OF HON. PELEG SPRAGUE, IN ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME CAUSES, IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 1841-1861. PHILADELPHIA: T. & J. W. JOHNSON & CO., LAW BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS, No. 535 CHESTNUT STREET. 1861. 84760 LUV PURCHASE MAY 20 48 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, BY T. & J. W. JOHNSON & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of PREFACE. A SMALL part only, of the decisions made by Judge Sprague, have ever been reported. Owing to his inability to use his eyes in reading or writing, his opinions were delivered orally. A considerable number of the opinions, embraced in this volume, especially the more elaborate ones, were originally written out from his dictation, and some of them are now published for the first time. The others were in the first instance reported by the counsel, and published in the Law Reporter, or elsewhere. All of them have been revised by Judge Sprague, and now appear with his sanction. In this revision, the original reports have, sometimes, been curtailed, by omitting the analysis and comparison of evidence, which, however important to the parties in the cause, are of no interest to the professional reader, who desires only to know what were the facts found by the court, upon which the law was pronounced. The head-notes were prepared by the judge; as a general rule, they contain only the points decided, but in some instances embrace legal propositions which were the foundation of the reasoning of the court. An occasional foot-note has been added, where the authorities subsequent to the decisions seemed to demand it; and these, and the references to cases, have been made by me as editor. In collecting the reported cases, I have had the valuable assistance of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., of the Boston bar, by whom most of that labor was performed. F. E. PARKer. BOSTON, MAY 17TH, 1861. |