The Sun.
London, England, 1823-06-06 00:00:00

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COURT OF CHANCERY.

Mr. DENMAN moved the Order of the Day for resuming
the adjourned debate respecting the Court of Chancery.
No Alenaber.ofiering to address the Chair, the SPEAKXIt or,
dered strangers to Withdraw.
Air. DENMAN then rose. Ile could not regret the course
he had taken on this occasion, as if the House bad proceeded
to decide on the question brought before theirs by his lion. and
Learned Friend, without more information being afibrded to the
Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House than they pos.
sensed last night, he thought their conduct could not tail to
produce general discontent. If the speech of his Learned
Friend had been completely overthrown, which it bad not been,
by the reply of the Attorney-General, he still thought the state.
merits which had subsequently been made by the lion. Member
for Durham, ought not to be allowed to go forth to the world
without answer, refutation or explanation. The answer of the
Attorney-General seemed to him an answer to a speech which
bad not been made. He had ingeniously supixised an attack
to have been intended where nothing of the kind had been
thought of, and had applied himself to repel charges which
had never been preferred. The importance of this sub-
ject could not be doubted, when Gentlemen recollected
what a mass of property now stood in the name of the
Accountant-General of the Court of Chancery, amounting to
no less than thirty-three millions sterling! 'When this was
considered, it must be seen that the question interested not
only the present suitors, but their children, their relatives,
their posterity, and all the families who were in any way con-
nected with them. Hie Hon. and Learned Friend had been
taunted on the preceding night with- having obtained all the
cases which he had brought forward from a single office. He
(Mr. D.) was really at a loss to understand those triumphant
cheers which this remark had ailed forth. Surely it could not
be intended to convey an impression that one Solicitor in the
Court of Chancery was likely to be worse off than another. It
could not be contended that Mr. This was better ot than Mr.
That, and that though such circumstances might arise where
the one was concerned, nothing of the kind was to be appre
hended for those who were so fortunate as to be the clients of
the other. This would be to cast a reflection on the Court
Which nobody'would venture to make. If, then, his Learned
Friend had brought forward six or seven cases in which delays
of the most extraordinary and almost miraculous character had
taken place, cases in which parties had been debarred of their
rights till they were incapable ofenjoying them or were removed
.by death—if in one office it were found that delays of seven or
nine years appeared to have been improperly interposed, he
thought this.might be taken for as fair a specimen of what
happened in that Court as could be furnished by any other
office in the metropolis. .'lie statement of his llonuurable
and Learned Friend must fill every one with astonishment to
find that such a state of things could exist in any civilized
country. Those cases, he contended, had been fairly brought
forward by his Honourable and Learned Friend ; and when
it was known that his motion related to the general practice of
the Court, he was of opinion that there was no just ground for
complaint against the Hon. Gentleman because he had not
given notice of every specific case to which he meant to refer.
In the case of Hall and Ware, it was complained that no
notice had been given to afford time for any thing to be sup.
plied in the shape of a defence. When this was stated, would
the House believe that the circumstances had been repeatedly
before the Court of Chancery on affidavit, and that an affidavit
had been made to them in the year 1821 ? Such being the fact,
the Gentlemen opposite ought not to have been taken by sur-
prise. As some Members present might not have heard the
case, he would relate the circumstance. [The Learned Gen-
tleman then described the leading feature* of the case, and the
conduct of the attorney, who in consequence of the case being
repeatedly removed, after it had been placed to the head of
the Lord Chancellor's paper, and other cases called on to the
injury of the parties, had taken upon himself to write to the
Lord Chancellor upon the eubject.l—That the attorney had
written to the Lord Chancellor at all, was, in his °pluton, a
great impropriety ; and he thought it a great impropriety in
the Lord Chancellor, as it set a dangerous example, and was
likely to lead to injurious consequences, that he acted as he
did on that occasion. The letter of the nit irney was not
anonymous. He would never defend a Judge who noticed an
anonymous letter in Court. In doing so, he thought there
was a baseness wholly unworthy of a person who filled that
high situation. The attorney had written in his awn name,
and this was the minter in which a person in that station
of life had addressed the head of the Court of Chancery :-
4' Aly Lord, my clients have great maim to'complain of their
cause not remaining at the head of the palter agreeably to
your Lertlahip's order ?"---The only answer which the Lord
Chancellor could with propriety have given to this was—" Is
this true or is it false ? if true, which of my officers has done
it ?" The letter proceeded,—" This cause has been waiting
ist
the
file.: yearsninitl), l It
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itatuftriglael
are locked up till the decision takes place. It is pauiful to
my feelings to add, I have it on authority of which I cannot

