description, which we had not time to investigate, exist in all parts of the country. The parochial returns to our circular letters, have brought cases to our knowledge, which no board sitting in London could examine within a moderate period of time. Other abuses omitted in those returns may be reasonably supposed to prevail; and let it be observed, that the probability of abuses existing in any charity, is by no means diminished by the circumstance of a special visitor having been appointed. In general, the visitor resides at a distance; he is most commonly an official person with other duties to engage him, as the bishop of the diocese, or the head of a house at one of the universities; he is usually directed to visit once in so many years; and if no term is specified, he is only by law obliged to visit every third year; above all, the exemption in the statute of Elizabeth, has increased the probability of mismanagement in such charities, by preventing them from ever being examined by a commission of charitable uses; while a great proportion of the other charities have undergone this investigation once or twice since their foundation. Now, the transference of the proviso from the statute of Elizabeth to the present act, has precisely the effect of confining the inquiries of the commissioners to those charities, most of which have already been examined; and of making them pass over those which have never before been looked into, except by their visitors.

If any persons should still conceive that the eye of the visitor is sufficient, I would beseech them to consider two things-the slowness with which the knowledge of the evil reaches him, and the risk of his requiring superintendence himself. Abuses are, generally speaking, of slow growth; they creep into public institutions with a sure pace, indeed, if unchecked, but they move on by degrees; and those who are constantly habituated to see their progress, become accustomed to it, and cease to think of it. These, however, are chiefly the persons on whom the visitor must rely for his information; and, even where the change is more rapid, and the abuse more glaring, men who live on the spot are not likely to court the odious office of accusing their neighbors. The grand difference between the visitor and the commissioners is, that the former, for the most part, will only examine where there is a charge; whereas the latter are to examine at all events, and to find out whether there be ground for complaining although nobody may have actually preferred a complaint. Then what security have we against negligence or connivance in the visitors themselves? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? True, the founders have entrusted them with the superintendence; but, where no visitation is appointed, the founders have reposed an entire confidence in the trustees; and yet no one has ever contended that they should be exempt from the inquiries of the commissioners. What

good reason then can be assigned for investigating abuses committed wholly by trustees and visitors jointly? St. John's College is visitor of Pocklington school; for years the gross perversion of its ample revenues, known to all Yorkshire, had never penetrated into Cambridge. The dean and chapter of Lincoln have the patronage as well as the superintendence of Spital charity; yet they allow the warden, son of their diocesan, to enjoy the produce of large estates devised to him in trust for the poor of two parishes as well as of the hospital, while he only pays a few pounds to four or five of the latter. The bishop himself is a patron and visitor of Mere, and permits the warden, his nephew (for whom he made the vacancy by promoting his predecessor), to enjoy or underlet a considerable trust estate, paying only 24l. a-year to the poor. The evidence shows that the visitors of the Huntingdon hospital are the parties chiefly concerned in misapplying its funds- being themselves trustees-occupying the charity lands for trifling rents—and using the estate for the election purposes. I am very far from asserting that the apparent negligence of St. John's College, the apparent connivance of the chapter and the bishop, and the apparent participation of the corporators, are incapable of explanation: but at least these facts show the necessity of an inquiry into the conduct of visitors as well as trustees; while the alterations made in the bill by his majesty's ministers shut out all inquiry, and prevent the public from receiving any explanation.

The exception of which I have been speaking is more to be la mented; because the charities thus screened from the investigation of the commissioners, are in ordinary course of events, and as the law now stands, almost certain to escape every other inquiry. From the jurisdiction created by the statute of Elizabeth, they are wholly exempted; and that of the court of chancery extends to them only in a limited degree. Where funds have been misapplied, the court will interfere, notwithstanding the appointment of a visitor; but then its interposition is confined entirely to this breach of trust. It will take no cognisance whatever of any other neglect or misconduct on the part of trustees. They may have perverted the charity to purposes wholly foreign to the founder's intention; they may have suffered the school to decay, while the master reaped the profits; they may, through folly, or even by design, have adopted measures calculated to ensure its ruin. Still if there be a special visitor, who neglects or violates his duty, permitting or abetting the misconduct of the managers, courts of equity cannot entertain

The rev. incumbent states, that there are no poor in Spital; but the endowment is in favor of the "parish poor of Little Carlton and Skellingthorpe," the charge of maintaining whom appears, from the poor abstract to be from 2 to 300l. a-year.

the discussion of their proceedings, unless the funds are directly misapplied. Thus I take it to be clear, that neither Whitgift's hospital nor Pocklington school, could have been examined by information or petition to the Lord Chancellor, although large revenues are expended, in the one case, upon the education of a single child, and in the other, to make a complete sinecure for the master. In the case of a richly endowed school at Berkhamstead, his lordship admitted that he could not interfere, although he saw the master teaching only one boy, and the usher living in Hampshire' But even as to direct breaches of trust, a court of equity affords most inadequate means of inquiry. No prudent man will easily be induced to involve himself in a chancery suit, where his private interests are at stake. To expect that any one will do so from the love of justice, and a sense of duty towards the public, is in all, but a few extraordinary cases, truly chimerical. Nor will the facts disclosed in the committee's report, tend to lessen this very natural dislike of such proceedings. We there find the parish officers of Yeovil ruined by their attempts to obtain justice for the poor; a respectable solicitor and a clergyman in Huntingdon, expending large sums of their own money in the same pious work, and rewarded by the general contempt and even hatred of their fellow citizens; a worthy inhabitant of Croydon, exposed to every of vexation for similar exertions, and his coadjutor falsely and maliciously indicted for perjury; and, not to multiply instances, the venerable head of a college at Oxford deterred from exposing the St. Bees case, by the dread of a conflict with his powerful colleague, before a tribunal where a long purse is as essential as a good cause. You, better than any man, are acquainted with the defects of this remedy; and you are no less impartial than competent to decide upon them. Elevated to an eminence in the court of chancery, which no other advocate, perhaps, ever attained in any department of forensic life, you can hardly be supposed to feel prejudice against its proceedings. Yet to you I will venture without hesitation to appeal; and I am confident you will admit that abuses which are fated to florish in the shade, until a suit in equity exposes, and a decree extirpates them, must live and grow until they work the ruin of the institutions to which they cling.

