The figures signify the page of the Book, and the roman nu merals that of the Appendix. 0 Accessories, to suicide, 6-to felony, 24-before the fact; ib.-after the fact; 25. power to execute warrants, 59, 1 Duel, challenging to fight, 29. oners, vi, vii, viii,'ix: slaves, 48, secs. 6, 7-attempt to produce discontent among slaves, 80-selling spirituous liquors to, 81 to 85. Suicide, 6. Swindling, 40. Trial, 69. Weapons, carrying concealed, 43. Witnesses, recognizances of v, No. 2. *This word is erroneously printed in this work. EXPOSITION, &C. A similitude of laws, seems in some degree essential to a sincere or permanent union between nations. When one country by conquest or trenty acquires possession of another with a design to l'ethin it in subjection, it is generally held to be the wisest policy to leave the laws, usages and languages of the inhabitants undisturbed. But when the object is to incorporate the acquired territory with the empire as a constituent member, there seems to be no reason why any inconvenient distinctions between their municipal arrangements should be longer preserved. For though local proximity may make many of their interests common, or a reciprocal necessity for the produce or protection of each other might render a connexion between them desirable to both, these motives are in their nature temporary and mutable; and when dissolved either by accident or design, the connexion is of course dissolved along with them. To become in all respects one people, it should be forgotten as much as possible that they were ever divided. To unite them in sentiment and affection as well as in fact, few monuments should be left to keep alive the memory of ancient or unnecessary attachment. Congress, therefore, have wisely fixed a period when the laws of the territory of Orleans are to be administered in the same manner as the laws are generally administered throughout the United States. By the ordinance of Congress on the 13th of July, 1787, for the government of the territory north-west of the Ohio, which by the late act of Congress (8th Con. 2d Sess. Chap. 82) is extended, with a few alterations, to this territory, it is declared that the judges "shall have common law jurisdiction.' And afterwards, by the second article of compact, in the same ordinance, it is declared that "the inhabitants of the said territory, shall always be entitled to the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people of the legislature, and of judi cial proceedings, according to the course of the common law." By these clauses, the substance of our pre-existing laws appear to be untouched; the form of administering them alone is changed. And |