Letters

Epistles; despatches; written messages, usually on paper, folded up and sealed, and sent by one person to another. 1 Caines (N. Y.) 582. LETTERS AD COLLIGENDUM BONA DEfuncti.

In practice. In default of the representatives and creditors to administer the estate of an intestate, the officer entitled to grant letters of administration may grant, to such person as he approves, "letters to collect the goods of the deceased," which neither make him executor nor administrator; his only business being to collect the goods, and keep them in his safe custody. 2 Bl. Comm. 505.

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.

An instrument giving authority: a written appointment or authority by, and under the seal of, a court. Letters of administration, attorney, marque and reprisal, close or clause, patent: see those titles. Letters of credit, of exchange; V. BUI, III. 2, 4. Letters of request: a mode of beginning a suit originally in the Court of Arches, instead of the Consistory Court. Letters testamentary: the instrument of authority and appointment, given an executor by the proper court.