СНАР. CLXXXV. A. D. 1807. He is or dered to surrender the Great Seal. Ministers who had signed the minute of council could not possibly, with any consistency of character, retract it; and that to give a pledge not to offer advice to his Majesty on measures which the state of public affairs might render necessary would be, if not an impeachable offence, yet, at least, that which, constitutionally, could not be justified. He then said that he thought it his indispensable duty to represent to the King the situation in which he stood; that he was on the brink of a precipice; that nothing could be more fatal than to persevere in the resolution which his Majesty had formed of dismissing his Ministers; that the day on which that resolution was announced in Ireland would be a day of jubilee to the Catholics; that they would desire nothing more than to have a ministry who were supported by all the talents and weight of property in the country go out upon such a measure; that he ventured to tell his Majesty that, if he proceeded with his resolution, he would never know another hour of comfort or tranquillity. The King, he says, listened to all this without once interrupting him; that he could observe, however, by his countenance, that he was greatly agitated; and when the Chancellor had concluded, the King said to him, You are a very honest man, my Lord, and I am very much obliged to you:'- - and this was all. The Chancellor thinks that he has made a great impression, and half flatters himself that the King will retract his resolution." Several days elapsed quietly, and Erskine, ignorant of the intrigues of Lord Eldon and the Duke of Cumberland, who were then negotiating for the formation of a new Government, really believed that the danger had passed by, and that he might remain in office, under George III., till his patron and friend, the Heir Apparent, should mount the throne, when he expected that the chief power would be vested in his own hands. He was in this frame of mind when, late at night on the 24th of March, he received a summons to attend the King next day, before twelve o'clock, to deliver up the Great Seal. Notice had been put up in Lincoln's Inn Hall that judg *Life of Romilly, ii. 187. CLXXXV. A. D. 1807. His faredress to the well ad Chancery Bar. ment would be pronounced the next day in another branch of CHAP. the cause of Purcell v. M-Namara, which had been argued before him, assisted by the Master of the Rolls. Soon after ten he entered the Court, which was densely crowded, -his Honour following him, and when they were seated, he addressed the Bar in these words: "I had fixed this morning as the earliest and most convenient time for finishing, with the assistance of his Honour the Master of the Rolls, at least the judicial part of this long and important case; but late last night, much too late to make it possible for me to apprise of it, I had notice to attend his Majesty, with his you other Ministers, before twelve o'clock this day. I shall, therefore, ask his Honour to deliver his opinion, in which I heartily concur, - his Honour and myself having had long deliberations upon the subject. With regard to the other matters which stand for my own judgment, I shall not have time to deliver them in open Court. Adopting the same course as my Lord Eldon when he retired from the office of Lord Chancellor, I shall send them to the register. - "If I should be called out of this world as suddenly as I have been out of this place, it will be a happy thing for me if I can render as clear an account of my conduct through life as of my administration of justice during the period I have presided here. I believe it would not have taken an hour by the clock to have delivered all the judgments that remain for me to pronounce. I have altered nothing here. I have removed no man. But I cannot with justice to myself, or with propriety as it regards you, retire from this Court without returning you my most sincere thanks for the kind, honourable, and liberal manner in which you have uniformly conducted yourselves towards me. I approach the threshold of my high office with conscious pride and satisfaction, — particularly when I consider the complicated nature of the duties I have had to fulfil, and their newness to me. I am happy to acknowledge that it is to the learning of the Bar, and the assistance I have derived from you, that I am indebted for having been enabled to administer these duties with justice and equity. — In retiring VOL. VI. ૨ ૨ CLXXXV. CHAP. to private life, it will be my delight to cultivate that acquaintance which I have had with you in my public station." A. D. 1807. the At 66 Mr. Attorney General (Sir A. Piggot): — "I am sure, my Answer by Lord, I should not do justice to the sentiments of the Bar, if I were to suffer your Lordship to leave this Court without expressing their grateful sense of the kindness shown to them while your Lordship has presided here.” torney General. Resignation of Ministers. tains the Great Seal for a week to give judgments. The whole Bar rose and bowed to his Lordship, who instantly after retired. * He then proceeded to the Palace. There he found all his colleagues assembled, and they were introduced one by one Erskine re- into the Royal closet, for the purpose of resigning their wands, seals, keys, and other insignia of office. To the general surprise, Erskine returned still bearing in his hand the purse containing the Great Seal; and some supposed that, by reason of his concurrence of sentiment with his Majesty as to the propriety of refusing any farther concession to the Catholics, he had been invited, and had consented, to serve under the "No Popery Ministry." But the