order that the mortgagee, by entering up judgment, might obtain priority in the administration of the assets of the mortgagor. The Debtors Act 1869 contained various provisions for making known to the debtor the extent of the liability incurred by him, among others that the warrant must be executed in the presence of a solicitor named by the debtor, and that it and the defeasance must be written on the same paper. A warrant of attorney must be duly stamped, generally as a mortgage (q.v.), and must be registered as a judgment in the central office of the Supreme Court.
WARRANT-OFFICER, in the British navy, the name given to officers who rank next to those who hold commissions, being appointed by warrant. They include the master, purser, surgeon, gunner, boatswain and carpenter, the first three being of “wardroom rank,” i.e. messing with the lieutenants. In the military forces a warrant-officer is appointed by a secretary of state's warrant, and ranks below the commissioned officers and above the non-commissioned officers. A warrant-officer often holds an honorary commission.
WARRANTY, etymologically, another form of Guarantee (q.v.). It is used, however, in a rather different sense. The sense common to both words is that of a collateral contract, under which responsibility for an act is incurred, and for the breach of which an action for damages lies. Warranty generally expresses the responsibility of the person doing the act, guarantee the responsibility of some other person on his behalf. A warranty may be defined, in the words of Lord Abinger, as “an express or implied statement of something which the party undertakes shall be part of the contract, and, though part of the contract, collateral to the express object of it” (Chanter v. Hopkins, 1838, 4 M. & W. 404). It differs from a condition in that a condition forms the basis of the contract and a breach of it discharges from the contract, and from a representation in that the latter does not affect the contract unless made a part of it expressly, or by implication as in contracts of insurance and other contracts uberrimae fidei, or unless it be fraudulent. These distinctions are not always accurately maintained. Thus in the Real Property Act 1845, § 4, condition seems to be used for warranty.
Warranty as it affected the law of real property was, before the passing of the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833, a matter of the highest importance. A warranty in a conveyance was a covenant real annexed to an estate of freehold, and either expressed in a clause of warranty or implied in cases where a feudal relation might exist between feoffor and feoffee. The warranty, as described by Littleton, § 697, was an outgrowth of feudalism, and something very like it is to be found in the Liber Feudorum. At the time of Glanvill the heir was bound to warrant the reasonable donations of his ancestor. Warranty was one of the elements in Bracton's definition of homage, 78b, “juris vinculum quo quis astringitur ad warrantizandum defendendum et acquietandum tenentem suum in seisina versus omnes.” For an express warranty the word warrantizo or warrant was necessary. The word “give” implied a warranty, as did an exchange and certain kinds of partition. In order to bind heirs a clause of warranty was required. This was either lineal, collateral or commencing by disseisin. The differences between the three kinds were very technical, and depended on abstruse and obsolete learning. They are treated at great length in old works on real property, especially Coke upon Littleton by Butler, 364b. The feoffor or his heirs were bound by voucher to warranty or judgment in a writ of warrantia chartae to yield other lands to the feoffee in case of the eviction of the latter. Vouching to warranty was a part of the old fictitious proceedings in a common recovery in use for the purpose of barring an entail before the Fines and Recoveries Act. Warranty of this nature, as far as it relates to the conveyance of real estate, though not actually abolished in all possible cases, is now superseded by covenants for title. The more usual of these are now by the Conveyancing Act 1881 deemed to be implied in conveyances. For the implied warranties of title and quality see Sale of Goods. Vouching to warranty was at one time important in the law of personality as well as of reality. The procedure is fully described in Glanvill. The right of calling on the holder of lost or stolen goods to vouch to warranty (interciare), i.e. to give up the name of the person from whom he received them, under pain of forfeiture, was often granted under the name of theam as a local franchise. Warranty, as it exists at present in the law of personality, is either express or implied. There is no general rule as to what constitutes a warranty. It is not necessary that an express warranty should be in writing, the law being that every affirmation at the time of sale of personal chattels is a warranty, provided that it appears to have been so intended. The principal cases of implied warranty occur in the contracts of sale and insurance. There is also an implied warranty in other kinds of contract, e.g. of seaworthiness by the shipowner in a contract between him and a charterer for the hire of a ship. In all cases of implied warranty the warranty may be excluded by the special terms of the contract. For breach of warranty an action may be brought directly, or the breach may be used as ground for a counter claim or for reduction of damages, but the breach will not in the case of a warranty proper entitle the person suffering by it to a rescission of the contract. Thus in a sale the property passes although the warranty be broken. In some cases warranties on sale are the subject of statutory enactments, as the Merchandise Marks Acts and the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. In some other acts, such as the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, the term warranty does not occur, but the practical effect is the same.
