CHAP. CII. His ability in trying Ivy's case. cluded: "The King by his charter makes the plaintiffs as it were his ambassadors to concert peace with the Indians, and Mr. Sandys has complained that he is not one of them. Because the King may pardon every offender, but will not pardon any highwayman now in Newgate, must these gaolbirds therefore think themselves injured in their liberty and property? The Company have been at the trouble of discovering places, of erecting forts, of keeping forces, of settling factories, and of making leagues and treaties; and it would be against natural equity to wrest the benefits from them which they have thus earned. Let there be judgment for the plaintiffs. When quite sober, he was particularly good as a Nisi Prius the Lady Judge. His summing up, in what is called "the Lady Ivy's caset," an ejectment between her and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to recover a large estate at Shadwell, is most masterly. The evidence was exceedingly complicated, and he gives a beautiful sketch of the whole, both documentary and parol; and, without taking the case from the Jury, he makes some admirable observations on certain deeds produced by the Lady Ivy, which led to the conclusion that they were forged, and to a verdict for the Dean and Chapter. Jeffreys in the Court of Chancery. Considering the systematic form which Equity jurisprudence had assumed under his two immediate predecessors, Jeffreys must have been very poorly furnished for presiding in Chancery. He had practised little before these Judges, and none of their decisions were yet in print; so that if he had been so inclined, he had not the opportunity to make himself familiar with the established practice and doctrines of the Court. Roger North says, "he came to the Seal without any concern at the weight of the duty incumbent upon him; for at the first, being merry over a bottle with It is curious to think that this is the Company which has become the sovereign of one hundred millions of subjects. 10 St. Tr. 555. Down to this time trials at Nisi Prius had not assumed their present shape. The issue being read to the Jury, the evidence was given, and without speeches by counsel, all seems to have been left to the Judge. some of his old friends, one of them told him, that he would find the business heavy. "No," said he, "I'll make it light."" Although he must often have betrayed his ignorance, yet with his characteristic boldness and energy he contrived to get through the business without any signal disgrace, and among all the invectives, satires, and lampoons by which his memory is blackened, I find little said against his decrees. He did not promulgate any body of new orders according to recent custom, but, while he held the Great Seal, he issued separate orders from time to time, some of which were very useful. He first put an end to a very oppressive practice, by which a plaintiff, having filed a frivolous and vexatious bill, might dismiss it on paying merely 20s. costs, and he directed that the defendant should be allowed all the costs he had incurred, to be properly ascertained by an officer of the Court. † He then checked the abuse of staying actions at law for the examination of witnesses abroad, by requiring, before a commission to examine them issued, an affidavit specifying the names of the witnesses, and the facts they were expected to prove. ‡ By subsequent orders which he framed, vexatious applications for rehearings were guarded against, and an attempt was made to get rid of what has ever been the opprobrium of the Court, controversies about settling the minutes of a decree after it has been pronounced. § Vernon, the Chancery Reporter, has selected and dressed up a considerable number of his decisions, so as to make them appear respectable, and to be occasionally cited as authority at this day. As might be expected, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys was little inclined to defer to fixed rules which stood in his way, saying that "he had as good a right to make precedents to succeeding times as those who had gone before him had made precedents for him; and he showed a dispo Life of Guilford, ii. 120. 1 Vernon, 334. This matter is now regulated by 4 Anne, c. 15. s. 23. In the late case of Mendizabel v. Merchado, the Vice-chancellor cited and acted upon this order. 2 S. & S. 484. Beames's Orders in Chancery, 265–288. § Ibid. From p. 334. of vol. i. to the end, and from the beginning to p. 90. of vol. ii. In Hardwicke's" Tribes of Wales" (110. n.) we are told that he was considered the author of Vernon's Reports; which could not well be, as they come down to the year 1718, when he had been thirty years in his grave. Burnet, ii. 236. CHAP. CII СНАР. His Equity decisions. sition to return to the old notion of the Chancellor's equitable jurisdiction by his observation, that "he was to make decrees according to his conscience, and every case was to stand upon its own bottom.” I will give one or two short specimens of his style as an Equity Judge. In Hobley v. Weedon a bill was filed against the devisee of an heir of the obligor, who had died after a verdict against him on the bond, but before final judgment. LORD CHANCELLOR. "Dismiss the bill. There is no colour of Equity in the case, unless you will have it that the defendant died maliciously, before the day in bank, on purpose to defeat the plaintiff of his debt.” † In Gale v. Lindo, A. on a treaty of marriage of his sister with B., let her have a sum of money, that her fortune might appear equal to what B. demanded, and took a bond from her to repay him; the executor