eighty-one. The Earl of Ilchester and Lord Holland can vouch for the accuracy of this statement, and I believe their genealogy has stood hitherto unquestioned. Parr became a father when his first-born son was of a more advanced age than the old Earl of Banbury. Moreover, his Lordship seems to have kept all his faculties both of body and mind in full exercise. Though eighty-four or eighty-five years of age, not only does it appear, from the evidence of one of the witnesses, that he went out hawking up to his death, but the Journals of this House furnish us with the best evidence of his attention to more important matters. Then, my Lords, why is the bounty of Lord Vaux to his step-son to be ascribed to another motive than what belonged to such a relationship? Why is Nicholas to be supposed to have repudiated the title of Banbury, because in his childhood he had been called by the name of Vaux? These are weak arms to encounter a presumption so strong as that which exists in favour of legitimacy. The same rights have descended to the present petitioner, and I trust they will be recognised by your Lordships." - CHAP. CLXXXVII. neous But it is quite clear, both from reason and authority, that His erroalthough the husband and wife may have had an opportunity opinion of being in the society of each other about the time to which properly the origin of the child is to be ascribed, without proof of overruled. the impossibility of the husband being the father, there may be circumstances to lead to the conclusion that they did not live together as husband and wife, and that the paramour of the wife may be considered the father of the child. In the present case the concealment of the birth of the two boys from the Earl of Banbury, and the treatment of them as adulterous bastards, both by their mother and by Lord Vaux, afforded abundant ground for these inferences.-Lord Eldon, Lord Redesdale, and Lord Ellenborough accordingly gave a strong opinion against the claim. But such an impression was made by the plausible arguments in support of it, that upon a division in the committee it was only negatived by a majority of 21 to 13. Erskine was in a great rage, and * * It was said that among the twenty-one were four spiritual Peers who had CLXXXVII. CHAP. drew up a strong protest, which was signed by three royal Dukes and seven other peers, and, writing about it to a friend, said: "The Protest gives them every fact and all their arguments, but giving them both without a single voice in Westminster Hall from one end to the other." The decision, however, is in conformity to the Code Napoleon, which, on the birth of a child born in wedlock being concealed from the husband, admits proof that it is the child of an adulterer, and having been followed in several cases since, which have been carried by appeal to the House of Lords, is now universally acquiesced in and considered to be law.* never attended, and ten lay Peers, who attended only occasionally; while the whole of the thirteen had attended constantly,- being, I presume, staunch partisans. * See Morris v. Davis, Clarke and Finelly's Reports, vol. v. p. 163., where all the authorities are collected. The Judges all say, that if it be believed that intercourse did take place between the husband and wife, whereby the child by possibility may be the child of the husband, it is presumptio juris et de jure,—or an invariable rule of law, that the child is legitimate; but put the supposable, though not probable case, that the husband and wife are whites, that the paramour is a negro, and that the child is a mulatto. Quid juris? CHAPTER CLXXXVIII. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE TILL THE CONCLU- -- "If the authors of this bill CLXXXVIII. Erskine opposes co measures. 1818. Scheme for coercing FIRE, WA THE battle of Waterloo being gained, and Napoleon relegated CHAP. to St. Helena, a measure necessary for the of the repose world, - party warfare likewise ceased for a time; but Er- A. D. 1817. skine was at his post when hostilities against the Constitution were renewed, and he opposed with all his ancient vigour ercive the "Seditious Meetings Bill," and the suspension of the "Habeas Corpus Act," denouncing these measures as sure to excite instead of to allay discontent, and as more injurious to the Constitution than any passed in the "Reign of Terror," under Mr. Pitt,- when a foreign war, and apparent danger from the spread of French principles, afforded some pretext for such arbitrary legislation. In opposing a new "Sedi- June 2. tious Meetings Bill,” he said, had the government of the seasons, they would no doubt set about a reformation upon their own system, and the elements of fire, water, and air would no longer have their immemo- AIR rial liberties, but would be put under such politic restraints as we are now about to lay upon the civil world. To Fire they would say, 'You are an excellent servant, most beneficial when under due discipline and control, but most dangerous when left unrestrained. You may, therefore, continue to blaze in our kitchen and in our chambers, but you shall no longer descend from heaven with electric flashes, destroying our persons and property, and striking even the spires of our churches with sacrilegious violence.' To Water they would say, We are delighted with your smooth face upon our calm transparent lakes, and with your ripplings in our summer streams; but you must no longer come down from the hills in winter torrents, sweeping away our flocks and their 35 Parl. Deb. 1213. 