PRINCIPLES OF THE ENGLISH LAW OF CONTRACT AND OF AGENCY IN ITS RELATION TO CONTRACT BY SIR WILLIAM R. ANSON, BART., D.C.L. OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW WARDEN OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD Third Edition Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1884 [All rights reserved] PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THIS book is an attempt to draw such an outline of the principles of the law of Contract as may be useful to students, and, perhaps, convenient to those who are engaged in the teaching of law. To some of those who are so engaged it has seemed that there is need of an elementary treatise which should deal with the subject of Contract in its entirety; and the existence of such a need is my excuse for the production of the present work. The main object with which I have set out has been to delineate the general principles which govern the contractual relation from its beginning to its end. I have tried to show how a contract is made, what is needed to make it binding, what its effect is, how its terms are interpreted, and how it is discharged and comes to an end. In thus sketching the history of a contract, I have striven to maintain a due proportion in my treatment of the various parts of the subject, and to avoid entering into the detail of the special kinds of contract. The history and antiquities of the subject have, of necessity, been dealt with only so far as was absolutely necessary to explain existing rules, and I have placed in Appendices what I have to say on two matters the treatment of which seemed to be unavoidable and yet out of place in any part of a merely general outline. One of these is the contract implied in law,' or quasicontract. The effect of this legal relation has been fully |