APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 



195 



plaintiff ill the most conclusive 

 mannei": for, in the ti 1st instance, 

 he should be enabled to pro^e, 

 that for several montlis of that 

 period during which the servant 

 of the reverend jjlaintifl' had so 

 positively sworn that she had re- 

 gularly attended Sutton church, 

 no divine service had been per- 

 formed in the church at all : he 

 nieant the months of June, July, 

 August, and part of September ; 

 during which months the plaintiff 

 had so shamefully neglected his 

 duties, that he had received a 

 monition from the bishop of the 

 diocese. He should also prove, 

 that at other periods, the reve- 

 lend plaintiff was so inattentive 

 to the peifoimance of the leligi- 

 ous service of his clnirch, that his 

 parishioners were constantly in a 

 state of uncertainty as to the hour 

 at which sei'vice was to commence, 

 or whether it would be performed 

 at all. Independent of this, it was 

 no very pleasant thing for the de- 

 fendant, when he did go to church, 

 to hear a sermon delivered, which, 

 insteadof inculcating divine truths, 

 was made the vehicle of per- 

 sonal abuse to hiuiself. With 

 these facts before them, the jury 

 would be able to form a pretty cor- 

 rect judgment of the motives of 

 this action. The next ground on 

 which he rested with confidence, 

 on the goodness of his own cause, 

 he derived from the statute of Eli- 

 zabeth itself; for by the statute of 

 the 1st of lilizabeth, which was 

 embraced by the 23d, it was 

 enacted, that where the defendant 

 in a qui tain action, surh as that 

 now before the Court, could as- 

 sign a reasonable excuse for absent- 

 ing himself from public worship, 

 ai>d should afterwaids conform to 



his religious duties, the action 

 should be quashed. On this head 

 of defence he should be enabled to 

 prove that Sir Montague Bur- 

 goyne, who was a general in the 

 British service, had returned from 

 Gibraltar in 1814, in a most pre- 

 carious state of health, and had 

 continued thus afflicted down to 

 the present day, a circumstance 

 which he hoped, in addition to the 

 uncertainty of the performance of 

 church service at Sutton, would 

 be considered a sufficient exc\ise for 

 his non -attendance. With reg.ird 

 to his sentiments on the subject 

 of religion, those woidd be best 

 proved by the evidence he would 

 adduce of its being his invariable 

 practice to read the church prayers 

 to his family eveiy Sunday, when 

 capable from the state of his health 

 so to do J and if unable himself to 

 perform that duty, to call upon 

 Lady Burgoyne to read for him. 

 He should also prove, that prayers 

 were frequently read in his house 

 by the Rev. Dr. Hughes, in his oc- 

 casional visits to his family. There 

 was another ground on which he 

 was still more decidedly entitled 

 to a verdict. This was to be found 

 in the statute of the 1st James H. 

 c. 4, whereby it was enacted, that 

 any person offending against the 

 statute of Elizabeth, by a non-at- 

 tendance of divine worship, be- 

 came exonerated from all conse- 

 quences, by conforming to the 

 rules of his churcVi before judg- 

 ment was obtained, and declaring 

 himself jmblidy to be a faithful 

 son of the Church of England. 

 This Sir !M. Burgoyne had done in 

 the presence of the bishop of the 

 diocese himself, and was there 

 ready again to declare openly in 

 court his high veneration for, and 



accordance 

 02 



