PUBLISHED BY WELLS AND LILLY, No. 98, COURT-STREET.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:
District Clerk's Office.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eighth day of August, A. D. 1823, in the forty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Willard Phillips, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author and proprietor, in the words following, viz.: A Treatise on the Law of Insurance, by Willard Phillips in conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, entitled, 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;' and also to an act, entitled, 'An act, supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints.' JNO. W. DAVIS,

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

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PREFACE.

At the time of beginning this treatise, it was intended that it should include the whole subject of insurance, not excepting the legal proceedings, but it was found to be impracticable to pursue the work upon this plan, without extending it to more than one volume. Under these circumstances, it was thought expedient to omit the legal proceedings, as being the part of the subject, of the least practical importance, since the legal proceedings upon a policy, do not differ materially from those upon other written

contracts.

The different parts of the subject of insurance are so blended together, and implicated with each other, as to render a simple and methodical arrangement very difficult, and, in the opinion of some persons, even impossible. The perplexity which seems, in some degree, to belong to the subject, was increased, in consequence of the numerous points and decisions, which had not been embodied in any elementary work. If it shall be found that the difficulties, arising from these causes, have not been wholly overcome, and that some cases and points are not inserted in the places, where they might have been most appropriately introduced, I hope that the very great difficulty of disentangling, and reducing to complete order, such multifarious and complicated materials, will be regarded as some apology for any defect of this sort.

In collecting and arranging the great mass of materials, which have been for a long time accumulating in this science, it will be found, no doubt, that some points, and even cases, of an importance sufficient to entitle them to a place in the work, have been