JB/109/100/001

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an useless addition of expence to expence. It was of course a mockery
for the Judge who was appealed from to decide on the appeals.
Even in cases of settlement, the Magistrate who decided in the first
instance did not vote at the Quarter Sessions on the Appeal. At
this time the money of the Suitors of the Court of Chancery,
lodged in the Bank of England, amounted to near 34 Millions:
in 1752 it amounted to scarcely three millions. But besides this,
one third of the Estates of the kingdom came to be decided in
this Court. There was money then locked up in the Court of
Chancery, to which some individuals were entitled, but which
no one could get at. There was an Individual who had got land
under a decree of the court, and who had also an indisputable
claim to a sum of money in the Court, but on applying at the Six Clerk's office he found the expence of getting it would exceed its amount.
He should hereafter (unless the object was meantime answered
by some step on the part of the Chancery) move for the
production of the Account of the Sums so locked up, to facilitate the
recovery by those who were entitled to any part of it. It was always
in the power of the Crown to appoint any person as a Speaker of
the House of Lords, as two persons high in the law, had supplied the
place of the Chancellor. There was no reason why all the duties of
chancery, Bankruptcy cases and the Lords should be put in the hands
of one individual, except to aggrandize him by the profits of business
which he could not get through. The number of Bankruptcy motions
of one sort and other now before the Court of Chancery was between
four and five hundred if he was not misinformed, but and the information
on which he proceeded was derived not from Suitors who
were ruined by delay, and to whose information he should of
course be cautious in listening, and but from Barristers of the
highest character, and from Solicitors the first in their line.
He should move that the House resolve itself into a Committee
to consider so much of the Act of 13 Elizabeth Chap. 7, ad gives the
jurisdiction in matters of Bankruptcy to the Lord Chancellor or Keeper
of the Great Seal. If this motion was agreed to, the Law Officers of the
Crown would have time to make enquiry into the facts he had stated,
but if the motion was rejected without inquiry, he should not
consider the House or the Country would be fairly dealt with,
and should not quit the subject in which he was confident he
stood on right grounds. He had heretofore known the advantage

Identifier: | JB/109/100/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 109.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	109	Main Headings	Parliamentary Reform
Folio number	100	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	Collectanea	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	E5
Penner		Watermarks	<…>CO
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	35755
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