The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-21 00:00:00

in open court :—.
The Lord Chancellor said—l do not think that I am
warranted in disposing of a case of this sort in private.
The doors may be open, and anybody may come in that
takes an interest in it. The question comes before me
en motion and a petition. The motion is, that George
Augustus Hamilton Chichester and Augusta Arabella
Countess of Ferrers do stand committed to the Queen's

Prison for contempt of the High Court of Chancery, in
endeavouring to induce the plaintiff to contract a mar-
riage with Mr. Chichester without the sanction of the
Court, and, as far as relates to Mr. Chichester, in his
having clandestinely attempted to remove her from the
custody of her guardian. Then, there is a petition from
Mr. Chichester in the nature of a cross application, in

which he prays that the injunction may be dissolved,
and a reference to inquire whether any proposed mar-
riage between the petitioner and the plaintiff is a proper
marriage, and that he may be at liberty to make pro-
posals fora settlement on that marriage. The circum-
stances of the case are of a most distressing nature, and
circumstances which I should have been well pleased if
I could have been spared the pain and anxiety of consi-
dering. I have endeavoured to sift them to the bottom,
not only by hearing what was to be said by the parties
in court, but on three. or four occasions, I think, I have
had personal interviews with the guardians, and with the
young lady herself, separately from the guardians, vsho:n
I induced to talk to me in a perfectly confidential man-
ner. Now, the result which I have arrived at is, that
beyond all possible doubt the charge on which the mo-
tion was made to commit flUr. Chichester is established
—that he did endeavour in the first instance to persuade
the young lady to form an attachment for him ;
and secondly, that he did endeavour, in a most unjus-
tifiable manner, to induce her to elope with him, in order
to avoid the objections which he was well aware must
be raised to such a connexion, both on the part of the
guardians and on the part of the court. These are
matters which it is extremely painful and distressing,
and not for the interest of any of the parties to go into
much in detail, and I shall endeavour to avoid doing so
to the utmost extent in my power ; but, for a reason
that will be apparent, I do not think that I am justi-
fied in simply making an order without giving same rea-
sons for it. In the first place, I may say Ido not think
I am called upon to make any order to commit Lady
Ferrers. That is a conclusion, however, at which I
have arrived with very great doubt and anxiety. lam
not at all confident that I am quite dischargh g my duty.
The circumstances, as far as Lady Ferrers is concerned,
are these—Mr. and Mrs. Hungerford (Mrs. Hungerford
being the guardian of the ward of the court, a young
lady of 18 years of age, with a very large fortune) paid
a visit to Lord and Lady Ferrers in the last week of
May last year, and Mr. Chichester was on a visit there
at that time. There is a controversy on the affidavits
as to whether Mr. Chichester did pay anything like
marked attention to the young lady during that visit,
which was the first time he had ever seen her. Mrs.
Hungerford positively declared that she saw nothing
whatever to lead her to suppose that any sort of inter-
course whatever had passed between them more than the
exchange of common civilities. That is her statement.
Mr. Chichester and Lady Ferrers, on the contrary, say
that which either expresses or implies, that there were
marked attentions on the part of Mr. Chichester towards
the young lady. The guardian, Mrs. Hungerford, says
that just in the evening before their departure—they
stayed there a week or eight days—her term is, that
Mr. Chichester, in a joking manner, alluding to hie own
great pecuniary embarrassments, and the difficulty he
might have in obtaining the sanction of the Court, said
to her that he thought he should be a suitor for the
young lady's hand, and that she turned it off, supposing
it to be a mere joke, nothing had been said to lead her
to suppose that he had anything of the sort in his mind.
He, on the contrary, says that he understood from what
passed that he would have the deliberate sanction of
Mrs, Hungerford, or that there would be no opposition
on her part. They quitted the next morning, and Mrs.
Hungerford says, not only was there no marked atten-
tion on the part of Mr. Chichester, but that he studieualy
abstained from handing the lady to her carriage, when
they went away. I now come to what concerns
Lady Ferrers. Shortly after they got home the young
lady desired to make a little present of a purse to Lady
Ferrers. That was very natural, and letters passed.
Those letters were seen by the guardian ; there was no-
thing whatever improper in them—nothing that a mar-
ried lady, a peeress of the high rank of Lady Ferrers,
might not write to a young lady who was the ward of a
neighbour in the country. All seemed to be quite right.
About a fortnight afterwards (not quite a fortnight after-
wards), Mr. and Mrs. Hungerford, with the young lady,
were going on a visit to somewhere near Ascot, for they
were going to be at the Ascot races ; and on the morn-
ing after their arrival there, Mrs. Hungerford discovered,
what astonished her, some fragments of a letter, which
turned out, or which was suspected at that time, I
believe, to be from Lady Ferrers, and had crossbars
in a different ink, of a different writing, and being a dif-
ferent matter that was written. It turned out to be
written with lemon juice, which, it seems, when held to
the fire, comes out in the form of a pale red writing ; and
Mrs. ilungerford discovered what led her to believe
that, whoever was writing these letters was writing an
apparently open corresponence in black ink, and a con-
cealed correspondence in this different iek, or lemon juice.
Not to hold out any longer the mystery, it turned out
