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and justify the House in addressing the crown for his removal; but in the present instance, there neither was any such misconduct actually, nor any good reason to believe in the existence of malicious motives. True it was, that Franks had been acquitted; but true it was likewise, that the grand jury had found a true bill against him. If Mr. Kenrick had been guilty of a malicious prosecution, and been convicted of that offence in a court of law, that might justify the House in praying for his dismissal. But the measure now proposed was to deprive him of the benefit of a legal trial. He was liable to a criminal action in an ordinary court; he was entitled by the law of the land to be tried by twelve of his peers: but this was an attempt to deprive him of his birth-right, to try and condemn him by anticipation, and that, too, by the House of Commons. If Franks should prosecute, how could Mr. Kenrick expect an impartial trial, with a sentence already pronounced against him by such an authority; and if he Mr. Kenrick should be acquitted, in what light would the House of Commons appear?

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The House, however, entered into evidence upon the charge; and Mr. Denman, after counsel had been heard for Mr. Kenrick, moved, That, the charges against Mr. Kenrick having been fully established, except that part which stated that he had offered to withdraw the prosecution, in consider ation of Mr. Franks's good character, it appeared to that House that he had showed himself an unfit person to exercise the judicial function; and that an address be therefore presented to his Majesty, praying that he would be graciously

pleased to remove him from the office of judge of the great session of Wales." The motion was negatived without a division.

The commission which had been appointed to inquire into the administration of justice in the court of Chancery had made a very elaborate and voluminous report, to which was annexed an immense mass of evidence, containing some grains of wheat amid a huge accumulation of chaff. The conclusions to which they came they had reduced into 187 propositions, containing the alterations in the prac tice of the court which they thought might be adopted with advantage; and as it was known that the attorney-general intended to bring forward a measure founded on these propositions, Parliament was for some time spared those declamations, which, in former sessions, had usurped a place that would have been better filled by pointing out specific defects or suggesting specific improvements. Still it was impossible to suppress entirely that paltry and unjust spirit, which, in order to wound lord Eldon, had long been busy in depreciating the court of Chancery; and the new efforts of his detractors afforded new examples of their incorrigible ignorance. On the 7th of March, Mr. Hume moved for a return of the number of persons in confinement for contempt of the court of Chancery. He did not seem to be aware that the process of contempt is not an instrument issued voluntarily by the court to avenge a supposed insult done to itself, but that it is the means which one subject employs to compel another to do him justice; and that the man, who is in prison for contempt, remains in that situation, only because he per

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sists in refusing justice to his fellow subject. The great complaint which Mr. Hume made was, that the Insolvent Debtor's Act, though it relieved persons who were in contempt for not paying money which the court had ordered them to pay, gave them no relief where the contempt consisted in the nonpayment of costs. The attorneygeneral, by way of answer, read to him the clause of the Insolvent Debtor's Act, which provided expressly for the discharge of persons who were imprisoned for nonpayment of costs; and certainly, a more satisfactory refutation there could not be. This clause, extending the relief of the Insolvent act to cases of non-payment of costs, was originally introduced, we believe, at the suggestion of lord Eldon himself.

Mr. Hume repeated his attack on the 11th of April, on the occasion of presenting a petition from a person of the name of Richardson, who complained of being confined in York Castle for contempt of the court of Chancery. The case was, that a mortgagee of a small property, which belonged to Richardson for life, had filed a bill of foreclosure; Richardson did not put in any answer, and the process of contempt, therefore, issued against him. It never occurred to Mr. Hume that the mortgagee had no other means of getting his money than by forcing on his suit; that he could not do so except by forcing Richardson to answer; and that the process of contempt was the remedy which the law of the land gave him to render his rights effectual. But lord Eldon was to be vilified, because, forsooth, a mortgagee chose to enforce his rights! One circumstance of aggravation stated in that petition

was, that Richardson's infant son was also in confinement along with him. Whether the child was actually in confinement in consequence of any process, or had only been taken there to accompany his father, did not appear; but, in either case, the complaint was frivolous and dishonest: for, if the infant was in the prison by the desire of his parents, that could be matter of blame to no one but them; and if he was there under any process, that process was irregular, and contrary to the rules of the court; and, the moment the case was stated, would have been discharged at the costs of the solicitor who had so abused it. Mr. Hume, in the observations with which he introduced the petition, spoke of the Lord Chancellor as a curse to the country. The murmurs of disapprobation which broke forth from all sides of the House, and the loud expression of condemnation and displeasure which assailed him, were an involuntary testimony to the splendid talents and unspotted virtue of the greatest of our judicial sages.

