The Sun.
London, England, 1822-06-19 00:00:00

PARLIAMENT,

HOUSE OF LORDS, TUESDAY, JUNE 18.
Prayers were read within a quarter to four
O'clock, by the Bishop of LLANDAFF.
Mr. Tomlyns, from the_Treasury, presented an account of
the quantity of Gold Bullion and Bars imported into this
country since the 59th of George the Third. Laid on the table.
Petitions against the Catholic Peers Bill were presented by
the Duke of Montrose, from certain Corporations of Trades
in the City of Glasgow; by Lord Sidmouth, from Hanger-
ford ; by the Bishop of Chester, from St. Saviour's, Southwark;
by the Bishop of London, from Sion College, and the parish of
St. I.3otolph ; and by the Bishop of St. David's (ten petitions),
from different parts' of his Diocess.
The Bankrupt Joint Commissions Bill was read a third time
and passed ; and the Bankrupt Laws' Amendment Bill was
read a second time.
The Colonial Trade Bill, the West India and American In-
tercourse Bill, the Ancient Statutes' Repeal Bill, the Importa-
tion of Goods Bill, and the Navigation Laws'Amendment Bill,
passed through Committees.
On the motion of the Earl of DARNLEY, Copies of the
Correspondence between the Treasury and the Irish Govern-
ment, on the subject of the Irish Stationery, were ordered to be
laid before the House.
MARRIAGE ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
The Duke of RICHMOND presented a Petition from Arthur
Chichester, Esq., referring to the case of the Marquis of Done-
gal, complaining of the retrospective effect of this Bill, and
praying that it might not pass into a law.
Lord ELLENBOROUGH moved the Order of the Day,
and the House resolved into a Committee on the Bill. After
the preamble had been read, the Noble Lord proceeded- to ad-
dress the House in support of the Bill. He observed, that he
rose to address their Lordships with a degree of anxiety he
had never felt before;' but this anxiety was much abated on
knowing how many Noble Lords were present on this occasion
who agreed with himself in the principle of the present Bill,
and who were certainly far More competent to explain all the
mischiefs and all the miseries which arose out of the existing
law. It was rumoured that the Bill now produced was in.
tended to operate in a particular case ; but the fact was other-
wise, for its principle was comprehensive, and its retrospective
effect went so far back as the 52d of George 11. It might be
proper to remind their Lordships that this was the fourth time
a similar Bill had passed the House of Commons and come up
to their Lordships ; a pretty clear intimation of the feeling of
the other House of Parliament, that the existing law, in rela-
tion to marriage, required some revision. He must attribute
the loss of the measure in this House to the want of such alter-
ations in the 'Bill itself as might have rendered it suitable to
their Lordships ; and, upon this assumption, he had little more
to do than state recorded facts, connected with circumstances
arising out of the existing law.—(Here his Lordship referred
to the cases of Riddell v. Lydiard, and Hayes v. Watts ;
where the Learned Judge, in the former case, admitted the
marriage to be virtually good,: but added, that it was in vain
to correct such anomalies as the law at present stood, and
therefore a nullity' was the consequence.)—lt was necessary
for him to draw some conclusion from such cases ; and the
conclusion was, that none of their Lordships were secure in
the possession of property or rank—however great that pro-
perty, or however high their rank; that they were not assured
of transmitting those advantages to their descendants in the
social order, in consistency with nature and truth, so long
as the present law remained in force. Some accidental omis-
sion, some casual circumstance, in the marriage of a father, or
even a grandfather, might bastardize all the progeny, and for
ever blight their fairest and proudest hopes. It was unneces.
sary, he trusted, to characterise to their Lordships the provisions
Of a law which permitted the husband, after years of confi-
dence, the fruits of which had generated an issue, and when
otherwise the union might be attended with every happiness,
to dissolve that marriage which was obtained in the first in-
stance by perjury; or to be disconnected at the merciless mercy
of some heir-at-law, who discovers some informality in the
original bond. What were the effects of the present law ? It
set husband against wife, brother against brother ; and intro-
duced endless broils in the struggle for property, so as to obli-
terate all natural affection, all bonds and links of honour.—
Nor were these evils to be attributed to the intention of the
testator or legislator, but to the unforeseen operation of a given
law, whose mischievous results could never have entered the
mind of its framer. It would be unbecoming the situation in
which he addressed their Lordships, and was certainly the
furthest from his intention, to affect an air of authority, or
to read a lecture on morals to so august an assembly, while he
wished to impress on the Noble Lords the very high import-
ance of not holding out a premium o i fraud. He felt satisfied
that the Bill would go into Comn it ee without opposition, as
the Marriage law could not pcissibly stand in its present state.
