The last of the three publications to which we have called the attention of our readers, contains a well written narrative of the events which occurred in New Orleans, during the short but remarkable period specified in the title page of the work.

ON THE PROMULGATION OF THE LAWS.

IT has long been a subject of complaint among the profession, that the laws of the federal legislature are not to be procured in a convenient form until a considerable time after the end of each session. It is true, they are published in a few newspapers in each state, generally when it suits the convenience of the editors; but files of newspapers are very inconvenient appendages to a lawyer's library, and indeed to that of a magistrate or other citizen whose duty or interest requires him often to recur to the text of the law. This serious evil, instead of lessening appears of late to have increased, for the laws of the last session of congress, although a full twelve-month has elapsed since the most of them were enacted, are not to be procured in a pamphlet form in any bookseller's shop in this city, and we presume they are not to be purchased any where else in the United States. A remedy is loudly called for, and we hope it will be afforded to us from some quarter.

Until lately, indeed, it was difficult even to procure a complete collection of the federal laws. Congress very wisely, by their act of the 18th of April 1814, ordered a new edition of the national code to be published, and made it the duty of the secretary of state and attorney-general, to prescribe the plan and manner in which the work should be executed. The public are now in possession of the four first volumes of this new edition, and the fifth, which will contain a digested index of the whole, is expected shortly to appear. We cheerfully offer our tribute of praise to this excellent performance. The plan which is prefixed to the first volume, and which appears to have been strictly

followed in the execution of the work, was devised by the present attorney-general, Mr. Rusн, and approved by the secretary of state. It is, in our opinion, a model for all future collections of the same kind. It has reduced to the smallest possible space all of the immense mass of labours of the continental and federal legislators since the revolution, as can in any wise be considered as practically useful, and has even given room for the repealed statutes which are so often looked for in vain in modern editions of existing laws, and which should always be preserved. Nor have the private acts been excluded, numerous as they are; and when we add that these volumes embrace the whole of the American Corpus Diplomaticum, or collection of treaties, and the copious extracts from the journals of the old congress which compose the first volume, it is impossible to imagine a more complete code or body of American federal law. The attorney-general, we think, has very judiciously excluded notes of adjudged cases from this edition. The decisions of tribunals should be sought for in the books of reports, and the questionable commentaries of an editor should not be suffered to disfigure the authoritative text of the laws.

While we freely bestow upon this work the praise that is justly claimed by its excellent execution, we may be permitted to express our hope, that however pleased we shall be to see a sixth volume equally well arranged, we shall not have to wait until congress shall have passed a sufficient number of laws to form an octavo volume of seven or eight hundred pages, before we can expect to possess those that have been and will be passed in the intermediate time. If a spirited bookseller cannot be found to undertake to publish a sufficient number of copies of the laws at the end of each session of the legislature, at least to supply the profession, which is sufficiently numerous through the United States, we would respectfully submit to the members of congress, whether some legislative measure could not be devised to effect this most important object; we mean a TIMELY AND ADEQUATE PROMULGATION OF THE LAWS.

Not many years ago, the legislature of Maryland adjourned, without passing the usual resolution for printing the laws of the state. This was owing to a difference of politics, prevailing in the two houses; in consequence of which the people were left in ignorance a whole year, because neither party had sufficient

liberality to allow a heretic printer, to gain a few dollars. Unless some more effectual means are devised, to promulgate the laws, we shall soon deserve the ridicule which Cicero applies to the Roman government, at a period when, he says, the calendar was so profound a mystery, that application was usually made to a few lawyers who were in the secret, in order to ascertain the days of pleading. Suetonius relates of Caligula that he published the laws, minutissimis literis et angustissimo loco; as a ways and means of raising money upon the people, who, from the ignorance which this practice occasioned, incurred forfeitures, by which the revenues were largely, though disgracefully augmented.

During the interregnum in Maryland, to which we have just alluded, we witnessed an occurrence, which is worth mentioning. In the trial of a certain cause in the county court of Baltimore, one of the counsel intimated, that a law had been passed at the recent session of the legislature, the provisions of which affected the case at bar. Several of the advocates, who were present, were members of that legislature, but no one would venture to state the law precisely, or even to affirm that any such act as was represented, had been passed. At length one gentleman-the late Mr. Donaldson, who was killed in the attack on Baltimore, said he was positive that it had passed the senate -to which he belonged. Judge Hollingsworth observed, in a laughing manner, that, that was "prima facie proof, to him, that it had been rejected by the other House."

THE

AMERICAN LAW JOURNAL.

The freedom of the navigation and commerce of neutral nations, during war, considered according to the law of all nations, that of Europe, and treaties.

An historical and juridical Essay to serve as an explanation of the disputes between belligerent powers and neutral states, on the subject of the freedom of maritime commerce.—London, and Amsterdam, 1780.

(Translated from the French, for this Journal, by Charles J. Ingersoll, Esq.)

PREFACE

BY THE EDITOR OF THE FRENCH EDITION.

THE present war, of which the ocean is the principal theatre, three, or it may be said four maritime powers being engaged in it, carries desolation and ruin into all parts of the globe. This, which is a common effect of all wars by sea, is also that in the prevailing one which the wealth of the English North American colonies has first lighted up between them and Great Britain, and which afterwards occasioned the wars between that crown and those of France and Spain. Such a war disturbs and destroys the navigation and maritime commerce, not only of the subjects of the belligerent parties, but likewise of those of the princes and states who take no part in it. No. XXII.

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For the belligerents, for a long time past, have possessed themselves of the right of restraining, during war, the maritime commerce of neutrals, and of interdicting their transportation of certain goods to the countries of enemies. This pretended right may be reduced to four principles, as follows:

1. Maritime powers, when they make war against each other, publish, in the beginning of it, ordinances or notifications, wherein they prescribe to neutrals the laws which the latter are to observe in their commerce with the enemy, forbidding the supply of certain sorts of merchandises, particularly arms and munitions of war.

2. Consequently they cause the stoppage and seizure of the neutral vessels on the high seas, whose cargoes consist in whole or in part of goods prohibited by their ordinances.

3. In like manner they cause the stoppage and seizure of neutral vessels laden with enemy's effects, unless the contrary be stipulated between them and the sovereigns of the owners of those vessels.

4. They establish tribunals which take cognizance of the prizes, declaring them, according to circumstances, either liberated or confiscable.

These proceedings on the part of belligerents have been, in all maritime wars, an abundant source of disputes and quarrels between them and those neutral states, the cause of which lies in the right attributed to themselves by the maritime powers to fix fetters during their wars on the navigation and comerce of neutral nations. Hence it is that the latter incessantly complain of the injustice and violence done to their trading citizens; as on the other hand it is pretended that nothing is done but in exact conformity to justice. Thus the two parties are not agreed as to what is permitted or not by the right of war.

In all that the belligerents undertake against the neutral nations and traders, they found themselves on the law of nations. But this expression being vague and liable to be taken in several senses, the author of this Essay has fixed the