The transformation of transplantation into reception is perhaps of greater significance in the history of legal science than it is in positive law.
In this regard, system not only refers to a certain classification of legal material, but an internally consistent and systematic approach to law.
In Commentaries on the Laws of England (Bk I, ch.4, pp 106–108), Sir William Blackstone described the doctrine as follows: Plantations or colonies, in distant countries, are either such where the lands are claimed by right of occupancy only, by finding them desert and uncultivated, and peopling them from the mother-country; or where, when already cultivated, they have been either gained by conquest, or ceded to us by treaties.
In other words, if an 'uninhabited' territory is colonised by Britain, then the English law automatically applies in this territory from the moment of colonisation; however if the colonised territory has a pre-existing legal system, the native law would apply (effectively a form of indirect rule) until formally superseded by the English law, through Royal Prerogative subjected to the Westminster Parliament.
Until the end of the 19th century, Chinese offenders were still executed by decapitation, whereas the British would be put to death by hanging.