T 1/490/147 - Charles Searle asks for a better salary

To The Right Hon'ble The Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury

The Memorial of Charles Searle His Majesty's Attorney Genl of the Isle of Man

Must Humbly setts forth

That your memorialist has executed this Office for above four years & an halfe passed with great care and assiduity, & he now finds that the Salary of £100 @ an [?not] adequate to the Trouble, not sufficient to support the [ text lost along tear ] Character He is honored with.

That the Emoluments of his Office are so inconsiderable as to have amounted to no more than £22 in the whole time; That the business of the Courts of Law & Equity where his Predecessor made 3 or £400 a year as an Advocate is dwindled to nothing for want of Trade, and does not now produce to your Memorialist above £30 a year.

That He is constantly called on to different parts of the Island, at much Expence to himself to attend Inquests for Larcenies & Felonies, for Encroachments on the Harbours, for the Prosecution of Fines, & all Revenue Matters without any Fee or Perquisite; And He is moreover obliged by his Oath of Office to sollicit & plead the Causes of Widows & Orphans for the customary fee of Two Pence, in which his Trouble is infinite.

That He is the only subordinate Patent Officer whose Fees & Perquisites do not equall or far exceed their Salaries which are all £100.

Your memoriallist therefore most humbly represents his Case and begs such an advancement of his Salary as to your Ldships widsom & Goodness shall seem meet.

Cha Searle

Notes

The document is badly water damaged and is in two parts with some loss of text, undated; other documents in the file date to 1772 - he was appointed Attorney General following the death of John Quillin in January 1768 and was the first such appointed by Westminster - the official notification being dated 10th August 1768 though he seems to have been in post prior to this. He died 29th April 1774 leaving more debts than assets.

He is generally credited as the author of an anonymous pamphlet which may have landed him the position after the early death of John Quillin. The point re encroachment to harbours probably refers to another document in the same file arising when the Duke of Atholl, acting in his manorial role, granted in 1772 permission to enclose a part of the shore adjacent to the harbour which encroachment had previously been refused in 1746 and the land then deemed a public part thereof being used by fishermen, this grant thus conflicting with the transfer of all Ports to the Crown in 1765.