The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-17 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE-April 16.

JUDICIAL CONTINITTrEi OF PRIVY COUNCIL.
(Before Mr. Pemberton Leigh, Sir Edward Ryan, Dr.
Lushingtop, Lords Justices Knight Bruce and Turner.)
PRINSEP AND THE HON. EAST INDIA COMPANY V. DYCE

SOMBRE, TROUP, AND SOLAROLI.
The Attorney-General, in resuming his reply, called
the attention of their lerdships to the conduct of Mr.
Dyes Sombre subsequently to the execution of the will.
All the tendencies to excess of every kind then became
greatly exaggerated. Ho was totally debased, and lost,
not only to all sense of morality, but of common decency.
He drank to the greatest extent, and it was impossible
to conceive a human being sunk to lower habits of de-
bauchery. His proceedings were such as to attract the
attention of the police, but still he went into the most
respectable society, and was always regarded as a sane
man. The evidence adduced warranted him (the Attor-
ney-General) in saying that the extravagances of the
deceased must not be set down to the score of in-
; iusanity. When found, not in the privacy of his
hotel, but mixing in society, he knew what was due
to it, and never violated its obligations. The things
put before their lordships with so much power by his
learned friends on the other side did not proceed from
insanity, but were the return to his early habits.
There were none of those delusions so prevalent in
1843 and 1844. Could it be wondered at if, after the
quantity of brandy and wine which he took daily, be
should have sometimes mistaken fancies for realities ?
The state of his mind in 1851 had no bearing upon the
question before their Lordships, but at that period he
had been rendered prostrate by his debaucheries ; he was
in Paris, with no one attending him except his servants
and his wretched companions, and, deprived of a:1 hope
of everything that could give a charm to life, he plunged
more deeply than ever into excesses of the worst kind.
There was nothing to satisfy their L )rdshipe that in
1849 he was unfit to make a will. If they were satis-
fied that the delusions of 1843 had become effaced in
1848 and 1849, was there anything in the evidence pos-
terior to that period which would induce them to say
that he was insane and incapable of making a will ? The
will propounded bore intrinsically no evidence of in-
sanity. He was examined by several medical men prior
to its being made, and they could not trace the presence
of insanity. What an anomalous thing it would be to
say that he had power to save a part of his income, but
had not power to dispose of it. At his death there were
in the hands of his bankers 9,0001. ; could he not have
disposed of it by contract ? If the validity of the con-
tract had been called in question, would it not have been
a sufficient answer to allege that the Lord Chancellor
bad placed him in the receipt of the whole of his surplus
income? If the contract could not be set aside, neither
ought the will. How had he disposed of the hulk of his
fortune ? For great, noble, and beneficent purposes. There
was no necessity here for referring to legal decisions, the
question at issue was purely ono of fact. While he (the
Attorney-General) acquiesced in the propriety of the judg-
ment in " Waring v. Waring," as applicable to that par-
ticular ease, yet on metaphysical and legal considerations
he denied the soundness of the grounds on which itrested.
It was not the judgment of the whole Court, for it
was delivered, contrary to the usual practice, in the
first person singular ; " Waring v. Waring" was not a
case of monomania, but of general insanity. While no
doubt it was one object of the administration of justice
that persons incapacitated by mental infirmity should not
dispose of their property to the prejudice of those who
had a moral claim upon it, yet, on the other hand, he
trusted that it would never be lost sight of that while the
law gave a man the power to dispose of his property by
testamentary disposition, it was essential that wills
should not be lightly set aside, or otherwise than on the
most solid and convincing proof. Assuming, however,
that their lordships might take a different view of the whole
case from that which he and his learned friends who
were with him had presented, it was necessary to look at
the question of costs. If a party obtained a will from
interested motives, and failed to establish it, lee ought to
be mulcted in costs ; but where parties came forward as
trustees, not for their individual interests, but to protect
those of a charity, they stood in a different position, and
their case ought to be treated with all due consideration
by the Court. The deceased had said that his wife could
not expect more than she had received under the mar-
riage settlement ; and if, instead of dying in 1851, the
victim of his own intemperance, he had lived and fully ;
recovered, could any one believe that he would have
given his property to Baron Solaroli and Mr. Troup—
persons whom he had never been taught to respect ? Yet
those were the parties who, if the will was set aside,
would share between them this enormous and princely
fortune. When judgment was deivered by the Lord
Chancellor in 1849, refusing to supsrsede the commis-
sion of lunacy, his lordship had not before him the de-
ceased's journal and the evidence which had now been
produced from India, which put the case on a dif-
ferent footing. Considering the time occupied in the
discussion of the case and the mass of evidence pro-
duced, would the East India Company have been jus-
tified in abandoning the will ? Seven months inter-
vened between the close of the arguments in the court
nelow and the delivery of the judgment. Miscon-
duct had been charged against Mr. Prinsep and
Lord Comberrnere for preparing the deceased to un-
dergo his medical examinations. He - (the Attorney-
' General) was not there to justify Lord Comber-
mere, but he was convinced that his lordship had acted
rom the highest and most praiseworthy motives. The
Queen's Advocate had poured firth a torrent of vitu-
peration and invective against those gentlemen, of which
he (the Attorney-General) did not believe that his learned
friend or any one else possessed so large a vocabulary.
The conduct of Mr. Prinsep towards the deceased had
been most kind throughout, and there was not one tittle
of evidence to show that he had been guilty of any im-
propriety of conduct with respect to the miking and the
execution of the will. The learned counsel concluded
by thanking their lordships, on behalf of the bar, for the
attention and patience with which they had listened to
this protracted argument.
Their lordships reserved their judgment.
The following counsel were engaged in the case :
For Mr. Prinsep—Sir F. Thesiger, Dr. Bayford, and
Mr. W. Forsyth ; for the East India Company—the At-
torney-General, Mr. Wigram, Dr. Haggard, and Mr.
Melville ; for Mrs. Dyce Sombre—the Queen's Advo-
cate, the Solicitor-General, Sir F. Kelly, Dr. Jenner,
and Mr. W. Jervis ; for Mrs. Troup and Madame Sola-
roli—Dr. Twiss and Dr. Spinks.