150 



THE PREDECESSORS OF THE 



William in Bengal, and that they should be annexed to and 

 be considered as and be part of the settlement of Prince of 

 "Wales' Island, or as factories or a factory subordinate to the 

 Presidency of Fort Saint George or to any Presidency or 

 Government of the Company, or that they or any of them 

 should be independent settlements, or an independent settle- 

 ment, under such Government as the Company might appoint. 

 Singapore and Malacca were accordingly annexed to Prince of 

 Wales' Island, and the Charter of the former Court of Judi- 

 cature at the last-mentioned settlement having been surren- 

 dered to the Crown by the East India Company a Court of 

 Record called " The Court of Judicature of Prince of Wales' 

 Island, Singapore, and Malacca " was established by Letters 

 Patent bearing date the 27th November 1826 (7 Geo. IV). 



The clause of the charter authorising the Supreme Court 

 at Madras to admit Advocates and Attornies differed only 

 from the corresponding clause in the charter of the Court 

 of the Recorder in using the words bond fide practitioners of 

 the Recorder's Court instead of bond fide practitioners of the 

 Mayor's Court, but upon the opening of the Supreme Court 

 in September 1801 a division of labour was introduced, some 

 of the gentlemen formerly enrolled both as Advocates and 

 Attornies being sworn in as Advocates only, and the rest 

 being sworn in as Attornies, Proctors, and Notaries. Among 

 those sworn in as Advocates only were Mr. Williams, who 

 had been an officer in the 19th Dragoons, and who acted as 

 Advocate- General under an appointment by Government 

 from the date of Mr. Sullivan's promotion to the Bench of 

 the Supreme Court till Mr. Anstruther was named as his 

 successor by the Court of Directors, and Mr. Compton, 

 afterwards Sir Herbert Compton, Chief Justice of Bombay, 

 who had been a Lieutenant in the 74th Regiment, and who 

 was not called to the Bar (Lincoln's Inn) till the year 1808, 

 after he had been practising for some years as an Advocate 



