LOED ST. LEONARDS 
 
 ON 
 
 LOKD CAMPBELL'S LIVES. 
 
QJnrupU Ham i>rl|0nl ICibtaty 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DA 536.L9C18 
 
 Misrepresentations in Campbeii's L 
 
 3 1924 024 873 691 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024873691 
 
MI8REPEBSEOTATI0NS 
 
 IN 
 
 CAMPBELL'S LIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 LYNDBUEST A^D BROUGHAM. 
 
 COBBECTED BY 
 
 ST. LEONAEDS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1869. 
 
MISREPRESENTATIONS 
 
 CAMPBELL'S LIVES OF LYNDHURST 
 AND BROUGHAM. 
 
 CORRECTED BY ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 When after a social dinner, at which I was 
 present, Sir Charles Wetherell, with much 
 humour, sketched the character of several of 
 the guests ; he thus addressed Lord Campbell : — 
 "Then there is my noble and biographical 
 friend who has added a new terror to death." 
 I have lived to find that he has left behind him 
 a new terror to life. After such a publication 
 as the Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord 
 Brougham, no man can be sure that he may 
 not be libelled and misrepresented by an attack 
 published in his Ufetime. Fortunately, Lord 
 Campbell did not write my life, and as his Laves 
 of Chancellors have all been published, I did 
 
 a2 
 
LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 not expect to meet in his last book any attacks 
 or misrepresentations upon myself, but I was 
 quickly undeceived. In Lord Lyndhurst's life, 
 he observes that Lyndhurst took the new 
 Government of Lord Derby under his special 
 guardianship, ready at all times to support it by 
 praising its measures, and the men who com- 
 posed it, including Sugden, the new Chancellor, 
 hitherto an object of his special aversion. And 
 again in 1852 he states, that Lyndhurst paid a 
 very just tribute of applause to the Bill for 
 abolishing Masters in Chancery, prepared ac- 
 cording to the Report of a Whig Commission, 
 and presented by Lord St. Leonards, the Pro- 
 tectionist Chancellor. Lyndhurst's zeal carried 
 him so far as to pronounce this functionary the 
 model of every cancellarian good quaUty, ac- 
 complishment, and virtue, — declaring that no 
 Government ever was more fortunate in a Chan- 
 cellor, and that the present occupant of the 
 Woolsack, besides being the greatest of lawyers, 
 was distinguished by his placid temper and his 
 mild and gentlemanly manners. In this state- 
 ment, apparently without offence, he indirectly 
 
DEFENCE. 5 
 
 takes from me all credit for the Bill abolishing 
 the Masters' offices^ but he gives me the title of 
 the Protectionist Chancellor, and, as we shall pre- 
 sently see, altogether dissented from the character 
 given to me at the close of the quotation, and in- 
 tended to remind nie, that " he hurts me most 
 who lavishly commends ;" but whatever Lynd- 
 hurst said of me was, I am sure, said in a 
 kindly spirit. 
 
 It is in the life of Lord Brougham that Lord 
 Campbell's attacks and misrepresentations as 
 regards myself are to be found. In his first 
 misrepresentation he refers to the habit of 
 the Lord Chancellor to receive openly, being 
 above aU disguise, many times in the course of 
 a morning, letters on the Bench, read them, and 
 write, seal, and dispatch answers, meanwhile 
 listening to the Counsel, and asking them ques- 
 tion's. He then observes that this habit was par- 
 ticularly distasteful to that very petulant though 
 very learned and able Counsel, Sir Edward Sug- 
 den (now Lord St. Leonards*), who tried to 
 
 * This shows that these observations were written or revised 
 at least 21 years after the scene. 
 
 A 3 
 
6 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 correct it, but was unlucky in the occasion which 
 he took, and the method he employed for the 
 purpose. As the most marked and effectual in- 
 timation of his displeasure, he suddenly stopped 
 in the middle of a sentence while the Chancellor 
 was writing. After a considerable pause the 
 Chancellor, without raising Ms eyes from the 
 paper, said. Go on, Sir Edward, I am listening 
 to you. Sugden : I observe that your Lordship 
 is engaged in writing, and not favouring me 
 with your attention. Chancellor : I am signing 
 papers of mere form. You may as well say that 
 I am not to blow my nose or take snuff while 
 you speak. Sir Edward sat down in a huff, but 
 on this occasion he was laughed at, and the 
 Chancellor was applauded. 
 
