Excerpt from Substance of a Speech Delivered Before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on Monday the 17th and Tuesday the 18th of December, A. D. 1849, Upon an Appeal in a Cause of Duplex Querela: Between the Rev. George Cornelius Gorham, Clerk, Appellant, and the Right Rev. Henry, Lord Bishop of Exeter, Respondent

IN consequence of the numerous and urgent appli cations which have been made to me for a complete report of my argument, on the late important appeal before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I have prepared one as well as I could, by correcting the notes of the short-hand writers. I trust that the publication may be useful, and, notwithstanding the judgment which has now been given in favour of the Appellant, that it may yet be a witness of what I believe to be the truth, and vindicate to the world the cause of the Respondent. To those who have watched that cause with interest, and with an earnest desire to keep whole and undefiled the Catholic Faith, it may be satisfactory to know the grounds, upon which the doctrine of the Church of England upon one of her Sacraments was asserted and defended, and thus to be assured, that some effort at least was made to put the case fijlly before the Judges, and to convince them of its merits. N 0 person indeed can be more sensible than myself of the imperfections of my own advocacy, but I have the comfort of feeling that I did my best, and this under circumstances of some disad vantage, as I had had nothing to do with the cause in its earlier stages, and was allowed but little time forpreparation. I have also the further comfort of remembering, that what was wanting in myself was supplied more ably by my learned colleague, Dr. Addams, and consequently that nothing material was omitted on behalf of the Right Reverend Respondent.

Upon the judgment which has been pronounced, I should forbear, if the case were of an ordinary de scription, to offer any observations; and I would fain comment upon any case with the utmost respect towards the learned Judges who decided it - but as this judgment affects me, not merely as an advocate, but far more as a member of the Church of England, I consider myself justified in protesting against it. Much that I should have wished to say of it has been said far better, within the last few days, by one, whose powers of dealing with any subject few men can equal, and none surpass; and in the little which I may attempt to add, I can but follow him at a very humble distance. The Bishop of Exeter, in his recent Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, has rendered superfluous almost every effort, to lead the public to a proper estimate of the judg ment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and to supply the want of what the Law un fortunately denies, a resort to a higher tribunal. Some few remarks, however, I may make, without inter fering with his Lordship's work, in order to ascertain how far the argument addressed to the Court, and contained in the following pages, is really destroyed or weakened.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.