PREFACE.
THE utility of publishing the adjudications of the appellate court of this country, has been generally acknowledged, And since the appearance of Mr. Hughes's Reports, it was not to be expected that an individual would, at his private hazard, undertake another publication of the kind: for although that work equalled the expectations which the known talents of its author had excited, the sale of it did not defray, by several hundred dollars, the actual expenses incurred.
After this, the legislature seem to have felt it their duty to interpose, and by an act of 1804, (ch. 71) caused a publication of cases to be made, commencing about the period when Mr. Hughes left off. This work was a bare transcript from the order-book of the court of appeals, without an index, or even, an alphabetical table of the cases. In this situation, the law it contained was hid in obscurity and trash; and by the omission of the facts on which the court adjudicated, was too often calculated to mislead, when found.
The failure of that project, and the experience gained by it, gave rise to the act of 1807, (ch. 15) which directed the court of appeals "to procure reports to be made of such decisions of the court, since its establishment, as should be deemed useful."
Under this law, that court requested the author to undertake the work; and left to his discretion, the selection of the cases to be reported.
He thought it most advisable to commence where the Printed Decisions ended. To have gone farther back, would have added, in his opinion, more to the labor, than to the utility of the work. He has, however, been careful, throughout,
