Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY

CHARLES W. BENEDICT,

10 Spruce Street.

TO THE

HON. SAMUEL NELSON,

ONE OF THE ASSOCIATE-JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR,-I do not know to whom I can more appropriately dedicate this work than to yourself. For more than twenty years, as Circuit-Judge, as Associate-Justice, and as Chief-Justice of the New York Supreme Court, your learning illustrated, and your virtues adorned, the judicial records of our State. Appointed to the elevated position you now occupy, as the successor of a THOMPSON, and a LIVINGSTON, you carried with you the unanimous verdict of the profession that the ermine of those illustrious judges could not have fallen on one more worthy to receive it; and a service there of nearly ten years has rendered it abundantly evident that posterity will not seek to set that verdict aside.

As the only present member of the Court from our own State, whose bench and bar you may, therefore, be said to represent in the Federal Judiciary, there seems to be such a peculiar fitness in inscribing your name on these pages, that I esteem it not only an honor, but a privilege, in being allowed to make this dedication. Permit me then to express the lively gratification I feel in having your permission to inscribe this work to you.

With sincere respect, I have the honor to be your obliged and humble servant,

TROY, N. Y., August 1st, 1854.

G. VAN SANTVOORD.