in favor of liberality, in opening and enlarging the avenues to justice, does not admit that “the authority of one or two cases” is valid against reason, equity, and convenience, the vital principles of the law.  He cites Wells v. Williams, 1 Raymond, 282, to show that the necessity of trade has mollified the too rigorous rules of the old law, in their restraint and discouragement of aliens.  “A Jew may sue at this day, but heretofore he could not, for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce has taught the world more humanity; and therefore held that an alien enemy, commorant here by the license of the King, and under his protection, may maintain a debt upon a bond, though he did not come with safe-conduct.”  So far Parker, concurring with Raymond.  He proceeds:—­“It was objected by the defendant’s counsel, that this is a novelty, and that what never has been done ought not to be done.”  The answer is, “The law of England is not confined to particular cases, but is much more governed by reason than by any one case whatever. The true rule is laid down by Lord Vaughan, fol. 37, 38.  ‘Where the law,’ saith he, ’is known and clear, the Judges must determine as the law is, without regard to the inequitableness or inconveniency:  these defects, if they happen in the law, can only be remedied by Parliament.  But where the law is doubtful and not clear, the Judges ought to interpret the law to be as is most consonant to equity, and what is least inconvenient.’”

These principles of equity, convenience, and natural reason Lord Chief-Justice Lee considered in the same ruling light, not only as guides in matter of interpretation concerning law in general, but in particular as controllers of the whole law of evidence, which, being artificial, and made for convenience, is to be governed by that convenience for which it is made, and is to be wholly subservient to the stable principles of substantial justice, “I do apprehend,” said that Chief-Justice, “that the rules of evidence are to be considered as artificial rules, framed by men for convenience in courts of justice.  This is a case that ought to be looked upon in that light; and I take it that considering evidence in this way [viz. according to natural justice] is agreeable to the genius of the law of England.”

The sentiments of Murray, then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Mansfield, are of no small weight in themselves, and they are authority by being judicially adopted.  His ideas go to the growing melioration of the law, by making its liberality keep pace with the demands of justice and the actual concerns of the world:  not restricting the infinitely diversified occasions of men and the rules of natural justice within artificial circumscriptions, but conforming our jurisprudence to the growth of our commerce and of our empire.  This enlargement of our concerns he appears, in the year 1744, almost to have foreseen, and he lived to