CLXVII. CHAP. He will be as much disposed to serve me as I could wish; and if he thinks this a proper occasion to demonstrate his friendship in any manner, I shall receive it with pleasure as a favour that I may be able to return. I will make no bargain nor desire any promise, for with a friend I would rather be obliged to his inclination to serve me than to the constraint of an engagement. In either event I have no wish to keep the present vacancy in suspense one moment. It is a very material object that it should be properly supplied. The Customs and Excise' will pay for the folly of a Chief Baron*, and it is neither expedient nor handsome to leave it open to such solicitations as I hear are used to obtain it." An accommodation was brought about by the promise of a sinecure and the highest judicial promotion in the wake of Thurlow. Wedder burn's the bar while be was Soli While Wedderburn held his present office, he shone forth practice at chiefly as a politician, and we do not hear much of his efforts at the bar. However he was in the full lead in the Court of Chancery against Thurlow, and by artful statement of facts, he was supposed to have more influence over the mind of Lord Bathurst than that formidable rival could acquire by a more confident manner, and a deeper knowledge of law.f He assisted, as counsel for the Crown, in the prosecution of citor General. At that time, it seems to have been considered that the only business of the Chief Baron was to try smugglers. When Sir W. Garrow was Attorney General, he claimed this office on the death of Chief Baron Thomson, but Lord Eldon claimed the patronage as belonging to the Great Seal, and showed that no Attorney General had been made Chief Baron for hundreds of years. I believe that Sir Vicary Gibbs was the first Attorney General who consented to become a Puisne Judge. "As an advocate, his merit is very considerable. He is patient, attentive, constant to his business, and speaks with judgment, force, and zeal. He discerns very readily the strong and weak parts of his cause, and accordingly dwells on, or hastens over them. He has practised constantly in the Court of Chancery, as the court in which his knowledge of the civil law would be of most use to him; and has obtained there a degree of eminence, in which, by reason of the Attorney General's indolence, he at present stands without a competitor. He is now warmly supported by the first influence in the kingdom, namely, those who are at the head of that set of men who term themselves' King's friends;' and it is only because the pretensions and interest of this gentleman and of the Attorney General are equally balanced, that they have both kept their places, and that the present Chancellor has been suffered to keep the Seals so long."- Extract from a Letter printed in the Public Advertiser, March 3. 1778, and signed "Observator." ** CLXVII. A. D. 1778. John Horne Tooke for a libel, but he contented himself with CHAP. examining a witness, to prove that the MS. from which it was printed was in the handwriting of the defendant, and after the conviction he did not join in praying that the infamous punishment of the pillory might be inflicted. He contrived to avoid being mixed up in the controversy which Thurlow conducted fiercely for so many years, respecting the rights of juries on trials for libel; and at no period of his career, till the breaking out of the French Revolution, did he show himself unfriendly to the liberty of the press. His best forensic argument was on the trial before the House of Lords of the Duchess of Kingston, for bigamy, to prove that the sentence she had collusively obtained in the Ecclesiastical Court against the validity of her first marriage was no bar to the prosecution. This was distinguished by lucid arrangement, cogent reasoning, and a scientific acquaintance with the great principles of juridical procedure, and it may now be studied both with pleasure and advantage. † Immediately upon the close of the Session, in June 1778, Thurlow received the Great Seal, and Wedderburn suc 20 State Trials, 651. 1380. Ante, Vol. V. Ch. CLVI. sence. - 20 State Trials, 464. The whole of it is too close and connected to admit of any extract being made of it— and it has the merit of great severity of composition avoiding even both proemium and peroration. The following is a very interesting account of this proceeding, by the Lord Justice Clerk Hope, from the narrative of his uncle, the late Earl of Haddington: -"Lord H. always spoke of W.'s oratory in the Duchess of Kingston's case as the most accomplished he ever heard. The case, as is well known, was got up by the Duchess herself, to show herself off, and attract notoriety after her long abOf course, the result was necessarily apparent to every one from the first. The scene was the great fashionable spectacle of the day, and attracted a great concourse. W. treated the whole affair exactly as the Duchess intended it to be, a useless and ostentatious exhibition. He neglected no part of the legal argument as to the sentence of the Ecclesiastical Court (as the report shows), but made that quite subordinate to the occasion of exalting himself, and eclipsing in the spectacle the Duchess herself. In this he completely succeeded. Thurlow was coarse, vehement, and full of zeal; and on the other side, the civilians laboured away as if any thing could follow out of the affair, but the laugh in which it all ended. W. played with the whole matter quizzed the Duchess inimitably, and with infinite wit-jeered Thurlow ning and the civilians, and delighted the few gentlemen and ladies who attended; and the very result of the solemn farce was what two of the persons acting in it intended,- that all London talked of the Duchess's splendid figure and appearance for her age, and of W.'s wit, eloquence, and superiority of public talent." bantered Dun CHAP. CLXVII. A. D. 1779. Wedderburn is Attorney General. Prosecu tion for deposing Lord Pigot. ceeded him as Attorney General.