kind

I have now gone through the principal changes which his majesty's ministers thought proper to make in the bill; and when their magnitude is considered when it is perceived how little of the original plan was left when it is found that the commissioners

12 Ves. and Beames, 138. His lordship was obliged to decree the money received for fines, then about 5000/., to the master and usher, according to the foundation, leaving their conduct in the office to be examined by the visitor.

were to be chosen by the crown, deprived of the usual powers of inquiry, and prevented from directing their attention to the objects which most demanded investigation-it will naturally be asked, why the friends of the measure consented to accept of so mutilated a substitute for it; why they did not at once appeal to parliament and the country, from the decision of a cabinet which had clearly shown themselves unfriendly to all effectual exposure of the abuses universally complained of? I must take upon myself, in common with several persons whose opinions I deeply respect, the responsibility of having been willing to accept a law, the inadequacy of which we admitted, rather than allow the session to pass without obtaining any thing at all. Various considerations influenced this decision. The manifest hostility to the whole measure, which appeared in the house of lords, was not among the least of these. Vehemently opposed upon its principle by the chief law authorities, and a formidable body of the prelates-feebly and reluctantly supported by the ministers of the crown-the bill had been sent to a committee only by a majority of one; and some who gave their voices for its commitment, in the hope apparently of its complete mutilation, announced their intention to throw it out on the third reading, whatever changes it might undergo; thus consenting to prolong its existence for a moment, that they might first mangle what they were bent upon destroying. When it came out of the committee, the amendments had indeed so entirely defeated the whole object in view, that no man, how great soever his wish to conciliate and accommodate, could think of lending himself to the unworthy farce of passing such an act. The committee, upon learning the scope of those alterations, which left the bill a mere dead letter,' agreed with me in resolving to reject it, and proceed in the house of commons by way of address. There being very little reason to doubt that the address would be carried, the enemies of the bill in the lords consented to re-commit it, to give up several of their amendments, and to withdraw their opposition to the third reading. Such being the feelings entertained by the lords towards the whole plan-feelings of which an adequate idea could only be formed by a near observer of the temper in which it was discussed; and so great being the difficulty of obtaining

The two provisions which principally tended to defeat the object of the bill, and which were afterwards given up by their lordships, were these : the commissioners were only authorised to inquire into abuses respecting which they had information previously laid before them upon oath; nay, they could not summon a witness without oath being first made, that he had material information to communicate. They were also prohibited from asking for any paper, unless it wholly related to a separate charity, and where it contained other matter, they were not allowed to call for extracts or copies of the parts relating to the charity..

the assent of their lordships to the inquiry, even crippled and confined as it now is; we felt compelled to rest satisfied with the little we had thus reluctantly obtained from them, apprehensive that any other course might involve the two houses in a serious difference of opinion, alike prejudicial to the public weal and to the success of the measure in question. Nor were we without hopes that the experience of the act when put in force, might quiet the unfounded alarms which prevailed among their lordships; and prepare them for an extension of its powers at a future time.

I must further mention as a reason for the line of conduct pursued, that we thought there was a mode of supplying indirectly the want of powers in the commissioners. They would have an opportunity of reporting the names of all persons who refused to be examined, or to deliver up documents in their possession. A dread of exposure to the suspicion which this concealment must create, would probably induce many trustees, however reluctant, to obey the commissioners; while those who obstinately held out might be examined by the committee on its revival next session. In like manner, we presumed that the reports of the commissioners would direct the attention of the committee to all charities with special visitors; and that if parliament persisted in refusing to subject these to the scrutiny of the new board, the committee might proceed, as it had already begun, to examine them. Though we conceived that act, with all its imperfections, would do some good in the mean time, and lead to still further benefits hereafter. Čonvinced of the necessity of a thorough investigation, we thought that the sooner a beginning was made in it the better. Unable to get all we wished, we deemed it was prudent to accept what we could get, and not unwisely reject the advantages within our reach, because they were less important than we looked for, and were entitled to. An honest execution of the act, such as it was, seemed to promise material benefits to the country, provided the certain re-appointment of the committee next session supported the commissioners in the discharge of their duties, and supplied the defects in their jurisdiction as well as in their powers. But upon that revival, and upon the good faith with which the act should be carried into effect both by the minister and the board, every thing manifestly depended.

It is with great pain that I now feel myself compelled by a sense of duty, to state the disappointment of the expectations which, in common with the rest of the committee, I had entertained that his majesty's ministers would faithfully discharge the trust thus reposed in them. On so important a matter I cannot allow considerations of a personal nature to impose silence upon me, or to qualify the expression of an opinion which I have reluctantly been forced to VOL. XIII. NO. XXV.

Pam.

B