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[Page 5]
is true is seized of an Estate of Inheritance in the Cathedral church, but this Estate is clothed with a Trust. They are in fact Trustees of the Church for the purposes of Religion. The different Members of a Chapter the Bishop of the Diosese & others have personal Duties to perform, which can only be performed in the Cathedral & in most Chapters there are positive Statutes enjoining the support of the Fabrick: but if a Chapter cannot be prevented from wantonly & wilfully committing waste by a demolition of a part of these Cathedral Buildings it would follow that the whole Fabrick would be intirely at their Mercy, & thus the great Public purposes for which these Buildings were erected must cease, a consequence which surely cannot be allowable. I therefore think though I cannot cite a Precedent for my opinion, that the principle of public policy in preventing a Breach of Trust productive of a Public wrong, a principle which is I apprehend the Basis of the Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery on many other subjects, is a ground upon which an Information in the name of the Attorney General at the instance of private Relators may be sustained, & by means of which an Injunction may be obtained to restrain the Dean & Chapter of Lincoln from doing further Injury to the Cathedral, provided the Acts already done constitute what a Court of Equity would term waste.
This leads to another Question which deserves as much attention as the point of Jurisdiction, namely whether the Acts already done amount in the definition of a Court of Equity to Waste . It must be recollected that a Chapter though they are merely, as I conceive, seized of a Trust Estate in a cathedral, yet