Mode of conveyance.

1

No eftate in joint tenantcy in lands, meffuages, tenaments, or hereditaments, can be held or claimed by or under any grant, devife, or conveyance whatsoever, unless the premises are exprefsly directed to pass, not in tenantcy in common, but in joint tenantcy; and every fuch eftate, unless otherwife exprefsly declared as aforefaid, shall be deemed to be tenantcy in common.

СНАР.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the Method of authenticating Letters of Attorney-Affidavits, &c. &c. for the Recovery of Debts, with Precedents, Practice, &c.Method of levying Executions in Barbadoes, &c. &c.

A1

LL affidavits tranfmitted to the States Affidavit.

or Colonies for the purpose of recovering debts, muft pursue the direction of the fttatute of 5. Geo. II. c. 7.

ney.

When a power of attorney is tranfmitted Power of attor at the fame time with an affidavit, they are both annexed together, and certified under the common feal of the city or borough, or town corporate where, or next to which the perfon making the affidavit or affirmation happens to refide. Where it is tranfmitted without an affidavit, it may then either be certified under fuch common feal as aforefaid; or it may be executed in the presence of perfons going to the place

place to which the power is directed, and in that cafe one of the fubfcribing witnesses proves the execution of the letter of attorney before a judge of the ftate or colony, in which the letter or power of attorney is intended to be enforced.

Statute of 5.
Geo. 2.

Preamble.

An Act for the more eafy Recovery of Debts in his Majefty's Plantations and Colonies in America*.

WHE

HEREAS his Majesty's fubjects trading to the British plantations in Ame ́rica, lie under great difficulties for want of more easy methods of proving, recovering,

This act took its rife from the complaints of fome merchants in the city of Bristol, who not receiving their returns from America fo quick as they defired, obtained this Bill which went through both Houses without one diffenting voice.

It has been thought by many that this ftatute was virtually repealed by the independence of the colonies, but the United-States having established it as a rule for the government of their courts of justice, to regard all the laws of England theretofore used and approved, as fill in force, and this ftatute having been long used and approved, can now never legally be fhaken; but even this muft reft too much on the temper of the judges and the approbation of the people,

and

and levying debts due to them, than are now ufed in fome of the faid plantations; and whereas it will tend very much to the retrieving of the credit, formerly given by the trading fubjects of Great-Britain to the natives and inhabitants of the faid plantations, and to the advancing of the trade of this kingdom thither, if fuch inconveniencies were remedied; may it therefore please your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's moft excellent Majefty, * by and with the advice and consent of the

* It is to be observed that by one of the oldest laws extant in Barbadoes, all bonds and other fpecialities attefted to have been proved on oath under the corporation feal of the lord mayor, or any other mayor or chief officer of any city or town corporate, shall be taken, deemed, and judged as fufficient in law in any of the courts of justice in the island, as if the fubfcribing witnesses had been there, and perfonally proved the fame. And, by an act for establishing a court of King's-Bench, Common-Pleas and Errors, in Antigua, made in 1721, there is a claufe to the fame effect.

Here provision is made only for debts on specialities which does not extend to debts on fimple contract, and those on open accounts, both of which are included in the late remedy.

Merchants and traders in England do not send their effects directly to the planters in the colonies, but have generally their correfpondence on the fpot, who act as factors for them, and difpofe of the goods among the inhabitants for which they are allowed commiffion. These agents are prefumed to be men of probity and substance, in whom their employers can confide,

and

the lords fpiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the fame, That from and after the twenty-ninth day of September, which fhall be in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty two, in any action or fuit then depending or hereafter to be brought in any court of law or equity in any of the faid plantations, for or relating to any debt or account wherein any person refiding in Great-Britain fhall be a party, it fhall and may be lawful to and for the plaintiff, or defendant, and alfo to and for any witness to be examined or made use of in fuch action or fuit, to verify or prove any matter or thing by affidavit or affidavits in writing, upon oath, or in cafe the perfon making fuch affidavit be one of the people called Quakers, then upon his or her folemn affirmation, made

and if the latter are sometimes dubious as to the circumftances of the former, or lefs acquainted with their persons, they do not fail taking fecurity here for their conduct. As these agents and factors are often obliged to give credit to the inhabitants till crop time, fo they are allowed to fue as fuch, for any debts contracted on account of their employers, and which, by the courfe of the courts, they may at the trial prove by their own oath, being previoufly fworn that they have no profit or lofs in the action but their own commiffions, by which means there are no debts more easily recovered than fuch as are so contracted.

before