Among the cases decided by him in 1784, and which was published, was that of Rutgers' vs. Waddington, involving the validity of what was called.the Trespass Act, passed just before the close of the war to enable the whigs, i had fled from New York to recover damages from those who had occupied it while in possession of the enemy. This case excited great sensation in the: community of that day, and became the subject of Legislative resolutions ; and it isa curious coincidence

HON, JAMES DUANE. 1079

that the same gentleman who was the defendant then, was also defendant in a suit, that of Griswolds vs. Waddington, at the close of our next war with England, exciting almost equal interest and involving a much larger amount of property than the one decided just after the Revolution. Mr. Duane presided in the Mayor's Court for nearly six years, and in that time very many of the questions came before him and received his decision,

-which were subsequently decided the same way by our Supreme Court, and perpetuated in the Reports of Johnson and their successors. He was thus one of the channels by which the legal lore of England and the colony was conducted to those who have distributed it in our State courts, and caused these to become the admiration of our sister States.

Mr. Duane was State Senator, except in 1786 and 1787, from the time of his election at the close of the war, until 20th March, 1790, when the Senate voted that his seat, as well as that of three other Senators, had become vacant in consequence of having accepted offices under the United States. The correctness of this decision was acquiesced in without much objection. In this period of his Senatorship many of our most important public laws