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the part of the respondents, in support of the construction which they contended for; and if any had been offered it would have been objected to, great part of it being totally inadmissible. That the purport and nature of the evidence was not on the hearing of the cause, or on the respondents petition, either read or stated to the Court. That upon the hearing of all appeals from an inferior to [467] a superior Court, this principle universally prevails, that no evidence can be received which was not laid before the Court below; nor can any evidence which was received below, be objected to above, unless the admission of improper evidence be among the points of the appeal; for if it were otherwise, the superior Court, instead of determining on the rectitude of the decree appealed from, would be exercising an original, not an appellate jurisdiction; and might appear to be imputing errors to the Court below, where there was no pretence that any had been committed. It is not indeed unusual to rectify minutes taken at the time of pronouncing a decree, where something which really passed, and ought to have been entered, has by mistake been omitted; but the objection in the present case was, that the order, though founded on a petition to rectify the minutes, applied to a point in which the minutes were not wrong, but clearly right; and the entering this evidence as read, was not conformable to, but directly against the truth of the case. There may have been instances, where, with a view to save time, evidence which has been stated on one side, admitted on the other, and judged of by the Court, has been entered as read, though it was not actually read at the hearing; but an order to enter evidence as read, which was not read, nor at all in the consideration of the Court, at the time of pronouncing the decree, was conceived to be without precedent. And if, on the hearing of the appeal in this cause from the Lord Chancellor's decree, the evidence on both sides was to be gone into, a case would be laid before the house, totally different from that which was before his Lordship.

On the other side it was said (A. Wedderburn, R. Perryn, J. Madocks, J. Ord), that it is, and always has been the practice of the Court of Chancery, to receive petitions from either side to rectify the minutes of any order or decree pronounced by the Court, while the same rests in minutes, without being drawn up by the Register in form; and to vary or alter such minutes, if the Court shall see sufficient cause, at any time before the order or decree be regularly passed by the Register, and entered. That while the decree rests in minutes, it is to be considered as imperfect, and liable to be altered at any time, by application to the Lord Chancellor, in order to make the same perfect and agreeable to his Lordship's opinion, before it is drawn up. For if appeals from imperfect minutes were to prevent any alteration in them, it would subject parties to great inconvenience, and would debar the Lord Chancellor from rectifying his minutes, though the necessity might arise from mere inaccuracies in penning, or from the Register's not being exact in taking them down. That the direction in the present case, for entering the evidence on both sides as read, was both just and necessary. In the course of the hearing, the written evidence on the part of the respondents, to shew the several leases possessed by the partners on the 17th of April 1727, and those acquired after that period, had been stated to the Court, and admitted without being read; but no notice was taken of this in the minutes. The parol evidence had not been read, because the opinion of the Court in the respondents favour was given upon the argument itself; it was therefore unnecessary [468] to read proofs in confirmation of that opinion. But the evidence itself was competent and proper; not only as it explained the view with which the parties entered into the agreement of April 1727, but also proved by the acts of the appellant, his brother and his father, as they respectively became owners of the estates, for a great number of years, that they as well as the respondents understood, that the agreement extended to collieries acquired since signing the articles. It is equally fair to both parties, when a cause is carried to a superior judicature by appeal, that it should be fully heard before the appellate jurisdiction, and either party at liberty to resort to the evidence; and this is so generally understood, that it is a common practice on hearing a cause, where there is a probability of appeal, to enter all the evidence on both sides as read. Besides, the appellant himself had entered evidence, under the very order from which he now appealed.

After hearing counsel on this appeal, it was ordered and adjudged, that the