EPPING FOREST. 129 



village as such, but although they may be all capable of taking 

 individually as grantees, yet they cannot under that general 

 designation ; but that passage applies solely to grants by private 

 individuals. On the other hand, several authorities were cited 

 by Mr. Joshua Williams to establish the proposition that a 

 gi-ant by the Crown to a class of persons is good. The dis- 

 tinction between a grant by a private individual and a grant 

 by the Crown is this : that as the Crown has the power to 

 create a Corporation, so, if it is necessary for the purpose of 

 establishing the validity of the grant, the grantees will be 

 treated as a corporation quoad the grant, which is not the case 

 with a grant by a private individual, because a private individual 

 has no power of erecting a corporation. . . . Another cir- 

 cumstance which is very strongly in favour of the suit is that 

 it is a grant by the Crown in derogation of its forestal rights. 

 The forestal rights were excessively oppressive upon the inhabit- 

 ants, and accordingly the Crown frequently made to the in- 

 habitants in the neighbourhood of a forest, certain grants in 

 derogation of those rights, which grants, though they might 

 not be good in every other respect, were good as far as they 

 were in derogation of the forestal rights." * 



The legal objections being thus disposed of, there 

 remained the question of fact to be determined on the 

 main trial of the case namely, whether there was 

 sufficient evidence to justify the presumption that a 

 grant had been made to the inhabitants in ancient times 

 of the right claimed by them, though the charter itself 

 had been lost. This was not decided in the Willingale 

 suit, for the old man died in 1870, before his case came 

 on for hearing, and his death abated the proceedings. 

 During the four years between the commencement of 

 the suit and his death, it had been difficult for him to 

 * Willingale v. Maitland, L.E. 3 Eq., 103. 

 J 



