Present

V. 1. In ecclesiastical law, to offer a clerk to the bi.shop of the diocese to be instituted. Presentation: the act of a patron offering his clerk to the bishop of the diocese to be instituted in a church or benefice. Presentee: a clerk who has been presented by his patron to a bishop, in order to be instituted in a church. Presenter appears not to be in use. Presentation is the offering a person to the ordinary, to be instituted to a benefice. It must be in writing (Stat. 29 Car. II. ch. 3), and is in the nature of letters-missive to the ordinary. The right of presentation is sometimes confounded with the right of nomination; but presentation is the offej'ing a person to the bishop, while nomination is the offering such a person to the patron. These two rights may coexist in different persons; thus, where the advowson is vested in trustees, they have the right of presentation, while the right of nomination is in the cestui que trust. So, in the case of a mortgage of an advowson, the mortgagee has the right of presentation, while the mortgagor has the right of nomination. Wharton. 2. In criminal law, to find or represent judicially; used of the official act plaint from an injured party, certain offences. Presentment was once used for presentation to a church. In its more modern and now usual sense, it signifies a denunciation of jurors, or some officers, &c. (without any information), of an offence, inquirable In the court where it is exhibited; or, in other words, an information made by the jury in a court, before a judge wlio liath authority to punish an offence. It is drawn up by the jury, and differs in this from an indictment, which is drawn up at large, and brought engrossed to the grand jury to find. The term sometimes includes not only presentments, properly so called, but also inquisitions of ofiice, and indictments by a grand jury; but, properly speaking, a presentment is the notice taken by a grand jury of any offence from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them at the suit of the king. Tomlins. The term presentment has various significations. In its relation to criminal matters it signifies the notice taken by a grand jury of any offence from their own knowledge or observation, without any bill of indictment laid before them at the suit of the king; as the presentment of a nuisance, a libel, and the like, upon which the ofiicer of the court must afterwards frame an indictment before the party presented can be put to answer it. As used in reference to admissions to copyholds, the word signifies an information made by the homage or jury of a court baron to the lord, by way of instruction, to give the lord notice of the surrender and of what has been transacted out of court. (5 Cruise Dig. 502.) But the necessity of the latter presentment has been abolished by Stat. 4 & 5 Vict. ch. 35. Brovm.

In its limited sense, a presentment is a statement by the grand jury of an offence from their own knowledge, without any bill of indictment laid before them, setting forth the name of the party, place of abode, and the offence committed, informally, upon which the officer of the court afterwards frames an indictment. Collins ^. State, 13 Fla. 651, 663. Presentment of a bill of exchange. The offering of a bill to the drawee, for acceptance, or to the acceptor, for payment.