Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 2

16. Probably a reference to the form of a writ in Brown's Compendium. See note 5 57 above, note 34 86 below. Although this work was not published until 1688, the form recites that the customs officers therein given writs were commissioned by virtue of Letters Patent dated “anno regni nostri vicesimo septimo” (in the twenty-seventh year of our reign), which could refer to no English monarch ruling between Elizabeth I and George II except Charles II. The date of the form would thus be between 1676 and 1685, the year of Charles II's death.