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COMMENTARIES

ON THE

LAWS OF ENGLAND.

BOOK THE THIRD.

PRIVATE WRONGS.

CHAPTER I.

REDRESS OF PRIVATE WRONGS BY THE ACT OF THE PARTIES.

AT the opening of these Commentaries (a) municipal law was in general defined to be, "a rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right, prohibiting what is wrong (b), and regulating matters in themselves indifferent." Hence therefore it followed, that the primary objects of our law are the establishment of rights, and the prohibition of wrongs. And this occasioned the distribution of these collections into two general heads (c); under the former of which we have considered the rights that were defined and established, and under the latter we are now to consider the wrongs, including torts and breaches of contract, that are forbidden, and redressed by the laws of England.

[*2]

Wrongs are divisible into two sorts or species; private wrongs, and public wrongs. A private wrong is an infringement or privation of some private or Wrongs are pri- civil right belonging to an individual, and may be termed a civil vate or public. injury: a public wrong is a breach and violation of some public right and duty, which affects the whole community; and is distinguished by the harsher appellation of a crime. To investigate the first of these species of wrongs, with the remedies appropriate thereto, will be our employment in the (b) Sanctio justa, jubens honesta, et pro- 1. 1, c. 3. hibens contraria; Cic. 11, Philipp. 12; Bract. (c) Vol. i. chap. 1.

(a) Vol. I. pp. 37, 38.

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