doubt, that the infant on whose behalf this suit was instituted
twenty yea/Ivo, died brokenhearted, through distress arising
from his being kept out of his property." The infant in this case,
like the infant in the Play, became a grey-beard before the
end of the fifth act. The letter went on, " and I (the Attor-
ney) have in consequence to contend against the bitter feeling*
of his rtlations." This letter the Lord Chancellor had-re-
ceived, anti instead of calling upon his officers to prevent a re..
currence of the irregularity complained of, he had directed the
attorney to attend him in his private room, and to furnish
minute* for a decree, without requiring the attorney on the
other side to be present. He imputed no corrupt motive to the
Noble Lerd—nothing of the kind was in his mind. He would
only say that this ought to have been done two years and a
half before. lie considered the ghost-like fonts which cone
tinually hovered about the Courts of Equity, a reproach to the
present system. In the course of that day it had been put in his
power to relieve his lion. and Learned Friends opposite from
the distress which they had felt, or rather to dlmintsh their trie
umph on account of the cases brought forward on the preteding
night having been all derived from obe office. A case had
been put into his hands, that of Collets and Knott, front ants.
Cher office. The case laid been argued by Sir S. Romilly ice
1817. Judgment had been promised, but never given, and
when pressed for, last Misty Term, the Lord Chancellor hail
thrgotten all about the case. It was then reargued at coml. •
derable expence to the parties. No decision bad yet been given.
The Bill was filed in 1792 I ' Ought such a state of things to
exist. He thought the House bound to inquire into it, as it had
endeavoured, in 1813, to remedy the evil, notwithstanding the
arrear of business was greater now than it was ten years ago.
The Attorney-General, in 'arguing on this subject, bad used,
in his opinion, a quibble on the word arrear. 'What he (Mr.
Denman) called an arrear of business, was the number of cases
which remained to be heard. It was said that a great increase
of business had taken place, in consequence of the increased
population of the country. If such were the fact, this alone
furnished a strong reason for inquiry. He had heard to-day
of a case in which two Judges had determined in favour of a
sum of money being banded over to the creditors of an indi-
vidual. The money was placed in a banker's hands, as the
Lord Chancellor had not thought it right to agree with the
Judges. The banker failed ; the creditors proved their debts,
and the dividend was placed in the bands of another banker.
The case was sent before two other Judges, who gave their
opinion without any doubt in confirmation of the previous
decision. The parties now hoped to get their money, when
the banker with whom the dividend had been lodged, failed,
and thus even the shadow of a shade was lost. When facts
like these were known, he thought they constituted a case
for inquiry. It had been said of his Honourable and Learn,
ed Friend that lie had made an attack upon all the Judges
in Westminster JlBll. In his opinion nothing could ever have
been more unfairly urged than this, and he maintained that
nothing had been advanced on the difficulty of getting at the
truth from the Solicitors and others connected with the Court
of Chancery, which was not 'mown to be correct. Ile was not
Sure after,all but the best ground for the present motion was to
be found in the notoriety of the case. He had never'conversed
with his numerous friends at the Chancery Bar without hearing
from them' that there was a great arrear of business in the
Court, and being told at the same time that the Gentlemen of
the House of Commons did not know how to get at the proofs
of the evil complained of. He had been told that nothing was
proved by the number of petitions disposed of, as many of these
were dismissed by a stroke of the pen. But a very pompous
statement had been made of the number of lunatic petitions
which bad been heard.' He was informed that the majority of
these were little better than matters of course, lied each of

