The EARL of EGLINTOUNpresented a petition from James Hamilton Story, of No. 17, Bryanston Square, Middlesex, Esquire, "praying Leave to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of 44 Geo. III. [1804], for the more effectual and beneficial raising of certain sums of money decreed by the High Court of Chancery of Ireland, to be raised out of the Estates of George Montgomery, a Lunatic, in the Counties of Cavan and Fermanagh in Ireland, by Sale of the Inheritance of a competent part of the said Estates as is inconsistent with the uses and trusts to which the said Estates stood settled and limited before the passing of such Act." He had no interest whatever in any of the parties implicated in the case, and did not even know the petitioner beyond having met him at the few interviews they had had about the petition. His Lordship explained the case of the petitioner, which he considered a particularly hard one, and said that his object in wishing it referred to two English Judges was to found upon their report a Bill for the repeal of the Act of 1804. As he considered that great injustice had been done to Mr. Story, in depriving him of his ancestors' estates in Ireland, he trusted their Lordships would not hesitate to accede to his Motion. There were precedents for adopting the course he now proposed, their Lordships having on previous occasions passed Bills to correct mistakes which had occurred in previous Acts with regard to the disposition of estates; and if the petition were referred, as he proposed it should be, to two English Judges, they might decide, first of all, whether, if the Act of 1804 had not been passed, Mr. Story would be entitled to the estates, and in the next place whether, if he were entitled, the Act should be repealed.
§ "Moved—That the petition be referred to two English Judges to consider,
§ "1st. Whether, if the Act of 1804 had not been passed, Mr. Story would he entitled to the Estates?
§ "2nd. Whether, if he should he so entitled, that Act ought not to be repealed?"
§ LORD REDESDALEfelt it his duty, as the person to whom these Bills were referred, to oppose the Motion; since to have been silent would have been to seem to sanction their Lordships passing a slight upon the Irish Judges. It was the invariable practice of the House to refer Irish Estate Bills to Irish Judges. The same practice was pursued with regard to Estate Bills in England and Scotland; and he saw no sufficient reason why in this case it should be departed from.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he feared it was too late for them now to interfere. He felt a very great sympathy with those who had suffered from the gross irregularity of 1803 and 1804; but the time had passed when it would have been expedient that the subject should be revived.
§ LORD BEAUMONT,agreeing as to the great hardships which these parties had endured, yet thought that, under the circumstances, the House could not possibly do anything now, except indeed as regarded the future, when in all cases of private Bills it must act with much greater caution in reference to the circumstance of notice being served on the parties.
§ Motion (by leave of the House) with drawn; and Petition ordered to lie on the table.