British empire in India. This invitation is addressed to all Native gentlemen, landholders, merchants and others, to all Europeans both in and out of the Service, including that useful and respectable body of men the indigo planters, who, from their uninterrupted residence in the Mofussil, have peculiar opportunities of forming an opinion upon some of these subjects. Communications to be addressed to the private or military secretary of the Governor-General. By command, A. Dobbs, private secretary.-Govt. House, 23d. Feb. 1829.

On the morning of the 17th, his Excellency, attended by Col. Fagan, adjutantgeneral, the military secretary, and the whole staff, reviewed the 6th light cavalry, after which his lordship accompanied Mr. Hamilton to Benares, where his Excellency put up with Mr. Brooke, agent to the Governor-General.

The troops at Benares were reviewed on the 18th by the Commander-in-Chief, and in the evening, his lordship and staff were elegantly entertained by Sir Frederic Hamilton, Baronet; after which his Excellency and suite proceeded to their boats, and the fleet sailed at day-break, on the 19th instant.

His lordship, we are happy to understand, was in the enjoyment of excellent health.-Govt. Gaz. March 2d.

MADRAS.

COURTS OF JUSTICE.

From parliamentary papers that have been published, it appears that the East India Company Directors are of opinion that the officers of the Courts of Judicature are overpaid. The fees of Court having been alleged to be insufficient remuneration, a guarantee was granted by the Company in 1827 to pay the deficiency, which guarantee is intended to be withdrawn by the Company on account of the salaries and emoluments being now so ample. This promised alteration excites considerable discontent among the Law Officers, and is denounced by them as a breach of contract on the part of the Directors with his Majesty. It is suggested that a steam boat be provided for the sole judge, the Recorder, to visit each station four times a year, that he may be present at all the civil and criminal sessions of the settlement, and it is calculated that then the fees of Court would fully defray the expense of the establishment.

Insolvent Debtors' Court.-This Court was opened for the first time in this Presidency on the 31st March.

BOMBAY.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE.

Writs of Habeas Corpus.-Rex v. Pandoorung Hirrajee, Mahdow Souba, Francisco de Rosa, and Shewba Sinoy. The circumstances of this case have occupied a great portion of public attention in India, and the extraordinary issue of the affair is likely to engross still more, as it, according to the declaration of Sir J. P. Grant, forms a new era in law, and will in all probability be the means of causing some new appointments among the law officers.

Pandoorung Hirrajee claimed an account of dealings and transactions amounting to 11,425,340 rupees of Moro Ragonath, a boy, aged thirteen years, who resided with his uncle and guardian at Poonah; and along with some other relations the uncle was included with the boy in the debt. On the 9th of July 1828, Hirrajee, with the other persons named, went to the residence of Moro Ragonath, and presented a paper which they pretended to be an order of the Supreme Court of Bombay, directing the immediate attendance of the boy. Moro Ragonath was unwilling to go, and his relations with whom he resided offered to give ample securities for his attendance in any way other than being taken by that authority. Hirrajee and his party, however, refused all compromise on the subject, threatened the relations with a fine of 30,000 rupees, and ultimately carried away the boy under colour of the fictitious order of the Supreme Court.

Next day, the guardian of Moro Ragonath despatched messengers after his ward, and they recovered him from Hirrajee and his party. And for the abduction of the boy, application was made by his relatives to the Supreme Court to proceed against Hirrajee and the others by information. The boy had, it was alleged, settled and adjusted the balance of accounts claimed at Bombay during the time he was taken possession of by Harrajee. When the application was made to the Court, by moving an information against the abductors," Pandoorung Hirrajee, Mahdow Souba, Francisco de Rosa, and Shewba Sinoy, for a conspiracy to obtain possession of the person of Moro Ragonath, an infant, by illegal means,

under colour of this Honourable Court."

