The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-09 00:00:00

DELANE, ESQ., V. lIILLCOAT, ESQ.

Mr. Sergeant LUDLOW stated that this case was
tried at the last Assizes at Abingdon, before Mr.
Baron Vaughan, when a verdict was found for the
plaintiff for 1001., the amount of a penalty under an
Act of Parliament. He had now to move for a
rule to skew cause why that verdict should not be
set aside, and a new trial had. The action was
brought to recover a penalty under the General
Turnpike Act of the third year of his present Ma-
jesty, c. 126. By the 56th section of that Act it
was enacted, " That no Trustee or Commissioner
of any turnpike-road, shall from and after this Act
shall be in force, enjoy any office or place of profit
under any Act of Parliament in execution of which
he shall have been appointed, or shall act as Trustee
or Commissioner ;" and by a subsequent clause it was
enacted, " That if any person, after being appointed
a Trustee, without first resigning such office, shall
hold any office or place of profit, every Trustee so
offending shall for every such offence forfeit and pay
the sum of one hundred pounds, and after conviction
be incapable of acting as a Trustee of a turnpike-
road." In 1822 the defendant, Mr. Hillcoat, as one
of the Justices of the Peace for the county of Berks,
appeared and qualified himself to act as Trustee and
Commissioner under the Windsor Forest Road
Act, of the Wokingiram and Brocknold Turnpike-
road. At the same meeting he was also appointed
treasurer ; and having continued to act in the double
character of trustee arid treasurer, the present action
was commenced against him on the ground that he
had incurred the penalty imposed by the general
Turnpike Act for having held " an office of profit"
at the same time that he acted as trustee. On the
first trial of the cause at the summer assizes of 1828
no evidence was adduced to show that the treasurer-
ship was " an office of profit ;" and Mr. Justice
Gaselee, before whom the cause was tried, being of
opinion that it *as not an office or place of profit
within the meaning of the act, nonsuited the plain-
tiff, the case was sent down for a second trial on the
question whether or not any profit had been, in point
of fact, made, when it was decided that it was not
necessary the defendant should himself make a pro-
fit by the eflice, it was sufficient if he enabled another
to make it.

Lord TENTERDEN, after a few minutes' conference
with the other Judges, said in that opinion he et:-
tirely concurred.

Mr. Justice LITTLEDALE and Mr. Justice PARKE
concurred ; and the Learned Serjeant took nothing
by his motion.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, Nov, 7.
GODEFROY V. DALToN, GENT.

This was an action against an attorney for alleged
negligence in the conduct of another action also
against an attorney, for negligence in suffering judg-
ment to go by default in a previous action, in which
the present plaintiff was defendant. The cause was
tried before the Lord Chief Justice, on this day
week, when it appeared that m consequence of the
plaintiff's attorney in the former action (the pre-
sent-defendant) not having bep prepared to pro-
duce the judgment by default which had been
signed against the phiintiff in the first notion,
he was nonsuited ; the Learned Judge who tried
it (Mr. Justice Burrough) being of opinion that the
entry in the prothonotary s book, which was offered
in proof of that fact, was not admissible evidence.
The defendant, however, proved that he had con-
sulted-an eminent counsel of 30 years' standing, on
on the case, and that Learned Gentleman had ad-
vised him that the prothonotary's book was snf-
ticient for the purpose. The Jury found a -e;dict
for the plaintiff, subject to the opinio4 of this Court
on the point of law as to 1N healer the mistake conk-.
mitted under sqch circumstances rendered 'le ne_
tarupy liable in this action.
Seijeant TADDY DOW LzoVea for a rule to
show cause why the verdict sbnuld not be set aside,
and nonsuit entered or why the judgment should
not be e.rrer.'o,
The Court granted a Rile to aIIOW cause.

In this country people have generally been
shy of defending the Slave Trade on the prin-
Ciples of Christianity. Lord Eldon approached,
indeed, very near to a defence of the practiCe of
tealing human beings, mid receiving the stolen
goods, when he declared in the House of lAirds,
that he could not believe the Slave Trade was
At variance with the principles of Christianity,
when he knew that it had been repeatedly sanc-
tioned by the Bench of Bishops. The Bishops,
however, did not on this encouragement launch
forth in praise of their predecessors who approved
of the Assiento Contract, and seemed by their
looks to say, that the votes of their order Would
be a very treacherous guide to those who wish
to become instructed in Christian principles.
It is otherwise, we believe, in slave-holding
countries. There, the Clergy being paid by the
slave-holders and not by the slaves, are, as might
be expected, at great pains to refute the prejn.
dices generally entertained in Europe on the
subject of buying and selling men ; and we were
particularly edified by an account of a Presby-
terian Synod in Virginia, at which a .Clergyman
who had shown a leaning to the European no-
tions respecting slavery was suspended from the
.exercise of his functions, to see how rapidly new
circumstances, with respect to sources of income,
had cured so many Scotch Clergymen of the
prejudices against slavery they carried with them
from home. It
_reminded us of the rapidity with
w
which. Calvin as, converted to rational views
respecting the interest of money (which had been
always before proscribed by the Church, under
'the name of usury, which now means only ex-
travagant interest), from. the circumstance of
having his stipend paid out of the interest of
money vested for that purpose. But what the
Bench of Bishops in this country durst not do,
and Lord Eldon could only half do, the Rev.
Edward Irving has had the courage to do, in
recent publication, "On the Last Days." Mr.
Irving is, we believe, a disinterested advocate of
slavery. If he had been of the Established
Church, we should have thought he had a West
Indian Bishopric in his eye. But he is a Dis-r
senter, as far as regards Bishoprics ; at.d we
are not aware of any other motive by which he
can be actuated than a pure seal for the honour
of Christianity, which be thinks the existence
of slavery has a tendency to promote. The fol-
lowing passage contains the views to which we
particularly allude—a passage which ought to
be framed and glazed, and hung in a good light
in every mansion of our Slave Colonies :

