BINNEY'S CASE.—2 BLAND. 143

* other cases where the language of a legislative enactment
is clear, explicit, and unambiguous, a Court of justice can- 152
not depart from its sense as expressed; and if its directions cannot
be executed in the manner prescribed, whether the defect proceed
from a mistake, or the negligent inattention of the Legislature, no
Court of justice can supply the deficiency. Weale v. West Mid-
dlesex Water-Works Company, 1 Jac. & Walk. 371. It has been
said, that, in England, the Judges have often demanded what the
law was, and how a statute should be expounded, of the Lords in
Parliament. Arth. Blackamore's Case, 8 Co. 314; The Earl of
Shaftesbury's Case, 1 Mod. 153. It is evident, however, that in
those cases the Court has had it doubts removed and the ambig-
uity cleared away, not by any extrinsic evidence; but by the leg-
islators themselves, responding either as a legislative body, or as
the Supreme Court in the last resort. In the celebrated case con-
cerning literary property, a question arose as to what was the com-
mon law before the passage of the statute for securing a copy-right
to authors; 8 Anne, c. 19; and in casting about in every direction
to ascertain that, it was argued, by several of the Judges, that the
statute itself, as well as the proceedings of the Parliament by which
it was enacted, afforded proof what was generally understood, at
that time, to be the common law upon the subject. Millar v. Tay-
lor, 4 Burr. 2305.

But every species of evidence may be introduced to show what
the common law is now, or has been at any time past; because
that part of our Code is made up of reasonable principles and
established usages, the existence of which, in the absence of ex-
press adjudications and records, can only be shewn in that way.
The King v. Pasimore, 3 T. R. 245: 1 Blac. Com. 68. And, therefore,
for that purpose, the Judges had recourse to the history of that
Act, they adverted to the petition on which it was introduced
into the House of Commons, as found on the journals of

* that House; to the debates upon it and to the amendments 153
it had undergone; and to the language of the Act itself, as evi-
dence of what was the then existing common law. But it is not
said, nor can it be inferred from their arguments, that the Judges
deemed it allowable to introduce all such matter as evidence, by
which the true sense of that Act itself was to be ascertained, in
relation to any case for which it had provided; on the contrary, one
of the Judges, speaking to this point, after noticing, that it had
been strongly contended by one of the counsel, that from the
amendments in the committee of the House of Commons, and
from the change of the title, that the Parliament meant to take

person shall not be invalidated by any thing contained therein, until the end
of the session; provided that nothing therein contained should prevent or
delay a suit or execution. 1794, ch. 45.