 Now what occurred in Court at least 21 years 
 before this graphic account was vrritten or pre- 
 pared for publication, and at which the vmter 
 was not present, did not raise any laugh at my 
 expense, or any applause of the Lord Chancellor. 
 I had no unkind feeling towards him ; he had 
 whilst I was in the other Court, spoken to the 
 Bar of me in high terms, and frequently sent me 
 
DEFENCE. 7 
 
 down notes to ask me to dinner, to meet one or 
 two Members of the Cabinet. I now desire to 
 speak kindly of him, and not add to the pain 
 which Lord Campbell's hfe of him must have 
 inflicted on his family; but I must state the 
 plain facts. His biographer speaks of him as 
 being above all disguise, and that while reading 
 and writing he listened to the Counsel and asked 
 them questions. No doubt at that time he did 
 not disguise his occupation. Indeed, how could 
 he ? A man would come into Court with some- 
 thing hke a large mahogany dinner-tray loaded 
 vpith letters and papers of all sorts, which were 
 placed before the Chancellor, and to which he 
 directed his attention, tearing up very many, and 
 throwing down the torn paper, which led to the 
 remarks upon him by the "Times." When a 
 Counsel has, as he is bound to do, made himself 
 master of his case, and is endeavouring to make 
 the Judge understand it, and more especially 
 where the Judge is new to the law of the Court, 
 nothing can be more painful than to find that 
 the Judge is directing his attention wholly to 
 other things, and that his address is in truth not 
 
 A 4 
 
8 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 listened to. His anxiety is not removed if the 
 Judge every now and then asks a question, to 
 show that he is attending to the argument, and 
 the Counsel knows it to be founded in error. In 
 truth, the Chancellor's proceeding was altogether 
 inconsistent with a due administration of justice. 
 My position was a painful one. I intended no 
 disrespect to the Court, but I did intend to 
 estabhsh the right of Counsel to demand the 
 attention of the Court. Lord Brougham several 
 times asked me to go on, but I dechned to do so. 
 If there was any laughter, of which I have no 
 recollection, it assuredly was at the Chancellor's 
 statement, that he supposed he must not blow 
 his nose or take a pinch of snuff. The statement 
 that I was laughed at, and the Chancellor 
 applauded, is wholly untrue ; there was not, and 
 indeed there could not be, such a demonstration. 
 Now, then, what was the result ? The Chancellor, 
 to his great credit, never afterwards had letters 
 or papers brought into Court ; yet he was so far 
 from being above all disguise, that when, now 
 and then, he did write a letter, he did so on his 
 open note-book, and then dropped it on the floor 
 
DEFENCE. 9 
 
 beneath, and an officer would come in, and 
 looking at the Bar, would dip his hand into the 
 opening, pick up, and carry away the letter. 
 This " seeing I never seemed to see." Huff, on 
 my part, there was none. My conduct no doubt 
 was painful to the Chancellor at the time, but he, 
 the Bar, and the public benefited by it. His 
 private mode of now and then writing a letter 
 was evidently from a desire to avoid any further 
 cause of complaint, and none was ever called for. 
 Lord Campbell's next attack upon me is in 
 Brougham's life, under the date of 1833. He 
 states that in the Court of Chancery, where the 
 Chancellor was quite a novice, he had counted 
 on the support of Home, the Attorney General, 
 but that speculation turned out most unfortu- 
 nate. Mr. Attorney was opposed by Sugden, a 
 Tory lawyer, infinitely superior to him in capa- 
 city and acquirement, and eager, for personal 
 and political reasons, to expose the inexperience 
 of the Whig Lord Chancellor., One contest 
 between them, in which the learned Counsel 
 was compared by the Lord High Chancellor 
 in plain terms to a bug, gave rise to many 
 
10 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 newspaper paragraphs, aiid many caricatures, 
 and is now sometimes alluded to when he has 
 become an ex-Chancellor. The close of this 
 statement shows that the passage must have been 
 written at least 20 years after the attack upon 
 me, but no doubt from previous notes.* The 
 object of the writer manifestly was, by the naked 
 statement of Lord Brougham's language, and 
 the quotation from the " Times," to fix upon me 
 an odious or a ridiculous nickname for the 
 remainder of my hfe. His object was to strike 
 at me. This he dared not do during our joint 
 Kves ; but it might be partially accomplished by 
 leaving his book as a legacy, to be published 
 after his own death, without regard to what was 
 due to me if living ; and this has accordingly 
 been accomplished by the pubhcation before me ; 
 
