1828.] The Court of Chancery. 56 



a suitor who is found bewailing that, " after sixty-four orders, and twelve 

 reports, made in the cause ; nay, after motions, hearings and rehearings, 

 four-score in number, I beheld all overthrown, without anew bill preferred; 

 so that we, that did every day formerly give bread to others, must now 

 beg bread of others, or else starve, which is the miserablest of all 

 deaths." (Ib.) 



These complaints were too loud to pass altogether without notice ; and 

 the Parliamentary Records contain occasional accounts of trifling, but 

 abortive, attempts elicited by them for reformation. To the Common" 

 wealth was reserved the honour of instituting the first, and the only 

 efficient, scheme of reformation which the History of England can pro- 

 duce. When the short downfall of feudal and kingly despotism first 

 allowed the people to look around on their grievances, with the hope ot 

 redressing them, numerous were the pamphlets, the parliamentary 

 speeches, and addresses, which the abuses of the law called forth. To 

 a Parliament, who "lived, and moved, and had its being" in popular 

 sympathy, it was not likely that they would be addressed in vain. We 

 find, accordingly, the institution of a committee for the reform of the 

 law, and acts, consequential upon their recommendation, among the 

 earliest subjects which occupy the Journals of the House. Valuable 

 as were many of these, they were at first less directed to the Court of 

 Chancery than the other branches of judicature. This did not, how- 

 ever, long escape their attention, and from some debates which ensued 

 on the subject, it appears richly to have deserved it. From a relation 

 of their proceedings, written by a member, and cited by Mr. Parkes, 

 it is said to have been confidently affirmed, by " knowing gentlemen of 

 worth, that there were depending in that court twenty-three thousand 

 causes; that some of them had been pending five, some ten, some twentie, 

 some thirtie yeares and more : that there had been spent in causes many 

 hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, to the ruine, nay utter undoing of 

 many famlies" (p. 129). "What were the precise intentions," says Mr. 

 Parkes (p. 157)^ "of this Parliament, with respect to the Court of Chan- 

 cery, cannot be ascertained from the Journals/' The entire subversion 

 of equitable jurisdiction has been very industriously propounded to have 

 been one of them. The falsehood of this charge has been most com- 

 pletely established by Mr. Parkes. The proposals tendered to Parlia- 

 ment, which were alleged materially to have influenced the members, 

 contain, as their fundamental proposition, " That the court, as it is now 

 used, or rather abused, be wholly taken away ; and that some of the 

 most able and honest men may be appointed for keeping of the great seal" 

 (p. 153). This pretty well exhibits the object they kept in view ; and 

 shortly before the breaking up of the Parliament, a member deplored its 

 premature termination, just when " the committee, for regulating the 

 law, had ready to be offered to the House several bills of very great con* 

 cernment to the good and ease of the people" (p. 156). The expectations 

 their labours had raised, may be ascertained from the observation of Mr. 

 Parkes (p. 156). " The suicidal dissolution of the Parliament on the 

 12th December following, blighted the hopes of the country, which had 

 anxiously viewed with high expectation these sound and well directed 

 plans of legal reform." 



The arbitrary " ordinances" of the Protector succeeded the more legi- 

 timate resolutions of the Parliament. The first of these was for the bet- 

 ter regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the " High Court of Chan- 



M.M. New Scries. VoL.V. No. 30. 4 D 



