The Statesman.
London, England, 1820-03-21 00:00:00

DISPUTES IN Mau LIFE.

rffr. EARL or WESTMEATH E. itiL I tot•N r r or WEST-
_ MEATH.

The Arronwar-Oattaaslet p an earnest wish
that this ease, which involved circiniisiAtit e• t extreme
delicacy upon both sides, might be heard in his Lord-
ship's private room.
The LORD CHANCELLOR .aid, that LP could not
comply with this request, unless all the pieties should
cor‘ent.

Mr. HART. for the Countess of Westmeath, said. that
Lis instructions did not w.irrant him in acceding to the
sr:sh of his Learned Friend.

The ATTORNEY-ORNERAL was sorry that the parties
on the other side refused to have this case veiled from
the eye of the public ; for it was known that ta hates er
passed in that Court would soon afire be found detailed
in the newspapers. But since he was compelled to go
on with the rase in the public Court, he should abstain
altogether from going into the facts and circumstances
which it was founded. 'This course he hoped the
laeutletnen on the other side would follow ; for he
I::eant to state only the mere grounds of Isis motion, and
no necessity would then exist on the other side for de-
parting front the abstract question which would be
placed before the Court. The Learned Gentleman theta
stated, that the Earl of Westmeath was married un the
29th of May, 1812, to the Countess, a daughter of Lord
Salisbury; that a settlement was made of 5,000 i. a-year
on the Countess in rase she should sun ive the Earl, and
si.e was allowed !WNW. a-year as pin-money. In a few
?ears after their marriage disputes unhappily existed,
which rendered the agitation of a separate maintenance
for the Countess necessary, and, in lOU, a deed was
drawn up, which recited the marriage settlement, stated
that the Earl and Countess were on the point of 'epees-
tton, and provided that if the separation should take
place, the Countess should be allowed for her mainte-
nance a certain SUM, to be afterwards fixed ler mutual
friends. The separation. however, did not then take
place. The parties were reconciled, and remained so
until May, lain, when another deed of separation was
drawn up, which was executed in August following.
This deed recited, as the grounds of separation, the re-
vival and continuance 4• f certain unhappy disputes, and
created a certain tern) of years, for which were assigned to
Viscount Cranhourise, Mr. blood, and others, as trustees,
certain lands in Ireland, part of the estates of the Earl
of Westmeath, for the payment of 1.3001. a-year for the
maintenance of the Countess ; and to this was added a
farther trust of 3001. a-year, to take effect in six years
after the date of the deed tor the support and education
of Lady Rosa Nugent, the first child of the marriage,
and also in contessiplat• of the birth of another child
of which the Countess was then pregnant ; but if either
child died, then the further trust was to be reduced to
2501. a-year. The whole question before the Court was,
a' to the validity of this deed.
it was contended by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL and
by Mr. Bonne who followed on the same side, that this
instrument of 1818 was void in the first place, because
the parties afterwards lived together, but chiefly because
it was a deed contrary to the general policy of the
country. This instrument was connected with the pre-
vious deed of 1817 ; they should be both taken together,
and in this view it was a deed equivalent to a private
domestic divorce. But although the matrimonial con-
tract was not a sacrament by the laws of this country,
yet it was rendered emphatically hi ndi ng upon the parties,
for the purpose of discouraging persons from lightly en-
tering into it, and of making them respect it with peculiar
feelings of obligation, when they hive contracted that
solemn tie. If, therefore, it was in the power of every
family to disunite themselves by such a private bill of
divorce as the instrument in question, the policy of the
Mirriage Laws, the end of that solemn institution
might be altogether frustrated.' The second deed, which
was only in furtherance of the 61st deed, stipulated that
lady Westmeath might withdraw herself when she
pleased from the house of the Earl ; that she was not to
be controlled
,by him in any respect; that her children
were to reside with, and to be educated by her alone;
that no suit *both' be instituted against her in the Ec-
clesiastical Court for restitution of marriage rights ;
and that shasslsould not be in any manner interferred
with by the Bari of Westmeath. Here was a dissolution
of the marriage, so far as the parties themselves could
dissolve it t aud if such instruments as these--iastni-
meats which leit, it it the choice of the wife to break
the marriage bone upon the suggestion of the slightest
whim or tee, should receive encouragement in this
court, um rim wield be the 'applications of a similar
nature with which the Court would soon be troubled.
'liters were eves the moot virtuous people, many
occasions where doll= harmony might be interrupted ;