A TREATISE ON THE SUCCESSION TO PROPERTY VACANT BY DEATH: INCLUDING INQUIRIES INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PRIMOGENITURE, ENTAILS, "Je m'étonne que les publicistes anciens et modernes n'aient pas LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. MDCCCXLVIII. (1848) PREFATORY NOTICE. In the following treatise we have endeavoured briefly to investigate the origin and practical operation of the principal rules and conditions under which property has been, and continues to be, transferred from the dead to the living. The importance of such an investigation, both in a historical and a political point of view, is obvious. Little, however, has been done by preceding inquirers to obviate the difficulties by which it is encumbered; for, though detached parts of the subject (such as the law of entail) have been repeatedly discussed, it has not been treated as a whole, or submitted to anything like a comprehensive examination. We dare not flatter ourselves with the idea that we have noticed all the topics which should be attended to in an inquiry involving so many considerations; but we would fain hope we have omitted few of any material consequence. Whatever judgment may be formed upon our conclusions, they are not the results of preconceived opinions or theories, but have been deduced from a careful appreciation of the more remote as well as the immediate influence of the different systems we have had to |