CHAP. ever having any opportunity to gain distinction, - a smart knock came to his door, and a slip of paper was brought CLXXVII. A. D. 1778. to him with the words written upon His first brief. Captain case comes "KING'S BENCH. it: THE KING v. BAILLIE, ONE GUINEA,” and a yellow golden guinea was actually put into his hand.* He was vain enough to think that he was to be sole counsel to show cause against the rule, and he was much elated by his good fortune. When Michaelmas Term came round, a brief was delivered to him in Rex v. Baillie; but what was his consternation to behold upon it "With you, Mr.Bearcroft, Mr. Peckham, Mr. Murphy, and He very reasonably despaired of being heard, or at all events of being listened to, coming after so many seniors; and he gave himself no trouble to collect or to methodise the ideas upon the subject which had passed through his mind when he believed that the defence was to rest upon his own shoulders. At a consultation, Bearcroft, Peckham, and Murphy were for consenting to a compromise which had been proposed by the prosecutors, that the rule should be discharged, the defendant paying all costs. "My advice, gentlemen," said the Junior, "may savour more of my late profession than my present, but I am against consenting." "I'll be d-d if I do," said Captain Baillie, and he hugged Erskine in his arms, crying, "You are the man for me." About one o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of November, the Solicitor General, who had obtained the rule, moved to make it absolute. Bearcroft began to show cause, and the affidavits being very long, and he and the three gentlemen * This, his first fee, he used long to show as a curiosity; and I presume it is still preserved in the family. who followed him being very prosy, and Mr. Hargrave, the last of them, having been several times while speaking obliged to leave the Court from indisposition, it was almost dark when he concluded his argument. Lord Mansfield, supposing that all the defendant's counsel had been heard, said, "We will go on with this case to-morrow morning." If the hearing had then proceeded, Erskine would not have done more than say a few words as a matter of form, and he might long have remained unknown. When the Judges took their seats on the bench next day, the court being crowded in all parts from the political aspect which the prosecution had assumed, the expectation was that the Solicitor General would immediately proceed to support his rule, and would have no great difficulty in making it absolute;when there rose from the back row a young gentleman whose name as well as whose face was unknown to almost all present, and who, in a collected, firm, but sweet, modest, and conciliating tone, thus began:-"My Lord, I am likewise of counsel for the author of this supposed libel, and if the matter for consideration had been merely a question of private wrong, I should have thought myself well justified, after the very able defence made by the learned gentlemen who have spoken before me, in sparing your Lordship, already fatigued with repetition, and in leaving my client to the judgment of the Court. But upon an occasion of this serious and dangerous complexion, when a British subject is brought before a court of justice only for having ventured to attack abuses, which owe their continuance to the danger of attacking them, when, without any motives but benevolence, justice, and public spirit, he has ventured to attack them, though supported by power, and in that department too where it was the duty of his office to detect and expose them, I cannot relinquish the high privilege of trying * Under such appalling circumstances, it might rather have been expected, that when he heard his own voice for the first time in a public assembly, the description would have been applicable to him— "And back recoil'd, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made." CHAP. CLXXVII. A. D. 1778. Nov. 24. 1778. first speech at the bar. CLXXVII. not CHAP. to do justice to such merit, I will not give up even my small share of the honour of repelling and of exposing so A. D. 1778. odious a prosecution." After some general observations on the common herd of libellers whom the Court had been accustomed to punish, he said, "I beseech your Lordships to compare these men and their works with my client and the publication before the Court. Who is he? What was his duty? What has he written? To whom has he written? and what motive induced him to write?" These few questions, which he answered seriatim, the advocate made the heads of his inimitable discourse - showing that his client had written nothing but the truth, and had acted strictly within the line of his duty. He was thus about to conclude: "Such, my Lords, is the case. The defendant, not a disappointed malicious informer, prying into official abuses, because without office himself but himself a man in office; troublesomely inquisitive into other men's departments, but conscientiously correcting his own; - doing it pursuant to the rules of law, and, what heightens the character, doing it at the risk of his office, from which the effrontery of power has already suspended him, without proof of his guilt-a conduct