European Laws in the West Indies
[WEST INDIES – DENMARK.]
The Danish Laws: or, the Code of Christian the Fifth. Faithfully translated for the use of the English Inhabitants of the Danish Settlements in America. London, N. Gibson, 1756.
8vo, pp. viii, 476, [4]; woodcut headpieces and initials; slightly toned, otherwise very good; nineteenth-century burgundy pebbled roan, spine lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins and edges, marbled endpapers; spine sunned, joints and extremities rubbed; ticket of Stevens and Haynes ‘law publishers, booksellers & exporters’ of London to front endpaper, stamps (including one marking it as withdrawn) of the Middle Temple Library on front and rear free endpapers, title-page, p. iii, and final page of index.
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The Danish Laws: or, the Code of Christian the Fifth. Faithfully translated for the use of the English Inhabitants of the Danish Settlements in America.
First English translation of the parts of Christian V’s Danske Lov of 1683 that were relevant to the inhabitants of the Danish West Indies (the present-day U.S. Virgin Islands, plus the islands of St Thomas, St John, and St Croix).
The publisher explains that much of the original is omitted, including the whole of the second book, which had dealt with canon law, and anything that only applied to the territories of Denmark and Norway. ‘The inserting of them would only have swelled the volume, without any real emolument to the English inhabitants of the Danish Territories in America … The numbers of the articles, for uniformity, are continued in order, tho’ articles are omitted; it might have been better to have followed the numerical order of the original; but as it seldom happens, and the articles omitted will be perhaps scarce ever found of any use in America, the inconvenience cannot be great.’
Among the laws that are included are regulations on marriage (marriages contracted by someone who is drunk, mad, or a minor are invalid; a widowed man cannot marry a woman with whom he committed adultery while his wife was still alive; rules of consanguinity; causes for marriage dissolution and prohibitions on divorce, such as a ban on divorce in cases where one spouse goes mad, and a rule that infectious disease is only grounds for divorce if the diseased party was aware of their illness prior to marriage and culpably infected their spouse); a law prohibiting torture (except in cases of treason); a section on maritime regulations, including how to deal with shipwrecks and the salvage of goods; a ban on itinerant sellers; laws on inheritance, succession, and estate management; laws concerning animal ownership and wild animals (including bees), and more. Book VI deals with criminal cases, including blasphemy and magic (‘persons addicted to Magick, who have abjured Christianity, and sold themselves to the Devil, shall be burned alive to ashes’…), oaths and imprecations; Sabbath-breaking; treason, murder, infanticide, wounding, duelling, robbery, theft (first offenders, if the crime is small, shall be whipt; at the second offence, they shall be whipt and branded on the back; at the third offence, they shall be whipt and burnt in the forehead…), self-defence, lewdness, rape, arson, and slander.
ESTC T200850 (‘In this issue, p. 106 misnumbered 06; pp. 59, 91 numbered correctly’); Sabin 18501.