142
Thursday the 13th of May.
The plaintiff is heavily indebted to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and he has assigned to the Bank, with other property, the alleged debt sued for in this suit; and it came to my knowledge that the Chief Justice is a shareholder in the Bank. I took the earliest opportunity of calling His Honour's attention to this state of affairs. His Honour would thereupon have left the Bench and matters must have come to a deadlock, unless I had accepted the only alternative of consenting to his Honour hearing the appeals - a position in which all persons will be placed who happen to be litigants with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.
Upon the 13th, 14th and 15th of May the whole case was argued. The plaintiff, for the first time, suggested that the King of Annam, by the letter to the Chief Justice brought here, had submitted himself absolutely to the jurisdiction of the Court and that he could not now "object" to the seizure of his ship, whatever he might have done at first. The whole matter was discussed on all points by both Counsel in order that this hearing might be final, as far as this Court is concerned, but the Bench, intimating that the order for setting the cause down for hearing seemed to preclude the defendant from asking for a decision upon the jurisdiction of the Court before the hearing, I applied to amend the petition so as to ask for a decision, notwithstanding that order. Kaylar consented.