* He had to conduct one very important prosecution in the Court of King's Bench, which had been directed by the House of Commons against Mr. Stratton and other members of the council of Madras for deposing Lord Pigot from the Government of that presidency. His opening speech, and his reply, detailing and commenting upon very complicated transactions, were exceedingly able; but the case is now chiefly memorable for having called forth one of the earliest displays of the extraordinary eloquence of Erskine. The defendants being found guilty, Mr. Attorney, in obedience to his instructions, pressed for a sentence of imprisonment; but the Court let them off with a fine of 1000l. a-piece-to the high dissatisfaction of Edmund Burke, who repeatedly It would appear that shortly before this he had met with a great mortification in not being appointed to a sinecure, which he conceived that Lord North had promised him, and which was given to Mr. M'Kenzie. He writes to Mr. Eden: "If Lord North doubts my attachment to him after the many proofs he has had of it, your testimony, or my declaration would be of little use to demonstrate it. But I am persuaded he is convinced of it, and upon that supposition I cannot conceive a reason for his treatment of me, except an opinion that I would take it very patiently. Now, though my attachment to Lord North has been very much marked, yet I flatter myself it hath not discovered itself to be pointed either towards his office or my own, nor am I conscious of any feature in my character that should distinguish me as very liable to submit to ill usage. I have some curiosity, therefore, to know the ratio suasoria for cancelling an engagement to me that had been publicly known for years, — in complaisance to Col. Murray's importunity. If you can tell me any sufficient reason for not only the unkind, but humiliating neglect Lord North has made me feel upon this occasion, I shall endeavour to put up with it; but if you can find none, I must then beg the favour of you to acquaint him that I have been too much, and too warmly his friend to sink down quietly into the humble servant of his office." Mr. Eden brought about a reconciliation, which was much facilitated by the approaching vacancy in the Attorney Generalship. animadverted in the House of Commons on the impunity CHAP. thus held out to outrages in India.* CLXVII. A. D. 1779. Letter from burn to Burke re Wedder specting the penal laws against Catholics. While Attorney General, Wedderburn had the merit of assisting in the first relaxation of the Roman Catholic penal code in Ireland, and of co-operating on this subject with men opposed to him in general politics, although I am afraid that, in his old age, factious and selfish motives carried him over to the side of intolerance. Thus he now wrote to Edmund Burke: "I suspect the passage of the Papist bill † Roman will not be so smooth as I wish; and that I shall be obliged to break the silence I meant to observe, and write something upon the test. You can, I know, and I hope without much trouble to yourself, refer me to chapter and verse for all that part of ecclesiastical history that regards our tests. Was not occasional conformity once prevented in Ireland? Has it not since and when-been connived at or permitted by some law? Is not the sacramental test at present merely used as in England, to qualify for acceptance, without any obligation to receive it during the possession of an office? And is there not, in fact, an act from session to session to allow further time to qualify? If the answer to my questions takes more of your time than my stating them does of mine, I do not mean to transfer from myself to you the trouble of consulting an index; but in subjects of daily observation I trust more to the knowledge of one informed by fact, as well as reading (especially when I know the accuracy of my informer), than I dare trust to my own researches." Wedderburn had now a weighty task in the House of Commons, where the defence of government chiefly fell upon his shoulders, with some occasional assistance from his old schoolfellow, Henry Dundas, become Lord Advocate for Scotland. Wallace, the new Solicitor General, was the rough special pleader who had taken part with him in his forray on the northern circuit, whom he had afterwards gratefully appointed his devil, and whom he now contrived 21 St. Tr. 1045-1294. To be introduced into the Irish parliament — having been first submitted to the English law officers. CHAP. CLXVII. to draw up after him as a law officer of the crown, — but who was wholly unfit to speak on any subject except a technical A. D. 1779. point of law. His speeches of the American war. The new Attorney General took a prominent part in the urging the debate on the first night of the ensuing session. He urged prosecution that the House ought to be unanimous in prosecuting the contest with America, and referred to the conduct of Admiral Blake, who, though he disliked the measures of the Usurper, yet being in the service of his country, called his crew together before he began an engagement, and told them, "however they might differ in opinion as to the first causes of the war, it was now their duty to see that they were not fooled by the enemy." In private, however, he was for conciliation. In a letter to Mr. Eden, written shortly before this time, he says, "The more I consider the subject (and I have thought of it constantly since I saw you), the more convinced I am of the necessity of a commission to hold out propositions to the Americans, and that the powers of that commission must be as extensive as it is possible in the nature of our government to make them. I would shut the door against no possible proposition; even the idea of a representation from America, if their minds in any corner of the continent should take that bias, should not be excluded; the power of offering places, honours, money, should be included. These things cannot be expressed either under the Great Seal or in any act of the legislature; and therefore the more open and general the commission is, the more it resembles the full powers of a minister, the more convenient I think it would be found in the execution." But no such commission was issued till the close of the contest, when, under an act of parliament, our plenipotentiaries were authorised to treat with those of the United States of America for a treaty of peace. In Parliament Wedderburn stood forth to defend the principle on which the war with the Colonists had been begun, 19 Parl. Hist. 1360. |