Francois Xavier Martin, an American jurist, born in Marseilles, France. March 17, 1T".V. died in New Orleans. Dec. 11, 1846. At tillage of 18 he emigrated to Martinique, where he was unsuccessful in business. In 1786 he took up his residence in New Berne, N. C, and taught French. He also learned printing and established a newspaper, which he peddled through the adjoining counties; and subsequently he published school books, almanacs, translations of French works. etc. He was admitted to the bar, but continued to work as a printer, and published brief treatises on the duties of sheriffs, justices of the peace, executors, and administrators. He compiled the British statutes in force in North Carolina at the period of the revolution, with a digest of the statutes of the state, and a translation of "Pothier on Obligations," which, published in 1802. was rendered directly from the French intoEnglish type in the composing stick. He collected materials for a history of North Carolina, which was published chiefly in the form of annals (2 vols. 8vo, New Orleans, 1829). He also prepared a series of reports of the derisions of the higher courts of the state, now the oldest volumes of that character received as authority in the courts of North Carolina. After 20 years' practice in North Carolina he was appointed one of the judges of the territory of Mississippi, which post he tilled for a year, when he was transferred to the bench of the territory of Orleans. Here he acquired the title of father of the jurisprudence of Louisiana, by his incessant and well directed labors in reconciling the discordant elements of law introduced by preceding jurisdictions.

In February. 1813, soon after the formation of the state of Louisiana, he was appointed its attorney general; and in January. 1815, he was advanced to the bench of the supreme court, of which he remained a justice 32 years. He was partially and for ten years almost entirely blind, but discharged his duties regularly. He published reports of the superior court of Orleans from 1809 to 1813 (2 vols.), and of the supreme court of Louisiana from 1813 to 1830 (18 vols.), besides a digest of the territorial and state laws in French and English (2 vols.), prepared under a resolution of the legislature. He also published a history of Louisiana, from its settlement to the treaty of Ghent in 1814 (2 vols., 1827). He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard college and Nashville university.