The application was supported by a string of affidavits which carried forward the facts of the case, excepting that it became necessary to have the boy into Court to identify the paper, the fictitious order, as being the same paper with which he was served by the defendants at the time he was by them carried from under the protection of his guardian. This was suggested by the counsel for the defendants, contending that the evidence was broken. In consequence of this, the judge, Sir J. P. Grant, decided upon having the boy brought into Court; but another difficulty arose in the process, for as the boy resided at Poonah, he was without the ordinary jurisdiction of the Court, and could not be brought upon an ordinary summons. The judge then came to a determination of issuing a writ of habeas corpus for the production of Moro Ragonath.

It was said by the counsel for the defendants, that this was nothing more than an ordinary case of malicious arrest, and consequently not a case of sufficient magnitude to justify the extraordinary interposition of the Court.

The case was repeatedly adjourned and subjected to technical delays, and engrossed the serious attention of the two judges, Sir J. P. Grant and Mr. Chambers, who considered and re-considered the matter, and at last, in an elaborate speech delivered in Court on the 29th of February, Sir J. P. Grant stated that the opinion of his brother judge coincided with his own; and that after the most deliberate and grave consideration, and having industriously searched for authority, and precedents, which he cited at full, he granted the writ of habeas corpus.

At this stage of the proceedings, Mr. Advocate General opposed the order, and in answer to a question from Mr. Justice Grant, Mr. Advocate General said he could have no hesitation in stating that he did not appear in this case for any private person; that the prosecution was proceeded in by the Government, who thought it their duty to bring the case before the Court, and would become bound to answer for the costs to the defendants in the manner suggested by the Court. Mr. Justice Grant said that was perfectly satisfactory, and he then proceeded to deliver his judgment at great length, and the writ was issued.

The grounds of the judge's authority for granting the writ to be executed without the bounds of the district: he founded on the practice and prerogative of the Court of King's Bench, where, in cases of necessity, extraordinary powers were exercised; and he argued that as the Government of England extended all over that part of India, that the boy might, as a subject of his Majesty of Britain, be brought from his present residence, although without the ordinary jurisdiction of the Court of Bombay; and particularly as it was in affidavit that he had once resided in Bombay.

The writ was issued, and the officers of the Court were dispatched to serve it on the guardian of the boy, but they were repulsed by military, who stated that they were instructed so to do by orders from the governor. The attempt to put in execution the authority of the Court was several times repeated, and on one occasion the military, who acted by orders of the governor, hinted that their instructions to repel the service of the writ went as far as extremities, even to the effusion of blood.

An official correspondence was carried on between the governor and council and Sir J. P. Grant, in which the latter contended with much dignity for the prerogative of a judge, and the sacred character of the authority of the Court.

The

governor, on the other hand, asserted his right of interference; and adhered to his determination of preventing the execution of the writ. The ground of the governor's conduct he founded on the principle that the present residence of the boy placed him under the jurisdiction of the native Court of Poonah, and that it was contrary to the intention of the British Government to disturb the institutions of the Natives by undue interference.

The long and formidable controversy between the two great authorities at last resolved itself into a determination of the two judges, Sir J. P. Grant and Mr. Chambers in forwarding a petition to England on the subject, which was set about; but before it was completed Mr. Chambers died; and then Sir J. P. Grant remodelled the petition, and after serving the civil authorities of India with a copy, forwarded it to England in his own name as the petitioner.

On the 1st of September, when Mr. Justice Grant took his seat, he said he had to communicate a resolution which he had most unwillingly come to. "I am," said he "placed in a situation which indeed I cannot call difficult since I have only one course to take, but which is exceedingly painful, because that course must be attended with great loss to many individuals and with much public and general inconvenience. I have the consolation to think that I cannot accuse myself of having contributed to this even in the least degree, either from any infirmity of temper which, God knows, I am conscious I am not always free from, or from any error in judgment, which I believe myself yet more subject to, if it be not that too great forbearance may have encouraged a mistake in regard to my character and my office. Unlawful compliances as a judge have been demanded of me by the persons exercising the local government of this Presidency. But as it was said by the judges of the Common Pleas in England on a memorable occasion, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, if the fear of God were departed from them, yet the examples of others' and the punishment of those who had in former times offended against the laws would deter them from committing the like offences"-So I say now, that if my own conscience were not sufficient to render such compliances on my part impossible, the honourable examples which English judges in all ages have set me in more important and hazardous contests, would be sufficient without the danger of impeachment, which I must in that case now prevent my yielding in the petty struggle which this Court is now so unworthily and innocently engaged in.

