# Manx Primary Source Archive — Transcription

**Source image:** `20260219_143711-2.jpg`  
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-25 19:26  
**Method:** Automated (Claude Batch API — claude-opus-4-6)

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41

be called on to apply that remedy, the House of
Keys beg leave, respectfully, but firmly, to deny.
To propose that Parliament should interfere,
wantonly, in the interior legislation of an unre-
presented country, must excite reflections, other
than that such interference on the present occa-
sion is utterly necessary.

Whilst these sheets are passing the press, the
agents for the House of Keys learn from public
rumor, that a Court of General Gaol-Delivery
was holden on the 21st instant, when the actual
exclusion of the Keys from that Court was, for
the first time since its institution, carried into
effect, by the instructions, it is asserted, of His
Majesty's Secretary of State. The unanimous
protest of the Keys was then received, and read:
one of the accused persons made the attempt to
avail himself of their absence, as rendering the
Court defective, and their proceedings illegal:
he pleaded to the jurisdiction. On this plea, the
opinions of the two Deemsters being taken, these
were found diametrically opposite, on the impor-
tant question, whether the presence of the Keys,
then and there, was indispensable.

The prisoner's plea was in the event over-
ruled: but it deserves most serious remark, that
by the law, constitution, and never-varying prac-
tice of that Island, in all difficult questions of law,
it lies with the Deemsters and the 24 Keys

F