EAST RETFORD DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL. (Hansard, 27 April 1830)

The Lord Chancellor
to object to a third counsel being employed, it being contrary to the general practice and rules of the House to allow more than two counsel to be engaged on a side on any private bill.

The Marquis of Salisbury
supported the same view as the Lord Chancellor.

§ Lord Durham
supported the propriety of allowing the third counsel to be heard. This was a Bill of Pains and Penalties; it had assumed a great degree of political importance, in consequence of having occasioned a division of the Cabinet; it was supported by several of the Cabinet Ministers, and therefore he thought it was the duty of their Lordships to relax the rule, even if it were a rule which they generally followed. He did not know that the rule had never been deviated from; and in a case like that, it would be proper in their Lordships to give the petitioners a more than usual latitude. If he were to consent to Mr. Adam's pursuing that cross-examination, which Mr. Stevenson was conducting so ably as to call the attention of their Lordships to him, he should recognise the principle, that only two counsel could be employed. He would therefore move that their Lordships should then adjourn the further consideration of the question, in order to give time to examine whether or not it were a general rule of the House that only two counsel should be heard.

The Earl of Carnarvon
said, that he had no objection to the greatest latitude being given; all that he was afraid of was, the longitude of the case.

The Lord Chancellor
said, that in the cases of Penryn, Grampound and Barn-staple, two counsel only had appeared at the Bar of that House. He would move that only two counsel on behalf of the petitioners against the Bill should be heard.