It has been demanded of this Court to conform its judicial acts to the notions the governor and council here may adopt in relation to what they may conceive cases of political expediency which have not been so considered by the legislature. It has been demanded of it to frame its judgments according to the uncertain estimate it may form of this capricious measure of justice, and in conformity therewith to grant or refuse the protection and redress of the law to such persons, as being aggrieved in matters of private right, shall apply for them. It has been demanded of it to issue the King's writ of Habeas Corpus to such officers of the company's provincial Courts, as may have any of the king's subjects, be they Englishmen or Indians, unlawfully imprisoned; although since the passing of the statute, erecting the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, in 1773, six and forty years ago, nearly coeval with any thing deserving to be called the British empire in India, writs of Habeas Corpus have been so directed by every Court of the king established at the several presidencies, whether Recorder's Courts or Supreme Courts, nor did it ever occur to any judge or lawyer in India or in England, that there was the slightest doubt of these Courts being bound by their oaths so to issue them on just and probable causes.

As representing the sacred justice of the king, in however remote and obscure a corner of his dominions, it was the duty of the Court to administer justice as the king is bound to do by Magna Charta, namely, "that he shall let to no man, that he shall deny to no man, that he shall defer to no man, justice or right," and how could the Court refuse to deliver to any applying for it the King's Writ of Habeas Corpus, directed to any one who kept him unlawfully imprisoned. And for any judge to hesitate whether any command of any governor of a province abroad, or of any authority whatsoever at home, even of the king, could justify the so proceeding

was impossible, for it is more than 200 years since the result of many parliamentary declarations from the earliest times were summed up by Lord Coke in the following words, that by no means common right or common law, shall be disturbed or delayed, not though it be commanded under the great seal or privy seal, order, writ, letters, message or commandment, whatsoever, either from the king or any other, and that the justices shall proceed as if no such writs, letters, order, message or other commandment were come to them.'

Nor were the judges without examples, in the conduct of their predecessors, of practical illustrations of this doctrine. When the judges, before Lord Coke's work were written, were engaged in a contest with a corporation yet more powerful than the East India Company, namely, the whole Church of England, who demanded of them that they should not grant prohibitions to the Church Courts in the way accustomed, the judges made that answer to the ecclesiastical judges which I now make to the governor and council of this little presidency. It is a strange presumption in them to require that the King's Courts shall not do that which by law they ought to do, and have always done, and which by oath they are bound to do. And if this shall be holden inconvenient, and they can in discharge of us obtain some Act of Parliament to take it from us, they shall do unto us a great ease. But the law of the realm cannot be changed but by Parliament, and what relief or ease such an act may work to the subject wise men will soon find out, and discern.'

He then cited at length the famous controversy of Queen Elizabeth with the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, in which the latter made the obligation of their oaths an argument for refusing to alter the practice of their Court, when her Majesty required them; and her Majesty's submission to their determination on being convinced that their conduct was constitutional; that she sacrificed her own will and inclination rather than the existing laws and practice of the Court should be violated.

I have been induced to translate this report at some length, and refer to the answer of all the judges of England to the Church in King James the First's reign, and to the summary made by Lord Coke, of the nature of an English judge's duty, in reference to attempts by persons in authority to induce him either to act, or to abstain from acting, otherwise than agreeably to his interpretation of the law-by the consideration of two very material errors which seem to me to prevail here.