1224. 1226.; 36 Ib. 981. TER, and CHAP. CLXXXVIII. masters.' To Air they would say, Be free as air; it is even a proverb, and we will support it; continue, therefore, to be 1819-1820. free as air, at least in our improved sense of freedom. But not more than fifty clouds shall in future come together, without an order from seven farmers or graziers; and if you shall presume to blight our fruit trees or destroy our harvests, you shall be driven back to your caverns by a single justice of the peace.'"* He likewise brought in a bill to prevent arrest for libel before indictment found against the libeller. This measure he supported in a most elaborate speech, but it was rejected on the second reading by a large majority.† 1819, 1820. The Six Acts. Nov. 28. 1819. In the following stormy session, in which the "Six Acts" were passed — (I hope the last trial of the coercive system for England) Erskine was active and energetic. He began by supporting Lord Grey's amendment to the address; when he condemned in severe terms "the massacre at Manchester,” on the dispersion of Mr. Hunt's meeting there, — and the Secretary of State's letter, approving of the violent conduct of the magistrates and the military, without any previous inquiry.‡ On Lord Lansdowne's motion for a committee to inquire * 57 Geo. 3. c. 3. † 38 Parl. Deb. 1081. 41 Parl. Deb. 26. 40. An anecdote which he then told, in the vain hope of inducing Lord Eldon to retract an opinion he had uttered, deserves to be recorded in his own language:-"There shoots across my mind at this moment a striking instance of candour which I have long treasured up in my memory, having a strong interest to remember it, because it was useful to me in the beginning of my professional life. Having been engaged in a cause in which that great Chief Justice had expressed a strong opinion in favour of my client, the jury found a corresponding verdict; but a rule having been obtained to set it aside for the Judge's misdirection, I had to support his opinion in the Court of King's Bench. When I had finished my argument, he said — I fear with more indulgence than truth This case has been remarkably well argued; so well, indeed, that whilst the learned counsel was defending my direction, I began to think I had been in the right, whereas I never was more mistaken in my life. I totally misunderstood the case, and misdirected the jury; so there must be a new trial, and without costs.' Did this lower Lord Mansfield? So far from it, that, having persuaded myself his first opinion was the best, I could not help saying at the time, that if I had not been convinced of his integrity, I should have thought he was practising a fraud to advance his reputation. It was indeed a justice to truth, which weak men are afraid of rendering, and therefore it is so seldom rendered."—I have, indeed, myself often been surprised at the pusillanimous anxiety of Judges in Banc to support their rulings at Nisi Prius. Very different was the conduct of a Judge in recent times, who, after all his brethren on the bench had pronounced judgment in his favour, said, “ For the reasons given by my Lord and the rest of the Court, I think that I was entirely wrong, and that there ought to be a new trial!" 66 CHAP. CLXXXVIII. into the state of the country, Erskine said, with much feeling: 'My Lords, I am now an old man, and have been nearly forty years in Parliament; yet I declare solemnly that A. D. 1819. I never felt more unqualified regret for any proceeding in it than the rejection of the amendment proposed by my noble friend, and so eloquently pressed upon our attention on the first day of the session. If your Lordships had fortunately adopted it, you could have had nothing farther to consider on this painful subject, and would have escaped the second error of rejecting the proposition of the noble marquess tonight, which I cannot but painfully foresee. You would then have had an unanimous Parliament reprobating all seditious combinations, calling upon both magistrates and people by the combined authorities of the state, to support the Constitution, and to maintain public order and tranquillity. The amendment asked nothing more than that the people should not be condemned unheard. I have had many more opportunities of knowing the sentiments and feelings of those who are classed as seditious subjects than most of your Lordships can have had, and it is my unalterable belief that a system of alarm, supported by mysterious green bags and the array of special commissions, followed as they have been, and will be, by convictions sufficiently numerous to inspire terror not sufficiently numerous to enforce subjugation — only exasperate evils, the unfortunate existence of which we all deplore. The present discontent may be silenced by severity, but it will be a dangerous silence." "As to the Spenceans," he said, "they cannot be gravely considered objects of criminal justice. Instead of the warrants of magistrates, the certificates of apothecaries may secure their persons if they become dangerous. What other prison, indeed, but a madhouse can be opened to receive persons so completely insane as to entertain an expectation that in such a country as England they can bring its whole surface and property into general division and distribution. By an ordinary display of spirit and resolution insurrection may be repressed, without violating the law or the Constitution. In the riots of 1780 when the mob were preparing to attack the house of Lord |