The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1837.

EXCHEQUER COURT.--(THIS DAY

EAST U. HALL AND OTHERS, ADMINISTRATORS.
This was another action against the executors to the will cf
the late Captain Nisbet.
Sir Wm. FOLLETT moved to set aside the verdict in this
case, vsiliclr was for the defendants. The action was brought
upon a bill of exchange for 500/., and the issue to be tried
was, whether the deceased was of age when he made the note
or not ? At the trial the defendant's Counsel called Lady
Nisbett, the mother of Capt. Nisbett, upon whose evidence
the verdict for the defendant was founded. He ( Sir William
Follett) now contended, that inasmuch as Lady Nisbett
was a legatee under the will of her son to a large
amount she was an incompetent witness, and that her evidence

oug‘ t not to have been received. It was clear that she had a
direct pecuniary interest in the result of the trial ; for if the
verdict goes for the defendants it goes so far as the amount of
it to swell that fund from which her legacy was to be paid ;
while on the other hand, if the plaintiffs recovered, that fund
would be diminished to the same amount. In this case the
assets were not enough to pay the debts.
The LORD CHIEF BARON—Did that appear at the trial ?
Sir W. FOLLETT—It was admitted on both sides. Lady
Nisbett was a legatee to a large amount, under a will where
the assets would not pay the debts.

Mr. Baron PARKE-That will go to the credib:lity c f tl e
witness—no more.

Sir W. FOLLETT still contended that the only effect of tl e
evidence of Lady Nisbett was to increase a fund in which sl e
was deeply interested; and that the case was not distinguisl -
able from that of a creditor in a bankruptcy, who was not a
competent witness for the assignee.
The Court reserved judgment until Monday.

THE MARKETS.-(THIS DAY.)

COVENT GARI
1 here was a moderate supply t(
was steady at the following prices
S. d. to s.
Potatoes (cwt.) 2 0 4 0
Ca'.bages, White (12) 0 0 0 I
Ditto ited 3 (I 4 0
Brocoli 1 0 1 9
Horse Radish(bundte) 2 0 3 6
Celery 0 8 1 9
Endive 1 0 1 4
Carrots 'l2bunches) 3 0 4 0
•

Turnips- I t 2 0
Onions I 0 2 0
Colewortsor Greens 2 0 2 II
Leeks 1 0 1 6
Spinach (halt-skeve) 0 6 0 8
Apples 1 6 3 6
Pears
French Beans
Onions (tor pickling) 2 6 3 6
C •mm• ii Plums 2 0 2

,EN MARKET.
this day's market and the trade

•
d. to s. d.
Sweet Oranges (100) 10 0 14 0
Seville Oranges 14 0 16 0
Leumns 8 0 12 0
Walnuts 0 8 010
Span. Chesnuts (peck) 2 0 2 6
French ditto
Spanish itazlenuts 2 6 4 0
Frencb Walnuts 2 b 3 0
Brazilian Nuts 0 0 3 0
For.Orapes (per lb.) 0 0 0 0
English, Forced
Ditto, Outdoor 0 1 0 6
Filberts 0 10 1 0
Pine Apples (lb.)
Melons (each)
Cucumbers (brace)
Peaches (dozen)
Nectarines 2 0 3 6

sIAY MARKETS.—(At per Load of 36 Trusses.)
CUMBERLAND.

Coarse heavy Lowland Meadow Hay..... ...... ... ..... .......... X 4 10 to £4 13
New Meadow Hay e... 0 0 0 0
Useful Old Ditto 4 15 5 0
__

Fine Upland Meadow and Rye.grass Hay . ..... ....... 5 5 5 8
Clover Hay 5 5 t; 0
Oat Straw £1 18 to .£2_ 0_ I Wheat Straw 2 0 2 2

SMITHFIELD.
Coarse heavy Lowland Meadow Hay ...«.....X4 5 to £4 10
New Meadow Hay 00000000 . 00000000000 "•...., 00000 .•••••••• ••••••••••• 0 0 0 0
Useful Old Ditto
._.
4 15

Eine Upland Meadow and Rye grass Hay 5 0 5 5
Clover Hay (extra fine ..t6 0 Generally ..
Oat Straw ... ...... Z 1 16 t,l ..£ I I'l I Wheat Straw 1 18 2 0
WHITECHAPEL.

Coarse Meadow Hay .X.I 0 to £4 5
New Meadow Hay ... 0 0 0 0
Useful Old Ditte
Fine Upland Meadow and 11.ye.grass Hay
Clover Hay 5 5 6 5
Old Straw ..tl IS to .£2 01 Wheat Straw

PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE.

TO THE EDITorc OF THE SUN.