afterwards that there was a letter from Lady Ferrers,
which in the black ink writing bad been shown, but
which contained the clandestine writing in the lemon
juice, the clandestine writing being more or less an en-
couragement on the part of Lady Ferrers to the young
lady to give countenance to the suit of Mr. Chichester,
Lady Ferrer's brother. Exactly what it was we do not
know, but that that was the substance of it is manifest.
Lady Ferrers had desired that she might be at liberty to
send to the young lady a little basket in return for the
purse. The was very natural, and Mrs. Hungerford
did not object to that ; but she said it .would be better
that it should come through her, and that she would
present it in Lady Ferrers' name. She did so, and that
seemed all right ; lent, to the disgrace of Lady Ferrers—
and I cannot attempt to qualify the expression, for it was
most disgraceful, and it must for ever lower her in the
society of her equals—in that basket was concealed in
the lining a letter written, not on paper, which would
have made a crackling noise and have excited attention,
but written on linen—a secret encouragement to the
ward, against the consent, or without the consent of her
guardian, to give countenance to the suit of her brother
whom she admits, and whom all admit, to be a man in
deep embarrassment. Now, if anything can be con-
sidered more degrading to the character of a lady than
that, lamat a loss to conceive it. Having said this
much, it may be asked am I not flinching in the dis-
charge of my duty if I abstain from committing Lady
Ferrers ? Well, I think lam not, and for this reason.
The contempt of Court, on which I am to act, is an
attempt to induce the young lady to elope with Mr.
Chichester without the consent of the guardians or of
this court. Now, although Lady Ferrers, in this clans
destine and discreditable manner encouraged the inter-
course between the young lady and her embarrassed
brother, with a view no doubt to warp her feelings, I
cannot see anything that leads me necessarily to the
conclusion that she meant that this should be done with-
out first endeavouring, at all events, to obtain the sanc-
tion of the Court ; and there does seem to be a little
countenance to what is suggested, that at that time it
was meant to obtain, if possible, the consent of the Court
and the guardian to the celebration of the marriage ;
because, very soon afterwards, Mien Hungerford, having
discovered what she thought was the whole, but which
• turned out not to be the whole, of these letters, imme-
diately wrote to Lady Ferrer! and to Mr. Chichester,
I saying that she had discovered this to her astonishment,
nothing having passed except that ridiculous conversa-
tion the evening before they went away, in which there
was the suggestion of Mr. Chichester that he might be
a suitor ; that nothing else but this having passed,
she was astonished at discovering the extent
to which this had gone, and immediately forbade
all intercourse, and said the thing was impossible.
Lady Ferrers on that made a promiee that she would
not write any more, and I think it is not conclusive that
she has done anything since except what I shall pre-
sently advert to, but which does not bring me to the
conclusion that she meant to encourage the young lady
to elope. That is the way the matter stood with Mr.
Chichester. I need not state what passed in the early
transaction, because what afterwards happened with him
can admit of no possible doubt as to what was passing
between the parties. Mr. Chichester, being thus re-
jected on the part of the guardian as an unfit suitor for
the young lady, was forbidden to visit her at all ; but
the course he took was this—Mr. and Mrs. Hungerford
and the young lady lived at Dingley-park, in Northamp-
tonshire, which I collect is only a mile or two from the
town of Market Ilarborough. It seems that some time
in August Mr. Chichester, with another gentleman, who
passed by the name of George Ramsden, with a third
(who probably was a younger brother of Mr. Chichester)
and a fourth person, who was, I suppose, a servant
(there is distinct evidence that o:ere were four—some-
times only three) went and took up their quarters at an
inn at Markel-, Harborou;h, read Mr. ,Chichester thought
it consistent with his duty towards this Court and his
obligatFons as a gentleman to go in the middle of the
night, from time to Vine, attended sometimes by two,
ts
ho
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dmdeise by
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etiht e sae persons in o
clandestine,
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orally, and by letter' with this ward of the Court, with
whom he had been forbidden.by the guardian to have
any intercourse, and with whom it is perfectly obvious
he endeavoured to ally himself in order to make himself
master of the large fortune she possessed. That was his
I object is quite apparent. He endeavours to put it on
more sentimental grounds, but which, to men of the
world, it is absurd even to talk about. He himself puts
1 it beyond all question, because, after a certain transac-
' tion to which I will presently allude, when lie was
taken, his friend says, " I have been lookirg at your
estate, and I think we shall have some flue spo, king over
it." Then, on another occasion he spoke to the game
lc, eper, and asked if he wouldn't like to have a nex
place, meaning this new place, amid he i:aid he should, or
he should not. Then he really has the bad taste to joke
with the innkeeper, and to tell him that what he was
about was a love ;flair. Can one conceive anything
less creditable, or less likely to induce respectable
guardians of this Court to consent to such an alli-
ance ? He goes night after night, attended by two or
three persons, and has these communications with the
young la,ly, either at the window of her bedroom, or
some other window, where by arrangement they were
to meet. To suppose that one can save any doubt
motive about what
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