Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 1

1. In JA's early hand. Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185. A single leaf, docketed by JA: “Ld Cokes Sayings.”

2. Coke, Littleton 64b. Part of a discussion of the feudal tenure called frankalmoign, “service due to Almighty God,” which was, according to Coke, the most important tenure, because the other tenures “must all become prosperous and useful, by reason of Gods true religion and service.” Then follows the line in the text, which in translation is “Human affairs never prosper where divine affairs are neglected.” See Black, Law Dictionary .

3. Following the passage in note 2 above, Coke stated “Wherein I would have our Student follow the Advice given in these Ancient Verses, for the good spending of the day.” The lines in the text are then set out. Coke, Littleton 64b. Editors' translation: “Give six hours to sleep, as many to just laws. Pray for four and give two to feasting. What is left over at the end bestow on the sacred muses.”

4. Coke, Littleton 5b–6a: “Of all these [ancient terms for topographical features] you shall read in ancient books, charters, deeds, and records, and to the end that our student should not be discouraged for want of knowledge when he meeteth with them . . . we have armed him with the signification of them, to the end he may proceed in his reading with alacrity, and set upon and know how to work into with delight these rough mines of hidden treasure.” A line is drawn across the page in the MS at this point.

5. The fifteen “Laws” that follow are recited by Coke in substantially this form in Coke, Littleton 11b.

6. Editors' translation: “This law is inquired into by all, unknown to many, understood by few.”

7. JA had occasion to take note of this principle in several of his major cases. See Nos. 46, 56, 57. On 29 March 1778, after his hazardous crossing to France, JA lay “becalmed all day in Sight of Oleron,” and not unnaturally expressed “a Curiosity to visit this Island of Oleron so famous in Antiquity for her Sea Laws.” 2 JA, Diary and Autobiography 291. Oleron was the source of a code which became the basis of English maritime law. See 1 Holdsworth, History of English Law 526–527; 5 id. at 120–125.

8. That is, the customary local law and courts of English mining communities, privileged by the Crown. See 1 Holdsworth, History of English Law 151–165.

9. The “Sayings,” rendered more or less accurately by JA, are found scattered in Coke, Littleton 3a–10a. Translations from Black, Law Dictionary (with one indicated exception), follow in the same order: “No simile runs upon all fours. The useful is not vitiated by the useless. Those who are born of an unlawful intercourse are not reckoned among the children. Whose is the soil, his it is up to the sky. A cultivated mind does not know how to endure ignorance [editors' translation]. That is certain which can be rendered certain. From length of time all things are presumed to have been done in due form.

“Related words [words connected with others by reference] have this particular operation by the reference, that they are considered as being inserted in those [clauses which refer to them].

“The laws themselves require that they should be governed by right. Where the same reason exists, there the same right prevails.”