tute of distributions. But it is well known, that the statute of distributions is moulded in the form of Roman as well as of ancient British jurisprudence. f

Well known is the event of the invitation, which Voltigern gave to a body of the Saxons to aid him against his northern enemies. As it has happened on other occasions, the allies became the masters of those whom they engaged to assist.

We have no complete account of the circums tances which attended the settlement of the Saxons in Britain. From the doleful, representations of some early and passionate annalists, our historians, in general, have been led to suppose, that all the Britons, who were not reduced to captivity, were massacred by their barbarous enemies, or, disdaining submission, retreated among the mountains of Wales, or withdrew into the country of Armorica in France; to which country, the name of Bretagne is said to have been derived from those unfortunate refugees. A bold and industrious antiquarian has lately shown, however, that this extraordinary supposition is without any solid foundation. It is, indeed, highly probable, that many of the Britons were subjected to very great hardships, and were obliged even to abandon their native soil. But it appears hard to believe, that the Saxons should be stimulated by barbarity to proceed so far

as, contrary to their own interests, to exterminate the ancient inhabitants. There is even complete evidence, that, in some parts of the island, the Britons were so far from being destroyed or obliged to fly their country, that they were permitted to retain a certain proportion of

f 2. Bl. Com. 516. 517. Bever. 482. VOL. II.

E

2. Whitak, 545.

their landed property. This proportion, a third part of the whole, was the same with that allotted to the ancient inhabitants, in some of those provinces on the continent of Europe, which were conquered by the other German tribes.

The language, which spread itself among the Saxons after their settlement in Britain, contained a great proportion of the Latin and British tongues. This large infusion of those different ingredients into the same language, is, of itself, a strong proof, that the inhabitants were compounded of the different nations, by whom those tongues were originally spoken.

h

The victorious Saxons were less civilized than the conquered Britons. The latter gradually communiçated to the former a portion of that refinement, which had not been entirely effaced from themselves. At last, after a lapse of near two centuries, the two nations, by habits, treaties, commerce, and intermarriages, were entirely blended together; and their union produced such a compound system of manners and customs, as might be expected to arise from the declining state of one, and the improving state of the other. This blending principle would have its effect upon the laws, as well as upon the manners and habits of both nations. The conquerors and the conquered would be incorporated into one people, and compose, as the antiquarian before mentioned expresses himself, a mingled mass of Saxon Britons and British Saxons.

i

We are told of three kinds of laws used in England during the government of the Saxons: the Mercian law,

h2. Whitak. 235. 236.

i 2. Whitak. 111.

which contained the local constitutions of the kingdom of Mercia; the Dane law, which comprised the customs introduced by those, whose name it bore; and the West Saxon law, a system compiled by Alfred the Great; whose elevated and extensive talents were employed, in the most vigorous manner, for the improvement of the laws and constitution of his country.

These three systems of law were different, rather in unessential forms, than in important principles. For this we have the authority of the very learned Spelman. "Our Saxons, though divided into many kingdoms, yet were they all one, in effect, in manners, laws, and language: so that the breaking of their government into many kingdoms, or the reuniting of their kingdoms into a monarchy, wrought little or no change among them, touching laws. For though we talk of the West Saxon law, the Mercian law, and the Dane law, whereby the west parts of England, the middle parts, and those of Suffolk, Norfolk, and the north were severally governed; yet held they all a uniformity of substance, differing rather in their mulcts, than in their canon, that is, in the quantity of fines and amerciaments, than in the course and frame of justice."

These distinct codes were afterwards reduced into one uniform digest, for the use and observance of the whole kingdom. This digest was undertaken and commenced by King Edgar: it was completed by his grandson, King Edward; and has been since well known and distinguished by the appellation of the Confessor's laws. It is conjectured to have been chiefly a revival of the

j 2. Henry. 277. 278. cites Spel. Rel. p. 49.

code of the great Alfred, accompanied with such improvements as were suggested by subsequent experience.

We have now brought the history of the common law down to the period of the Norman conquest. We have seen its rise taking place, by slow degrees, in ages very remote, and in nations very different from one another. We have seen it, in its converging progress, run into one uniform system, mellowed by time and improved by experience. In every period of its existence, we find imprinted on it the most distinct and legible characters of a customary law-a law produced, extended, translated, adopted, and moulded by practice and con

sent.

The period through which we have gone is, indeed, peculiarly interesting. "The whole period of our national history before the conquest," says an English writer, "is the most important and momentous in our annals. It most forcibly lays hold upon the passions by the quick succession and active variety of incidents, and by the decisive greatness of its revolutions. And, what is much more, it is that period of our history, which gives the body and the form to all the succeeding centuries of it. It contains the actual commencement of every part of our publick and private economy."

Here we make a pause in the history of the common law. To pursue it minutely from the Norman conquest to the accession of the Stuart line would be a tedious, a disagreeable, but, fortunately, it is an unnecessary task.

k1. Whitak. Pref. 7.

The common law, as now received in America, bears, in its principles, and in many of its more minute particulars, a stronger and a fairer resemblance to the common law as it was improved under the Saxon, than to that law, as it was disfigured under the Norman government. How much it was disfigured, and why we should not receive it in its disfigured state, will appear from the following very interesting part of Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries.

"The last and most important alteration, introduced by the Norman conquest, both in our civil and military polity, was the ingrafting on all landed estates, a few only excepted, the fiction of feodal tenure; which drew after it a numerous and oppressive train of servile fruits and appendages; aids, reliefs, primer seisins, wardships, marriages, escheats, and fines for alienation; the genuine consequences of the maxim then adopted, that all the lands in England were derived from, and holden, mediately or immediately, of the crown.

"The nation, at this period, seems to have groaned under as absolute a slavery, as it was in the power of a warlike, an ambitious, and a politick prince to create. The consciences of men were enslaved by sour ecclesiasticks, devoted to a foreign power, and unconnected with the civil state under which they lived; who now imported from Rome, for the first time, the whole farrago of superstitious novelties, which had been engendered by the blindness and corruption of the times, between the first mission of Augustin, the monk, and the Norman conquest.

"The ancient trial by jury gave way to the impious decision by battle. The forest laws totally restrained all