CHAP. CLXXXIII. as to the Great Seal. to Erskine. The chief difficulty experienced was in disposing of the Great Seal. Lord Eldon, if he had been willing to retain it, could Feb. 1806. not possibly be allowed to sit in the new Cabinet, the overDifficulty throw of which, whether in or out of office, all foresaw that he would unscrupulously plot. The offer of it was made to Lord Ellenborough, who declined it, as he could not run the risk of the proposed exchange on account of his large family, and to Sir James Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, who pleaded his advanced age. It is offered Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox then asked the King's permission to offer it to Mr. Erskine - when his Majesty exclaimed, "What! what! Well! well!-but, remember, he is your Chancellor, not mine." I am afraid that the royal objection arose from the recollection that he not only had always professed and acted upon Whig principles, but that by his eloquence he had defeated many prosecutions which his Majesty had deemed necessary for the public tranquillity. Had the King been aware (which could hardly be expected) of the professional qualifications necessary for a Chancellor, and this had been the source of his reluctance, he ought to be honoured for his discernment. Character pointment. I must confess that the appointment was not justifiableof this ap- being prompted by political convenience, and not by a due regard to the administration of justice in the Court of Chancery. The mere circumstance of a barrister having practised chiefly in the courts of common law, I hold to be no disqualification for the office; and, on the contrary, I think he is likely to fill it more for the public benefit than a man reared in an equity draughtsman's office, who has never attended a circuit or quarter-sessions, and has exclusively employed his days and nights in drawing bills and answers, and conning over equity practice. If Erskine had been well versed in the civil law,—if he had scientifically studied general jurisprudence, if he had been in the habit of pleading at the bar of the House of Lords, and if he had been initiated in equity proceedings, by having been occasionally retained in great cases in the Court of Chancery,—he might have been expected to turn out as great an Equity Judge as Lord Eldon CHAP. CLXXXIII. himself, who always ascribed his own proficiency to the circumstance that he began with the common law. But unfortunately, Erskine was only a clever nisi prius pleader, and Feb. 1806. although he had sufficient acuteness to be made to understand any legal question, however abstruse, he was only familiar with the rules of evidence, and the points likely to occur in the conduct of a cause before a jury, or in the common routine of a King's Bench leader in banco. I doubt whether he had ever opened the Institutes of Justinian, or glanced at the codes of any of the continental nations, and he could hardly go so far as Lord Holt, who said, that "I have been counsel in one equity suit, which I lost;" for in his time, the equity leaders having been well drilled in common law, the custom had not begun, which has become very usual since, of calling in upon important occasions the assistance of the common law leaders. Erskine, declining to accept briefs in the House of Lords, or before the Privy Council, had seldom to travel beyond the Term Reports and Buller's Nisi Prius. He could hardly have expected to be an adequate successor of Lord Nottingham, Lord Somers, and Lord Hardwicke; and, if he had consulted his own comfort and his own glory, he would have declined the offer, however tempting it might appear to vulgar men. Better would it have been for him to accept the office of Attorney General, in the expectation that a common law chiefship might become vacant, the duties of which he might have adequately performed, or to have been contented with being by far the first advocate who had ever practised at the English Bar-a position more enviable than that of an indifferent Chancellor, notwithstanding the precedence and the power which the Great Seal confers. In an evil hour he yielded to the temptation of Erskine "the pestiferous lump of metal"* which has proved fatal to accepts it. so many; and, ere long, from being the "beheld of all beholders," he sunk into comparative insignificance. He cannot be accused of having deserted his party, or ever done a dishonourable or mean act to obtain it. When Fox was Prime * Roger North. CHAP. CLXXXIII. Minister, nothing could be more natural than that Erskine should be Chancellor. Politically, the arrangement was Feb. 180 6 laudable; but, judicially, it was not to be defended. Romilly Romilly's in his Diary, speaking of the new Administration, says, account of this transaction. "There are some few appointments which have been received by the public with much dissatisfaction, and none with more than that of Erskine to be Lord Chancellor. The truth undoubtedly is, that he is totally unfit for his situation. His practice has never led him into Courts of