LETTERS, a legal terni used in the United Kingdom in combination with other words Letters of administration in England and Ireland mean the legal document granted by the probate court to a person who is appointed administrator to a deceased person who has died intestate. See ADMINISTRATION, WILL, INTESTACY. Letter of attorney, or power of attorney, in English law, is a writing or deed authorizing an agent (whether he is a certificated attorney or not) to do any lawful act in the stead of the party executing it. Letters conform, in Scotch law, mean a writ issued by the supreme court enforcing a decree of an inferior court. Letter of credit is an authority from one banker to another to pay money to a third person. Letters of exculpation, in Scotch criminal law, are a warrant obtained by a prisoner to summon witnesses on his behalf at his trial. Letter of guarantee, in Scotch law, means a guaranteeing a debt or engagement of another. Letter of license is a deed or instrument by the creditors of a trader who is insolvent, giving him time to pay, and, in the meantime, to carry on his business under surveillance. Letters missive, in England, is an order from the lord chancellor to a peer requesting the latter to enter an appearance to a bill filed in chancery against such peer; in Scotland, the word means any written agreement or memorandum relative to some bargain as to mercantile matters, or as to the sale of land or houses or the letting of land.
Letters patent mean a writing of the queen, sealed with the great seal of Great Britain, authorizing or appointing the party tcawhom it is addressed to do some act, or execute some office, as creating a peer, a judge, a queen's counsel; also granting a patent right to a person who is the first inventor of some new contrivance. See PATENT. Letters of request, in English ecclesiastical law, mean a writ which commences a suit in the court of arches against a clergyman, instead of proceeding, in the first instance, in the consis tory court. Letters of safe conduct mean a writ, limier the great seal, to the subject of a state at war with this country. authorizing and protecting such subject while dealing or traveling in this country, so that neither he nor his goods may be seized, as they other wise might be.