Lord Cholmondely and Mr. M. from placing themselves in the relation of client and solicitor in this cause. On the other hand, it was asked, how far it was intended to carry the principle,-whether clerks having got some confidential knowledge of a cause in the offices of their masters were to be prevented from accepting appointments on the other side, after they set up for themselves? &c. But suppose it were a general rule, that a solicitor who had been employed for one party could not discharge himself and take an appointment from the other party in the same cause, this case must be an exception, as Lord Clinton had agreed to the discharge. The Lord Chancellor.-When a client employed two partners as his solicitors, he was entitled to the services of both. If they dissolved the partnership, he must retain one or both, or neither. Whether a man would choose to entrust important interests to two, who were unwilling to act together, was a question to which the answer could not be doubtful. If he employed neither, were either of them to be at liberty to take the opposite side; and if he employed only one of them as the least evil, was the other to be considered as discharged by him? No: the discharge was the consequence of the contract of dissolution between the partners, and not the act of the client. As to honour, and delicacy, and propriety, and so forth, he had only to say, as Lord Thurlow had said in a case where the question was, whether a noble Lord who then sat by Lord Thurlow ought It to allow interest on a debt which he admitted he ought to have paid, "Go to him with your arguments about delicacy and propriety,-I have nothing to do with any thing but the right." So he (Lord Eldon) said in this case "Go to Lord Cholmondeley and Mr. Montriou with these arguments-I have only to do with the dry question of right." He therefore dismissed entirely from his mind all the facts of this case, except as they bore on the question of right, and on those consequences, as far as they could be foreseen, which the decision of the question of right in one way or the other would involve. appeared that the intention of the Court had never before, as far as he could ascertain, been called judicially to a question of this kind. They were therefore totally without any precedent to guide them; and the question must therefore be decided on general principles. Whatever the decision might be, it must apply to all the Courts; and therefore it was fitting that the attention of all or most of the Judges should be called to it before it was determined; and the matter must stand over in the mean time till he had an opportunity of consulting with the Judges. Court of Chancery, Jan. 25.— The Lord Chancellor stated as follows:-"In this case, in which a solicitor has become concerned for two opposite parties, I requested the two Chief Justices of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, to procure for me the opinion of the Judges. Judges. I have not yet had the opinion of the Barons of the Exchequer; but the opinion of the Judges of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas was laid before me yesterday, and that opinion is," That no solicitor is authorized so to act." "The same is the opinion of the Master of the Rolls, and of the ViceChancellor likewise." Baillie v. Warden.-This was a writ of error from the Common Pleas, in an action of trespass and false imprisonment. In the Court below the names of the parties were reversed, Warden v. Baillie, and the facts that appeared were shortly these :-The late Mr. Whitbread, as LieutenantColonel of the Bedfordshire Local Militia, issued an order that the serjeants and other non-commissioned officers, whose duty it was to make certain official returns, in order to render them more competent to their duty, should attend a school, at the head of which was placed the Adjutant. Warden was a serjeant in the Bedfordshire Local Militia, and with others was directed to attend this school, which he neglected. For this disobedience he was reprimanded by Mr. Whitbread, on the 1st December, but repeating it, he was ordered to attend parade on the 2d December, where the Adjutant, Baillie (the defendant in the Court below), put him under military arrest. From thence he was conveyed, by order of the Lieutenant-Colonel, by a military escort to the public gaol, and delivered into the hands of the gaoler, where he remained until the 24th December, when he was liberated from prison, and put under a guard in his own house; from whence he was sent to Stilton Barracks, remaining in confinement there till the 12th of March. The action for this assault and false imprisonment was commenced on the 27th June following. Such was the plaintiff's case; and on behalf of the defendant it was urged at the trial, that the school had been established because the serjeants were incompetent to discharge the duties assigned them by the articles of war; that when another serjeant, named John Hooper, was admonished for not attending it, the plaintiff Warden addressed him in these words-" D- your eyes Jack, don't give up-don't go to school. I will soldier it with any body, but I will not go to school. I will not be made a boy of: I hope they will settle it before post, that I may write to my father, who will see me righted though it cost 2001." Upon which a serjeant, named Smith, observed, that such language was enough to excite a mutiny. It was also proved for the Adjutant Baillie (the defendant below) that he acted under orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Whitbread, who, in consequence of the conduct of Warden, and the language he had used, wrote to General Pigott, commanding the district, through whom Warden was brought to a General Court Martial at Norman-cross, and being acquitted, was discharged on the 12th of March, after the sentence had been confirmed. Upon these facts a verdict was X 2 found found for the plaintiff, in the Common Pleas, and a bill of exceptions was tendered to the learned Judge, Sir James Mansfield, by the Counsel for the defendants, in which three objections were stated,-19t, That the Judge at the trial had declared and delivered his opinion to the Jury that the several matters proved on the part of the defendant, were not sufficient to bar the plaintiff of his action against the defendant. 2. That the verdict ought not to have been for the plaintiff. 