explanation of this phenomenon was, that "the King, understanding that there were some causes which had been argued, but in which the Chancellor had not yet pronounced his decrees, desired him to remain a week longer in office, that he might finish the business in his Court." ↑ March 26. explana. Erskine's statement. The next day came the Ministerial explanations in the Ministerial House of Lords, and Lord Erskine said, "he considered tions. the subject of the Catholic question as completely irrelevant as any other whatever to the change in his Majesty's councils, although it happened to be the subject which led to such a conjuncture. Although a member of the late Government, he was decidedly adverse to the measure, and should not have advised it, because he did not see the political necessity for it, which had induced the great majority of his colleagues to recommend it to his Majesty. Yet he thought they were highly commendable in giving his Majesty such advice as they in their conscience thought just, -as well as in declining to Annual Register, 1807, p. 415. be bound by any pledge to refrain from giving to their Sovereign upon this or any subject such advice as they conceived was for the public good. The firmness with which his Majesty had maintained his own conscientious opinions, by resisting the bill in the extent to which it went, had also his respectful approbation; but he must say his colleagues did right in declining to be bound never again to advise the measure under any possible pressure of circumstances. At the moment when his Majesty's late Ministers relinquished the bill in concession to his Majesty's scruples, they stood in the same situation as on their first accession to office. The right of his Majesty to change his Ministers no man would deny, but for them to have remained in power upon any such condition as the pledge alluded to, would have been, in his opinion, contrary to every principle of Ministerial duty, and directly in violation of the Constitution. Their dismissal for no other reason than their declining the pledge, he was afraid was a declaration to the Catholics that the penalties and disabilities under which they laboured were to be considered an essential part of our system of rule; what the result might be of such a conviction taking possession of their minds, he was afraid even to conjecture." CHAP. CLXXXV A. D. 1807. son-in-law in Chan cery. Impartiality requires me to mention a circumstance, which, Erskine I recollect, was generally censured at the time,—that although appoints his Lord Erskine had been allowed to retain the Great Seal for a Master a week, only to give judgment in causes which had been argued before him, he employed the interval to concoct a job for the benefit of a member of his family. It is thus related by Romilly:"Two days before Lord Erskine parted with the Seal, he appointed his son-in-law, Edward Morris, a Master in Chancery. Sir William Pepys was prevailed upon to make a vacancy by resigning. This is surely a most improper act of Lord Erskine's. He ought to have considered himself as out of office last Wednesday. Morris, though a very clever and very deserving man, has no knowledge in his profession of that particular kind which is necessary to qualify a man to discharge the duties of a Master. This is a matter which will draw reproach on the whole Administration, CLXXXV. A.D. 1807. CHAP though in every other department they have most scrupulously, as I understand, abstained from making any promotions."* He had no doubt supposed in his own mind, that while he held the Great Seal, all its powers, privileges, and patronage belonged to him; and I believe that, if the vacancy had occurred in this interval by death, he would have been justified, according to established usage, in filling it up. He finally parts with the Great Seal. His own contentment with in which he dis charged his official duties. Having cleared off his arrear of judgments, and on the 1st of April granted the injunction which I have mentioned in the case of Gurney v. Longman †, - without any fresh leave-taking, he made his bow to the Bar, and proceeded to the Queen's Palace. There he finally parted with the Great Seal, and it was delivered to Lord Eldon, who kept it in his firm grasp for a continuous period of above twenty years. From Lord Erskine's farewell address to the Bar, it appears that he was himself well satisfied with the manner in which the manner he had performed the duties of Chancellor; and though he did little to advance the science of equity, the suitors who came before him seem to have had little cause to complain of his decisions; but I am afraid that Romilly, ruminating upon the probable disposal of the Great Seal upon a contemplated change of Ministry a few months after, expresses the general opinion of his own profession and of the public: "The present Ministry can hardly, considering what the crisis is to which public affairs are hasting, be very long in power; and if those whom they have supplanted should recover their authority, the Great Seal can scarcely be again intrusted to the hands of Lord Erskine: with all his talents (and very great they undoubtedly are), his incapacity for the office was too forcibly and too generally felt for him to be again placed in it." + Romilly's estimate of this. Bet be tween two Americans His faults as a judge were afterwards greatly exaggerated, and a report was spread abroad that most of his decrees were respecting reversed. This having reached the United States of America, gave rise to a wager, which the parties, with Transatlantic coolness, referred to himself for decision. His reply to the the rever sal of his decrees, |