The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-24 00:00:00

TICK srw, LONDON, PRIDAT, MAY 24, 1839.

CHTIRCII RATES.

IN THE AR LIES COURT OF CANTERBURY.
nAvvEs AND VICAT, CHURCHWAIWTiNS 1F CHRISTCHURCH,

Sr:IVI:F.I V PELLATT

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I prote,t agai,,,t tir i gaii,y of tit pr,tcet dings iu this
cause, and of the citation by which I am called before this
Court, because they are illegal, unconstitutional, and op-
pressiv4; ; and

Because, ifliable to be cited at all, I am entitled, by the
ancient practice of this Court, and by the law of the land,
to be cited before the Commissary described in the cita-
tion, as the Commissary in and for the parts of Surrey of
the Right Reverend Father in God Charles Richsrd. by
D.rine Permission, Lord Bishop of Winchester, in which
•‘ parts of Surrey," as I suppose from this lsnguage, my re •
silence is, or is assumed to be.

13,Tause the practice of granting such letters of request
is are stated by the said citation to have been granted in
this instance, is only a mode, and, as I believe and protest,
is an illegal and oppressive mode, by which the subjects of
her Mjesty are taken from their homes and made to pay
heavy fees, because the Commissaries and other Judges
are, or profess themselves to be, incompetent to discharge
those duties which are confided to them.

Because, as appears by the said citation, Sir Herbert
Jenner, Knight, Doc`or of Laws, and in the said citation
described as official Principal of the Arches Court of Can-
terbury, of the constitution of which Court I know nothing,
except that it puts her Majesty's Dissenting subjects, who
have the misfortune to be cited into it, to an enormous ex-
pense for what appears to me to be most unjust and un-
christian demands, and as I hope to show, even by this ci-
tation, both unjust and illegal.

Because, I say, it appears by the said citation that you,
the said Sir Herbert Jenner, have lately received letters of
request, under the hand and seal of the so-called Wor-
shipful John Sayer Poulter, Bachelor of Laws, said to be
lawfully constituted Commissary as aforesaid, informing
you that it had been represented unto the said Poulter,
who, though a clergyman, humbly assumes unto himself
the royal plural—that it had been represented unto him,
on the part and behalf of Thomas Hawes, Esq., Jun., and
James Vicat, Churchwardens of the parish of Christ
Church, in the County of Surrey and Diocese of Winches-
ter aforesaid, and Province of Canterbury, that they in-
tend to commence and prosecute a certain cause, or busi-
nes°, of subtraction of a rate towards the repairs of the
parish Church of Christ Church, in the county of Surrey
and diocese of Winchester, against Apsley Pellatt (mean-
ing, as I believe me the undersigned) a parishioner and
inhabitant of the said parish of Christ Church, in the county
of Surrey, and diocese and province aforesaid, and that for
that purpose, had requested him to grant them letters
of request, that they might apply for the decree or citation
in th 3 Arches Court of Canterbury ; that is, the Church-
wardens requested him to abdicate his own duty, and to
ask somebody else, at my expense, as it will appear, to do
it for him, to which be very unrighteously, as I think,
assented. Now, I protest against all these circumlocutory
modes of working out justice, or, as I view it, of inflicting
injustice, behind my back; for upon the face of it, is as-
sumed that one party to a suit may apply to a judge without
notice to the other, to transfer the jurisdiction confided to
him, and within which, as I understand, he is sworn to do
justice; and that the judge may transfer the proceeding
without hearing it, and behind the back of the defendant,
when according to the assumption implied by the appoint-
ment of a judge for the district, her Majesty's subjects arc
entitled to have judgment administered within their own
diocese, and near to their own home.

I further object to and protest against this proceeding,
because, if the said gentleman (calling himself the Com-
missary in and for the parts of Surrey, of the Right Rev.
Father in God, Charles, by Divine permisson, Lord
Bishop of Winchester) is incompetent to administer that
justice, to distribute which he is appointed, an inquiry
ought to be held into his judicial fitness, for there is nothing
now to show that he is competent to determine this case to
be one fitting to be determined by the Court of Arches ;
and for anything which appears, it may be that he has
taken too modest a view of his own judicial capacity,
and if the Bishop who appointed him were, as in
justice he ought to do before he permits his Commissary to
lend the people committed to his charge to another tribunal
ro be dealt with for their soul's health, to examine his
judicial fitness, he might find that when such letters of
request certified that it would be of advantage to the par-
ties to transfer the hearing of their case from the said Com-
missary to a judge of another Court, instead of ascending
in the scale of mental altitude by the transfer, the parties
were losing the advantage of a more commanding intellect.
And I object and insist that this was and is the duty of the
Bishop who appointed the said Commissary, and not of you,
Sir Herbert Jenner. And the comparison of fitness is
raised, by the reasons set forth in the said letters of request,
being between you, the said Sir Herbert Jenner, and the
said John Sayer Poulter, I object and protest against your
being the judge to decide the question—l object that no
judge ought to decide a question to which he is a party.
And I further object and protest that if the Bishop had
found his said Commissary judicially incompetent, that
finding would not justify you, the said Sir Herbert Jenner,
in assuming jurisdiction to try the said cause, but that the
Bishop would be bound either to preside himself and dis-
charge his own duty, or to appoint a competent Commis.
sary to hear the case in its own diocese.
I also protest and object to any further proceeding in this
suit, because these letters of request, certifying that it
would be of advantage to the parties on both sides that the
cause should be transferred from the said Commissary
Poulter to you, the said Sir Herbert Jenner—you, the said
Sir Herbert Jenner, as appears by the said citation, have
taken upon yourself to accept the said letters of request,
thereby, as I object and charge, improperly assuming to
determine and pronouncing judgment upon a question in-
volving, as the primary consideration, your own competency.
I object to such decisions for the reasons stated, and
that the Bishop himself ought to have been the party to
decide such a question, if such a question could be law-
fully raised before him, and that he ought not to decide
such a question behind the backs of the parties to be af-
fected by it.
I further object to, and protest against any further pro-
ceeding in this suit, because it is further recited in and by
the said citation, that the commencing and prosecuting,
the said cause, that is the prosecuting of me the under-
signed in the said Court of Arches, will be of advantage to
both sides.