3. That it ought to have been in favour of defendant. The bill of exceptions also contained a detail of all the particulars of the facts above stated. The question afterwards came before the Court of King's Bench for argument, and stood over for decision. Lord Ellenborough this day delivered the judgment of the Court, after reading the bill of exceptions. The first question that naturally arose from the statement was, whether the original arrest of Warden by Baillie, the Adjutant, on the 2d December, was or was not legal; but as the act of Parliament required that the action should be commenced within six months after the cause of action occurred, and as the action in this case was not brought until the 27th June, it became material to consider whether any part of the confinement fell within that period of six months; for though the limitation in the statute was not specially pleaded, yet, under the general issue, the defendant might take advantage of it. The arrest under the authority of Baillie took place on the 2d of December, but it ceased on the 4th, or at furthest on the 24th of December; and the action not being commenced till the 27th of June, that imprisonment was clearly not within the six months required by the statute, and Baillie would not be liable unless he were responsible for the subsequent confinement when he acted under the orders of LieutenantColonel Whitbread. The question was, therefore, reduced to this point, whether LieutenantColonel Whitbread was warranted by law in ordering the imprisonment of Warden, first in his own house, and afterwards preparatory to the Court-Martial? Certain expressions had been proved against Warden, and it was important to see whether they came under the description given in the 24th section of the articles of war, as "disorderly conduct, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline." If they did (and no doubt could be entertained upon the subject), Warden might be brought before a general CourtMartial. This proceeding would not be less legal, even supposing that the original order of the Lieutenant-Colonel for the attendance of the serjeants at the school was not valid; for an erroneous command would not justify disobedience or the employment of inflammatory language, to the subversion of military discipline. The only remaining question then was, whether it was lawful for the Lieutenant-Colonel to order the arrest of Warden, that he might be forthcoming at the Court Martial. This power was given by the the 22d article of war, "in case of the commission of any crime deserving punishment ;" and the Court was therefore of opinion, that the alleged trespasses were covered up to the 24th of December, by the limitation in the Local Militia Act, and that all the subsequently alleged trespasses under the orders of LieutenantColonel Whitbread, were justifiable in respect of that officer, and consequently in respect of the defendant Baillie, as acting under the orders of his superior officer. The judgement was consequently in favour of the plainin error. Circuit Court, Inverness, Sept. 22.-John Lamont, Roman Catholic Priest, residing at Aberchalder, was brought to the bar. The indictment against him was founded on the common law, and on the Act of the Parliament of Scotland, 34th of first Session of Charles II. (1661, chap. 34.) intituled, "An Act against clandestine and unlawful Marriages," whereby it is provided, that "whatsoever person or persons shall hereafter marry, or procure themselves to be married in a clandestine and inorderly way, or by Jesuits, Priests, or any other not authorized by this Kirk," shall suffer the penalties therein mentioned; "and that the celebrator of such marriages be banished the kingdom, never to return therein under pain of death.” The indictment charged the prisoner,, with having "celebrated a clandestine and irregular marriaga, between John M'Railt, a Protestant, and Isabella Macdonald, a Roman Catholic, or Papist, without any certificate produced or required by him, that the bans of marriage between the said parties had been proclaimed, as required by law, on three different Sundays," in the church of the parish wherein they resided, "and without any due proclamation of the bans of marriage having taken place." Mr. Lamont having pleaded not guilty, the Lord Justice Clerk inquired if there was any objection to the relevancy? Whereupon Mr. Grant, of Rothiemurchus, as counsel for the prisoner, stated, that there was no objection to the relevancy, and that the pannel rested his defence on the general plea of not guilty. The Lord Justice Clerk, however, deemed it his duty to make a few remarks on the statutory crime charged. His Lordship mentioned, that his attention was for the first time particularly called to a consideration of the statute, when on circuit at Jedburgh, in April 1812. He then bestowed his most careful attention on the subject, and thought it his duty to pronounce sentence, in terms of the act, on two persons then tried. They appeared, however, to have assumed the character of Clergymen, which did not belong to them. Another case occurred before his Lordship and Lord Hermand, at Aberdeen, in September 1812, against one of the Baillies of Inverary. Special circumstances occurred in that case, which rendered it unnecessary to give any general judgment on the point of law. These cases were not exactly similar to the present; they were in various respects dif ferent; ferent; but on duly weighing all authorities, he thought himself bound to give effect to the statute, and had no doubt of the relevancy of the indictment against Mr. Lamont. In the course of his observations, his Lordship said nothing on the expediency or policy of the law, nor of the present prosecution. The usual interlocutor of relevancy was then pronounced, and a jury sworn. The Advocate Depute then stated, that the present indictment contained two specific and distinct charges; 1st. The celebrating of marriage by a person not entitled to do so, the pannel being a Popish Priest: and 2d. The celebration of marriage without the due proclamation of bans. Both these charges he thought he could have been able to establish, but on account of the necessary absence of a material witness, whom he expected to be able to adduce, he was not prepared to prove that the bans were not proclaimed, and he, therefore, abandoned that part of the charge. He expected, however, to be able to establish the other charges contained in the indictment. Mr. Grant then mentioned, that he had not stated, and did not mean to state, any objection to the relevancy. But from the new light which had broke forth from the statement of the prosecutor, he felt himself called on to state the reasons why he thought this prosecution could not proceed. For this extraordinary prosecution itself, he could not refrain from saying, as a lawyer and a gentleman, that he considered it the most illiberal, the most unwise, and the most repugnant to all the feelings which dignify human nature that had ever fallen under his observation. The learned gentleman then contended, that from what had now been stated by the Advocate Depute, the trial could not proceed. He called the attention of the court to the crimes stated in the major proposition, and then adverted to the particular offences with wich the prisoner was charged in the minor; and as in each case it was stated, not merely that a marriage by a person not authorised, but a clandestine marriage without proclamation of bans, was celebrated by this person, blending in both cases the incapacity of the celebrator with the omission of the proclamation, the learned gentleman contended, that unless the prosecutor would undertake to prove that the bans were not proclaimed, he must relinquish the trial. If, however, their lordships should be of a different opinion, it must of course be in the view of the court and jury, that the prisoner was entitled to assume, that the bans had been proclaimed. trusted, however, that the trial would be stopped. He The Lord Justice Clerk ob served, that the trial could not stop, but the arguments of the prisoner's council were worthy of the consideration of the jury. A number of witnesses were then examined by the Advocate Depute, and several as to the character of the prisoner, who all bore testimony to its being most respectable. The jury were then addressed by the Advocate Depute, and after |