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of the court, to any person whatever, other than to his respective clerks or servants, for whom he was to answer, except by the order of the said court.

On the 4th of February 1706, a bill was presented to the House of Commons for the purpose of giving the six clerks a recompence for the taking away (as it was alledged) of their offices, and for appointing attornies for, and better keeping the records [547] of the court. And on the 5th of December, in the same year 1706, the House came to a resolution, whereby, after taking notice of the before mentioned orders of the 4th March 1657, and the 18th February 1658, and also of a petition presented to the House, by or on the behalf of the then six clerks, who therein styled themselves the present attornies of the court, and stated, that the sworn clerks had incroached upon their fees, it was ordered, that the petition should be referred to a committee therein named; and that it should be an instruction to the said committee, that they should consider of the ancient fees belonging to the Courts of Justice, both in law and equity.

On the 13th of February 1706, the committee made their report; and therein stated the evidence of a great number of witnesses that had been examined, with intent to prove that the six clerks were the attornies of the court; and also the resolution of the committee thereupon, which was as follows: "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the petitioners, the six clerks in Chancery, had not made good the allegations in their said petition;" which resolution of the committee was agreed to by the House, and the said petition of the six clerks dismissed.

By statute of the 4th and 5th of Ann, chap. 16. intitled, "An act for the amendment of the law, and the better advancement of justice," it was, among many other things, enacted. That no copy, abstract, or tenor of any bill in equity, should go with the dedimus or commission for taking any defendant's answer; but in lieu and satisfaction thereof, the sworn clerks of the Court of Chancery should take to their own use, in all causes, the whole term fees of 3s. 4d. and also the whole fee or fees of and for all small writs made by the said sworn clerks.

On the 2d of September 1734, a commission issued by order of King George II. under the great seal, (in consequence of an address of parliament,) directed to certain commissioners therein named, to enquire into the fees and duties of various offices in law and equity.

This commission was returned on the 11th November 1734; and by the inquest taken thereon, it was found, as to the office of six clerk of the Court of Chancery, and as to what officers, clerks, and ministers, did and ought of right to belong and appertain to the said office, that to the said office did belong six principal clerks, commonly called Six Clerks, who were officers of great antiquity, and were, theretofore, the only attornies of the court; and that they had formerly uncertain numbers of under clerks, or sworn clerks, for transacting of their respective business; that the number of these clerks had, at different times, by several orders, been increased and diminished; and that, by an order of the 10th of December 1718, it was ordered, that no new clerks should be sworn, for the future, into the seat of any sworn clerk dying, till each six clerks division should be reduced to the number of ten; and that the said sworn clerks and waiting clerks then chiefly did the suitors business of the said court in the said office; and as to the fees of the said office, it was found that the fees of [548] the six clerks, and sworn and waiting clerks, consisted of the particulars thereby certified and enumerated, such particulars being in substance the same as are mentioned in the order of the 18th June 1688 before stated, with such variations only as are prescribed by the act of the 4th and 5th of Queen Ann, before also mentioned. And as to the duties of the six clerks and the sworn clerks respectively, it was found, that it was the duty of the six clerks to receive and file all bills, answers, replications, and other records, in all causes on the equity side of the Court of Chancery, in their respective divisions in the said office, and to enter the names of the parties in each cause, with the time of each record's being filed, in books by them to be kept for that purpose. That the six clerks had the charge, care, and custody of the records filed in their respective divisions, and that they were to see that the same were regularly sorted, bundled, and transmitted from them to their respective record rooms, and disposed of there in proper order; and that calendars or lists were made thereof for the more easy search and finding of the same. That