Diftria of Maffachusetts, to wit.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty-fecond day of January,

in the twenty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, BARNARD B. MACANULTY, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the words following, to wit:-" A Selection of Pleadings in Civil Actions, subfequent to the Declaration. With occafional Annotations on the Law of Pleading. By JOSEPH STORY."

IN Conformity to the Act of the Congrefs of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by fecuring the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of fuch Copies, during the Times therein mentioned;" and alfo to an Act, entitled, “An Act fupplementary to an Act, entitled, An A&t for the Encouragement of Learning, by fecuring the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of fuch Copies, during the 'Times therein mentioned; and extending the Benefits thereof to the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching, Hiftorical and other Prints."

N. GOODALE, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

A true Copy of Record. Atteft:

N. GOODALE, Clerk.

L 5831

MAY 1 2 1982

PREFACE.

THE defign of the following felection is to facilitate to the American student the practice of special pleading. A variety of English books on this fubject are at once elaborate and learned. Yet fuch is the difference of our customs, ftatutes, and common law, that they will be found, in many inftances, inadequate to fupply the neceffities of our own juridical practice. The compilations of Raftall, Coke, Thompson, Herne, and Brownlow, however valuable for the conciseness and precision of their forms, are profuse in ancient lore, applicable to special jurisdictions, or obsolete with feudal doctrines; and thofe of Mallory, Lilly, Morgan, and Wentworth, though highly useful, abound with matter calculated only for an English forum. These confiderations, added to the high price of foreign books, fuggefted the prefent compilation.

In the arrangement of the pleadings method has been purfued, fo far as it was deemed advantageous for facility of reference; but as portions only of the pleadings are occafionally felected,* where the whole feemed unneceffary, and the choice of pofition was not always dictated by any relation between them, exactitude in this refpect has not been always practicable. Annexed to many of the pleadings will be found annotations immediately referable to them; and fometimes occafional differtations upon contefted points. These laft, however, are few; and are fubmitted with deference to the profeffion. Volumes might be written on the law, which bears on pleading; but the prefent

This is chiefly done in actions, where one general plea admitted of various replications and rejoinders; as in the pleas of Limitations in Affumpfit, and plea of General Performance in Debt on Bond to account. In thefe cafes it was deemed unneceffary to felect more than the repli cations and rejoinders; and fonetimes the latter only.