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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
with any comments or queries. |
Law in
the 18th century
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Our law is not Justice nor the semblance of it, it
is full of quirks which the witnesses must be aware of... From a letter of James Watt, quoted in Eric Robinson & D
McKie, Partners in science (London 1970). |
Parsons apt to think lawyers rogues – lawyers apt
to think parsons fools. From William Stevens's journal,
Sep 1794, quoted in Park, Memorial of William Stevens (1812) |
People nowadays might echo the parsons' sentiments. But today's lawyers, however inordinate
their earnings, exhibit few of the antics of their eighteenth-century
forebears...
In some years they call
themselves solicitors, in others attorneys-at-law (not to be confused with the
attorney you appoint to take care of your finances). Whatever they are called, they have the same modus operandi.
Cort’s lawsuits
Parry v Cort etc
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PARRY (MAJOR) v CORT, HENRY Letters and promissory notes from
Major David Parry to Henry Cort, described as [?regimental] “agent”,
defendant. Exhibits include a life
assurance policy assigned by Parry to Cort. From PRO
(online) catalogue for exchequer file E140/65/12. |
Mr Cort’s agent was with Me this Afternoon & by a letter
from Mr Hollis Mr Cort’s Country Attorney informed
Me that you have consented to take your Brother with Mr.Cort as security for
your debt. From
letter to David Parry from his attorney, 6 November
1776. |
Major David Parry is not a navy man,
but Cort seems to treat him the same way as navy clients – indeed, may offer
favourable treatment. He continues to run
an account for Parry after relinquishing his navy clients in 1773.
That query "[?regimental] 'agent]" in the PRO
catalogue (one researcher who spots it tells me "Cort was never a navy
agent, he was an army agent"): most likely some rash cataloguer trying to
explain Cort's connection with Major Parry, and unaware of his reputation as a
navy agent. No other evidence has been
found of Cort acting as agent for anyone in the army.
Cort’s role as Parry's agent appears to date from 1769. Most plausible explanation arises from
repeated references in the files to an annuity that Parry is supposed to pay William Attwick (earliest payment covers a four-month
period in 1771) but there are few clues how this arises.
Parry’s brother Roger, whose name crops up periodically in the
files, manages to run up his own debt to Cort – possibly by overdrawing on a
bond due to him. This debt figures in
an attempt by Cort to settle his own finances a few years later.
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I cannot possibly entertain the favorable opinion you do of Mr
Cort. From
letter of David Parry to Daniel Guion, 4 November 1776. |
I would rather leave... and never more hear the name of Mr Cort,
who has used me so ill. From
letter of David Parry to Daniel Guion, 11 November 1776. |
The Parry v Cort files contain many “bills of exchange”
written (hurriedly, by the look of it) by Parry: effectively cheques drawn on
his account with Cort. The suit arises after Parry complains that Cort won't provide a statement
of this account. A charge easily enough
countered. Cort’s statement is part of
his defence: it shows income and expenditure like a modern bank statement.
It is a letter from Parry that establishes Cort’s presence in Gosport in May 1776: his previous letter to
Cort is addressed to Crutched Friars, August 1775.
A few words about this Daniel Guion (sometimes spelt Guyon).
There are several with that name throughout the eighteenth
century. Probably a continuous father-son
line – at least four generations' worth.
The one in this case is probably the son of one baptised in 1703
at the French Huguenot Church in Threadneedle Street, London, who is probably
the one listed among Navy Office personnel, 1741 to 1752.
The son? Probably the
“merchant” listed in London trade directories: first at 19 Pavement,
Moorfields, later at Cort’s former address of 35 Crutched Friars. His will in August 1774 is witnessed by Oliver Toulmin, Henry Cort and Cort’s clerk Richard Ashton.
He has moved to Gosport by November 1776, becoming a juror in
1778. Presumably the one buried at Alverstoke, 4th May 1780.
Clarke v Cort
This case arises after Captain
Thomas Lee drowns when his ship, the Aurora,
sinks in the Indian Ocean. Cort is Lee's agent.
Lee's sister Hannah Clarke and her husband Arthur win administration of
Lee's estate. How much is it worth?
The answer depends on the
balance of Lee’s account with Cort.
Like Parry, the Clarkes accuse Cort of withholding information, so Cort
responds with a statement. By his
reckoning, the account is in the red.
He declares that Lee has given him authority to take goods to cover the
debt.
The court has to be convinced
that he has taken no more than his due, so he provides a statement of Lee’s
account – the best evidence of the sort of transactions Cort needs to cover as
a navy agent.
Waller v Cort
A complaint is made by James
Waller, a clerk in Kensington responsible for an annuity to John Becher.
Cort, he alleges, agreed to take over this responsibility, then reneged
on his undertaking. The complaint is
interesting in describing Oliver Toulmin as Cort's
agent in London.
