•3« PAST AND PRESENT OF case ended when the property in dispute and the parties concerned were alike exhausted. As at first constituted, this court ap¬ pears to have been capable of little useful work, while on the other hand it was a pow¬ erful engine in the hands of the executive, for the time being, {owork out obliquely political or personal ends. The famous "Contempt Case" of 1823 wherein, on the complaint of , son-in-law of the chancellor, attachments were issued against John Stew ¬ art, Donald McDonald , Paul Mabey , John McGregor , William Dockendoff and Thomas Owen illustrates at once the power vested in the chancellor and the abuse of which it was capable. The country did not approve of the methods and policy of Chancellor Smith in administering the affairs of the colony or of his court. At meetings held in the several counties resolutions condemning his admin¬ istrations were passed and it was resolved that the same should be embodied in an ad¬ dress to the crown praying for the removal of the lieutenant governor. These resolutions were published in "The Register", a newspaper edited by Mr. Haz ¬ ard. They were published by the authority of the persons above named, who had been appointed a committee to carry them into effect. The committee assumed the responsi¬ bility for their publication and exonerated Mr. Hazard , who was discharged by the chancellor with this admonition: "I com¬ passionate your youth and inexperience. Did I not do so I would lay you by the heels long enough for you to remember it. But I caution you when you publish anything again keep clear, sir, of a chancellor! beware, sir, I say, of a chancellor!" The particular resolution responsible for the disturbance reads as follows: "That this meeting consider the conduct of Lieutenant Governor Smith as chancellor as highly oppressive and illegal in authorizing charges under the name of costs and fees being taken from suitors in that court far exceeding in amount what was ex¬ acted by his predecessors, the former lieu¬ tenant governors of the Island and totally unautiiorized by the act of the assembly for regulating fees of office in this government; which act he has entirely laid aside by his own authority, so far as concerns the officers of the court of chancery, and that the altera¬ tion has taken place since the lieutenant gov¬ ernor superseded the attorney general in the office of register and master in chancery appointing thereto his son-in-law, , a lieutenant on half-pay." A full re¬ port of the proceedings is given in "The Register" of that time, the copies of which are in the possession of Hon . L. C. Owen , who kindly placed the same at the disposal of the writer. The contempt proceedings had practically no direct result but incidentally they show the abuse of which the system was capable. James Bardin Palmer acted for the complainant. Lane, and Charles Binns for the committee. The report of the trial discloses the fact that those men were lawyers of first-rate ability and that Chancellor Smith was capable of maintaining his opinions to the uttermost. By the statute above referred to the court was first placed upon a working basis. His Majesty was empowered thereby to appoint a fit person to combine and fill the offices of master of the rolls to the court of chancery and assistant judge of the supreme court. In all cases, except on appeals from his decision before the Chancellor, he was to be deemed the responsible adviser and judge of the court of chancery, with a general power to sign rules, orders and decrees made by him