 « This note is added. " The ' Times' of 28th July 1832 sug- 
 gested another comparison not quite so contemptnous^r this 
 enemy of the Lord Chancellor. Has Sir Edward Sugden no friend 
 to tell him that the coch sparrow cannot contend with the eagle ? " 
 The two last italics are in the book. As the opinion of the 
 " Times" is quoted, I may be allowed to state that both before I 
 became Chancellor in England, and during my Chancellorship, 
 I received the spontaneous and effective support of that power- 
 ful journal. 
 
DEFENCE. 11 
 
 the objectionable word is printed in italics, and 
 the observation from the " Times" carefully pre- 
 served in a note. 
 
 Lord Campbell knew that for many years 
 Lord Brougham and I were on terms of friend- 
 ship, but, as his book would not be published 
 until after Brougham's death, he was safe in 
 reviving in its most odious form an attack which 
 Lord Brougham had lived to regret and to 
 atone for. I can venture to say that nothing 
 would have pained him more than the statement 
 I am commenting on. It may be observed, that 
 whilst Lord Campbell's account of this im- 
 portant attack is confined to the most ob- 
 jectionable word in the Chancellor's speech, 
 which is now printed in italics, every speaker in 
 the debates in the Commons, while speaking 
 strongly against the expressions in the speech, 
 carefully avoided quoting that most objection- 
 able one which Campbell has left as a legacy 
 behind him. It will be observed that not a 
 word is said of my defence. Now compare this 
 statement with the following in p. 526 of the 
 book: Lord Campbell observes that Lyndhurst, 
 
12 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 although talking in private with the most un- 
 bounded license of all things and all men, was 
 exceedingly cautious as to what he said in 
 debate, and he had not any personal conflict 
 with him; but Brougham for some time, in 
 alluding to him, Campbell, persisted in his reck- 
 less dictatorial tone. To the surprise of the 
 House, notwithstanding his superior reputation 
 and rhetorical powers, he boldly stood up to 
 Brougham and taught him to respect him. 
 These logomachies, by the assistance of news- 
 papers and caricatures, amused the pubhc at 
 the time, but would have little interest for 
 posterity. In contests, therefore, between the 
 Chancellor, and himself, he took care to repre- 
 sent his own power, and not to leave the shadow 
 of a sarcasm to posterity ; but I may observe 
 that he mistook when he supposed that these 
 contests amused the public. They were uni- 
 versally condemned, and they acted so power- 
 fully upon me as to make me resolve if ever I 
 were in ofiice never to get into an unseemly 
 contest, and I never have. 
 
 The book has furnished another explanation 
 
DEFENCE. 13 
 
 why Campbell gave to his readers only 
 that part of the Chancellor's speech which 
 he thought would wound me most. The other 
 sarcasms were not omitted from tenderness to 
 me. He knew that in another part of his book 
 he had introduced in fiill the Uke sarcasms by 
 the Chancellor, in a speech he made as Counsel 
 in 1822, which, in the opinion jof CampbeU, was 
 by far the best he ever delivered, either at the 
 Bar or in Parliament, and Campbell felt that he 
 could not venture to repeat them in his attack 
 upon me. The action was on a question of 
 libel against the clergy of Durham. Brougham, 
 in preparing his speech for the defence, said to 
 a friend, jocosely no doubt, that he was dis- 
 tilling venom for the Durham clergy, and cer- 
 tainly his distillation was at once nauseous and 
 very powerful.* He so managed, Campbell 
 informs us, as to draw the eyes of all upon Dr. 
 Phillpotts, the supposed instigator of the pro- 
 secution, who was sitting on the Bench near the 
 Judge. In his violent attack on the clergy he 
 said that they did not wound deeply or injure 
 
 ** The Lives, p. 335. 
 
14 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 much, but that was no fault of theirs ! without 
 hurting they gave trouble and discomfort. The 
 insect brought into Ufa by corruption and 
 nestled in filth, though its flight be lowly and 
 its sting puny, can swarm and buzz, and irritate 
 the skin and offend the nostril, and altogether 
 give nearly as much annoyance as the wasp, 
 whose nobler nature it aspires to emulate. So 
 that the attack upon me was but the repetition 
 of a like attack upon the Durham clergy 11 
 years before, when he was Counsel, and for 
 which, after all, he was indebted to Pope. 
 
