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appellant went to trial, this objection might be made by the respondents against his legal title.

But admitting that the plea was good in form and substance, yet the defendants had, by their answer, over-ruled it. The bill in this case had a double aspect; it prayed, that the leases might be either set aside, or decreed to be a trust for the appellant. And there was no legal inconsistency in the alternative; for though the statute of Charles I. declares leases made contrary to that act void, they were only in consideration of law voidable, and in the power of a Court of Equity to mould in such manner as to answer the justice of the case; which possibly at the hearing of the cause might appear to be, to put the appellant in the place of the defendants, without prejudice to their under-tenants, whom the appellant always avowed an intention to preserve in their possessions under the present leases, which was also declared by his counsel upon the argument, and the only account prayed by the bill, was of the rents reserved under their leases. The defendants themselves, by their pleadings, had admitted the possibility, that the appellant might, at the hearing, succeed as to that part of his bill, which sought that these leases might be decreed a trust for him; and though a discovery of the value of the lands at the time of making the leases, must be acknowledged as essential to found that part of the relief sought by the bill, that the leases might be decreed a trust for the appellant, as to found that other part of the relief which prayed that they might be set aside; yet it seemed extraordinary, that the defendants could expect that a plea to this discovery of the value should be allowed, while that part of the alternative as to the trust, to which such [537] discovery was equally essential, remained uncovered by the plea; and that a plea to the discovery of the rents at which the lands were set by Dr. Andrews, or any trustee for him, should be allowed, when, if the appellant succeeded in that part of his bill relative to the trust, such an account must be directed, and such a discovery had from the defendants; and further, that this plea should be allowed, by which the appellant was entirely precluded from impeaching these leases, though the answering to such parts of the bill as related to the trust, admitted the possibility that the defendants might be divested of all beneficial interest therein, in favour of the appellant. If the leases should be decreed a trust for him, the two decrees would be inconsistent; the first determined, that the appellant should not be at liberty to impeach these leases in a Court of Equity, the second would give him the benefit of them.

The Provost's duty to preserve all the lands and possessions of the college, and so to administer them as not to seek his own advantage; his endeavouring to obtain his advantage, in a manner never before practised; his obligation to use the college seal, for no other purpose than to authenticate the acts of the body at large; the breach of trust in that respect; the untrue recitals in these leases; the improper entry in the register; the breaking the former leases at the expence of the college, and at so great a loss to that body, and the carrying on the suits for the eviction of those leases, at the sole expence of the college, and taking the surveys of those estates at the like expence; were circumstances distinguishing the present case from all others, and required the fullest discovery and discussion, before it should be determined, that the doors of a Court of Equity should be shut against the appellant and his successors.

As to the demurrer, the allowing it supposed, that though all the facts in the bill were true, yet it contained no equity. From such determination, and the principles on which it was founded, it would follow, that no reduction of the rents of church, college, or hospital lands, nor any means used to conceal such reduction, by fictitious evidence, nor any frauds practised in setting any of their possessions, ought to induce a Court of Equity to give the least assistance; a principle which might be attended with the most fatal consequences to public charities, the great seminary of learning, and the established religion of the kingdom of Ireland.

On the other side it was said (E. Thurlow, A. Wedderburn, J. Madocks), that the relief prayed by the bill was in the alternative, either that the leases might be set aside, or that the respondent Gamble, the lessee, might be declared a trustee as to them, for the appellant and his successors. The first part of the relief was founded upon two charges, inconsistent with each other: 1st, That the leases made by Dr.