Letters

A writing giving authority or making an appointment, — in a form given, from an early period, to many written instruments, as letters patent, writs, appointments of attorney, of executore and ad- ■ administer upon the estate of an intestata Letters of attorney: a writing authorizing a person to do any lawful act in the stead of another. Letters of credit: letters requesting a person to credit the bearer or other person named, witn a certain sum on account of the writer. Letters oi exchange: a bill of exchange. Letters of marque and reprisal: a commission issued by the authority of a sovereign, to one or more subjects, authorizing the seizure of the property of the subjects or sovereign of an ofl Eending nation, and its detention as a pledge, until satisfaction for the injury complained of is made. Letters testamentary: an instrument granted to an executor, after probate of a will, authorizing him to act as executor.

In English law

Letters close, or clause: letters or writs closed and sealed on the outside. Letters patent: the modern form of royal grants, called patent, because they are not sealed, but exposed to open view, with the great seal pendant at the bottom, and usually directed or addressed to all subjects at larg^. v. Patent. In English ecclesiastical law. Letters of request: an instrument by which a suit is begun in the court of arches, instead of the consistory court, being a letter by which the judge of the inferior court requests the superior judge to take cognizance thereby waiving his own jurisdiction. In old Scots law. Letters of slanes or slains: a kind of bond by which the relatives of a murdered person bound themselves, in consideration of an assythment, or composition paid to them, to forgive the murderer.