Another equally unreasonable complaint was made on the 21st of April, when Mr. Sykes presented a petition from an attorney in Hull. This attorney had caused various of his bills of costs to go through the form of taxation, when there was no person to check his proceedings, and had thus gotten them allowed against the estate of a lunatic. Some years afterwards, the next of kin, having discovered that the solicitor had not acted properly, petitioned for a re-taxation of the costs. Lord Eldon, acting upon the invariable principles of the court, which have been established with a view to

the safety of the suitors, ordered the bills of costs to be re-taxed; and this order, though not to have made it would have been error, was gravely stated as a ground of accusation against the judge and the tribunal. In the discussion on this most notable petition, Mr. Hume displayed the usual ignorance of the assailants of our courts of justice. "If," said he, "they looked at the report on the table, they would find, that a sum of about thirty-nine millions sterling lay locked up in the court of Chancery; a pretty nest-egg for the chancellor of the Exchequer or his successors. The sum belonging to the suitors had greatly accumulated within no very long period of years: what a mass of good would have been done, if such an immense sum as this had been distributed to the parties! But he believed it would never be liberated by the present Chancellor." Such were the statements to which the English House of Commons deigned to listen! Did it never occur to the mind of this most accurate inquirer, that the greater part of this sum was money which no person had, or could have, either right or power to distribute. It was there for the purpose of administration; the dividends were either paid to those who were entitled to receive them, or they accumulated, if the person, who had the right to direct what should be done with them, had so ordered; the capital remained in court, because the periods, fixed by wills, marriage settlements, trust-deeds, &c. for the distribution of it, had not arrived: but of the funds standing in the name of the accountant-general, there is only a very small part which is detained there by adverse litigation; and that small sum

generally remains deposited for no long period of time. The thirtynine millions said to be "locked up in the court of Chancery" are, for the most part, no more locked up than an equal sum standing in the names of trustees: and the increasing magnitude of the funds in court proves only the increasing utility of the court as an organ for administering property, and for protecting the interests of infants, married women, and others who are not able to assert their own rights.

The fury of the attack which has been made of late on the court of Chancery, and the ignorance displayed by the assailants, though some of them were men who lived by the practice of the law, form, indeed, a curious trait in the parliamentary history of late years. That court has its faults, and is capable of great improvement : still, with all its faults, it administers a much more enlightened and comprehensive system of jurisprudence than exists any where else; and it renders greater services to the community than any other of our tribunals. The courts of common law apply a system, which, though useful within its own narrow limits, is altogether unequal to the transactions of human society; and if no justice were to be found in England except what can be gotten in the King's Bench or Common Pleas, law would be more an instrument of wrong than of right. The Ecclesiastical Courts, and the Courts of Admiralty, again, abound in gross abuses, and involve parties in the most enormous expen

ses.

Yet the senseless vituperations, which were poured out against the court of Chancery, produced some effect in degrading it in public opinion; for the generality of

men, as ignorant of the matter as those who spoke on it, could with difficulty believe that senators would stand forth the accusers of the highest of our courts of justice without taking the least pains to understand the principles, or investigate the facts, on which the question of its merits or demerits necessarily turned. It did not occur to common understandings, that a man of sense and virtue could hold himself out as the improver of a machine with the frame and structure of which he was totally unacquainted.

