OF The Law OF BILLS OF EXCHANGE, CASH BILLS, AND PROMISSORY NOTES. BY SIR JOHN BAYLEY, KNT., LATE ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF HIS MAJESTY'S COURT OF KING'S BENCH. THE SIXTH EDITION, BY GEORGE MORLEY DOWDESWELL, OF THE INNER temple, esq., barrISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON: BENNING & CO., 43, FLEET STREET; AND MDCCCXLIX. PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. IN presenting this Edition of Mr. Justice Bayley's Treatise to the public, the Editor feels that he requires very great indulgence. The difficulty of following an author of singular accuracy and precision has been enhanced by the entirely different form in which questions relating to Bills of Exchange are now, almost invariably, submitted to the Courts. Until shortly after the time when the last Edition of this Treatise was prepared, the questions discussed generally arose simply on the evidence at the trial; but now, for the most part, they are presented through the medium of the pleadings, or are so fettered by them, and mixed up with formal matters and technicalities, as to make it extremely difficult to extract principles, or to abridge the cases clearly and concisely. In addition to this, the cases too frequently suggest questions not resulting from actual transactions, but purely fictitious difficulties invented by the ingenuity of the pleader to stay the progress of the suit. The number of questions, real and unreal, which have thus been discussed since the publication of the last Edition in 1834, has been so great as to render the reduction of them within a tolerable compass a most arduous task. With a view to prevent great increase in bulk, the Editor has given an abridgment of the more important cases only, and as information respecting pleadings in actions on bills and notes is indispensable to the practitioner, an epitome of many of the cases on this subject has been inserted. The portions of the work which consist of additions by the Editor, are included between two marks, thus, "," but they do not constitute the whole of the new matter. He has to express his thanks to Sir J. Bayley, the son of the author, for the loan of his father's copy of the work, in which several cases had been inserted by the author in MS., and these have been incorporated as part of the original. 66 5, Crown Office Row, Temple, June 12th, 1849. |