Page:Vindicationoflaw00hath.djvu/17

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ON SOCIAL PRINCIPLES.
9

the rules of the Ecclesiastical Court (that Court alone having jurisdiction upon the question), by the rules which govern the temporal Courts. But they hold the same principles on this subject as the Ecclesiastical, and would act upon them, if they could entertain the question."

I have, however, given the clear opinions of the several learned lords upon these points more fully in the Appendix. They will repay the perusal. It is amusing to observe that the Rev. Mr. Bacon, who has addressed a letter to the Bishop of Lichfield on the subject, in which he appears to be in a very great passion with myself for my speech at Willis's Rooms, complains that I assert such marriages were always void by the law of England, and then adds these words: "It is a most remarkable thing that the Vice-Chancellor, to prove it not virtually permitted, cites the case of a Scotch gentleman married in England having property in Scotland, in which it was decreed a child of such marriage could not inherit. Why is dust thus thrown in the eyes? We are speaking of England, not of Scotland. Here many properties are inherited under such marriages." If this gentleman will only take the trouble to read the case, or even the Appendix to this letter, he will see the point wholly turned on English law, and not on Scotch law. If the marriage had been good by the law of England, the child would have inherited the land in Scotland. I do not think it necessary to answer