The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-26 00:00:00

An ACCOUNT of all EXCHEQUER BILLS issued, between'
sth Jan. 1831 and sth Jan. 1832, under the Acts 3 Geo. IV.''
c. 86 ; 5 Geo. IV. c. 103, and 1 and 2 William IV. C. 24 ;—Un.'
provided for.

Z . s. d.

The Amount of Exchequer Bills issued for carrying
on Public Works and Fisheries, in the year ended •
sth Jan. 18:32 177,600 0 0
The Amount of Exchequer Bills issued for build-
ing additional Churches, in the year ended sth
Jan. 1832 102,600 0 Oi

£280,200 0 01,

Whitehall Treasury Chambers, 18th Jan. 1832:

SIR AUGUSTUS D'ESTE'S CLAIMS.

(From a Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.)
The public have already ben in possession of some of
the facts relative to the claims which Sir Augustus D'Este
has made in regard to the marriage of his mother, Lady
Augusta Murray, with his Royal Highness the Duke of
Sussex. In support of that claim, a pamphlet in the
shape of a letter has been circulated amongst the nobility,
and which has created no ordinary sensation amongst the
circle fur whom it was intended. The letter commences
by stating, that the proceeding recently adopted by Sir A.
D'Este, in the Court of Chancery, is simply a bill filed to
perpetuate testimony, with a view to preserve the legal
i
proof hereafter of a fact which, in the present day, s a
matter of public notoriety—namely. the marriage of his
Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, at Rome, in 1793,
with the late Right Hen. Augusta Murray, of which union
Sir A. D'Este and his sister are the offspring. It has re-
sulted from an opinion that the 12th Geo. 111., a British
Statute (the Note is marked No. 1.), usually called the
Royal Marriage Act, does not extend to marriages con-
tracted by any descendant, whether male or finale, from
Geo. IL, bo,ia fide, and beyond the sea—consequently
that Sir Augustus D'Este is, even according to the law of
the British empire; the legitimate son of his Royal Father
throughout the British empire.
A formal opinion, to the above effect, has recently been
‘igned by a learned civilian, who is even him,elf consti-
tuted one of those Judges in this country whose peculiar
province it is to decide on matrimonial causes, and it has
proceeded not from any hasty and momentary impression,
but it is declared on the face of it to be the result of
" great consideration."

The following explanation here follows, upon a tract
written 20 years ago, entitled " the Royal Marriage Act,"
which produced a considerable effect in keeping back any
premature discussion, as also producing some influence on
the conduct of Sir Augustus D'Este upon such a delicate
subject.

At the clove of the year 1811, the Hanoverian dynasty
was placed in a very peculiar predicament ; many of those
whom we now find holding some of the most permanent
posts in the conduct of public affairs had not then corn-
nenced even their elementary studies. It may, therefore,
be as well to describe it.

The state of the Royal Family at that time was such as
mafteultr,eadnedatlwt
whose memory
enslaved
under to induce serious apprehension that the male line of
and
House of Brunswick Lunenburgh might wholly
the Crown of these realms again descend to a race of
interestingpS iii
our i y,
ye
irnei
singt inthuso
tapri,noens:ci:el.asmmooi ,etTrfhnoehetneerfondly
RI strangersexpectation
opreeientertained,
Ittceaeirnts
ittsfoaoanci
nnohteunadorfr::
e i
successionit,hitul
a,atoolutphrr:,rnlWales habits,iifnie. ewoa,
foalautinniidddee
of Sovereigns, British born, depended at that time princi-
long have been preserved to us—hopes transferred in the
present days to an
cdaaluagmhitteyr, oufnai vPerrsi.anleley awhosend deeplyPre
will long be the ished by the British public.
The state of the Continent, on the other hand, from
which we were absolutely excluded, was such,
under Bonaparte, as toafford no opportunity of any ad-
v intageous connection in the confined circle of foreign
Principalities, with which alone those in succession to the
Crown are by our laws at liberty, without forfeiture of
i
their future rights, to ntermarry (No. 2). Even those
principalities were in a manner annihilated.
His present Majesty seemed to have been deeply im-
pressed with the predicament of
the Royal Family at that
period, and to have thought it incumbent on him to set
to the younger Princes a laudable example—to discharge
so far as depended on him a duty towards the country, by
seeking in the fair bosom of England herself the means of
securing the British empire from the danger with which
it was at that time so imminently threatened. The dan-
ger was not light ; it exposed England to the necessity,
the termination of the exiting generation in the
Family,
of passing
Royal under the yoke of a foreign do-
arciiuoinreodfnhotsriing wiyoannylacwosnlinuepset iacen, war,
more espe-
cially of the system under whicu, during the reign of
, but by the
merein' do-
minion, l o
operation
George 111., those laws had been allowed to operate—a