He trusted that the first clause, respecting'nullity, would be
repealed in the outset. It would then remain to consider
how their Lordships should proceed to deal with minors
and guardians, and as to the consent of parents; but the pre-
sent Bill retained the discretion as to nullifying of improper
marriages, if done within a certain time, by instituting suits to
nullify such marriages, whether by licence or banns. Clan-
destine unions might be obtained by banns, as they were licensed
by suits of nullity, If the received opinion of the sacredness
of marriage were true, it was not merely a form of words, and
if contracted by persons of reasoning powers, it was binding
in the eye of God. All that the Legislature could do, under
such auspices, was legally to mark who in reality were to
be regarded as man and wife, to impose those reciprocal
duties and obligations which belong to die marriage state, and
provide for the issue of such an union in the descent of property.
—But at present the provisions of the Marriage Act were so
framed that even a proper marriage might, by accidental cir-
cumstances, be rendered null, so as to stigmatise the parties who
continue to live together, though bound in conscience as in
honour to continue so to live. He wished to see established a
more perfect prospective system; and were he to follow the
dictates of his own feeling, it would prompt him to endeavour
to throw all difficulties in the first instance in the way of mar.
riages that were about to be engaged in without the consent of
parents or guardians; but when such marriages had once been
formed, the connection should never be loosened or vitiated
except.on account of adultery. He was not, however, at all
disposed to force opinions of his own ; and leaving here the
question as it bore prospectively to their Lordships, he would
intreat them to look calmly at the retrospective part of the
present Bill. And h2re he could not help remarking, that the
petitioner against the Bill was wrong in stating that no measure
had been retrospectively passed ; for he must have forgotten
Lord Bacon's Act, in 1781, and what was urged to the same
effect in 1804 and 1808 by a Right Rev. Prelate, which legal-
ised all the marriages from 1754. Although it appeared that no
Law Court would recognise the marriages he adverted to, yet,
because the parties were contracted in the face of Heaven,
their Lordships had, upon three several occasions, passed
those three Acts expressly to confirm and consolidate the mar.
riages. In his opinion, the present Bill did not go far enough
in relation to existing marriages ; and he could not conceive
why their Lordships, in such eases, if they legislated at all,
should not take equal care of themAlves as their forefathers.—
The abuses of the Marriage Act, as to nullifying of mar-
riages, were rather of a recent date ; this mystery of iniquity, for
such many of these nullities were, was not so well under-
stood in former years; such processes had become more fre-
quent now, when persons were content, for sinister or other
ends, to bastardise their issue and dishonour their wives; while,
again, bad men, actuated by self.interest, had discovered the
legal way of bastardising the issue of a brother. If, then,
their Lordships should conclude on the necessity of prospec-
tive alterations in the existing Marriage Law, it was, he con-
ceived, still more necessary to amend it retrospectively; but
perhaps, not going so far back altogether as to the period of
passing the Marriage Act. Exceptions ought certainly to be
made in all cases where marriages—all cases in which nullity
of marriage had already been pronounced by the Ecclesiastical
Court, and also where the parties had discontinued all coha-
bitation. It was desirable, in like manner, that property
should continue where it rested now, so that nothing but rever-
sionary interests could be affected by the proposed change.—.
When so much was said respecting the rights of property, and
the tranquillity due to the possession of property in its heri-
table course, let their Lordships put it to themselves what
must be his disappointment, who, bequeathing property to his
lineal descendants, 'should find that, by some statutable inter-
pretation, it had devolved to an heir at law, because his own
son had omitted to fulfil all the provisions of the Marriage
Act. 'With all the respect he felt for property, he would con-
jure their Lordships to remember that they were doing nothing,
or worse than nothing, if they maintained the rights of pro-
perty in opposition to the principles of nature, to morality, and
even to religion. Feeling this, he hoped that their ,Lordshipi ,