S r—l concluded my last letter by saying that, "I an
order of the whole Commons of the realm, in the Supreme
Cou I of Parliament assembled, were not a sufficient jus-
tificaion for any act whatever before the Justices of the
Crown, .we would he living under a species of Venetian
tyranny and degradation, which the whole people of Eng-
land, if necessary, should take up arms to resist."
As is manifest from the nature and the functions of
the Houses of Parliament—and this has been confessed by.
all the Judges from the earliest times, not even excepting
Chief Justice Holt—the House of Commons may commit
any man for contempt; and, being a• Supreme Court. th
warrant of committal need not state the nature of tee
offence. All the other Judges of Holt's time admitted,
that even if it did state the particular contempt, the J;,s-
tices of the Crown, as functionaries of inferior C ur!s,
were incompetent to decide on its legality. Lord Mei-
borough says, speaking of this power, " The necessity of
the case would, upon principles of natural reason, seem V)
require that such bodies, constituted for such purposes,
and exercising such functiffils as they do, should po,sess
the powers which the history of the earliest times shows
that they have in fact possessed and used.".
Let us now regard this novel doctrine in its, bear-
ing on the liberty of the subject. Suppose, then, that
when the House of Commons, as'the Grand Inquest of the
realm, whose province it is to inquire into all public grie-
vances, and more especially into the conduct of the Judges,
had called upon witnesses to give testimony inculpating
Chief Justice Keeling, for unconstitutional charges and
other illegal proceedings towards juries, and consequently
reflecting injuriously on his character, and damaging his
reputation—suppose they commanded one of those indivi-
duals, for greater accuracy, and with a view to publica-
tion, to put his depositions in writing, and to hand those
depositions to the officers of the House. If he refuse,
the House commits him for contempt—and all the Autho-
rities, as well as the very reason of the thing, establish
that the Justices of the Crown dare not liberate him. He
must lie in prison, or obey. He obeys—when forthwith,
accordir°, to the law laid down in the case of Stockdale v.
Hansard, the Chief Justice institutes proceedings against
him for a libel—institutes them in his own Court, and decides
that " an order of the House of Commons is no justification."
The Judges would thus be placed above the controul of
Parliament, and might violate the Constitution with impu-
nity—for no man could giVe evidence against them without
incurring the risk of a prosecution, or an action at common
law for slander or libel ; and yet, if he refuse to give his
testimony in the manner desired, or otherwise disobey the
Houses of Parliament, he is thrown into prison. If, then,
the position of the Chief Justice be not in effect the worst
and most absurd of tyrannies, I cannot understand what
tyranny is. Neither the Speaker, nor any officer or ser-
vant of the Houses of Parliament, can obey their orders
without first taking ale(r'al opinion, under the liability of
proceedings at Common Law ; and if he dare hesitate in
obeying such orders, it is the duty of the Houses to com-
mit him forthwith to prison, pursuant to the Law of Par-
liament—the paramount law of the land. It is woi:thy of
particular attention, that the King of Hanover should so
justly appreciate the tendency of Lord Dentnan's
.deei-
sicn—that one of' the first alterations he proposes to make
in the wretched institutions of the people of Hanover is,
to deprive the assemblies of the privilege of publishing Their
proceedings ! ! !
Contrast now the constitution and the functions of the
High Courts of Parliament with the constitution and the
functions of the Courts of Common Law and Equity, and

it must be confesses that submission to the doctrine of the
Chief Justice—which sets the King's Bench above the
Houses of Parliament—would be a degradation to which
no British subject ought to submit, and which the six
hand red and jifty-eight Commoners of education, property,
and rank, who have been chosen by the people to be the
guardians of their rights and privileges, arc bound by

honour and conscience to resist to the utmost of theft.
ability.
The house of Commons declared to James 1., in the
first Parliament of that reign

" That the [louse of Commons is the sole proper judge of
return of all such writs, and of the election of all such Mem-
bers as belong unto it, without which the freedom of election
were not entire. And that the Chancery, though a Standing
Court under your Majesty, be to send out those writs, and re-
ceive the returns, and to preserve them, yet the same is done
only for the use of the Parliament : over which neither the
Chancery, nor any other Court, ever had, or ought to have,
any manner of jurisdiction. Neither thought we that the
Judge's opini,4l, which yet in due place we greatly reverence,
being delivered what the common law was, which extends only
to inferior and standing courts, ought to bring any prejudice
to this High Court of Parliament, whose power being above
the law, is notfounded on the common law, but have their.rights
and privileges peculiar to themselves."
And- that each• House is fully competent to exercise

