§ LORD CHELMSFORDrose to call attention to the case of Mr. Edwin James; and to ask, Whether it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor to allow him to retain his Patent as one of Her Maiesty's Counsel?
THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, in consequence of a Notice which has been placed on the paper by a noble and learned Lord, I have to state to your Lordships that Mr. Edwin James was disbarred by a resolution of the Society of the Inner Temple in July last. He gave notice of an appeal to the Judges, as he had a right to do, and that notice necessarily suspended the power of acting upon the order to disbar him. I have now received a communication, in which it is stated that the appeal to the Judges has been utterly abandoned, and will not be followed up. The order of the Society of the Inner Temple disbarring Mr. James was complete and effectual, but it left the patent which the Crown had graciously in former times granted to Mr. James unrevoked and apparently in full force. I do not think it right that there should remain on the record of grants of honour by the Sovereign letters patent giving dignity and place to Mr. Edwin James, and therefore I shall immediately take steps to have the patent superseded—which I should 1132 have done at once but for the circumstances to which I have referred.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, half-past Ten o'clock.