Star.
London, England, 1808-11-14 00:00:00

LAW IYIRLLIGIENCE.

COURT OF KlN:;'s EENC3, NOVEMBER
The A TTO atN EV Gt..stitiAL obtained a conditional
Ride for leave to file a criminal information against
a Mr. Crewsl-=.,, and two other Gentlemen, Justices
of the Peace for the couaty of Glamorgan, for grant-
ing licenses to-alehouse-keepers, contrary to the opi-
nion and decision of a formtr meeting of the Magis-
tt ates that count?. It app:ared from the affiaavits,
that the persons to whom the 'licenses were granted
the three Gentlefmn vinipiained of, had b.:en
ttzljudged improper persoas by a full Bench of Ma-
gistrates, and had been .iccordingly refused. It also
was stated, that two of the three had an interest in

these pubiic-hones.
The Curt wits eccouied a length of time upon a
case of a cciiviction of the Magistrates of Sheerness,
against a poor woman, in the penalty of 501. for not
paying one penny, as Excise duty, upon a bundle,
containing some wearing apparel, which she was car-
rying from the pier of Sheerness on hoard one of his !
Majesty's ships of war lying in the port, on board of
which she resided. After special argument upon the
Act of Parliament appointing Commissioners to
build the pier, levy dudes, &c. the Court considered,
that the act could not extend to persons merely carry-
ing goods on board ships in the port, for their own
use, but to persons carrying goods for exportation
from port to port. The conviction was therefore or-
dered to be gita3llcd.

FOREIGN MARRIAGE..
This was a ease of settiement in right of marriage,
and came for their Lordships' decision the Ses-
s;ons of Norw;ch, by writ of Certiorari. The case was
as Follows :—Elizabeih King, a pauper, was, by an
order of two Magistrates, assigned a settlement in
hey late husband's parish, viz. Brampton, Norwich.
An appeal was made to the Sessions against that order
of settlement, and the Justices at Session quashed the
ord r. The evidence before them was that given be-
fore two Magistrates, namely, that of the pauper her-
self, who stated, that being at Cape Nicola Mole, in
the islaad of St. Domingo, in the year '1796, she met
Edward King, then a soldier in one of his Majesty's
regiments quartered there, and that they agreeing to
be married, went to a place of divine worship, and
were married by the person who officiated as Cler-
gyman these, and, as she understood, according to the
Forms of the Church.of England ; for although the
ceremony was celebrated in the French language, yet
it was all interpreted in English by a person who at-
tended on the occasion, and they lived together until
the year 1807, when he died.
Upon this case and evidence, the Justices at Ses-
sions held that she was not entitled to a settlement in
the parish to which Edward King belonged, as they
did not consider this a legal marriage, and they,
therefore, quashed the order made by the two Ma-
gistrates ; and now it came before their Lordships.—
The question, therefore, for their Lordships' decision
was, whether the ceremony so performed, taken with
the subsequent cohabitation for nearly twelve years,
was a valid marriage ?
Mr. WILSON and Mr. ALDERSON were heard in
support of the order of Sessions. which quashed the
order of the two Magistrates, they contending that it
could not be a legal marriage, inasmuch as that the
Popish religion being prevalent, and the, established
religion in St. Domingo, the evidence of Elizabeth.
King was invalidated, as she said that the ceremony
was performed accoading to the forms of the Church
of England, which no Clergyman there dare do, it
being directly contrary to their known principles to
marry heretics ; and also that they could not have
been married according to the forms of the Church of
Rome, as if they had, then the ceremony would have
been celebrated in the Latin language ; so that they
could not have been married according to the forms
of the one church or the other ; and the ceremony,
whatever it was, if any, which was so performed, was
not, therefore, a legal marriage.
Mr. PEAKF7 on the other side, contended, that it
was a legal marriage, and cited several cases in point
to establish that proposition, the most prominent of
which was that of the King against Fielding, which,
was a case of bigamy tried several years ago before
Mr, Justice Powell at the Old Bailey. There the cir-
eumstances were, that the defendant, having a wife
living, intermarried with the Duchess of Cleveland,
by taking her to the residence of the Chaplain of the
Austrian Ambassador, and there privately marrying
her according to the forms and rites of the Church of
Rome, before the Marriage Act took place. It was
insisted on behalf of that defendant, that this was no
marriage, inasmuch as it was performed by a Catho-
lic of whom there was no evidence that he was in
Priest's Orders ; but Mr. Justice Powell, on that oc-
casion, held that it was a good marriage, and so deli-
vered his opinion to the Jury, and the prisoner Field-
ing was found guilty. So by analogy he argued that
this was a good marriage, the person who performed
it being found in facie Eccksia, attired in the habit of
a Clergyman, reading a ceremony, which, being trans-
lated, was under stood to be according to the forms
prescribed by the Church of England, and the parties
ever after considered themselves as husband and wife.
Lord ELLF.N110110l:G11, and the rest of the Court,
held, that this was valid marriage. The person who
officiated must be presumed to have been a priest, and
a Roman Catholic priest was so far acknowledged by
our law, that if he recanted his errors he required no
fresh ordination, and there is now a Bishop (we be-
lieve Dr. O'Brien, Bishop of Meath), who had no
other ordination than as a Catholic priest.-2dly. Sup-
. pasing the marriage was not celebrated according to
the law, it was still good according to the
law of the country where it was celebrated.
'The Order of Sessions was therefore quashed.