their respective functions without the concurrence of the
other estates, and consequently cannot be subject to the
controul of the Justices of the Crown, was admitted by
Mr. Pitt in 1788,-at the time of the King's incapacity.. It
was then doubted whether the House of Commons could
exercise its peculiar functions, because the fiction of-the
presence of the Sovereign in Parliament did not obtair,..or

was suspended. Mr. Pitt expressed himself clearly of opi-
iiion,-and the whole House acquiesced, "that each of the
Houses of Parliament, in its separate capacity, was fully
competent to the exercise of those powers which concerned
its own order and ju[isdiction."
I have shown, in my former letter, that the fore-
going declaration of the House of Commons has been
submitted to, and upheld by all the unimpeached
decisions and authorities from the earliest to the pre..
sent time. Let us now turn for a moment to the
Report of the Committee appointed by the House of
Commons to inquire into the question raised by the
decision of the Chief Justice. There voted for the
Resolutions, passed by the House. on the 30th of May,
aftOr three months' mature and deliberate investigation :
Lord Hosvick, Sir George Strickland, Sir F. Pollock, Sir
William Follett, Mr. Charles W. Wynne, Lord Stanley,
Sir George Clerk, Mr. Sergeant Wilde, Mr. Attorney-
' General, Mr. O'Connell, and Sir Robert Peel. How many
voted for my Lord Denman's proposition ?—One And
who was this individual ?—Sir Robert Harry Inglis, the
Menzber for,the University of Oxford.
The effect of my Lord Denman's decision is this, namely
that although the Lords control the proceedings of the
Exchequer Chamber, the Exchequer Chamber the pro-
ceedings of the Queen's Bench, yet that the Queen's
Bench may control the proceedings of the House o.
Commons. If this decision were permitted to stand as

•
law, . the power of the Commons is virtually annihilated—
an open and undisguised oligarchy is established. " The
poor Commons" will again he" petitioners in Parliament."
It may be asked, in what consists the law of Parlia-
ment ?—Thc law of Parliament consists of the precedents
furnished by the records of Parliament, and the judg-
ment and the consciences of the Members, each of whom
has a judicial place, and is a Lord of Parliatnent.
And these judges of the House of Commons are periodi-
cally selected by the . people, and arc subject to public ob-
servation and, public opinion, and may be dismissed pro liac
vice by the Crown. This is the. check the Constitution has
provided for the due administration of the law of Par-
liament.

The Justices of the Crown who administer the common
and statute laws, are governed, or to be governed,
by the unimpeached decisions furnished by the records of
their courts, and by. their own judgments, where an Act
of Parliament does not apply. Their, decisions are subject
to revision in the House of Lords, and their conduct to the
scrutiny and the animadversions of the House of Com-
mons—the grand inquisition of the realm—who impeach
befOre the other, Chamber, if in their Wisdorh it seem *fir.
This is the provisiOn the Constitution has made to enforce
the due administration of justice between subject and sub-
ject, and to cofine the justices of the'Crown within their
limits. ,That, therefore, the acts or proceedings of -
th'e -Houses of .Parliament are subject in any way to the
interference or control of the justices of the Crown, is not
only. expressly, contrary to every principle of the law aud
Constitution (if-England ; but if they were so, an ab-
surdity so degrading to the whole British people, and so
utterly subversive of every principle,of freedom, should he
speedily and effectually eradicated.
Public liberty has always more to fear froth the aggres-
sions of men of private worth, than from the assaults of
the abandoned. The acts of the. former are clothed with
the character of the individual,-and- suspicion is lulled ;
While those of the latter appear in their undisguised enor-
mity. The high and unblemisl.ed reputation of Lord Den-
man makes his errors or his faults most dangerous ; for it.
is impassible to combat them with befitting energy. We
cannot dismiss from our minds the accomplished scholar—
the -gentleman—distinguished for his dignified
urbanity and considerate forbearance to the bar, often un-
der trying circumstances. We cannot forget the splendid
career of his early days, nor his services in the cause of
RdOrtn. We remember all this, and although smarting
under tile aggression, we shrink from the contest—sorrow,
not auger, predoniinates. The Chief Justice should remem-
ber the brdliant days of Thomas Deninan,
sarrender his opinion. and manfully

A REFORMER:

The Queen has been pleased .to appoint Mr. John
Lambe, or the old firm of Wells and Lambe, dressing-case
maker in ordinary to her Majesty. _

_ .
Sir Frederick Watson waited upon the Queen with
the accounts of disbursements in the Royal Household
tIY other day, addinm, when her Majesty took the papers
from Lis hand, " 111adam, I have not
yet calculated the
exact account." " Oh, have you riot ? Then I'll do it
for y6u." Sir Frederick was astonished at the facility
with which her Majesty went through the figures.