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to every aggregate corporation, without any express words in the charter. That the power of electing Burgesses and Freemen of this borough, was by the charter expressly given to the Mayor and Commonalty, together with the Aldermen of the same borough; and therefore the Commonalty were constituent parts of the body, by whom [336] this power was to be exercised; whereas the Mayor and Aldermen frankly declared it to be their purpose in this bye-law, to take this power wholly to themselves, in exclusion of the Commonalty. In this respect the bye-law was repugnant to an essential part of the charter, and so substantially bad, that no usage or acquiescence under it, could make it good.

After hearing counsel on this writ of error, the Judges were directed to give their opinions on the following question, viz. "Whether the bye-law, as set forth in the defendants plea, be, or be not a good bye-law?" And the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer having delivered the unanimous opinion of the Judges in the negative, it was thereupon ordered and adjudged, that the judgment given in the Court of King's Bench should be affirmed; and that the record should be remitted, to the end such proceeding might be had thereon, as if no such writ of error had been brought into the house. (MS. Jour, sub anno 1772. p. 669.)

City of Chester, and County of the said City.—Be it remembered, that James Templer, Esq. Coroner and Attorney of our present sovereign Lord the King, in the court of our said Lord the King, before the King himself, who for our said Lord the King in this behalf prosecutes in his proper person, comes here into the court of our said Lord the King, before the King himself at Westminster, on Friday next after the morrow of the Holy Trinity, and for our said Lord the King, at the relation of Ralph Eddowes, of the city of Chester, merchant, according to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, gives the court here to understand and be informed, that the city of Chester is an ancient city, and that the Mayor and Citizens of the said city now are, and for the space of ten years now last past have been, and long before were, a body corporate and politic, in deed, fact, and name, by the name of Mayor and Citizens of the city of Chester, (that is to say,) at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city. And the said Coroner and Attorney of our said present sovereign Lord the King, for our said present Lord the King, gives the court here further to understand and be informed, that for and during the whole time aforesaid, there have been divers, to wit, twenty-four Aldermen within and for the said city of Chester, (that is to say,) at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city; and that the office of an Alderman of the said city of [337] Chester is, and for and during the whole time aforesaid hath been, a public office, and a place and office of great trust and pre-eminence within the said city of Chester, touching the rule and government of the said city, and the administration of public justice within the same city, that is to say, at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city; and that Thomas Amery, of the said city of Chester, in the county of the same city of Chester, linen-draper, upon the first day of December, in the year of our Lord 1784, at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city, did use and exercise, and from thence continually afterwards, to the time of exhibiting this information at the city of Chester aforesaid, in the county of the same city, hath there used and exercised, and yet doth there use and exercise, without any legal warrant, royal grant, or right what-