On the 15th of May, the Attorney-general moved "for leave to bring in a bill to regulate the practice of the Court of Chancery." He prefaced his motion by a long and able speech, in which he explained, in popular language, some of the general principles of courts of equity, and the outline of their forms and course of proceeding. It was the more necessary to do this, because, the great difficulty of meeting the attacks of enemies of the court of Chancery consisted, not in detecting the futility of the objections that were made, but in communicating so much knowledge of the subject to those who made or heard the objections as would enable them to comprehend when a satisfactory refutation was given. He described, likewise, the course which the commissioners had taken; and, without descending to minute details, pointed out the aim and nature of the alterations which the proposed bill was intended to effect. We do not enter into the particular topics discussed in the speech; partly because they were necessarily of a nature too strictly

professional to be generally intelligible, and partly because it was not intended that any farther proceeding should be taken in the matter during the present session. The object of his motion was merely to bring the subject before parliament; but the prosecution of the bill was to be deferred to the first session of a new parliament.

The discussion which followed the motion of the attorney-general, was very temperate. Some of the minor orators were dissatisfied that the commissioners had not found fault with the Lord Chancellor; and they stated, or insinuated, that that noble person had, in fact, by his influence caused the investiga tion to stop far short of the lengths to which it ought to have gone. These statements and insinuations were fully answered by Dr. Lush ington: "With regard," said he, "to the conduct of the Lord Chancellor, he (Dr. Lushington) did but discharge a debt of justice to that individual when he said, that, from the beginning to the end of the investigation he had given the most material assistance to the commissioners. He did not deliver his opinions to them as dogmas, but allowed those who doubted of their correctness to investigate them thoroughly, affording them every explanation which they required, and that, too, in a manner which left on his mind a most favourable impression with regard to the learning, intelligence, and integrity of that learned lord. So far from ever seeking to check inquiry, he had done every thing to promote and forward it."

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CHAP. V.

IRELAND Catholic Emancipation-State of the Protestant Church in the Province of Munster-Motion for a Committee of Inquiry upon First-Fruits-Motion for a Committee on the levying and application of Church Rates-EducationChartered Schools-Bill to regulate the Relation of Landlord and Tenant-Motion for a Committee on Tolls and Customs.

LTHOUGH Ireland was sharing largely in the general distress, her internal situation was one of tranquillity, if allowance be made for those acts of individual atrocity which so frequent ly darken her annals, and those heart-burnings fostered, if not kindled, by the Catholic Association, which, in summer, blazed forth at the command of the priest hood, against the landlords at the general election. The Catholic Association, notwithstanding the act for its suppression, still existed in substance; the same irritating, and yet absurd, harangues were delivered; the same engines of influence were kept in active operation; the same contributions, which formed the Catholic rent, still continued to be levied. The ordinary turbulences of elections were indeed aggravated by the unhappy spirit of religious rancour which the zeal of the Catholic clergy superadded to political differences; and, in more instances than one, they terminated in blood. But, with this exception, there was no violation of the public peace; and Ireland remained free from the outrages to which the suffering artizans, in the manufacturing districts of England,

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allowed themselves to be excited by poverty and distress.

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ment, the question of emancipation was not formally stirred in either House. The vote of the House of Lords in the preceding session had convinced the supporters of the measure, that little could be hoped from again so speedily agitating the question; and the atrocious language used, and vio lent resolutions voted, in assemblies of Catholics, only tended to create additional obstacles, by exciting greater irritation, and displaying more clearly their ultimate and dangerous views.* The question,

* The oratory of men who can neither think coolly and correctly, nor speak with propriety, is never worth preserving, except as shewing the very lowest degree of sense and decency compatible with public notoriety, and vulgar influence. Of this it would be' impossible to find a more valuable specimen than the following language, used in a public meeting in Dublin, in the beginning of November, by Mr. O'Connell. When it is recollected that the speech was delivered while the duke of York was labouring under the illness which, in a few weeks, terminated! roused in a moment by an inroad of his life, and just a month before Britain, despotism upon an ally, stood armed with the rapidity of lightning, on the banks of the Tagus, and, fearless and

prompt, frowned Europe into peace; it furnishes an admirable commentary on the goodness of the man's heart, and the soundness of his head, on the extent

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