CHARTER, ST. LAWRENCE DE PONTEBOY. 29 



successors for ever, of the Queen, her heirs and successors, " as of 

 her Duchy of Cornwall — in free socage and not in capite." The 

 choice of a minister to perform divine service in the chapel is 

 vested in the new body. 



For the results of this new incorporation, we have to obtain 

 information from the proceedings in the Court of Chancery re- 

 ferred to in the memoir by Professor Babington. The original 

 proceedings, and the decree, are among the I'ecords of that Court, 

 but the official copies of the decree, and other orders of the 

 Court, in the possession of the local authorities at Truro, are no 

 doubt authentic, and may be safely relied upon ; and these testify- 

 that, at the date of the final order and decree, the whole estab- 

 lishment had degenerated into a disorderly pauper asylum, under 

 no control, self-elected, and retaining no vestige of the original 

 scope and object of the charity, as administered either before or 

 under the charter of Elizabeth. The proceedings before the 

 Master in Chancery show that there was not a single member of 

 the body having any right or title to admission into the Hospital. 

 The practice had been to sell annuities for lives, make leases, and 

 grant undivided shares in the property and profits, to any one who 

 was disposed to buy, and without the slightest apparent regard to 

 the intention of the charity. The final decree annuls and cancels 

 all the outstanding grants of this irregular character, and the 

 charity in effect became extinct and incapable of re-establishment, 

 for want of a full complement of leprous patients, and a competent 

 elective body. >^ 



In the suits pending in Chancery, the object of the gentlemen 

 who, in the name of the Attorney-General, instituted the pro- 

 ceedings, in 1803, was to obtain a transfer of the property to a 

 hospital then lately established at Truro and supported only by 

 voluntary contributions, and which had no special reference to 

 leprosy or any one class of disorders. 



On the other hand, it was contended that if the charity had 

 wholly failed in its object, the corporation was in effect dissolved, 

 and consequently its possessions had relapsed to the representatives 

 of the original founders (if any could be found), or escheated to 

 the Crown, or to the^Duchy of Cornwall, — inasmuch as the tenure 

 in the above charter is of the Crown in right of the clucMj, then 

 vested in the Crown. With regard to the duchy right (which, in 



