been nearly completed before his had been published, I should never have undertaken it; yet I was induced, perhaps too easily, to believe that practitioners as well as students might still derive some advantage from the forms of pleadings, and the practical illustrations of the law, contained in the following sheets. About a year after the publication of Professor Stearns' book, a new work on the same subject, by Henry Roscoe, Esquire, was published in London. I had never seen nor heard of Mr. Roscoe's treatise, until my own was nearly half through the press. It seemed then too late to stop the publication of mine, unless it had been wholly superseded by the other; and from the cursory examination which is all that I have yet been able to bestow on Mr. Roscoe's work, it appeared to me that it still left room for a book devoted more particularly to practical forms and entries, and especially to such illustrations and applications of the ancient law as might serve to adapt it to the practice in this country. In the progress of this work, my attention has been withdrawn from it, sometimes for more than a year at a time, and always for several months in different parts of every year. Whilst the delay thus produced may have given me opportunity to mature my thoughts on some particulars, this desultory course of study has more frequently perhaps tended to prevent a due attention to others; and I fear must have prevented that consistency and perspicuity which I might perhaps have attained in some degree by an uninterrupted application to the subject. One of the natural consequences of this course has been an occasional repetition of the same idea in different places. On revising the sheets for the press I have seen some such repetitions, which however I could not conveniently expunge without leaving the context imperfect or obscure. I shall consider myself fortunate if errors of an opposite and a worse kind, that is, antinomies and self-contra |