The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-23 00:00:00

aid, were likely to prove more powerful and less '
tractable than they expected, and have accordingly
made a beginning—for we are persuaded it is no
more—in the task of repudiating and repressing
them. It was indeed high time for Ministers to
discountenance the officiousness and audacity of their
confederates of the Political Unions, if they in-
tended that any of the functions of Government
should remain in their hands, if they were not
willing to be controlled alike in the adoption of the
most important principles and in the arrangement of
the minutest details, if they were not prepared to
surrender to these unauthorised and irresponsible
combinations the whole management of the affairs
of the nation, foreign and domestic, judicial, military,
and financial. Already had the Birmingham Union '
so organised its powers as to supersede the authority
of the Magistrates and the force of the Sheriff in the
county of Warwick. Already had the Bristol Union
fulminated its decree against a municipal Judge, and
arrogated to itself a power of which a wise consti-
tutional jealousy had long deprived the British
Monarch. Already had the Metropolitan Union be-
gun to interfere in the domestic affairs of other na-
tions, by offering its ironical congratulations to the
Sovereign of France on the adulteration of the French
Peerage preparatory to its overthrow, upon a Incas
sure, that is to say, which this unfortunate Sove-
reign had vainly endeavoured to avoid, and which
had been forced upon him by confederacies, like the
Metropolitan Union itself, of levellers and repub-
licans. Already, as if to shew that nothing is too
minute for the grasp of these all-pervading associa-
tions, had the Political Union of Renfrew issued its
authoritative mandate to Government to repell the
duty upon soap, as the most certain means which in
its wisdom it could discover for arresting the pro-
gress of the cholera morbus. Already, in short,
had it become plain to the meanest capacity that
at the rate at which these combinations were pro-
ceed.ng they would have reduced every member of
the King's Government to the condition of a useless
and worthless sinecuris,, and degraded the British
Legislature itself into an unmeaning superfluity and
an inconvenient incumbrance. We do not flatter
ourselves, however, that any proclamation, much
less such a proclamation as that now before us, or
that the existing laws, even were they vigorously
and honestly enforced, would be found sufficient fur
the abatement of the dangerous nuisance, for the
overthrow of the ignominious tyranny of these ille-
gal associations, which have of course gathered both
strength and presumption in proportion to the pa-
tronage and support which have been afforded them
by the Ministers of the Crown. It will be the duty
of Parliament, and we cannot imagine any other
purpose for which it can at the present moment
have been so suddenly and unexpected convened,
to repair the error into which Ministers have fallen,
to restore the dignity of Government, and to rein-
state the authority of the laws. It is by the Le-
gislature alone, we are persuaded, that the State
can now be rescued from the dominion of clubs of
unwashed artificers, who have been sedulously
taught to regard themselves as the only competent
and legitimate law-givers for the British empire.—
Morning Post.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER, Nov. 22.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL V. PARSONS.

After hearing this case at some length, the COURT
said it would take time to consider its judgment.
It was an action of trespass on Crown Lands.

COMMON PLEAS, Nov. 22.

DIGBY, KNIGHT, V. ALEXANDER.

This was an action on a promissory note given for
money.
On a former day Mr. Serjeant SPANKIE obtained
a rule, calling on the plaintiff to show cause why the
writ of capias ad respondendum should not be set
aside, and the bail-bond delivered up to be can-
celled, and why the plaintiff should not pay the
costs of the application, on the ground that the de-
fendant was a Peer of Scotland, and therefore privi-
leged from arrest. _

-Mr. Serjeant WILDE now showed cause against
the rule, and contended that the defendant, who
called himself Earl of Stirling, had failed to establish
any claim to the privilege of which he sought to
avail himself. The principal ground on which the
defendant sought to entitle himself to this privilege
was his having voted three times on the election of
Scotch Peers, on the last of which occasions his
vote had been received under a protest made by the
Earl of Lauderdale and the Duke of Buccleuch.
The defendant, it appeared, claimed the Earldom of
Stirling, under a patent granting the title, upon failure
of heirs male, to the female line, through which it
had descended to him. The Learned Serjeant then
proceeded to read the defendant's affidavit, which
stated that at the election of Peers for 1825, on
the name of the Erirl of Stirling being called, he
answered to the name and voted, and is vote
was received by the principal Clerk of Ses-
sions; and that he had done the same in 1830
and 1831, his vote on the latter occasion having
been protested against. The Learned Serjeant con-
tended that this amounted to nothing, because at all
events he hail no right to vote, according to the
order of the House of Peers, until his claim to the
title had been admitted. The affidavit further stated
that in 1830 the defendant having applied to Lord
Lyndhurst, then Lord Chancellor, to be allowed to
take the oaths as a Scotch Peer, he had been per-
mitted to do so; and that in 1831 an application to
Lord Tenterden, similar to the present, had been by
that Noble and Learned Judge allowed. In answer
to this affidavit the affidavit of the plaintiff stated,
that the bill of exchange on which this action was
brought had been given to the plaintiff for money
lent,—that no such patent as that referred to by the
defendant was to be found,—and that the 'Marchio-
ness of Downshire, who was the great grand-daughter
of the last Earl of Stirling, was heiress to the title
under that patent, if any such existed. It also set
forth the defendant's letter to Lord Lauderdale,'
complaining of his having instigated the young Duke
of Buccleuch to object to defendant's title, and as-
serting his right to the same, as lineal descendant of
the last Earl ; and also a second letter, in which de-
fendant complained of the rigour with which his
application to be received as a Peer at Court had
been refused. It further alleged, that a bill filed in
the Court of Chancery, to which the defendant was
a party by the title of Earl of Stirling, had been
dismissed by the Lord Chancellor, on the ground
that he was no Peer.
Mr. Justice ALDERSON asked on what statute did
the Lord Chancellor decide upon claims to the
Peeragee
lkSerjeant SPANKIE--Not on any.
Mr. Serjeant WILDE said it might as well be
said that the person who some time ago claimed to
be Lord Stafford, was, therefore, a Peer de facto,
and entitled to the privileges of a Peer.
Mr. Justice ALDERSON—And so he would if he
had voted in the House of Peers. Here the de-
fendant had voted on the election of Scotch repre-
sentative Peers, which was all a Scotch Peer could
do since the Union.
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE said, that with the
defendant's right to the title lie claimed this Court
had if he
had biemetnhiarlilgo%? do
allowed to;
a‘svaaspeeneoruogfhsefoortiatlnidem. Now
the only act which a Peer of Scotland could perform
as such, since the Union, was that of voting on the
election of representative Peers. This the defen-
dant had done three times ; the first and second
time without any objection, the third time made a
had beenpnitest. But that
hattovosttead
,nalthsoougthhatsothoebjeocbtjeedetitoon,
rather strengthened titan weakened his case. This
Court were not to suppose that any person would
be allowed to vote who was not a Peer. With re-
spect to the order of the House of Lords that no
person should be allowed to vote until his claim was
first allowed by that House, the Court could not
judicially take any notice of that order, which
seemed to break in upon the act of Union. They
would not pronounce any opinion on the validity of
the defendant's claim to the title in question ; but