I object to this statement that it is an untruth, appearing
in a grave judicial proceeding, and that, even if it were
true, it is unjust so to declare in the absence, and without
the knowledge of the party who is thereby, if he happens
to live at a distance, to be compelled to travel from his
home, and to be put to great trouble, expense, and charges
upon an allegation made in his absence, and without his
knowledge • and I object and declare that in this case the
statement, if made by the parties, was made without my
knowledge, without notice to me, and without my having
the means of knowing when and where such a proceeding
was to be taken against me.
I object further to the said citation, because the reason
there given for thus subjecting me to great expense, and
compelling me to depart from my diocese to attend in this
Court of Arches, is that the parties can have the better
assistance of advocates and proctors in the said Court of
Arches than in the said Commissary Court of Surrey.
Now, I object to the assumptions contained in this allega-
tion, because I hold it is a great affliction to have the
proctors and doctors, called advocates of the said Court,
saddled upon my shoulders, and seeing also that you are
in the said Arches Court, in the habit of making the de-
fendants, whom you condemn, pay the costs of their ad-
ersaries' partiality for these costly mouthpieces, I do not
want their assistance. I consider that to assume the ne-
cessity upon men to employ doctors and proctors—the
doctors being necessarily members of the Church of Eng-
land—that very sect who, by the aid of the Ecclesiastical
Courts, are enabled unjustly, as I contend, to amerce all
the other sects in England, is only a mode of shutting the
mouths of the sufferers, and, working out upon them a
modified inquisition, modified, as I verily believe, only because
the greater enormities and bodily cruelties which were in-
Meted by that sect in former times, cannot now be
practised.
I further object to this citation, and to these false as-
asumptions, because it appears that the rate alleged to
have been subtracted, though it is not pretended it was
ever in the possession of the said churchwardens, is shown to
be, and is, in fact, a rate upon all sects for the maintenance
of the church of one sect, and I object and protest, and I
submit and insist, that it would be unjust if a dissenting
church meeting, at the Land's End were to issue a cita-
tion against the Archbishop of Canterbury, and after
having, behind his back, gone through the process
of letters of request, and affecting to be caring for his
soul's health, they should ultimately cite him, and tell him
that he was called there to answer for subtracting a rate
to repair their chapel ; that he was cited from his own
diocese, that he might have the advantage of doctors and
proctors, but if he would have a doctor or advocate, be
he must have a doctor of that dissenting body sworn to
obey and support its peculiar laws and dogmas ; and
that such a course of action would be a mockery of the
Archbishop and of justice. But I insist it would only be
the counterpart of that injustice which has been inflicted
on my neighbours by the same churchwardens, in relation
to this same rate, and which they have now commenced,
and you, by accepting the letters of request, are proceed-
ing to inflict upon me.
I further object, that it is no answer from the judge pre-
siding in an Ecelesiustical Court, calling itself a Court
Christian, to say this is law and you must obey it, because
a human law is only so much embodied power. It is the
mere dictum of a number of sinners, and makes nothing
good or bad which is not so by the law of God. It involves,
if it is contrary to equity or the law of God, no moral ob-
ligation, and though a man may be compelled to submit
to a bad law, the mral sin is on the part of the law-makerr,
and all who enforce it ; and I insist that every man, par-
ticularly when it is about to be inflicted upon him, is
called upon and entitled to object to, and point out the
injustice, and endeavour to enlighten those whose con-
sciences, by the frequent practice of these things, have
become dark on the subject.
I object to and protest against this proceeding, at this
time especially, because the House of Commons of Eng-
land have recently resolved that the proceedings and prac-
tices of these Courts ought to be, and shall be reformed.
I further object to, and protest against, the citation and
proceedings, because the issuing of such letters of request
by the judge is unauthorized and illegal. If he is ap-
pointed to, and accepts the office of judge, he is boand to
discharge his duty, and has no power to absolve himself
from doing so, and that it is not because he issues a letter
to you, Sir Herbert Jenner, requesting you to do his duty,
that yo have thereby power to do it. The power to ap-
peal from the decision of an inferior to a superior judge
after judgment is thereby taken away, and you, the said
Sir Herbert Jenner, if this be law and right in him, might,
if you felt your incompetency, or from other causes, de-
cline the administration of that justice which you are ap.
pointed and paid to dispense, issue your letters of request,
in return, to some other judge to do your duty—that judge
again might issue his letter of request to some other judge,
so that justice, or rather the refusal to do justice, though
clothed in the specious foam of requesting it, might be