intention to tranfmit the property, not to their heirs, but to their fucceffors: perhaps we must be satisfied with stating the rule as it is, without attempting to account for its origin.

THE mode, by which the focieties of the Inns of Court fupply the defect arifing from their not being incorporated, is faid to be this. The first grant of the poffeffions was made to a felect number, and their heirs, in truft for the fociety at large-this felect number forms the bench; as the members of it die, they choose others from the fociety; the legal property is in the furviving members only, of the original trustees; when that number is confiderably reduced, they convey to one or two of their officers, as their Steward and Butler, in truft, to convey to all the existing members of the bench; that conveyance is made, and thus the incident of furvivorship avoided, and the fucceffion continued.

A THIRD characteristic of a corporation is, that the members of which it is compofed, are fubject to common burthens; but neither is this peculiar to them: Mr. Madox (a) has given a great number of examples of towns, not corporate, having paid their aids, taillages, fines, and amercements to the King, in the fame manner as towns corporate, and of other aggregate bodies, or communi

ties of men (a) having been commonly fined or amerced, charged and profecuted in their collective capacity, in the fame manner as if they had been embodied by charter; among others, the men of the Abbey of St. Mary at York; the Englishmen and Welchmen of Gowerland in Wales; the Knights of the Bishopric of Durham; the Knights of the Honour of the Earl of Leicester; and the community of the Jews in England.

EVEN the feveral districts (b), or divifions of the kingdom, were treated as communities. A county, a hundred, a frankpledge, was then wont to be fined or amerced in common, and to be taillaged in common, and to be put in charge to the King in his revenue rolls, by the general name of county, hundred, frankpledge.

THE merchants of Venice, trading in England, were never incorporated (for ought that I know, fays Madox (c) by the charter or patent letter of any King of England before the reign of King Henry VIII. or in it, or afterwards; yet, in Hilary term, in the 28th year of that King, they are charged to the King, in Rotulo Compotorum, with certain customs and fubfidies, by the name of the merchants of Venice, and are discharged thereof by judgment of the Court of Exchequer, by the fame general name of merchants of Venice.

(a) C. 4, f. 15. (b) Firma Burgi, c. 5, f. 16. (c) Ibid, f. 17.

ONE

ONE great purpose of forming aggregate bodies of men into a corporation, is to confer upon the members fome peculiar privileges under one general description, and to preclude the neceffity of a particular grant to every individual; but there are .many instances, in ancient times, of privileges and exemptions conferred by charter on collective bodies of men coming under one general defcription, who were not incorporated before, and without any words which conferred on them a corporate capacity in any other refpect than in the ticulars expreffed: Thus, it is faid (a), "if the King grant to the men of Iflington, that they fhall be discharged of toll, this incorporates them to the purpose of being quit of toll, though it does not enable them to purchase land, &c."

par

So, the tinners of Devonshire and Cornwall were exempted by a charter, in the reign of Edward the firft, from the jurifdiction of any court but that of the court of Stannaries (b).

IN like manner Edward the first, in the 31st year of his reign, granted a charter to foreign merchants, by which, in confideration of the cuftoms paid by them for their goods brought into the kingdom, they were exempted from the duties

(a) 21 Ed. 4, 59. 1 Roll. Abr. 513.

(b) 1 Rol. Rep. 295.

of

of murage, pannage, and pontage, throughout the kingdom (a).

MADOX gives a great number of inftances of fuch grants, and in the register there are many writs, particularly under the title de essendo quietum de Theolonio, commanding the observance of fimilar exemptions in favour of feveral collective bodies of men who were not incorporated (6).

THE privilege of conferring the degree of barrifter, poffeffed exclufively by the societies of the Inns of Court, is an example of the fame kind exifting in modern times.

"BUT fuch a charter, at this day" (c), fays Coke, "cannot be granted to any but a corporation."

ANOTHER characteristic of a corporation is, that it may fue and be fued in its collective capacity; but in ancient times there are many instances of other collective bodies fuing and being fued in the fame manner.

THUS, in the second year of King Edward the fecond, an action was brought in the Exchequer, by John de Vanne and his fellows, merchants of the company of the Ballardi of Lucca, against brother Thomas, of Doncaster, master of the house of St. Germain, in Scotland, for nine pounds due upon bond. The defendant pleaded payment of

(a) 1 Rol. Rep. 148. Firma Burgi, c. 11, f. 4. (b) Register, 258, b.-261, b. (c) 13 Jac.

Register, 259, a.
Vid. 1 Rol. Rep.

part

part of the money; and judgment passed against him for the refidue (a).

In the fame year of the fame King, Richard de Abyndon and Margery Criel fued the tenants of the hundred of Wicheford, in Cambridgefhire, for 89s. 6d. being their contingent part of a taillage affeffed during the voidance of the See of Ely. Ralph of Norwich, Bailiff of the liberty of the Bishop of Ely, appeared in behalf of the tenants, and pleaded, that the plaintiff Richard had been paid and fatisfied this very money; and he produced a patent letter of acquittance made by him: on which the tenants had judgment to be dismissed the court (b).

EVEN two diftinct bodies of men, of different descriptions, and having different interefts within the fame town, have been the opposite parties to a fuit. Thus, in the forty-fourth year of Henry the third, Peter de Wakerlegh, and five others, who were "Prince Edward's men," in the town of Staunford, were attached to answer William Davifon and William Reynerfon, who fued for "the Abbot of Burgh's men," of the fame town, for that the defendants unjustly caufed the plaintiffs to contribute with them, and others, who were the men of Prince Edward in that town, in taillages and other burthens, payable by the faid

(a) Firma Burgi, c.—s. 28,

(b) Ib. f. 31.

town,