Southern District of New York, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-fifth day of November, A. D. 1826, in the fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States of America, JAMES KENT, 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:

[L. S.]

"Commentaries on American Law. By JAMES KENT. Vol. I." 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 JAMES DILL,

Clerk of the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, by JAMES KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, by JAMES KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, by WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, by WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, by WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, by WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty, by WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, by MRS. WILLIAM KENT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co.,

CAMBRIDGE.

BODLEIAN

29 APR 1030

LIBRA

PREFACE

TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION.

SOON after my retirement from the Bench, at the commencement of the year 1862, I was requested by James Kent, Esq., of New York, the grandson of the distinguished Chancellor, to prepare a new edition of these Commentaries.

The work had already been copiously annotated, first by the author, and afterwards by his son, Judge William Kent, himself an accomplished lawyer and jurist. To the tenth edition fresh notes had been added of the more recent decisions and statutory enactments.

These annotations greatly relieved the task which would otherwise have been imposed upon me. Of course it was necessary to explore the field of judicial decisions made and statutory laws enacted since the last edition. This has been done, I think I may say, with fidelity, and the results added to the pre-existing notes. Where the notes of former editions could be conveniently condensed or incorporated with the new matter this has also been done, and I have not hesitated to correct occasional inaccuracies in the deduction or statement of principles derived from the cases referred to. No change, however, has been made in the text or in the notes prepared by the commentator himself. As in the previous editions, published since his death, these have been left untouched. In a very few instances, where the doctrine of the text has seemed to me opposed to the existing rule on the same subject, I have ventured to set forth the conflicting view in the notes with appropriate references to authority.

In performing these labors I have been more than ever impressed with the accurate and consummate learning of the author, and the great alue of his volumes to the student and the profession. My utmost wishes are attained if I have been able to add anything to the usefulness of a work already so highly and universally appreciated.

SYRACUSE, December, 1865.

GEORGE F. COMSTOCK.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

THE seventh edition of Kent's Commentaries is the first that has been published containing any additions or alterations not made by the Author. As the work has become, in a great degree, a Digest of American Law, of practical use to the lawyer as well as the student, the Editor has endeavored to collect the principal decisions and statutory enactments that have been made since the appearance of the last edition. In some few instances, he has attempted, in a very limited manner, to illustrate or qualify some of the doctrines of the text.

The Editor is aware that this mode of collecting authorities is incompatible with exact method, and is, indeed, condemned by the Author himself; and it is quite possible that the original notes to the Commentaries, which were made at successive times, without regard to strict order, might be advantageously regulated and compressed. But, on reflection, he has not felt himself authorized to impair, in any degree, the integrity of the Commentaries, and the text and notes are presented in this edition as they were left by the Author.

The great increase of the work has rendered the Author's index altogether too limited. A new and enlarged index has accordingly been added; and, as a necessary effect of this index, a new numbering of the pages has been adopted. For the convenience of those possessing the previous publications of the work, the original numbers of the pages have been placed in the margins of the volumes.