The errors I mean are these; first in regard to the totally independent, secluded and unbending nature of the office and character of an English judge--independent of all fear of displeasure, and all hopes of reward-secluded from the influence of all views of political expediency, and even from the knowledge of the wishes or opinions of the government? unbending, as bound to an even course of action by the most solemn engagements, the bequest of unimpeachable integrity and moral courage transmitted to him through a long line of official predecessors, and the observant confidence of an enlightened and virtuous nation. The second error is this; that it seems not to be understood that the king's judges in India are invested with the same dignity, entrusted with the same authority, and bound by the same obligations with his judges in England. This Court is of higher dignity in this presidency than the Court of Common Pleas in the realm of England-and from the nature of its jurisdiction, it is more essential that it should be on its guard against the influence or interference of those in power. Yet it seems to have been supposed either that the king's judges in India are not bound by the same oaths with his judges in England, or that the Court here would not dare to refuse that compliance with the commands of the governor and council of Bombay, which the Court of Common Pleas refused to yield to the commands of Queen Elizabeth, in the fulness of her power, and in the greatest splendour of her glory. But Queen Elizabeth well knew that the independence and integrity of her judges were the greatest safeguards of her throne, and it would have been well if those intrusted with the government here had followed her example, and had ventured to doubt their own notions of the law, when they found them in direct opposition to the opinions of the judges.

The well-known letter addressed by the Governor and Council to the judges, so far back as under date the 3d of October last, announced to the judges the desire of the Governor and Council that the Court should abstain from any acts, legal or not legal, which, under measures they did not mention the nature of, would produce collision with their authority, which acts, if the judges should perform them, the Governor and Council intimate their intention to oppose. It was an opposition to acts legal or not, for the words used were, howsoever legal you, the judges, may deem them'-and there being no other persons who can decide on their illegality, if the judges deem them legal they must be taken to be legal, until, in such cases as may be lawfully appealed from, their decision shall be reversed by the Court of Appeal. It was an offer of opposition which in all cases set the law at defiance, and what the acts might be, which the government would so oppose, was left general and indefinite. So that when performing any act, or resolving on any act, the Court could not know whether it was to be opposed or not.

This was therefore announcing to the whole population, as well as to the Court itself, the assumption of a power to resist the decisions and the process of the Court when the Governor and Council should think fit,-a power to control the Court, whereas the Court was established, as declared in Parliament, to control them. It was, so far as in them lay, a complete inversion of the respective positions of the authorities by law. They are bound to govern according to law: what is the law, is ex-necessitate to be declared by the King's judges under the sanction of their oaths.

After recapitulating the whole circumstances of the affair, he said :—

They must either believe that the sacred justice of the king is a puppet to be played with at their pleasure, or that the balance has fallen into the unsteady and trembling hands of infancy or of dotage.

He then recited the correspondence with the Governor, and animadverted on the reply received, and stated his having appealed to England, and concluded with saying:

I have carefully weighed all the evils of a temporary closing of the doors of His Majesty's Court of Judicature; but I have no longer any choice.-It is not I who close its doors, but those who have taken upon themselves to paralize its authority, and to render its attempts to exercise it the occasions of unlawful violence, or the objects of unseemly contempt.

I have therefore to announce that this Court has ceased on all its sides, and that I shall perform none of the functions of a judge of the Supreme Court, until the Court receives an assurance that its authority will be respected, and its process obeyed, and rendered effectual by the government of this presidency.

The Insolvent Debtor's Court, being a separate Court from the Supreme Court, and the closing it upon the hopes of so many who are now looking to it for relief, carrying with it so much apparent hardship, I shall sit in that Court on the days appointed-in the hope that the Supreme Court may be restored to its functions before there can be a necessity for any appeal to it from the Court for the relief of Insolvent Debtors.

On the receipt of the judge's petition, His Majesty's Council came to the following decision:-That the writs of habeas corpus were improperly issued in the two cases referred to in the petition of Sir J. P. Grant. That the Supreme Court has no power or authority to issue a writ of habeas corpus, except when directed either to a person resident within those local limits wherein such Court has a general jurisdiction, or to a person out of such local limits, who is personally subject to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. That the Supreme Court has no power or authority to issue a writ of habeas corpus to the gaoler or officer of a Native court as such officer, the Supreme Court having no power to discharge persons imprisoned under the authority of a Native court. That the Supreme Court is bound to notice the jurisdiction of the Native court, without having the same specially set forth in the return to a writ of habeas corpus.'