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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0680 and id is 1 raw text is: HICKES V. COOKE [1816]
tion fund, etc.-What right then did this act give 7 It gave a right merely to the
sums, but no right beyond that; and yet this information, which [15] is founded on
the act, claims interest to which the act gives no title.
It has been objected to the information that the merchants from whom these fees
had been taken might claim them. But no such claim has been made, nor could well
be made with effect; and at any rate that signifies nothing now, as the act directs the
money to be applied to this fund.
It was the receiver's duty to obey the act, and the act would be his indemnity. I
therefore think the decree right as to the sums received, and as to the giving interest
from the time when the receiver was in default in not paying which could not be before
the passing of the act 47 Geo. 3.
The information was then filed, and these fees were public, money, for which the
Attorney General might alone sue.-The fund is for the remun6ration of public officers,
and is therefore a public fund, though in the nature of a charity. There can be no
objection therefore to the decree in principle, the only question being whether the act
was to be obeyed or not.
As to the costs, that is a different question. The surviving waiters insisted upon what
they conceived to be their rights. The receiver was in the nature of a stake-holder, and
might fairly submit the question whether he ought to pay the surplus to them. The
Court of K. B. decided that they had no right to them. The money had been paid
into the Court of Exchequer, and the question at the hearing was chiefly as to the
interest and costs. The information was several times amended, which was an admis-
sion that there was some foundation for the Ap-[16]-pellant's objections. But the
Appellant was properly charged with interest for the time during which he kept the
money in his hands after the filing of the information in 1807, because then by paying
the money into Court he might certainly have indemnified himself. But where there
had been so much doubt it was hard upon the Appellant to say that he should pay the
costs of the Crown as well as his own, and even to his own he would be entitlel
according to the rules of Courts of Equity if he had at first paid the money into Court.
I agree therefore that the decree ought to be affirmed, subject to the proposed altera-
tions.
Decree accordingly affirmed, with these alterations as to interest and costs.
Agent for Appellant, PALMER.
Agent for Respondent, SUDLOW.
IRELAND.
APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CHANCERY.
HICKES,-Appellant; CooKE,-Respondent [Feb. 23, March 14, 1816].
[Mews' Dig. xiv. 1084, 1718, 1772. Commented on in Ford v. Olden, 1867, L. R.
3 Eq. 461.]
[Length of time, or long acquiescence in a transaction, may be a bar to relief in
cases where the transaction, if impeached within a reasonable time, would
be set aside.]
[Therefore where a fee-farm grant or lease, at a fixed rent, was made of mort-
gaged premises by the mortgagor to the mort-[17]-gagee, in which there was
an acquiescence for nearly fifty years-though the transaction wis of a
nature to be set aside if impeached within a reasonable time-the House
of Lords, affirming the decree below, held that length of time was a bar
to the relief.]
[Dicente Lord Eldon (C.) that the transaction was one of that description
which Courts of Equity always regarded with a great deal of jealousy.]
1074
IV DOW.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0680&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)