[from Advocate's Notebook, 1847]

DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MANN

2nd AUGUST, 1847.

Sir,

Except in the brief intervals when the Deemsters, upon temporary occasions, have supplied the office of Deputy-Governor, our Courts of Chancery and Exchequer have (as I believe) never been presided over by any member of the legal profession until your Excellency was appointed Lieutenant-Governor.

In the exercise of your judicial functions, it would no doubt be most satisfactory to your Excellency to have the advantage of reference to printed reports of cases previously decided by our Insular Tribunals ; and more particularly so in adjudicating upon the important causes where you sit as a judge of appeals from those courts, the proceedings in which are not matters of record.

Up to the present moment no book of the kind has been printed, although the necessity for such a publication becomes daily more apparent.

The present compilation is an attempt (a very imperfect one I admit) to remedy this evil, and it seems but natural that the first book of the kind should be dedicated to the first Governor in the profession

I gladly, therefore, avail myself of the permission to pay this tribute of respect to your Excellency, by dedicating to you the first attempt to lay before the public a portion of the lex non scripta of the Isle of Mann.

I have the honour to subscribe myself, Your Excellency’s most obedient servant,

J. C. BLUETT.

To his Excellency the Honourable CHARLES HOPE, Lieutenant-Governor and Chancellor of the Isle of Mann.