The most unique and important of all early American law reports
are those of Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775). These are the first
reports of continental America's oldest court, the Superior Court
of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, direct ancestor
to today's Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Quincy's candid
accounts of events great and small shed light on life in the
American colonies just before the Revolution. Reports such as
Paxton's Case of the Writs of Assistance (1761) have become great
landmarks of American constitutional law, cited by the Supreme
Court of the United States. Others, such as Hanlon v. Thayer
(1764), involved important women's rights, or, such as Oliver v.
Sale (1762) and Allison v. Cockran (1764), vividly demonstrated the
legal establishment of slavery. Even the so-called routine
cases--those involving sale of goods and early consumer protection,
keeping a "bawdy house," women fighting for their children's
legitimacy, pirates, apprentices, militia men, double-crossers and
frauds, "fences" for stolen goods, and many more--provide an
invaluable picture of our early legal system and colonial
society.
Daniel R. Coquillette not only provides new annotations for
these cases first annotated by Samuel Quincy Jr. in 1865, but also
includes an extensive introduction that sets out a lucid and
compelling road map to these historic reports and their continuing
significance.
Volumes 4 and 5 complete this five-volume series.
Distributed for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts
General
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