not only unjust and illiberal, but highly disrespectful to this Court, whose judges sit in the double capacity of ministers of the law, and governors of this sacred and abused institution. Indeed, Lord Sandwich has in my mind acted such a part" [Here (in the words of the report) Lord Mansfield, observing the counsel heated with his subject, and growing personal on the First Lord of the Admiralty, told him that Lord Sandwich was not before the Court.] Erskine. "I know that he is not formally before the Court, but for that very reason I will bring him before the Court. He has placed these men in the front of the battle in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I will not join in battle with them; their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will drag him to light, who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of Sandwich has but one road to escape out of this business 66 CLXXVII. A. D. 1778. without pollution and disgrace, and that is, by publicly CHAP. disavowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command! If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his own personal interest to prevail over his public duty in placing his voters in the Hospital. But if, on the contrary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience who crowd this Court, IF HE KEEPS THIS INJURED MAN SUSPENDED, OR DARES TO TURN THAT SUSPENSION INTO A REMOVAL, I SHALL THEN NOT SCRUPLE TO DECLARE HIM AN ACCOMPLICE IN THEIR GUILT, A SHAMELESS OPPRESSOR, A DISGRACE TO HIS RANK, AND A TRAITOR TO HIS TRUST. But as I should be very sorry that the fortune of my brave and honourable friend should depend either upon the exercise of Lord Sandwich's virtues or the influence of his fears, I do most earnestly entreat the Court to mark the malignant object of this prosecution, and to defeat it. I beseech you, my Lords, to consider that even by discharging the rule, and with costs, the defendant is neither protected nor restored. I trust, therefore, your Lordships will not rest satisfied with fulfilling your JUDICIAL duty, but, as the strongest evidence of foul abuses has by accident come collaterally before you, that you will protect a brave and publicspirited officer from the persecution this writing has brought upon him, and not suffer so dreadful an example to go abroad into the world, as the ruin of an upright man for having faithfully discharged his duty. My Lords, this matter is of the last importance. I speak not as an ADVOCATE alone · I speak to you AS A MAN as a member of a state whose very existence depends upon her naval strength. If our fleets are to be crippled by the baneful influence of elections, WE ARE LOST INDEED. If the seaman, while he exposes his body to fatigues and dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an asylum for infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked up by corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious landsmen drowning the groans and complaints of the wounded, helpless companions of his glory, — he will CHAP. CLXXVII. tempt the seas no more. The Admiralty may press HIS BODY, indeed, at the expense of humanity and the ConstituA. D. 1778. tion, but they cannot press his mind, they cannot press the heroic ardour of a British sailor; and instead of a fleet to carry terror all round the globe, the Admiralty may not be able much longer to amuse us with even the peaceable unsubstantial pageant of a review.* FINE AND IMPRISONMENT! The man deserves a PALACE instead of a PRISON who prevents the palace built by the public bounty of his country from being converted into a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the interests of humanity and virtue.— And now, my Lords, I have done; but not without thanking your Lordships for the very indulgent attention I have received, though in so late a stage of this proceeding, and notwithstanding my great incapacity and inexperience. I resign my client into your hands, and I resign him with a well-founded confidence and hope; because that torrent of corruption which has unhappily overwhelmed every other part of the Constitution is, by the blessing of Providence, stopped HERE by the sacred independence of the Judges. I KNOW that your Lordships will determine ACCORDING TO LAW; and therefore, if an information should be suffered to be filed, I shall bow to the sentence, and shall consider this meritorious publication to be, indeed, an offence against the laws of this country; but then I shall not scruple to say, that it is high time for every honest man to remove himself from a country in which he can no longer do his duty to the public with safety; where cruelty and inhumanity are suffered to impeach virtue, and where vice passes through a court of justice unpunished and unreproved." Effect pro duced. - The impression made upon the audience by this address is said to have been unprecedented; and I must own that, all the circumstances considered, it is the most wonderful forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals. It was the début of a barrister just called and wholly unpractised in public speaking- before a Court crowded with the men of There had just before been a naval review at Portsmouth. |