Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/930

LVII. Item, We article and object to you, the said Dr. Richard Bentley, that notwithstanding there is not, by any of the statutes of the said college, any allowance made to the Master of the said college for the time being, for bread, beer, fuel, or any other provisions for himself and family at home; yet you the said Dr. Bentley have, for these twenty-three years last past, yearly consumed and wasted great and excessive quantities of the common provisions and stores belonging to the college, and applied the same to the use of yourself and private family at home, to the amount of several hundred pounds per ann. viz. in bread, meal, and beer, to the amount of £150 per ann. or upwards; and at the last audit the expence on that account amounted to £174 in coals and other fuel, to the amount some years more than £100 per ann. as by the college books of accounts, reference being thereto had, will appear. Hocque, etc. Et objicimus & articulamur de quilibet aliâ summa, etc. Et ut supra.

LVIII. Item, We article and object to you, the said Dr. Richard Bentley, that you have likewise, for these many years past, yearly spent and consumed several great sums of money out of the common stock of the said college, for linen and pewter, pretended to be used in your family at home, to the amount or value of £70, £60, or at least £50 per ann. and particularly in the last year, to the amount of £90 as by the college books of accounts, reference being thereunto had, will more fully appear. Et objicimus & articulamur de quilibet aliâ summi, etc. Et ut supra.

LIX. Item, We article and object to you, the said Dr. Richard Bentley, that you did, sometime in or about the year 1719, fraudulently, unjustly, collusively, and unknown to the respective members of the said college, contract and agree with Mr. Serjeant Miller, late one of the Fellows of the said college, to procure and obtain an allowance of £453 to be made to him the said Serjeant out of the college stock, over and above the sum of $100 before to him in hand paid, under pretence of reimbursing him, the said Serjeant, the charge it was pretended he had been at, in carrying on a prosecution against you, the said Dr. Bentley, before the Right Reverend Father in God, John Moore, late Lord Bishop of Ely, since deceased, as Visitor of the said college, for several great and enormous crimes by you committed, in the execution of your place or office of Master of the said college; but in reality and truth, such contract or agreement relating to the payment or allowance of the said sum of £453 was by you made with no other design, view, or intention, than to avoid the pursuit of justice, and to engage and oblige the said Serjeant to withdraw a certain petition that had been presented to his late Majesty King George I. on behalf of several of the Fellows of the said college, in order to ascertain the visitatorial power; and which the said Serjeant had by the said Fellows been entrusted to prosecute. Hocque, etc. Et objicimus & articulamur de quâlibet alio tempore & de quâlibet aliâ summâ, etc. Et ut supra.

LX. Item, We article and object to you, the said Dr. Richard Bentley, that in pursuance of such agreement, you did, on the 19th day of June 1719, at a meeting of the senior Fellows of the said college, propose and insist to have the said sum of #453 allowed and paid to the said Serjeant Miller, out of the common stock of the said college, upon the pretence in the next precedent article mentioned; and at the same time insisted, and peremptorily demanded, to have the sum of £500 paid or allowed to yourself out of the same stock, to reimburse you the charges which you pretended you had been at in defending yourself against such prosecution, but that such proposal and demands were all rejected by a majority of the seniors then present; notwithstanding which, you the said Dr. Richard Bentley did, on or about the 5th of December following, by vile and indirect practices, in the absence of three of the eight senior Fellows of the college, and against the consent of three of those present, procure an order or conclusion to be made and passed by other Fellows of the college not of the seniority, nor deputed by any of the three absent seniors, to allow and pay out of the college stock, to the said Serjeant, the said sum of £453, and to yourself the aforesaid sum of £500, upon the several pretences before mentioned; and that the said sums of £453 and £500 were afterwards paid to the said Serjeant Miller, and to you the said Dr. Bentley, by virtue of such pretended order or conclusion, out of the common stock of the said college, to the great waste and dimi-[233]-nution thereof, and to the great prejudice of the respective members of the said college. Hocque, etc. Et objicimus & articulamur de quibuslibet aliis tempore et summâ, etc. Et ut supra.