I. d.

•r. 3]

4,764,601 14 Ot
'RING RICE. -

singular but necessary consequence, not so much of the
principle which first imposed on Great Britain the neces-
sity of looking to a race of foreign Sovereigns for its
.Kings (a principle which the necessity of circumstances
Justified at the time), as of a new principle established
under that Sovereign, whose boast it was, on his own ac-
cession to the throne, that " born" and " educated" in
this country, he gloried in the name of a " Briton."
Yet one of the early laws passed under the same Sove-
reign—a law strongly opposed by the most eminent per-
sops of the age at the time when it was proposed, and
without precedent in the annals of British legislation
had apparently for its object only to bring back the country
to that state of things from which it had been congratu-
lated by the Sovereign himself on having so recently escaped.
This important document here proceeds in tracing the
effect of the Royal Marriage Act, and the high hand of
power by which it was alone procured—the reprobation
with which it stands branded on the Journals of the House
of Lords (No. 3)—its repugnance to British feelings and
British precedent—thus contribute to dispel a prejudice so
new in the history of Great Britain, that no British
female, however noble her descent, elegant her person, and
accomplished her attainments, could at any time he worthy
to grace the nuptial bed even of a junior Prince of the
House of Brunswick, if descending from his Majesty King
George the Second (No. 4).
The prospect of a marriage between a Prince, standing
almost first upon the list of British Princes, and with a
British Lady, although circumstances placed her high in
the consideration of private and domestic society, could
not stand in comparison, in point of descent, with the
lustre which appertained to the Lady whom his Royal
Highness the Duke of Sussex had espoused at Rome, was
calculated to bring forcibly into view the position of two
infant and also Royal children—Royal in descent even
from their maternal ancestors—and deriving through them
the blood of the most ancient Sovereigns, not only of
Great Britain, but of Europe, the same blood through
which the House of Brunswick was called to fill the Bri•
fish throne. The position of these infants was the more
interesting as it was distressing. Having no means of sup-
port in life but what depended on the then precarious
health of their Royal parent, in a moment they might be
left destitute—having no claim to any peculiar considera-
tion on the part of the State but what might be founded
on a claim to the rights of children begotten and born of
a Prince of the Blood Royal of England, not only in holy
matrimony, but in lawful wedlock.
That such was in law the true and real status, and
which has b-en found to be the conviction of others hold-
ing the highest rank in the profession at the present day.
Having (Sir A. D'Este)
had occasion to go through the melancholy duty (upon his
mother's death), that of examining her papers, he found
among them many documents throwing light on the cir-
cumstances under which her marriage had been contracted
with his Royal Highness at Rotate, in 1793, and other
matters which occurred during his infancy. .
Uri, this discovery Sir Augustus took the resolution of
consulting the first authority at the bar on points of this
naturforensicie,v
ekg
distinguished,uence, Dasr.mzucshhinbgyt jounr;idaicnadl aatstiihinemceansets si
in-
volved points connected with the foams of the Court of
Chancery, and the rules of evidence as prevailing in Courts
of temporal jurisdiction, Mr. Richards, a gentleman at
the bar of the Court of Chancery, was called in on consul-
tation. The result was a joint opinion on a variety of
points, but principally on the operation of the 12th Geo.
c. 11, as fleeting a marriage bona fide abroad, beyond
the jurisdiction of any British Act of Parliament, and the
British territory
altogether.
Ra
l % their
e opinion was expressed in the fol-
lowing words of opinion, after great consi-
deration,r I
As tothat point,
Marriage Act does riot extend to
any marriages by any descendants of George 11. contracted
that :
the _
t.
and solemnized bong fide out of Great Britain and beyond
the limits of British jurisdiction; and we think that the
marriage of his Royal Highness at Rome was not a mar-
riage impeachable under that statute."
On receiving this opinion, Sir Augustus DEste deter-
mined, as nobly as prudently, on not departing from that
course of conduct which he bad pursued since his first en-

