TREATISE OF THE Law RELATIVE TO W THE RIGHTS OF LIEN AND STOPPAGE IN TRANSITU. BY RICHARD WHITAKER, ESQ, OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. LONDON: Printed for W. CLARKE and SONS, Law Booksellers, 1812. PREFACE. THE HE advantage which the profession has unquestionably derived from treatises in which the scattered principles and decisions concerning subjects of particular importance, and frequent occurrence in the law have been collected, and reduced to method, would of itself (while any such subject remains not thus rendered easy of reference and comprehension,) be a sufficient apology for undertaking a work dedicated to those purposes; and upon this ground alone an attempt to collect and methodize the law relative to the rights of Lien and Stoppage in Transitu, would be justifiable were there no other motive for making it. But a more satisfactory reason suggests itself; the laws of this country have deemed it expedient, that private individuals should have the power of enforcing their rights by their own immediate acts, in certain cases, in which the means of doing it would be lost, if they were obliged to have recourse to the slower process of Courts of Justice. Where the individual is thus entrusted with the right of acting for himself, and where the occasion may require him to act with a promptitude which will not admit the precaution of resorting to legal advice, it becomes a matter of particular concern to him, to be thoroughly acquainted with the nature and extent of his right. Among the rights of this description there are none more frequently called into exercise than those of lien and stoppage in transitu, and none, it may therefore be presumed, which the convenience not only of the profession, but of the very numerous class of individuals engaged in this country in commercial pursuits, more urgently requires to be made the subject of a distinct treatise. It is under these impressions, that I have endeavoured in the following pages to collect and |