The Sun.
London, England, 1829-08-24 00:00:00

ASSIZES-(RECEIVED THIS DAY.)

OXFORD CIRCULT.--HEREFORD, Auc. 22.

DOE, DEM. MEYLER V. BRIGHT.
the pleadings iii this action of ejectment were
opened on Friday, and the trial terminated to-day
(Saturday) at four p.m. The case was of great im-
portance in itself, and from its nature, as well as from
the warlike array of an immense number of wit-
nesses, brought into one focus, from numerous parts,
both England and \Vales, as well by the plaintiff as
the defendant, particularly by the latter, a very un-
usual degree of interest was excited by it in South
Wales, Bristol, Hampshire, and other places.
Rickard Meyler, Esq., the late Member of Par.
liament for Winchester, it will be remembered, died

suddenly at the early ageof 26,in the year 1818. At
his death he was seized in fee of large estates, part
of them in Wales, part in England, and part in the
West Indies. By his will he gave those estates to
two elderly aunts, but the will having been attested
only by one witness, it was not a valid instrument,
therefore the property devolved upon the heir-at-law.
In that character, very soon after the unexpected
death, Richard Bright, Esq., of Bristol, the de-
fendant and father of the present Mr. Bright, M.P.,
took possession of it. The plaintiff, Wm. Meyler,
in humble circumstances of life, was of Treneved, in

the county of Pembroke. The action was brought
in point of fact only for the recovery of the Welsh
part of the property, but was considered by
all parties as an action substantially to try the
right of the parties to the whole of it, yielding from
25,0001. to 30,0001. per annum.

Mr. Serjeant LUDLOW, Mr. CROSS, and Mr.
TALFORD, conducted the plaintiff's case; and Mr.

TAUNTON led for the defendant, with whom were
Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. Seijeant RUSSELL, and Mr.
MAULE ; and that it might not be made a remand
of, it was agreed on both sides that it should be tried
before Mr. Seijeant TAnDY.
_ _ _

This, it appeared, was the fifth ejectment the
plaintiff had favoured the defendant with notice of,
but the only one he had thought right to bring into
Court. He claimed to be entitled, as the descendant

of Thomas Meyler, of Carvega, in the parish of
Whitchurch. He rested that claim, in point o:

proof, principally. on the production of a tomb-
stone, found in the parish church—a letter
alleged to have been written by Francis Meyler,
brother of the supposed Thomas, and ad-
dressed to Thomas, who was stated therein
to be the eldest brother of Richard, the grandfather
of the defendant; and, upon certain declarations of
several members of the family of the lessor of the
plaintiff, which all resolved themselves into this, that
the great grandfather of the late Member for Win-
chester, the younger brother of the defendant's
grandfather, had an elder brother named Thomas,
who was, in short, the eldest child, awl hence it was
contended that his descendant, the lessor of the
plaintiff, was the heir-at-law of the late Member, in
exclusion of the defendant, who had descended from
the brother Richard. A witness, who styled him-
self an auctioneer, an agent for the recovery of
estates, a general agent, an accountant, and an un-
dertaker of the city of Bristol, and who admitted be
had been informed by the plaintiff that if he should
succeed in the recovery of the estates, he (the
witness) should have the trifling compensa-
tion of ten thousand pounds made to him, stated
that he proceeded towards the latter end of last year,
accompanied by several others connected with the
plaintiff, and prepared with excavating tools, to
within the sacred precincts of the parish church, for
the purpose of making search for any tomb-stone
that might peradventure be found to be hid there.
Operations by cloggers and others were commenced
in one particular spot within the church, and a tomb-
stone found buried two feet below the surface of
the floor, taken up, washed, sacked, and conveyed
to a cottage near at hand, all in the space of about
an hour, or an hour and a half, from the period of
first entering the church, where it rested for a day
and a half, was afterwards taken to Bristol, and

now produced in Court by the witness. By the in-
scription on the stone it was made to appear
that a Thomas Meyler (the name of the
grandfather of the lessor of the plaintiff)
was the eldest son of parents of the same name, and
brother of the defendant's grandfather Richard, as
well as of his brother Francis, who was the great
grandfather of the deceased member; also that those
parents had lived at Carvega, the family residence
of the lessor of the plaintiff. The letter purported
to have been written by Francis, brother of Thomas,

whose death was recorded on the stone, andrecog•

nixed him to be the eldest brother of Richard. This
was produced by the cousin of the plaintiff, who
stated he had found it eighteen or twenty years ago,
in a box full of papers that had belonged to his father.
Another person was called to identify the letter to
be the one found in his presence as above stated,
and though he had no difficulty in swearing to its
identity, yet unfortunately he could neither read
nor write. Five or six witnesses were called, who
spoke to the declarations.
Mr. TAUNTON enlarged at great length in his ad-
dress to the Jury on the enormity (as he described
it) of fraud, perjury, forgery, and conspiracy on
the part of those, some on the very verge of
eternity, who had come forward to support the
plaintiff's case in the shameless manner that had
been exhibited. He entertained not the slightest
doubt that the Jury would view the case in the
light he did, when they came to hear his evidence.
Mr. Hume' Inspector of Franks at the General Post-
office, the Record Keeper of the Tower, the Li-
brarian of the Museum, Messrs. Thomas and James
Foster of Bristol, architects and builders, Mr. Good
of Haverfordwest, a surveyor, and a number of the
witnesses, were then called—by the testimony of
whom it was clear that the tomb-stone could only
have been buried in the church, as it was with a
view to this action, and that the inscription on it,
and also the letter purporting to have been written
by Francis Meyler, produced by the plaintiff, were
decided forgeries. A great deal of documentary
evidence was next put in, consisting of bills, con-
veyances, letters, &c., the further continuation of
which was interrupted by
Mr. Serjeant TADDY feeling, as he said, that the
time had arrived when it was his duty to put it to
the Counsel for the plaintiff to say, whether they
really thought they could continue to proceed, with
any view of leaving their case to the jury, with the
slightest prospect of advantage to the plaintiff. He
himself begged to be understood as giving no opi-
nion on the subject; he was sure that neither time
nor labour would be spared by Mr. Serj. LUDLOW,
if he saw the slightest chance of being able to leave
the case to the Jury advantageously to his client,
and the question simply was, whether the Learned
Serjeant could have any such hope?
Mr. Serjeant LUDLOW felt greatly obliged for the
suggestion. He could not but be sensible that the
documentary evidence in particular, given on behalf
of the defendant, and coming out of the custody it
did, had raised extreme difficulties in the way of the
plaintiff. Had he (the Learned Serjeant) been act-
ing for himself, he could have found no difficulty in
choosing his course even before the suggestion that
had so judiciously fallen from the Court. Though
he could have answered many of the imputations that
had been thrown on some of the witnesses for the
plaintiff by his Learned Friends on the other side,
yet, as far as he was capable of forming a judgment,
he had not the slightest hesitation in saying that
Mr. Bright had made out his title to this property in
the most ample and satisfactory manner. He was
gratified, however, that this case had been entered
into in the very full and patient way in which it
had—because now the floating notions of right to
the estates, that had been mistakenly put into his
client's mind, would no doubt vanish, and the de-
fendant hereafter be secured from further apprehen-
sions of any future attempt to disturb his possession.
It was impossible for him (the Learned Serjeant) to
ask either the Court or the Jury to weigh any claim he
could bring forward on the part of the plaintiff
against the evidence that had been adduced by
the defendant; therefore, being unable to do more