302 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1816. 



but a dry question of boundary ; 

 and he would undertake to define 

 the boundary now claimed by his 

 noble client, wide as it would ap- 

 pear, with as much certainty and 

 precision as that of any parish in 

 the county. He should be able 

 to define such boundary, not 

 merely by evidence of the exercise 

 of all the privileges incidental to 

 the Chase in various parts of that 

 extended district in times of high 

 antiquity, and in modern times 

 down to the moment of his ad- 

 dressing the jury, but by ancient 

 decisions of courts of competent 

 jurisdiction, in proceedings by 

 which the exercise of such pri- 

 vileges was resisted and such 

 boundary disputed. The rights 

 were always deemed oppressive 

 by those whom they affected, and 

 many attempts had been made 

 to confine their applications to 

 narrower limits, but such at- 

 tempts had led to those Judicial 

 confirmations of the extended 

 claim of the Chase; and unless 

 those proceedings were of no 

 a\'ail — unless the public records 

 of them which remained as the 

 land-marks of property could be 

 re^'ersed — he rested upon them 

 with confident assurance that he 

 should succeed in behalf of his 

 client. The manor of Cranborne 

 was indeed in the comity of Dor- 

 set, but not within the narrow 

 limits which the defendants would 

 assign to the Chase, claimed as 

 appurtenant to that manor. He 

 admitted that in some ancient 

 docimients, theChase was describ- 

 ed as situate in the county of Dor- 

 set, but that was because the 

 manor to which it api)ertains was 

 in that county ; still the Chase so 



appurtenant might be, and its 

 narrowest bounds were, in fact, 

 admitted to be much more ex- 

 tensive. The boundary which 

 he claimed had been defined by a 

 map made under the direction of 

 the Kings Exchequer in the reign 

 of James the First; a Court of 

 the Chase had always subsisted, 

 and had always exercised its ju- 

 risdiction over persons residing 

 without the limits which the de- 

 fendants would endeavour to pre- 

 scribe to the owner of the Chase j 

 and chiminage, Avhich was a toU 

 payable by persons entering the 

 Chase at a certain period of the 

 yeai', had always been received at 

 the extreme point of the extended 

 boundary. The rights of Lord 

 Rivers might seem doubtful, from 

 the moderation with which they 

 had been exercised ; in liie out- 

 ward parts of his franchise they 

 had, during a long period, hardly 

 been felt, and might almost be 

 forgotten ; indeed, they remained 

 to the noble Lord, not as a source 

 of profit — not as a means of prac- 

 tical injury to any one — but as a 

 mere honoui, and that of great 

 expense to him — as a feather of 

 high estim.ition — which, however 



lightly 



it might be regarded. 



would, if established as a right, 

 be entitled to protection ; and he 

 had no doubt, if so established, 

 would be considered by the jury 

 as weightier in the scale of justice 

 than all the eloquence and all the 

 clamour with which it might be 

 questioned . 



The proof of the plaintiffs title, 

 by ancient documents, consisted 

 of grants in the 15th year of 

 James 1st to Lord Salisbury', in 

 tail, and subsequent conveyances 



through 



