with the gracious and powerful protection of your Royal Highness.

Next to the approbation of His Most Gracious Majesty, is the distinguished sanction of the Commander in Chief and Heir Presumptive; and proud indeed am I to enjoy the felicity of this high honour. Another person more gifted than myself would seize the occasion to expatiate on the character of your Royal Highness; but as it is the privilege of a dedicator to praise his Patron without offence, I may be permitted to say, that in the person of your Royal Highness are concentrated the courage of a soldier, and the prudence of a general, the dignity of a prince, and the humanity of a patriot. I but speak a truth, known to all the world, when I advert to the unremitting assiduity with which the entire powers of your Royal Highness's enlightened and liberal understanding, have been devoted to the comfort, and the happiness of every officer and private soldier, under the command of your Royal Highness:

and I furnish no intelligence to mankind, when I bring before them, the impartiality and benevolence of your Royal Highness's humane disposition, in redressing the wrongs of the aggrieved, in righting the injuries of the oppressed, should such be the misfortune of any humble individual, over whom the power of your Royal Highness extends; and in gaining the unshaken confidence and unbiassed affection of all those, who have the happiness to be placed under your Royal Highness's more immediate authority. I should raise my voice in vain, were I to dilate on those virtues, which have characterized the life of your Royal Highness.

It is my business, Sir, rather to admire than applaud them; they receive the tribute of a nation's gratitude, whenever, and wherever, your Royal Highness appears. And I must be content in being one of the very many, who pay to those virtues the silent homage of the heart; for the best things that I might say, could not render your Royal Highness dearer to Britons; and that I may not suffer in the good opinion of your Royal Highness, by overstepping the limits which my duty prescribes, I will rather become a loser in the judgement of the Public, for having said so little.

I have the honour to be,

SIR,

Your Royal Highness's

Most devoted, faithful, and

Obedient Humble Servant,

JAMES P. GILCHRIST.

London, October 1, 1821.

PREFACE.

In arranging for my own satisfaction and

amusement the materials of this work, which I have the honour of laying before the British Public, I formed those conceptions of the usage in question of its nature of its operation-and its results-which are interspersed in various parts of these pages; and in pursuance of this plan, I have gone through a long, but interesting train of reading and examination, with the sole view of giving to my mind a fair and impartial picture of the subject, without those extraneous accompaniments which are peculiar to legal compositions; and in this shape, in which I placed it before my unlearned mind, I now present it, stript of legal dress, and appearing under that figure, which, I hope, may ensure facility of comprehension, and consequent instruction. My brief display pretends to no learning-no recondite research, or profound