Series 199: Notes to Revised Statutes. 1836. High Court of Errors and Appeals (RG 32).

A handwritten manuscript with proposed changes to the Mississippi legal code by Publius Rutilius Rufus Pray. Pray practiced law in Hancock County, was a member of the legislature from 1827 to 1829, and served as president of the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1832. In 1833, he was empowered by the legislature to revise the statutes of the state. Influenced by the Napoleonic Code, he strove to move Mississippi away from some of its English common law customs. He submitted his changes to the legislature in 1836, but his code was never adopted. Governor McNutt noted that “many objections were made to the code by people who had never read it.”  Pray was elected to a seat on the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals in 1837 and held the position until his death in 1839. The manuscript is incomplete, with only the following chapters available: part two, chapter one; part two, chapter four; part two, chapter six; part three, chapter one; part three, chapter four; part three, chapter five; part three, chapter eight.