" I believe, in like manner, that the relation bc-:
tween master and servant doth in Ike -roamer
shadow forth the lordship of Christ over the
creatures. For, taking this relationship in its
general aspect, and not as it is in those countries
where Christianity bath redeemed it ; take the
master and proprietor of a large household, who
have been bought with his money—for example,
Abraham—and what have you_ but a multitude of
souls brought into subjection unto one soul, not•
withstanding their natural liberty and equality ? He
bath power over them to life and death ; they eat
of his bread ; their labour is his; their gains are his ;
all that are born in the house are his. At such.a
picture infidelity writhes in rage; but not so a w;se
reflecting man, who bath reverence for the ordinance
of God ; not so an enlightened Christian, who ran
study and understand the typical character of all
things. Our Evangelical Christians do take as
great offence at this as the infidels themselves, but
it is their ignorance which I am now seeking to
enlighten. I say, then, that such a family and
household—in which are vessels to honour and
vessels to dishonour, some standing in.the fume
of their master, and some obnoxious to his punish-
ment, elect ones and reprobate ones, some adopted
into sonship, some freed men,. and some bondsmen,
under the lash—is the type, the standing type, over
all the world, of Christ, the Lord both of the elec-
tion and the reprobation, having bought them all
with the price of his own precious blood, emu
nourishing them all with his own bountiful provs
deuce; yet not hindered by this generosity front
making distinctions, and adopting some into the
liberty of sons, leaving others under the bondage
of slaves. And this, which is true interpretation
of the mystery of Divine Providence in so order.
ing things, is likewise at once the guide and the
comfort of those souls which in such inequality are
tationed; teaching one who is a master that there
is no iniquity in having many servants, or even
slave=, under him, and that it would be altogether
an error for him at once to set about emancipating
them ; that such a feeling is not true benevolence.,
but insurrectionary wilfulness, the same whi,d,
makes our Universalists dissatisfied that • cnrist
should have under him both elect and ':eprobate
persons. This was what the infidels of Trance were
guilty of at the Revolution; and, I;.';e every great
practical falsehood, it led to ruin and dismay. On
the other hand, one who is called to be a slave will
be exceedingly comforted by the, reflection that he
is not thereby dishonoured of Cod or Christ, but
brought into the closer fellowship of Christ's con-
dition, who took upon himself the form of a slave,:
that he is not precluded thereby from rising into
the highest honour with God ; but, on the other
hand, is in the way to that preferment; seeing
Christ, for taking upon himself the form of *servant,
and enduring the Cross therein, has received a
name above every name. So the soul that is called
into the condition of a slave, and put to the torture
there, ought to look upon itself as brought most near
to Christ, and in the way of the highest exaltatioe
even as the Apostle Peter teacheth us in the lEsss
Epistle. Alt how, for want of light. In, these
matters doh society groan, ind its v%iskedness
abound! If thus servitude was interereted, how
comfortable, bow joyful, would servitude be! If
thus lordship were interpreted, 'now careful, how
observant, how discriminative, how patriarchal,
would lordship be ! But as things now stand in
the Church with Ministerp—and I speak particu-
lady of Dissenting Ministers in this remark—with
Ministers who,. instead of thus interpreting ste:vi-
tude as a great ordinance of God for preaching unto
the Church subjection unto Christ, do sp'sak of it
as a condition precluding or preventing -nen alto_
gether from being Christians; who, in Itundling the
Slave question, do handle it ratbee as French re-
publicans than as Christian Ministers—whom I
have heard myself frequently -sae, how can they be
Christians so long as they ne slaves ? I say while
this state of profound ignorance and rebellious feel-
ing exists among us, what can we expect but that
such a Ministry will work more and more, to the
dissolution of all the bands of social life, which tl-,e
Christian religion bath established upon better pros
mises, and not dissolved; that they will hasten the
bringing in of that liberal or dissolute spit it, which
is now 'wrestling hard for the sanctuary and the
throne ?--s-pp.
We are almost inclined to think that Mr.
Irving has taken his ideas of Clu:;Stianity on this
point front Machiavel„ who maintained that "it
made men servilo and. pusillanimous. In his
far-famed" Doiseou'res on Livy, he says, " Re-
flectiAg lawn t-ow it happens that in ancient t hues
people. more: in 'love with liberty than in
onrs, ;Ibelieve it proceeds from the same cause
:vlla makes men now less brave, namely the (lit-
ference between our education and the ancient,
founded on the difference between our religion
and the ancient. Because, our religion having
shown us the truth and the true way, makes us
less esteem the honour of this world ; whereas
the Heathens esteeming it greatly, and haring
placed good in it; were more determined an