Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/676

By indenture, dated the 30th of December 1748, Lord Coleraine, in consideration of good services, and faithful offices, done and performed by the appellant, gave and granted to her one annuity or rent-charge of £160 a-year, during their joint lives, to be issuing out of all his lands in Norfolk: and, by the same indenture, his Lordship also granted to the appellant another [417] annuity or rent-charge of £500 a-year, to commence immediately after his death, and to continue during her natural life; and to be issuing out of his lands in Norfolk.

Upon information given to the Lords of the Treasury, that the appellant, and her daughter Henrietta Rosa Peregrina, were aliens born, their Lordships were pleased to give directions to take care of the interest of the Crown on this occasion; and several commissions were accordingly issued under the great seal to commissioners therein named, to inquire, whether the appellant and her daughter were aliens, or not; and if they were, then to seize the lands and rents devised to them, into his Majesty's hands. But the appellant having got into her custody all the title deeds, and several papers that would shew the place of her birth, and having concealed the place of her own and of her daughter's birth, his Majesty's Attorney General, in Easter term 1751, exhibited an information, in the nature of an English bill, in his Majesty's Court of Exchequer, against the appellant and others, for a discovery of the respective places of the birth of her and her said daughter, and of divers matters and circumstances relating thereto; and to have the title deeds of Lord Coleraine's estate brought into court, and that the witnesses on behalf of his Majesty might be examined in perpetuam rei memoriam.

By this information it was, amongst other things, expressly charged, that the appellant and her daughter were both aliens born; and particularly, that the appellant was the daughter of Francis Duplessis, a French clergyman, that she was born in 1710, at Neufchâtel in Swisserland, that her father was born in Paris; that in August 1715, and not before, she, and her father, mother, and brother, and one David Imer her cousin, set out from Neuville, in Swisserland, to come to England, and soon after arrived here; and that this was the first time she or her father ever was in England, or in any of the dominions of the Crown of Great-Britain; and that she had lately received letters, or certificates, from her uncle Mr. Imer, a clergyman at Neuville, informing her, that she was born at Neufchâtel aforesaid, and that her father was a minister of the Gospel there; and that she and her father set out from Neuville to come to England, at such time, and in company with such persons as aforesaid; and that she had owned and acknowledged the same to divers persons. The information further charged, that in the latter end of 1744, or beginning of 1745, the appellant being with child by Lord Coleraine, went with him from England to Brussels, and from thence into Germany and Italy, and other foreign countries, and did not return into England till September 1746; that in August 1745, she wrote several letters from Italy, which were in some of the other defendants custody; that the appellant's daughter Henrietta was born at Crema, in Italy, on the 12th of September 1745; and that she and her daughter, being both aliens born, were by law incapable of holding any lands of inheritance, or any estate or interest therein, or any annuity or rent-charge issuing thereout, or any [418] chattels real, for their own benefit, but only for the benefit of his Majesty; who, in right of his Crown, and by virtue of his royal prerogative, was entitled to all such estate and interest of and in the real estate of Lord Coleraine, and all annuities and rent-charges issuing thereout, which, by his will, were devised to the appellant and her daughter; and also to the annuity or yearly rent-charge of £500 granted to the appellant by the deed of the 30th of December 1748. And it was further charged, that the said Henrietta Rosa Peregrina was, on the 13th of December 1748, baptised at the parish church of St. Mary in Colchester; and that, in the entry of her baptism in the register-book of that parish, it was expressly mentioned, that she was born 1st September 1745, in foreign parts, and not known to have received baptism there.

As to so much of this information, as sought to compel the appellant to discover whether she was an alien born out of the liegeance of the Crown of Great-Britain, and whatever else tended to the discovery of her being an alien; or that sought to have the pretended title of his Majesty to the estates, annuities, or rent-charges, in the information mentioned, tried at law; or that sought to have the possession of