Scotland.—The term corresponding to warranty in the law of heritable property is “warrandice.” Warranty, strictly speaking, seems confined to movables. Warrandice appears early in Scots law, the heir by Regiam Majestatem being bound to warrant the reasonable donations of his ancestor. Warrandice in the existing law is either real or personal. Real warrandice is that whereby warrandice lands are made over, as indemnity for those conveyed, to assure the person to whom they were conveyed from loss by the appearance of a superior title. Real warrandice is implied in excambion. Its effect is that the excamber, in case of eviction, may recover possession of his original lands. This is not in accordance with the English law in exchange. Personal warrandice is either express or implied. There is an implied warrandice in every onerous deed, and an absolute warrandice presumes an onerous consideration. Express warrandice is either simple, against the future acts of the vendor, from fact and deed, against acts whether past or future, or absolute, or against all deadly, that is, on any ground existing before the sale. A clause of warrandice is the Scottish equivalent of the English covenants for title. By the Titles to Land Consolidation (Scotland) Amendment Act 1869 a clause of warrandice in the form given in the schedule to the act imports absolute warrandice as regards the lands and the title-deeds thereof, and warrandice from fact and deed as regards the rents.
United States.—Warranty in conveyances of real estate is expressly abolished by statute in many states. In some states warranty is implied on the transfer and endorsement of negotiable instruments. (J. W.)
WARREN, GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE (1830–1882), American soldier, was born at Coldspring, New York, on the 8th of January 1830, and entered West Point in 1846, graduating in 1850. He was assigned to the engineers, and for several years was employed in survey work in the West, where he took part in some expeditions against the Indians. In 1859 he was made assistant instructor in mathematics at West Point. But two years later, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the scientific subaltern was made lieutenant-colonel of volunteers and posted to the newly raised 5th New York Volunteer Infantry. He was fully equal to the task, for his regiment was very soon brought into a state of marked efficiency. In August he was promoted colonel. He commanded a brigade of the V. corps at Gaines's Mill, Second Bull Run and Antietam, and was shortly afterwards promoted brigadier-general of Volunteers. During the Fredericksburg campaign he was off the engineer staff of the Army of the Potomac, but after Chancellorsville he was appointed chief of engineers in that army, and in that capacity rendered brilliant services at Gettysburg (q.v.), his reward being promotion to major-general U. S. V. and the brevet of colonel in the regular army. When the Army of the Potomac was reorganized in the spring of 1864 Warren returned to the V. corps as its commander.
His services in the Wilderness (q.v.) and Petersburg (q.v.) campaigns proved his fitness for this large and responsible command, but his naturally lively imagination and the engineer's inbred habit of caution combined to make him a brilliant but somewhat unsafe subordinate. He would have become one of the great chiefs of staff of history, or even a successful army commander, but he sometimes failed where a less highly gifted man would have succeeded. He was at his best when the military situation depended on his exercising his initiative, as on the first day in the Wilderness, in which his action saved the army, at his worst when, as on the 10th of May before Spottsylvania, he was ordered to attempt the impossible. On the latter occasion both Grant and Meade threatened to relieve him of his command, and Humphreys, the chief of staff of the army, was actually sent to control the movements of the V. corps. Similar incidents took place in the later stages of