Patent
law
This is
covered elsewhere.
The problem with
Chancery files
Suppose you are an eighteenth
century litigant. You have gone to a
solicitor or attorney and told him your story.
He questions you about details, and carefully notes your answers. No hurry: you are paying for his time.
Once satisfied, he sends you
off and gets his clerk to write out your complaint in the professional manner.
This task completed, he
invites you back to approve the official version. You are presented with a capacious sheet, some 75cm wide (at
least) and probably greater in height, filled with the handwriting of the gallant
clerk: usually quite legible, but comprehensible is another matter. For a really complicated complaint it may
run to two sheets.
When you inspect this screed
(if you can be bothered to) don't look for punctuation it is all written out in
one paragraph one sentence with eventually when you get to the end a full
stop. It is addressed at the beginning
to the Lord Chancellor to whom you introduce yourself as your orator or oratrix
if female then tell the story from your point of view at some point naming the
person or persons against whom you are complaining hereinafter to be known as
the defendant or defendants when complete you summarise your complaint then
list the questions that need to be answered by the said defendant or defendants
plus sundry persons unknown with whom they may have conspired.
Got all that? Kindly sign here. And now for the fee...
And you have the joy of
knowing that the defendant or defendants have to go through a similar
rigmarole.
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This Defendant during that year and the subsequent
years one thousand seven hundred and seventy four and one thousand seven
hundred and seventy five recommended all his Clients to the said Oliver Toulmin but on account of the great Intimacy which
subsisted between the said Testator and the Defendant this Defendant
continued too be the Agent for the said Testator to the time of his death and
the said Testator never revoked the letter of Attorney under which the
Defendant had originally acted for him as his Agent... All this Defendants Effects together with
his Books of Account Papers and Countings were seized and taken away and (as
this Defendant believes) sold under such Extent. From Cort’s affidavit in Norbury v Attorney General
files (PRO, C12/218/5). |
Then the justices have their
turn. If they can't decide immediately
on a verdict, they commission another lawyer to draw up a questionnaire which
is sent to all likely witnesses; replies are written down in an
"interrogatory".
Switch to the twenty-first
century. You've gone to the PRO
(National Archives) to look up a chancery file. Maybe it's one that's been recommended. Or is it something from the catalogue that looks promising?
If it's from the catalogue,
be warned. It may not contain all the
information about the case. If you're
lucky the complaint, defences and interrogatories will all be in the same
file. More likely the interrogatories
will be filed elsewhere. If there is
more than one defendant, you may have to look in another file for some of the
defences.
For example, there are two
files designated Norbury v Hill.
The 1794 file contains the original complaint, in which thirteen
defendants are named, together with two of their responses. The 1797 file contains interrogatories. For other defendants' responses, you need to
look in both Norbury v Meredith and Norbury v Attorney General
files.
A bigger problem is in
recognising in advance which files are going to be useful. The title tells you the names of one
complainant and one defendant, and the date of the complaint. I find nine chancery files listed when I
search under the name Becher between 1760 and 1775. Of the six I open, only two relate to John
and Ann Becher, the family I am interested in.
Another time I open a file
titled Scott v Boulton, selected because I know that Matthew Boulton has a customer called Scott, also
linked to Henry Cort. The protagonists
in this case turn out to be a different Scott and a different Boulton.
So… You're at the PRO, you've ordered your
file, and in due course it arrives in an oblong box. Inside the box you find two or three tubes, each labelled to show
a sequence of files. You select the
tube you want, open it, and pull out a roll of the sacred relics left by those
blessed eighteenth-century lawyers.
Remove any binding.
Next you unroll the monstrous
sheets, extract the file you want (which may contain several sheets tied
together) and stop it from rolling itself up again (the PRO supplies an
assortment of paperweights to help in this last bit).
Now you can start to read
through these acres of legalistic waffle.
You'll find the complainant's name pretty quickly. If you're doubtful whether the file is of
interest, my advice is then to scan through quickly to identify the
defendants. I also advise skipping the
rest once you've reached the end of the narrative bit.
You may want to read more
than one sheet, and of course you'll want to take notes (did you bring a
laptop?). Unless you have a masochistic
streak, you won't want to copy every word.
Eventually you're done with
reading and note-taking. Your task
isn't over yet. You have to reassemble
the files for putting back in their tube.
Be fair to the next guy, keep them in numerical order. Roll them up as tightly as you can
(otherwise they may not fit), bind them and insert into the tube.
Return the tube to its
box. Return the box to the
counter. Breathe a sigh of relief.
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RELATED TOPICS John Becher and
the American War Thomas Morgan
and the American War Shelburne, Parry
and associates |
henrycort.net
hl