PREFACE.

THE

HE public benefit derived from the operation of Mr. Grenville's act is univerfally acknowledged: A numerous feries of decifions made in the judicature created by that law, has introduced a fyftem of order into the trials of elections; and the experience of fourteen years has reconciled to the inftitution, fome of those who were formerly most adverse to it. But the effect of thefe decifions would be very limited, and gradually loft, if memorials of them were not recorded and preferved. The public is on this account much indebted to Mr. Douglas for having engaged in the task of reporting the proceedings of election Committees: His valuable work contains many examples of the good effects of the new judicature, and leaves us to regret that his place was not supplied in the fèffions next after the general election in

1780. The contests of that year gave rife to many important queftions of election law, and to many wife decisions upon them, the good effects of which are, I fear, chiefly confined to the parties concerned. The few Cafes of this period that have been published by Mr. Philips, contain a very fmall part of the number then determined.

The general ufe and reputation of Mr. Douglas's collection encouraged me to report the Cafes of controverted elections, determined in the present Parliament. The following work is only the first part of my undertaking, and contains the Cafes of the laft feffion. If its reception with the public should be favourable, I fhall continue it. My object in attending the Committees was, from the beginning, to publish their proceedings: I am therefore answerable to my readers for the errors they may discover in a book that was always intended for public use. In the execution of it, I have generally followed the method practifed by Mr. Douglas, because it seemed to me the fitteft poffible for the fubject; and I acknowledge my obligations to him for having marked out so just a course in ways

--nullius antè

Trita folo

and where fome guide was wanting to fupply the place of experience.

I hope no person will be led by the foregoing paffage to draw a comparison between the two publications; it must be too obvious that mine will fuffer by it. However, I can affure those who have been used to expect fatisfaction to their researches in books of this fort, that I have spared no pains (as far as time would permit) to be correct. By the indulgence of the counsel and agents in the feveral caufes, I have had an opportunity of comparing my own notes with their papers, and of reviewing the several subjects in converfation where any doubts required it I have also been favoured with a perusal of the clerk's minutes: And to all I take this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations.

Wherever reference has been made to cafes in the Journals or Law books, I have always examined them myself; and I can venture to say that there is not a fingle reference to any of them in the following compilation, which I have not perused, in order to ftate with accuracy. Where the fubject has led my inquiries further, I have fubjoined the result of them in my notes at the end of each cafe.

I have been lefs minute in ftating the formal parts of the proceedings, becaufe Mr. Douglas's work has already published full information. upon that fubject; and I have often taken the liberty to arrange the feveral matters of a caufe

a little

a little differently from their original state, in the manner which feemed to me most proper for understanding the principal question.

Although feveral of the Committees of the laft feffion were fitting at the fame time, yet it generally fo happened that no two points of argument were at the fame time going on in two together; where I was not able to hear the evidence in all, I read the clerk's minutes afterwards.

With respect to the CASES of this volume, it may be useful to give fome preliminary account.

I am fenfible that my report of the CASE of PONTEFRACT will by many be thought unfatisfactory. In the beginning of it I refer the reader to Mr. Douglas's report of the fame case; and in fact I confider mine as only an appendix to his. This Committee being the first of the Seffion, and fitting only three days, concluded their inquiry before any other was opened; on this account it engaged my whole attention, and it was then my design to have given a full state of it: I have altered that opinion fince, not from indolence, but from a full confideration of the fubject, which induced me to make the obfervation in page 4. of this Cafe, and to act accordingly.

4

I believe

I believe the CASE of IPSWICH is the first under the new judicature, in which the merits of the election have depended folely upon the ftatute 7 & 8 Will. III. ch. 4. (called the Treating A&t): It has alfo this advantage, (béfides that of containing a queftion of bribery, fimple and unqualified) that the facts of the cafe were chiefly admitted, and occafioned little or no difpute between the parties. In most of the cafes of general bribery,the queftion has either been involved in difputed facts, or has been mixed with other questions upon which the parties have advanced their claims concurrently.

It often happens in the trial of elections, that the grounds of the decifion are not afcertained: This defect, it must be owned, is almost peculiar to that jurisdiction in which they are tried, and materially obstructs their use as precedents. If this fault fhould be imputed to the CASE of MITCHELL, I am apt to think I fhould not have mended it, by ftating the proceedings more at length, in order to have enabled the reader to have formed conjectures upon what the principle of the decifion may have been; or if I had ventured my own conjectures upon the fame bafis. But fuch cases sometimes contain other ufeful matter leading to the final refolutions: And although the task of reporting them may

be