of A. put the bond in suit against the executor of the sister, who survived her husband, and there being no defence at law, the bill was filed for relief. LORD CHANCELLOR. "You admit the husband might have been relieved on a bill brought by him and his wife; that which was once a fraud will be always so; and the accident of the woman's surviving the husband will not better the case. Decree the bond to be delivered up, and a perpetual injunction against it. ‡ In the case of Sir Basil Firebrass v. Brett, in which he granted an injunction against an action to recover money lost at play, he delivered a most edifying discourse against gaming; for, notwithstanding his own practices, he was always most furious in denouncing the vices of others. § In cases of great magnitude, he had the good sense to call in the assistance of the common-law Judges, and by the advice of Lord Chief Justice Beddingfield, and Lord Chief Baron Atkins, he decreed that he had jurisdiction to enforce a trust of lands in Ireland, the trustees residing in England ||; and by the advice of Lord Chief Justice Jones, and Lord * Earl of Rivers v. Earl of Derby, 2 Vern. 74. † 1 Vern. 400. § Ibid. 489. Chief Baron Montague, that a grant of lands by the Crown might be set aside in Equity on the ground of fraud. * The oft-repeated compliment to bad Chancellors, that "none of his decrees were reversed," is bestowed upon Jeffreys. I find only one appeal brought against a decree of his, and this, notwithstanding suspicion and prejudice, terminated to his honour. When his son was about to be married to the heiress of the late Earl of Pembroke, a suit was instituted to determine whether a large sum of money belonged to her or to her father's creditors. The Chancellor decided in her favour, and the marriage was celebrated. Loud and deep reflections were made upon the Judge's honesty, and a ballad came out with these lines "Old Tyburn must groan For Jeffreys is known To have perjur'd his conscience to marry his son.” But he had had the precaution to call in the assistance of the Master of the Rolls, Mr. Justice Lutwich, and Mr. Justice Powell, and though the appeal was heard after the Revolution, the decree was first affirmed by the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, and then by the House of Lords. † CHAP. CII. Jekyl's tes North's him. The most weighty testimony in his favour is the Speaker Sir Joseph Onslow, who, from the tradition of Sir Joseph Jekyl, said, "he timony in had great parts, and made a great Chancellor in the business his favour. of that Court. In more private matters he was thought an able and upright judge." But this cannot outweigh the conRoger temporary testimony against him— particularly that of an testimony eye-witness, who, after candidly saying, "When he was in against temper, and matters indifferent came before him, he became his seat of justice better than any other I ever saw in his place," adds, "he seemed to lay none of his business to heart, nor care what he did or left undone; and spent in the Chancery Court what time he thought fit to spare. Many times on days of causes at his house, the company have waited five hours in a morning, and after eleven he hath come out inflamed and staring as one distracted." + * Attorney-General v. Vernon, 1 Life of Lord Guilford, ii. 118. Vern. 369. 11 St. Tr. 499. † 2 Vern. 51. 213. CHAP. CII. His rude bar. He was excusably annoyed by the custom, which seems then to have prevailed, of having on the same side a great host of counsel, who necessarily repeated each other. “It ness to the was troublesome," he said,—“ it was impertinent, — he could not bear it." His occasional rudeness to counsel appears incredible. Mr. Wallop, a gentlemen of eminence at the bar, who defended the famous Richard Baxter, arguing against the opinion expressed by the Court upon the construction of a writing, Jeffreys said, "Mr. Wallop, I observe you are in all these dirty causes; and were it not for you gentlemen of the long robe, who should have more wit and honesty than to support and hold up these factious knaves by the chin, we should not be at the pass we are at." Mr. Wallop. "My Lord, I humbly conceive that Jeffreys. "You humbly conceive! and I humbly conceive! Swear him! Swear him!” Mr. Bradbury, a junior counsel, having ventured to make an observation which was received with courtesy, as it agreed with my Lord's view of the case, was by this encouraged to follow his leader in supporting a new objection thought by his Lordship not to be tenable. Jeffreys. "Lord, Sir, you must be cackling too. We told you your objection was very ingenious; that must not make you troublesome; you cannot lay an egg but you must be cackling over it." Attorneys fared much worse. When they did any thing to displease him, he gave them what he called "a lick with having said the rough side of his tongue;" and he "terrified them with his face and voice, as if the thunder of the day of judgment broke over their heads." He had to decide upon a Petition against a great City attorney with whom he used to get drunk, and who had given him a great many briefs at Guildhall when still obscure; and one of the affidavits swore, that when the attorney was threatened with being brought before my Lord Chancellor, he exclaimed, "My Lord Chancellor! I made him!" meaning that he had laid the foundation of his fortune by bringing him early into City business. Jeffreys. "Well! then will I lay my MAKER by the heels." He thereupon instantly ordered a commitment to be made out, and Commit ment of an attorney for that he had made Jeffreys Lord Chancellor. * 10 St. Tr. 626. |