Equity; and the doctrines which prevail in them are to him almost like the law of a foreign country. It is true that he has a great deal of quickness, and is capable of much application; but, at his time of life, with the continual occupations which the duties of his office will give him, and the immense arrear of business left him by his tardy and doubting predecessor, it is quite impossible that he should find the means of making himself master of that extensive and complicated system of law, which he will have to administer. He acts, indeed, very ingenuously on the subject; he feels his unfitness for the office, and seems almost overcome with the idea of the difficulties which he foresees that he will have to encounter. He called on me a few days ago, and told me that he should stand in great need of my assistance, that I must tell him what to read, and how best to fit himself for his situation. You must,' these are the very words he used to me, 'You must make me a Chancellor now, that I may afterwards make you one." * Memoirs, ii. 128. CHAPTER CLXXXIV. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE WHILE HE WAS CLXXXIV. A.D. 1806. Transfer of the Great Seal from Erskine. THE transfer of the Great Seal took place at the Queen's CHAP. Palace on the 7th of February, 1806, when, being delivered up by Lord Eldon, his Majesty multa gemens put it into the hand of Erskine, declaring him Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and directed him to be sworn of the Privy Council. The same day the new head of the law was created a Peer Eldon to of the United Kingdom, by the title of Baron Erskine of Restormel Castle, in the county of Cornwall, this locality being designated as a mark of favour by the Heir Apparent, because it was the ancient residence of the Princes of Wales. The following day an honour was conferred upon him by which, I make no doubt, he was far more gratified. A meeting of the Bar was held in Westminster Hall, and although a vast majority of those present were high Tories, the following resolution was carried unanimously:- "That we cannot deny ourselves the satisfaction of presenting our sincere congratulations to the Rt. Honble. Thomas Lord Erskine on his appointment to the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and of expressing the deep impression made upon us by the uniform kindness and attention which we have at all times experienced from him during his long and extensive practice amongst us; and we farther beg leave to assure his Lordship that in retiring from us he is accompanied by our best wishes for his health and happiness." This being presented to him in the name of the Bar, by the two senior barristers, the following was his reply : "GENTLEMEN, Address of the Bar to this eleva tion. "I cannot express what I felt upon receiving your address, and His anwhat I must ever feel upon the recollection of it. I came ori- swer. CLXXXIV. A.D. 1806. CHAP. ginally into the profession under great disadvantage. Bred in military life, a total stranger to the whole Bar, and not entitled to expect any favourable reception from similar habits or private friendships, my sudden advancement into great business before I could rank in study or in learning with others who were my seniors also, was calculated to have produced in common minds nothing but prejudice and disgust. How, then, can I look back without gratitude upon the unparalleled liberality and kindness which for seven and twenty years I uniformly experienced among you, and which alone, I feel a pride as well as a duty in acknowledging, enabled me to surmount many painful difficulties, and converted what would otherwise have been a condition of oppressive labour into an uninterrupted enjoyment of ease and satisfaction? I am happy that your partiality has given me the occasion of putting upon record this just tribute to the character and honour of the English Bar. My only merit has been, that I was not insensible to so much goodness. The perpetual and irresistible impulses of mind, deeply affected by innumerable obligations, could not but produce that behaviour which you have so kindly and so publicly rewarded. I shall for ever remain, His "Supporters" and "new Motto." "Gentlemen, "Your affectionate and faithful humble servant, "Lincoln's Inn Fields, Feb. 9. 1806."* Considering how political enmities and private jealousies oppose such an expression of good will to a barrister on his elevation to the woolsack, we need not wonder that this is a solitary instance of it in the annals of our profession, and we may form some conception of the fascinating manners and real kindness of heart, as well as of the brilliant genius, which called it forth. I must, however, relate that he caused a good deal of merriment in Westminster Hall, by the heraldic honours which, on his own suggestion, were accorded to him. Retaining his family shield and crest, he had for supporters "a Griffin, wings elevated, gules charged with a mullet, and a Heron, wings mounted, holding in the beak an eel proper,' Annual Register, 1806, p. 363. |