trance into life—on not seeking to agitate any question of
rank, title, or precedence at the moment—on keeping back
rather than advancing the pi esentment of any claim dur-
ing the life of the Royal father ; contenting himself with
merely reserving a right to bring forward the subject at a
fit and proper opportunity, when it might be taken into
consideration without inconvenience to the public service,
or exciting feelings or discussion which in any quarter
might be unpleasant.
The documents found by Sir Augustus had never been
brought forward during the proceedings against his de-
ceased parent in 1794, nor had the clergyman by whom
the marriage ceremony was performed been examined in
her behalf. He probably was at that time still on the con-
tinent; and it is very clear much important testimony
was, in fact, kept back, for reasons which appertain alto-
gether to another view of the circumstances, wholly dis-
tinct from the subject of this letter.
The clergyman is, however, found to be still living, and
in England, but of a very advanced age.
Thirty-eight years have already elapsed since the mar-
riage at Rome took effect ; and although the evidence of
the marriage would be in the present day sufficient, inde-
pendent of the testimony of the clergyman himself, to sus-
tain the legal proof of that fact, yet it obviously became
prudent, in a case like the present, to omit no measures
calculated to secure all the evidence, and in the fullest ex-
tent, which the case was capable of affording.
It became the more necessary for Sir Augustus to secure
such evidence, in consequence of his having determined to
postpone, possibly for a long period, all claim, and to guard
against all those accidents to which documents not cure-
gistered and recorded are so constantly exposed.
An idea also has been entertained in his family that the
certificate or other written statement of the Minieter by
whom the marriage ceremony was performed would be re-
ceivable as evidence, especially after the death of the
clergyman.
In this he was undeceived by the following opinion, pro-
ceeding also from his Counsel, and expressed in the words
following :
" We are of opinion, that the certificate, or declaration,
or statements of the Protestant Minister by whom the mar-
riage was solemnized at Rome, would not be serviceable as
evidence in the Courts of law or equity in England ; and
we are of opinion, that it would be expedient to file a bill
in Chancery, against all proper parties, for the purpose of
obtaining and perpetuating the clergyman's testimony on
oath, as well as of other persons whose evidence may be
material. We think, considering the great age of the
clergyman, a bill should be filed immediately, for the pur-
poses above mentioned."
The filing of such a hill was not only thought advisable,
but pressed on Sir A. D'Este ; and also, with this view,
the nature of a bill to perpetuate testimony in the Court of
Chancery.
A considerable portion of this extraordinary pamphlet
is here devoted to the law upon cases in which bills are
filed, and upon Appeals before the House of Lords. It
then proceeds:
" In the present case, the Bill of Sir A. D'Este is to the
following effect :—After stating the fact of the marriage
at Rome, and certain circumstances respecting the landed
I property of which his mother was seized in her life-time,
and the creation of his Royal Father as Duke of Sussex,
Earl of Inverness, and Baron Arklow, with remainder to
the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten—and that
the Clergyman by whom the marriage ceremony was per-
formed at Rome is now upwards of eighty years of age—
it merely submits that Sir Augustus D'Este is entitled to
examine witnesses to prove the said marriage, and that it
was good and valid, and to perpetuate testimony of such
witnesses, both as to the said marriage and the other
matters and things aforesaid, in order that he may have the
benefit of such testimony, as occasion may require."
To this bill the Attorney-General, disclaiming interest
in the land, has demurred.
If the opinion of Dr. Lushington and of others be
correct, Sir A. D'Este, on the death of his father, will be
entitled to claim the Dukedom of Sussex. This in-
heritance depends not entirely on the favour, and certainly
not on the caprice, of whoever may at that time be the
reigning Sovereign of this country. It is the settled prac-
tice in modern times to refer all doubtful questions on
private claims to the House of Peers, where, in the pre-
' sent days, they are tried with strict regard to justice ; but
also where rules more strict are adopted in regard to evi-
dence than prevail in the Courts of Westminster Hall.
After adverting to the law of evidence, the pamphlet
proceeds. The claim, however, of Sir Augustus D'Este
is not a mere claim to an ordinary Peerag,—it involves, by
pretibility, a claim to the Crown of England itself, should
any accident, by any calamity, arise to the Princess Victoria
or Prince George of Cumberland, or their line should here-
after GAL
The remainder of this document occupies eleven pages,
which are entirely devoted to the law upon the subject, at
the same time it recapitulates a very considerable portion of
the case of " Belfast v. Chichester," this being the only
case which has ever occut tad in a British Court of
Equity, that in any degree approximates to the mite now be-
fore the public. In the course of these observations, it is
stated, that in consequence of the most mature delibera-
tion and advice, the opinions of Sir A. D'Este's Counsel
have been laid before his Majesty's Ministers, with a note
to Earl Grey ; the note, however, miscarried.
Amongst those whom the letter has been sent to, we
understand the major part of the Nobi ity are decidedly in
favour of the claims, at well as the King and the male
branches of the Royal Family.
Note I. This Statute has never been extended to, nor
been of force in Ireland before or since the Union. Ire-
land in 1772 was an independent kingdom, having its
own separate Great Seal, its own separate Privy Council,
the
accession
of the House
its own separate Parliament, and declared both pros-
pectivelyindependent of all
British
en as
enactment. wellment. as
Since retrospectively,
of Hanover by the British Parliament itself George 111.
a
was King of Ireland as well as of Great Britain. Its
Princes could be affected by no personal incapacity out of
Britain. Were the Legislative Union dissolved to-mor-
row, the sons of George 111. would still remain Princes
of the Blood of Ireland ; as the Prince of Orange would
have remained a Prince of the Blood of Belgium, had the
Nassau family been fortunate enough to have retained the
sovereignty of that country in the lave separation.
Note 2. Allusion is made to the law excluding from
the Throne all who marry those called Papists, and which
has no connection with the Royal Marriage Act.
Note. 3. Mr Burke, it is believed, was the writer of
these protests, which were signed by the Marquis of
Rockingham, the heads of the Whig party, and among
them by the venei able Earl Fitzwilliatn ; of this, indeed,
the superior attainments they display in metaphysics and in
the science de la hauteJurisprudence afford intrinsic proof.
Note 4. George II is made, in the 12 George 111.
cap. 11, the propositus of this new exclusive system, yet
the mother of that King was the daughter of merely a
private French gentlewoman. The circumstance is alluded
to, to illustrate another argument, and to show by an in-
stance in the House of Guelph itself, that the marriage of
the Duke of Sussex with a lady of such high rank and
illustrious descent as Lady Augusta Murray was not one of
those unions which in the law of Germany are considered
disparaging to the extent of depriving the issue of (cede
inheritance.