them been like the Portsmouth case, they would certainly have
been any thing but matters of course. iiit in that inquiry he
was of opinion, that eight years might have been saved. In
1814, a case had been made out, which he thought would have
induced almost any Judge in the world to have issued thkeorn..
missions which was at last issued in 1822. Facts had then been
stated on an affidavit by numerous intelligent persons, relative
to circumstances growing out of that sort of marriage into which
the unfortunate Nobleman had been kidnapped, which, while
theyawaked suspicion, would, he should hare thought, hero
exerted a desire us the Judge to protect that unhappy person.
The circumstances to which he had referred were so ermine.
tine of crime, and of the opportunities of perpetrating it, that
be thought every man must wonder that the husband had
been allowed to live—that he had not died, leaving behind
hint a little Lord Portsmouth, no more a=kin to his blood than
any tlentlemen who then heard hint. Lie took a rapid view of
Some of the circumstances of the Porthinouth case, and re.
marked when it came on in last November, twenty.sis hours
speaking took place before the question was decided, whether
a writ like that subsequently granted might 'be asked for,
though he thought his Learned Friend had not been speaking
twenty minutes before he had completely established a case
fbr a writ de bourne° inguirendo. Thu protection which the
Earl of Portsmouth now received from the reluctant justice of
his country, he (Mr. Denman) was of opinion might have been
afforded eight years sooner than it was. Ile denied that his
lion. and Learned Friend had taunted a Learned Judge
(Ilaron (lrabens) on his age ; he (Mr. 0.) should not be more
impatient of an attack upon any man, than he should of one
made upon that distinguished individual. Ile highly eulogized
the virtues of that venerable character, and maintained that his
age had not been taunted, but the hardships to which he had
been subjected at the close of his honourable career, by the
heavy duties imposed upon him, had been justly made the
subject of complaint. The Lord Chaneellot had, in some in.
stances, decided cases of considerable difficulty with sufficient
promptness and resolution. When a debate bad been raised
by the lion. Member for Oxford in that House on the question
as to the right of the King to strike the late Queen's name front
the Liturgy, that House had been a good deal divided on the
subject. The Lord Chancellor, however, at once decided,
that the King had the right in question. lie had not given his
reasons for doing so; but he had not hesitated to do it, though,
if ever there was a case in 'which, front former circumstances,
he might have been expected to say-r
" none duNint gni tionqumrs dobitavit"
it was that. The Noble Lord, however, had then no doubt at
all, and he at once declared the arguments in favour of the
motion to be erroneous, and as such entitled to no answer from
him. There were other nstances in connection with the Queen's
case, in which the Noble Lord was equally unembarrassed by
doubt. Ile (Mr. Denman) thought that he and his Learned
Friends had started a good many doubt*, but they were
promptly over-ruled. The Lord Chancellor was not slow to
decide that the Queen was not entitled, in certain cases, to
particular privileges which might be claimed by her Royal
husband. Ile decided at once that her Majesty had no claim

_
to a epecif+eation of time, place, or any of the circumstances
connected with _ the infamous accusation width she had to

meet. She, Without any notice of these whatever, was thrown
on a sea of accusation, exposed to all the storms of ca•
lumny, without adequate means to defend herself against,
the atrocious charge by which she was attempted to be
run down before her time, Nor had the Noble Lord's deci.

sions been less prompt on certain questions respecting
terary property, which in some cases could only be pro-
tected by his Lordship's injunction. Mr. Lawrence having
published lectures on human physiology, which had been reud

at some public Institution, On • them pirated by ik
bookseller, had applied for an injunction. That bookseller,
who he believed hail been the client of a Learned Gentleman
opposite, if Mr. Lawrence was wrong, was doubly guilty, as
in that case he had circulated what was improper, while he
cheated the author out of that profit, which belonged to him.—
On that occasion the Lord. Chancellor had said, lie was not sure

that if the book in question went before a Jury, that a libel
might not be found in some corner of it, and on this doubt he
dectded not to issue his injunction, as he (Mr. Denman) had
been informed. In the case of L(44,1 Byron a doubt had been
raised whether Cain was similar to Paradise Lost, or whether
it consisted of blasphemous discussions. This ease was decided
quickly, and rtribly to the ruin of some of the pinta eon.
caned. The injunction wan refused, though in other cases an
injunction hail been issued in the first 11)6ift1111: to stop the
sale of questionable works by those who weft) charged with
p'rating-them. which of worse were circulated in greater num-
bers by the adoption of an opposite course, lie must take the
liberty of saying that the course pursued on the occasions to
which he had adverted, was most unfortunate. Such a rte's
y
in some instance.s, such promptness in others,
particular attention. If it should avpear that a Petitioner
from that side tif the House had bait his cause delayed, and
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the
erhoetehrvrwshio4culul
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suspect that Any thing of the sett was intended; he had no
such thought on his mind ; but if conduct like that which he
had supposed were remarked, there were reasonable grounds
for assuming' that, without any improper view, the Noble Lord
unconsciously acted under a hhts which was arty thing but fa-
vourable to the due administration of justice. These conside-