In JA's hand, in his Admiralty Book, Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 184. For the dating, see note 3 above.

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §2 (1696). Quotation marks supplied. Italics are JA's. The last clause of the section is “and the other third part to the person who shall inform and sue for the same, by bill, plaint or information, in any of his Majesty's courts of record at Westminster, or in any court in his Majesty's plantations, where such offense shall be committed.”

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §17 (1696). Quotation marks supplied. Italics are JA's. The section concludes,

“which oath the said governors and officers of the customs respectively are hereby authorized to administer in the tenor following, viz. “JURAT” A.B. That the ship [name] of [port] whereof [master's name] is at present master, being a [kind of built] Of [burthen] tuns, was built at [place, where] in the year [time when] and that [owners name] of and of, &c. are at present owners thereof; and that no foreigner, directly or indirectly, hath any share, or part, or interest therein.”

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §18 (1696). Quotation marks supplied. Italics are JA's.

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §19 (1696), providing that ships condemned as prize in the High Court of Admiralty in England are to be specially registered, with oath made as to their capture and condemnation, rather than their building.

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §20 (1696), providing that such craft need not be registered if they are used only for river or coastwise navigation.

7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, §21 (1696). Quotation marks supplied. Italics are JA's.

This reference is ambiguous, since rules of statutory construction appear on page 8 of both Thomas Wood, An Institute of the Laws of England (London, 9th edn., 1763), and of Thomas Wood, A New Institute of the Imperial or Civil Law (London, 1704). While it is possible that JA used the latter work because of the civil-law nature of the court of Admiralty (See No. 46, note 49 126 ), the rules in the former are more directly concerned with the interpretation of acts of Parliament, the problem here; moreover, the authorities cited in notes 9 17 , 10 18 , and 13 21 , below, appear in the first cited work, which is also quoted in JA's other notes on construction. See note 5 above. Following are pertinent passages from Wood, Institute of the Laws of England 13–14:

Heydon's Case, 3 Co. Rep. 7a, 7b, 76 Eng. Rep. 637, 638 (Exch. 1584), held that a copyhold estate was an estate for life within the meaning of 31 Hen. 8, c. 13 (1540), a statute intended to prevent religious orders from avoiding dissolution by making new leases of lands when estates were already in being in those lands.

“[F]or the sure and true Interpretation of all Statutes in general (be they penal or beneficial, restrictive or enlarging of the Com. Law,) four things are to be discerned and considered.

“1. What was the Common Law before the making of the Act.

“2. What was the Mischief and Defect for which the Common Law did not provide.

“3. What Remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the Disease of the Commonwealth.

“And 4. The true Reason and Remedy; and then the Office of all the Judges is always to make such Construction as shall suppress the Mischief, and advance the Remedy, and to suppress subtil Inventions and Evasions for Continuance of the Mischief, and pro privato commodo, and to add Force and Life to the Cure and Remedy, according to the true Intent of the Makers of the Act, pro bono publico.”

4 Coke, Institutes 330:

“Every Statute ought to be expounded according t/o the intent of them that made it, where the words thereof are doubtful and incertain, and according to the rehearsal of the Statute; and there i.e. in Year Book, 4 Edw. 4, fols. 4, 12 a general statute is construed particularly, upon consideration had of the cause of making of the Act, and of the rehearsal of all the parts of the Act. To conclude this point with a general rule allowed by all laws in construction of statutes, Quamvis lex generaliter loquitur, restringenda tamen est, ut cessante ratione et ipsa cesset: cum enim ratio sit anima vigorque ipsius legis, non videtur legislator id sensisse quod ratione careat etiamsi verborum generalitas prima facie aliter suadeat.”

4 Bacon, Abridgment 652 contains several authorities to the effect that despite the rule of strict construction, the intent of the legislature must be observed. Compare note 34 13 below. There follows a series of “other rules” to be followed in statutory construction which are more favorable to JA's case. For example,

“Acts of Parliament are to be so construed, that no Man, who is innocent or free from Injury or Wrong, be punished or endamaged.

“No Statute shall be interpreted so as to be inconvenient, or against Reason.”

In JA's notes on construction, note 5 above, appears the following extract from 4 Bacon, Abridgment 651:

1 Blackstone, Commentaries *87–88, part of a discourse on “the rules to be observed with regard to the construction of statutes.” In JA's notes on construction, note 5 above, appear abstracts of the following passages:

“1. . . . Let us instance again in the same restraining statute of the 13 Eliz. i.e. 13 Eliz. 1, c. 10. By the common law ecclesiastical corporations might let as long leases as they thought proper: the mischief was, that they let long and unreasonable leases, to the impoverishment of their successors: the remedy applied by the statute was by making void all leases by ecclesiastical bodies for longer terms than three lives or twenty one years. Now in the construction of this statute it is held, that leases, though for a longer term, if made by a bishop, are not void during the bishop's life; or, if made by a dean and chapter, they are not void during the life of the dean: for the act was made for the benefit and protection of the successor. The mischief is therefore sufficiently suppressed by vacating them after the death of the grantors; but the leases, during their lives, being not within the mischief, are not within the remedy. . . .

“3. Penal statutes must be construed strictly. Thus the statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. having enacted that those who are convicted of stealing horses should not have the benefit of clergy, the judges conceived that this did not extend to him that should steal but one horse, and therefore procured a new act for that purpose in the following year. And, to come nearer our own times, by the statute 14 Geo. II, c. 6, stealing sheep, or other cattle, was made felony without benefit of clergy. But these general words, 'or other cattle,' being looked upon as much too loose to create a capital offence, the act was held to extend to nothing but mere sheep. And therefore in the next sessions, it was found necessary to make another statute, 15 Geo. II, c. 34. extending the former to bulls, cows, oxen, steers, bullocks, heifers, calves, and lambs, by name.”

Coke, Littleton 11b:

“From statutes his arguments and proofs are drawn, 1. From the rehersal or preamble of the statute. 2. By the body of the Law diversly interpreted. Sometime by other parts of the same statute, which is benedicta expositio & ex visceribus causae. Sometime by reason of the Common Law. But ever the general words are to be intended of a lawful Act, and such interpretation must ever be made of all statutes, that the innocent or he in whom there is no default may not be damnified.”