APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 



297 



of ihat construction for which 

 the applicant contended. The 

 act represented the licence as ne- 

 cessary from either the Archbishop 

 or the Bishop ; and there was 

 nothing to prevent an applicant, if 

 he had made an application to the 

 Archbishop in the first instance, 

 from appealing to the Bishop in 

 the second, provided this doctrine 

 of appeal were to be allowed, 

 which would be an anomaly in 

 law. The Attorney-General con- 

 tended, that an appUcant had only 

 an election, whether to apply to 

 the Archbishop or to the Bishop, 

 and having made that election in 

 favour of the Bishop, he could not 

 appeal to the Archbishop ; just as 

 if he had elected the Archbishop, 

 he most certainly could not appeal 

 to the Bishop. 



The applicant produced thtf affi- 

 davits of twenty-seven persons, who 

 pretended to swear to the words 

 of a sermon preached by Dr. Po- 

 vah more than two years ago ; and 

 one of these persons made oath 

 that such was the effect of the ser- 

 mon upon him, that he imme- 

 diately had a child baptized, in 

 whose case that ceremony had 

 been delayed ; but this person 

 waited till another child was born, 

 before he had this done ; and be- 

 fore that event, too, a rule had 

 been obtained from this court, be- 

 tween the proceedings upon which 

 he had interpolated the baptism of 

 this child. Besides the affidavit 

 of Dr. Hall, who took down a 

 note of this sermon by Dr. Povah 

 at the time, the Attorney-Gene- 

 ral had now the affidavit of the 

 Rev. W. M'Gregor, who expressly 

 swore tliat it was not the doc- 

 trines of others against infant bap- 

 tism which Dr. Povah had stated 



with disapprobation, but that 

 those doctrines came from him- 

 self; and that he not only denied 

 the importance of infant baptism, 

 but of any baptism at all, and that 

 not in the church, in which the 

 applicant's witnesses had heard 

 him, but in another. His denial 

 of these doctrines reminded the 

 Attorney-General of a story of a 

 nurse, who, in cutting some bread 

 and butter for a child, happened 

 to let the bread fall, and exclaimed 

 in a pet, " rot the loaf," the 

 child reported the exclamation to 

 her mother ; when the nurse not 

 only denied that she had used those 

 words, but declared herself to have 

 said, " bless the bread." 



The Attorney-General and Mr. 

 Dampier then proceeded to quote 

 and comment upon the decisions 

 of Lord Chief Justice Holt, in 12 

 Modern, 433, of Powell, J. 2 

 Lord Raymond, 1205 ; and to cite 

 the cases in 3 Salkeld, 87, 4* Bur- 

 row 204-5, &c. and argued that the 

 matter was of ecclesiastical juris- 

 diction, and that it could not be 

 taken thence, and sent to a jury 

 under a mandamus from this 

 court. The licence expressed ap- 

 probation, which was an act of the 

 mind, and how could the Court of 

 King's Bench command the licen- 

 ser to express a full confidence in 

 the morals, learning, doctrine, and 

 diligence of a man, which he did 

 not possess I 



Mr. Garrow, Mr. C. Warren, 

 Mr. Comyn, and Mr. Brougham, 

 contra, contended that the marida- 

 mus only required the Bishop to 

 hear, and that the applicant had 

 not yet been heard in any sense of 

 the word hearing, which came 

 within the justice of a British 

 court. They quoted a variety of 



cases, 



