after revolution to 1805 83

the ordinary argument of an appeal, in short, was
to go carefully over all" considerations and author-
ities pro and con with the judges in court and ob-
tain their decision immediately.

While from the beginning of judicature some
judges probably gave reasons or explanations of
their conclusions, it was not usual in England prior
to the nineteenth century to commit reasons to
writing and file them. It was not at all usual in
the King's Bench,²⁸ and almost unheard of in the
House of Lords.²⁹ Coke thought it would be bad
practice ever to give reasons at all:

for wise and learned men do, before they judge, labor to reach
to the depth of all the reasons of the case in question, but
in their judgments express not any.³⁰

Lord Campbell refers to Nottingham as the first
known to write, and says that Lord Stowell also
wrote ;³¹ but they were peculiar in it. So in neither
the Provincial Court nor the Court of Appeals in
Maryland before the Revolution was it customary
to give written opinions such as are now filed on
appeal. It did become customary for the judges
of the Provincial Court to write out reasons for
rulings in making up bills of exceptions at law;
and after the Revolution the professional judges
in the General Court exhibited much expertness
in these short, succinct statements. Each bill of
exceptions, it must be remembered, was at that
time a separate paper, stating briefly the situation
of the case when a ruling was made, and the fact

28. "What an Old Reporter Told Me," 43 Law Quart. Rev. 482.
Blackstone, Comra. I, 71. 3 Durn. & E., 96.

29. Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon, III, 451.

30. 3 Coke, Pref. iii.

31. Lives of the Chancellors, chap, xcii, vol. iv, 250.