The following sketch of that history may prove interesting to lawyers, who, if they wish to know more of it, will find its details in the seventh, tenth, twelfth and thirteenth volumes of the Vermont Reports. On the 1 5th of October, 1832, Roswell M. Field, a young lawyer of Newfane, Ver mont, carried away from a ladies' seminary in that vicinity a rather mature schoolgirl, named Mary Almira Phclps. The pursuit of the young couple was immediate and very hot. It did not overtake them in time to prevent the legal ceremony of their marriage, but they were overtaken, and the bride was either compelled or persuaded to return to her school, before the consummation of the marriage by cohabitation. Failing to se cure the person of his bride, the nominal husband determined to go after her property, which he claimed had been fraudulently absorbed by the mother of the bride from the estate of her father, claiming to be his wife when she was only his mistress. Field commenced an action by the remarkable bill in chancery described in my former article, and caused the entire bill, with its extremely unpleasant details, to be published in the local newspaper. This publication created an intense ex citement in the rural community where the bride and her family lived. Mrs. Torrey, the bride's mother, immediately com menced an action against Field, alleging that the publication was libellous, and de manding in damages ten thousand dollars. Such was the origin of the cause celebre of Torrey v. Field. As soon as the writ and declaration were served upon him the young attorney retired into the privacy of his bachelor apartments and there evolved from his inner conscious ness his defense to the action. He pre pared ten special pleas in bar. One of them, bearing the number three, alleged the pen dency of the bill in chancery, the order of the chancellor for the publication of the notice, and the publication pursuant to the
order. Each of the nine others justified the publication in whole or in part upon a variety of grounds. The substantial defense asserted was that the facts stated in the pleas were true, or were by -the defendant believed to be true upon due enquiry. Until he had tried the experiment no pleader could appreciate the questions raised by these ten pleas. It was necessary to consider each one per se, and to decide whether it was in law an answer to that por tion of the alleged libel which it professed to answer. If it was, it must be traversed or denied, — if it was not, it must be de murred to for insufficiency. In every case there was the risk that the Court would not agree with the pleader. Finally, after much consultation, the counsel for the plaintiff entered the snare which the pleader had set for them, and demurred to each one of the ten special pleas. In such a case, if any one of the ten pleas was held to be a good an swer to the whole declaration, there must be a judgment for the defendant, no matter if the remaining nine pleas were worthless. The County Court decided that several of the pleas were good and gave judgment for the defendant, and the case went to the Su preme Court upon exceptions. There have been few American appellate courts with judges whose legal learning was superior to that of those who held the Feb ruary term, 1838, of the Vermont Supreme Court in Windsor County. It is quite suffi cient to give their names, for all of them ac quired national reputations. They were Charles II. Williams, Chief Justice; Stephen Royce, Samuel S. Phelps and Isaac F. Redfield, associate justices. The opinion in the case under consideration was written by Judge Redfield. As an illustration of the principles of special pleading, to define the issues of fact to be decided by a jury in a complicated case, the opinion was a master piece. The first and second pleas were held good as far as they went, but they attempted to justify matters of inducement, only, and
