ENTERED, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by JOSEPH NEAL, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland.

STEREOTYPED BY LUCAS & NEAL.

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PREFACE.

Upon

On receiving the appointment of Chancellor, I determined to make every effort to acquire a competent knowledge of the peculiar principles and practice of the Court of Chancery of Maryland, to which my attention had been so rarely drawn, and for which I had had, for many years in the judicial stations I previously held, so little use. inquiry I soon found, that any thing like an accurate knowledge of those peculiarities was only to be gathered from the records themselves; to which I therefore resorted, and after a careful perusal noted the course of proceeding, and occasionally made short digests of such cases as appeared most likely to be useful thereafter. In this way I collected a considerable mass of information, which has greatly facilitated my official labours.

It is of no less importance to the people than to the profession, that the peculiar principles and practice of the court, as well as the general rules of law, should be clearly made known to all; which it is obvious can in no way be so well done as by the usual mode of publishing reports of cases as they have actually occurred and been disposed of. For a time I had reason to hope, that some member of the bar would report the cases as they were decided subsequent to my appointment; but when that hope failed I determined to undertake the work myself. The task, I was aware, would be attended with many difficulties and much labour; and the more so to me, because of the manifold interruptions