Excerpt from A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919 That this is a sufficiently ambitious attempt, no one can be better aware than the author. Though he has made no state ment which he has not verified from original evidence, he has, naturally, availed himself to the full of the work of previous writers for the earlier part of his task. But, from the end of the sixteenth century, he has sailed over an almost uncharted sea and his responsibility is great. He can only plead that he has kept a careful look-out, and that he has striven faithfully to sail the ship in the. Main current, without attempting to enter the bays and inlets, which to have explored would either have prolonged the voyage to an undue length, or have neglected the essential for the picturesque but less important. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.