HIGH COURT OF MADRAS. 



125 



CHAPTEK VII. 



Mr. Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, was President of 

 the Board of Control when the Act passed enabling the 

 Crown to frame for Madras and Bombay the Charter estab- 

 lishing Recorders' Courts at these Presidencies. The Bill 

 for this purpose was brought in by him, but the plan adopted 

 was not to its full extent what he proposed. It was his wish 

 to have given at once, to Madras at least, a Court composed 

 in all respects like that at Bengal ; but he was impelled by 

 considerations of economy 87 to relinquish his first suggestion. 

 The subsequent fall of the Mysore empire adding consider- 

 ably to the Indian revenue, and the inadequacy of the 

 Charter of 1 798 for the Madras Presidency having been about 

 the same time distinctly manifested, he was induced to resume 

 his original purpose, which was no longer objectionable, 

 and the Act 39 and 40 Greo. Ill, c. 79, was accordingly 

 passed on the 28th July 1800. 88 



By this Statute the King was empowered to establish a 

 Supreme Court of Judicature at Madras to consist of such 

 and the like number of persons 89 to be named from time to 

 time by His Majesty, his heirs and successors, with full power 

 to exercise such Civil Criminal Admiralty and Ecclesiastical 

 jurisdictions both as to Natives and British subjects, and to 

 be invested with such power and authorities, privileges and 

 immunities for the better administration of the same, and 

 subject to the same limitations, restrictions and control 

 within Fort St. Greorge and the Town of Madras and the 

 limits thereof, and the factories subordinate thereto and 

 within the territories which there were or thereafter might be 



87 And the resistance of the Court of Directors. — Preface to Supreme Court 

 Correspondence . 



88 Preface to Strange' a Notes of Cases at Madras. 



89 A Chief Justice and two other Judges, 37 Geo. Ill, c. 142, s. 1. 



