Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/433

 1^. SIOUSSAT: ENGLISH STATUTES 419 colonies on the Atlantic coast — and of only some of those — but occasionally we are led to other regions for our best sources of information. The next important judicial decision was one that concerned the colony of Jamaica. The whole constitutional development of this island is of the greatest significance in American colonial history, and far too little attention has been paid to it. In this connection, especially, certain similarities and certain differences render very interesting a comparison with Mary- land. The case of Blankard v. Galdy is one to which very fre- quent reference will be necessary. The matter at issue was a suit on a bond, and involved the extension of an English Act to Jamaica. The counsel for the plaintiff argued that Jamaica was an island beyond the sea conquered from the Indians and the Spaniards in Queen Elizabeth's time ^ [sic], that the inhabitants were bound by their own law, and that as they were not represented in Parliament, so they could not be bound by English statutes unless specially named. Statutes were cited — among them 5 Eliz. ch. 4, as to servants — which would be destructive if enforced there, and others, such as the Act of Usury, which does not apply, " for they allow them more for the loan of money than is permitted by that law." Several Acts of Parliament which have " taken notice " of Jamaica are cited. Then is adduced the Earl of Derby's Case, where the Court held that English statutes did not bind the inhabitants of the Isle of Man, a conquered province, unless they were specially mentioned. Counsel for the defendant argued contra that the liberties lost were those of the conquered; those that conquer cannot by this conquest lose their laws, which are their birthright, and which they carry with them wherever they go. Calvin's Case is then cited, with emphasis in its distinctions between heathen and Christian conquered countries. The experience 'The Conquest did not take place, of course, until Cromwell's time, in 1655. An attack was made in Elizabeth's reign, in 1596, under Shir- ley, but this was not followed up. See Preface to The Importance of Jamaica to Great Britain Considered: London, 1741? This tract deals rather lightly with Constitutional History.