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PREFACE.

BY

Y an act of the General Affembly of Virginia, dated December 28th, 1792, it was ordained, that a collection fhould be made of all fuch acts of the Af fembly, of a public and permanent nature, as were then in force. For this purpofe, feveral lawyers were folicited to fuperintend the compilation. Mr. Davis, then printer to the Commonwealth, did not get the work completed 'till the clofe of the year 1794. It, therefore, embraced all fuch laws, of a public and permanent nature, as were paffed during the feffion, which commenced November 11th, 1794,

It was unavoidably to happen that this collection would almost immediately become defective; and that its defects were to increase annually, and without intermiffion. The new laws of the more important clafs were, for the most part, occupied in altering, or in repealing fome of their predeceffors. Hence, it was evident, that if a man of bufinefs was not regularly supplied with the additional laws, the Revised Code would be quite as likely to lead him into miftakes, as to give him proper information. The confequence was, that every practitioner of the law found it neceffary to purchase, annually, the large folio pamphlet, containing the laws of each fucceeding affembly. In the course of a man's life, these publications would have fwelled into a library; and, what was extremely inconvenient, by far the greater part of them were laws of a local and private nature, which were totally ufelefs, and a mere incumbrance to the practitioner in a court.

This Revised Code, with all its augmenting imperfections, had become extremely scarce. The original price was eight dollars. But it was almost impoffible to obtain the book at any price whatever. The conftant demand for the Revised Code induced the proprietors of the prefent work to publish propofals for a fecond, and improved edition, which was to bring down the collection fo late as to the end of the feffion of December, 1801. In the former

PREFACE.

edition, therefore, the latest act of Affembly bears date the 26th of December, 1794. In the present edition, the latest ftatute paffed upon February 28, 1802. This makes a difference of more than seven years; and these seven years appear to have been diftinguished beyond every former period of the history of the commonwealth, by the multitude and importance of the laws which in that time were paffed. To give a complete idea of this fact, we have only to obferve, that the edition of Mr. Davis contained one hundred and eightyone ftatutes; and that the prefent contains THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN. Of thefe, one hundred and thirty-two additional statutes, one hundred and twenty-fix were paffed within thofe feven years. They compofe, therefore, in point of number, more than two-fifths of the whole collection. The other fix laws, which make up the total additional number of one hundred and thirty-two, had been paffed long before the publication of the former edition of "The Revised Code." Some of them are of very confiderable length. They were felected, and inferted by the fpecial advice and defire of Governor Monroe. He was one of the gentlemen who had been appointed to revife the former edition; and it was his opinion that thefe fix acts of Affembly had been improperly omitted.

Exclufive of the index, the title page and preface, the prefent volume contains four hundred and fifty-four pages. Of thefe, the additional laws fill an hundred and twenty-four pages, which is not much less than a third part of the whole text. It is not neceffary to fay how much more convenient this concife and perfpicuous arrangement must be, than to have the trouble of wandering' through feven folio pamphlets, in queft of a ftatute.

Thefe details, without any comment of ours, abundantly prove, had, indeed, other evidence been wanting, the propriety and neceffity for a fecond edition of this book. It is now, alfo, condensed into a much more manageable size than it formerly affumed. No gentleman's pocket can, at leaft, in the prefent age, contain a folio volume; and much lefs would it contain the enormous appendage of feven folio pamphlets. In riding ten, or fifteen miles to a county

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