A

HISTORY

OF THE

COURT OF CHANCERY.

HISTORY

OF THE

COURT OF CHANCERY;

WITH

PRACTICAL REMARKS

ON THE RECENT COMMISSION, REPORT, AND EVIDENCE,

AND

ON THE MEANS OF IMPROVING THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

IN THE ENGLISH COURTS OF EQUITY.

BY

JOSEPH PARKES,

SOLICITOR, BIRMINGHAM.

Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus justitiam vel rectum.
We will neither sell, deny, nor delay Justice.

Magna Carta, cap. xxix.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN.

PRINTED BY J. BELCHER AND SON, BIRMINGHAM.

"We may here observe one of the most remarkable of the expedients of the Lawyers. What they have laboured from an early date to create and establish in the minds of their countrymen is-a belief, that it is criminal ever to express blame of them or their system. This endeavour has hardly been less diligent than it has been successful. The belief has grown into one of the most rooted principles in the minds of the more opulent classes of Englishmen. That it is one of the most pernicious prejudices is indisputable. For it is obvious, that it confers upon the Lawyers, as far as it goes, a complete and absolute license to make the system of which they are the organs, and upon which all the happiness of society depends, as favourable to their own interests, at the expence of those of the community, as ever they please. It is, therefore, a belief arti ficially created by the Lawyers, for the protection of their own abuses; and will never be allowed to retain a place in the mind of any enlightened and disinterested man. The grand remedy for the defects of government is, to let in upon them publicity and censure. The grand remedy for the misconduct of the members of government is, to let in upon it publicity and censure. There are no abuses, in the exposure of which society is more interested than in those of the LAW. There is no misconduct, in the exposure of which it is more interested than that of the Lawyers."Mill's History of British India, vol. 5, b. vi. c. 2.