1794, March 1.—­Lords’ Minutes.

Twelfth.

Question.—­Whether a paper, read in the Court of Directors on the 4th of November, 1783, and then referred by them to the consideration of the Committee of the whole Court, and again read in the Court of Directors on the 19th of November, 1783, and amended and ordered by them to be published for the information of the Proprietors, can be received in evidence, in reply, to rebut the evidence, given by the defendant, of the thanks of the Court of Directors, signified to him on the 28th of June, 1785?

    1794, March 1.—­Lords’ Minutes.

Answer.—­Whereupon the Lord Chief-Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, having conferred with the rest of the Judges present, delivered their unanimous opinion upon the said question, in the negative,—­and gave his reasons.

    1794, March 1.—­Lords’ Minutes.

FOOTNOTES: 

[82] See Lord Clarendon’s commission as High Steward, and the writs and precepts preparatory to the trial, in Lord Morley’s case.  VII.  St. Tr.

[83] See the orders previous to the trial, in the cases of the Lords Kilmarnock, &c., and Lord Lovat, and many other modern cases.

[84] Lords’ Journals.

[85] Afterwards Earl of Nottingham.

[86] In the Commons’ Journal of the 15th of May it standeth thus:—­“Their Lordships further declared to the committee, that a Lord High Steward, was made hac vice only; that, notwithstanding the making of a Lord High Steward, the court remained the same, and was not thereby altered, but still remained the Court of Peers in Parliament; that the Lord High Steward was but as a Speaker or Chairman, for the more orderly proceeding at the trials.”

[87] This resolution my Lord Chief-Baron referred to and cited in his argument upon the second question proposed to the Judges, which is before stated.

[88] This amendment arose from an exception taken to the commission by the committee for the Commons, which, as it then stood, did in their opinion imply that the constituting a Lord High Steward was necessary.  Whereupon it was agreed by the whole committee of Lords and Commons, that the commission should be recalled, and a new commission, according to the said amendment, issue, to bear date after the order and resolution of the 12th.—­Commons’ Journal of the 15th of May.

[89] See, in the State Trials, the commissions in the cases of the Earl of Oxford, Earl of Derwentwater, and others,—­Lord Wintoun and Lord Lovat.

[90] See the proceedings printed by order of the House of Lords, 4th February, 1746.

[91] See the Journals of the Lords.

[92] 3 Geo. I. c. 19.

[93] See sect. 45 of the 3d Geo. I

[94] Lords’ Journals.

REMARKS