Volume 1

Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart].

  • Andrew Stuart
Date:
[1773]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/208 (page 7)
    / [ 7 ] any one of fhefe, and there is not in the whole of Mena- ger’s depofitions any article or circumftance that can be of the fmalleft utility to the party he meant to fupport. To what a fituation muft the proof in this, or any other caufe of the fame nature, be reduced, if, after examining hundreds of witneffes upon material faffs, and after col¬ lecting great variety of written evidence, it {hall be in the power of one {ingle witnefs, to break in pieces the whole chain of circumftances, and all the proofs of the oppofite party, merely by his committing to memory, and repeat¬ ing a few words or circumftances which he pretends to have learnt from a deceafed friend, or by fuperadding a few circumftances to a faff which had feme real founda¬ tion, but which, without thefe circumftances, bore no fimilitude to the faff in queition ? But what {hall we fay, my Lord, if the teftimony thus afforded by Menager, inftead of fupporting the ftory folemnly and judicially told by Sir John Stewart, concern¬ ing the perfon employed by him to deliver his wife Lady Jane Douglas, relates to a ftory fuppofed to be told to this witnefs by a different perfon ; one totally incompatible with the furgeon employed by Sir John Stewart for the de¬ livery, and with whom Sir John muft be prefumed to have been well acquainted both on that occafion, and du¬ ring the courfe of the fixteen months while he had the charge of the youngeft twin. Will it be faid that this man Menager, who does not pretend to have ever feen Sir John Stewart, or Lady Jane Douglas, either in company with the accoucheur, or upon any other occafion, knew better than they did who it was that delivered Lady Jane, or, that a depoli- tion which neceffarily implies the falfhood of their ftory about the delivery, muft, at the fame time, be fuftained as complete evidence of that delivery, and of the cireum- ftances attending it. That