“The last witness was the Master of the Rolls, who, notwithstanding the experience he had had as one of the law officers of the Crown in administering the Patent-Laws, and although he took charge of the first Bill which the Government proposed on the subject, was decidedly of opinion that Patent-Laws were bad in principle, and were of no advantage either to the public or inventors.... All the evidence that had been brought before the Committee, both of the gentlemen who were opposed to the system of Patents and those who were most strongly in favour of it, had only tended to confirm his previous opinion that the whole system is unadvisable for the public, disadvantageous to inventors, and wrong in principle. The result of the experience acquired by the present Vice-Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench had raised great doubts in their minds as to whether a law of Patents was advantageous. The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas likewise had written him a letter, which he authorised him to make what public use of he pleased, declaring his concurrence in his opinion that a law of Patents was neither advantageous to the public nor useful to inventors.... The only persons, he believed, who derived any advantage from the Patent-Laws were members of the legal profession. Except perhaps warranty of horses, there was no subject which offered so many opportunities for sharp practice as the law of Patents. As regards scientific men, too, the practice of summoning them as witnesses on trials respecting Patents had an injurious, if not a demoralising, effect.... They sometimes allowed themselves to be betrayed into giving a more favourable opinion of the merits of an invention than was strictly accurate.” Lord Harrowby judiciously said, in reference to the proposition then for the first time made to exempt the Colonies from the incidence of British Patents— “The colonial refiner would be enabled to avail himself of every new invention in the manufacture of sugar, to the prejudice of the home refiner, who would have to pay for the Patent-right.” Lord Campbell— “Having been some years a law officer of the Crown, had some experience as regarded the question at issue, and he begged to say that he entirely approved of the view of his noble friend, Earl Granville.” Sir James Graham, on Aug. 5 of the same year, observed—