|
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
|
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...
Nomenclature
For some of the
eighteenth century, legal practitioners call themselves solicitors: at other
times they are “attorneys at law”.
Whatever they are called, they have the same modus operandi. (The term “attorney at law” should not be
confused with “attorney”: this is someone (such as a navy agent) appointed by an approved legal
document to take care of someone else’s finances.)
Cort’s lawsuits
Parry v Cort etc
|
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.
|
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. |
For a period starting about
the time of Cort’s marriage in 1768, he has handled
(presumably by request of William Attwick)
an account for dealings between him and David Parry,
probably resulting from debts run up by Parry’s brother Roger during his time
as a ship’s chaplain. The Parry v Cort files contain many “bills of exchange” written
(hurriedly, by the look of it) by Parry during this period: effectively cheques
drawn on his account with Cort. 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.
After
Parry’s marriage to heiress Catherine Okeden in 1774,
he vests in Cort the power of
attorney for some of his transactions.
He evidently trusts Cort, but a year later he
becomes convinced that Cort is abusing this power,
creaming off money he isn’t entitled to; and complains formally to the Court of
Chancery. One of his complaints is that Cort won't provide a statement of
his 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 nevertheless a difficult time for Cort to have to
defend himself. He has wound up his agency business, passing most of his clients
to Oliver Toulmin, and is
preparing to move to Gosport to take over the running of Attwick’s
ironmongery business. One way he
responds to Parry’s complaint is to enlist the help of Daniel Guion, evidently a long-time associate. From this point on, Guion
is involved in many Parry-Cort transactions.
I
am fortunate to make contact with one of Guion’s
descendants (November 2011), who fills in some of the gaps in my own
research. Guion is from a Huguenot line, many (including his father) also
called Daniel. Born 1st January
1742, baptised 16 January at St James, Westminster. Listed as “merchant” 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 moves to Gosport shortly after Cort,
and becomes a juror there in 1778. He has two sons who both become officers in
the Navy. He dies around the beginning
of May 1780, and is buried
at Alverstoke. His widow Ann returns to London, where she
becomes matron of the London Hospital in 1790.
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.
|
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.
|
RELATED
TOPICS John Becher and the American War Thomas Morgan and
the American War Shelburne, Parry
and associates |
henrycort.net
hl