The question, however, as to Germany, depends not on
any Judicature of this country, but on that composed of
the Diet of the German Princes, constituting the German
Confederation, and having for its protector and head the
Emperor of Austria.

The Statesman, the Diplomatist, and, perchance, even
the Courtier, will conceive the question, as a whole, to

be, in the possibility of events, pregnant with consequences
much more important than those which may ensue from
the success or failure of a mere Bill to perpetuate testi-
mony in the British Court of Chancery, or the maintenance
or overruling a demurrer to such a bill.

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.--A new and de.
servedly successful drama, called The Rent-day, was
played here for the first time last evening. The dialogue
is spirited and lively, and far superior to the usual style of
pieces of this kind. There were no puns as we recollect,_.
no straining at sentiment,—some characters very plea-
santly sketched, and the story well made out. In short,
we cannot help at once congratulating the author on his
merits, and the play-going public that, among the very
limited number of dramatic writers, there is one who,
without borrowing from the French stage, or stealing from
the contents of our native circulating libraries, can present
to them a drama worthy of their encouragement. The
subject of the play turns upon the distresses of a farmer
(Mr. WALLACK), who has a fair wife (Miss PHILLIPS)
and five children, and no money to pay his rent with. A
griping steward (Mr. YOUNGE), a country appraiser (Mr
HARLEY), with just as much brains and feeling as his
calling requires, are the instruments by which the farmer's
sorrows are aggravated. In the first scene was presented
in action IVILKIE's well-known picture of the " Rent-
day," and the first act closed with a similar copy of his
" Distraining for Rent." The play, which we understand
to lie written by Mr. JERROLD, the author of " The
Bride of Ludgate," lately produced here, was received
throughout with universal applause, and the house was
uncommonly well filled,