 The bathos, in Campbell's attack, from " the 
 Lord High Chancellor," the only instance, with 
 one jocular exception, in which the solemn title 
 is given to Brougham, to the vile insect to which 
 an antagonist is compared, is very striking ! I 
 perfectly imderstand Lord Brougham's feehngs 
 at the time : fresh from the scene of his power, 
 Member for Yorkshire, and suddenly Chancellor 
 of England, he had not shaken off his habits as 
 an advocate and a Member of the House of 
 Commons. His genius and eloquence enabled 
 him to use his great power of sarcasm with ad- 
 
DEFENCE. ] 5 
 
 vantage. In the Commons that power was so 
 successfully exercised against any man who 
 offended him, that most men shrunk from a con- 
 test with him. When he took his seat in Court 
 he could iU brook any opposition, and at once 
 determined to silence the advocate in his Court 
 who dared to find fault with him in the very 
 Chamber over which he had exercised so much 
 power ; and with deep sarcasm ready at his 
 hand, and uttered with impunity when an ad- 
 vocate, he at once forgot his new position of 
 Chancellor, and poured out his stale venom as 
 if he were still an advocate endeavouring by 
 sarcasm to crush his opponent. He hved to act 
 more wisely and more kindly. 
 
 I now return to Campbell's charge against 
 me. The charge is, that for personal and poli- 
 tical reasons I was eager to expose the inex- 
 perience of the Whig Lord Chancellor, and that 
 in one contest between us, "the Lord High 
 Chancellor " in plain terms applied to me the 
 language complained of. This, therefore, must 
 mean a contest between us as Lord Chan- 
 cellor and Barrister ; and it is treated as a 
 
16 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 matter of no consequence except so far as it 
 showed my alleged misconduct, and the rebuke 
 which I received. With the exception of the 
 language used by the Lord Chancellor, I cannot 
 refrain from characterising the whole of this 
 statement as a malignant falsehood. There was 
 no contest between us as Lord Chancellor and 
 King's Counsel, as the statement in the book 
 would lead the reader to beheve, and I never 
 did expose the inexperience of the Whig Lord 
 Chancellor, or take advantage of his inexpe- 
 rience in any manner. His biographer notices 
 that during an argument he would make re- 
 marks which showed that he had not mastered 
 the case ; and this is true, but I left them un- 
 noticed, and carefully avoided observing or cor- 
 recting them. We were opposed in pohtics, and 
 I could not approve of his acts when he first 
 was appointed Lord Chancellor, but I never 
 allowed this to have any bearing on my conduct 
 in Court. 
 
 The supposed contest which Lord Campbell 
 treats so lightly was a serious attack, by the 
 Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, on me. 
 
DEFENCE. 17 
 
 a Barrister of his Court, for my acts as a Mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons, and having no 
 bearing on any contest between us in Court. 
 Of course this was well known to Lord Camp- 
 bell, and by every pubhc man. Campbell indeed 
 was then Solicitor General, and, as we shall see, 
 omitted to inform the Lord Chancellor of the 
 notice I had given to him. The charge involved 
 a great constitutional question, which engaged 
 the attention of both Houses of Parhament, and 
 it also brought under consideration attacks 
 made in one House on a Member of the other ; — 
 in this case the language of the Lord Chancellor 
 in the Lords on my conduct as a Member in 
 the Commons. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor had not given me any 
 intimation of his intended attack. The day he 
 made the speech, I was addressing him as 
 Counsel in a cause, when suddenly he rose, and, 
 instead of intimating to me, as usual, that he was 
 obliged to go elsewhere, he left me standing in 
 the middle of a sentence. I could not under- 
 stand such conduct, but it did not strike me 
 that he could possibly show his displeasure in 
 
18 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 Court for any conduct of mine in the House of 
 Commons, where I was as free to act as he was 
 in the Lords. 
 
 It appears from " Hansard"* that I had given 
 notice to the SoKcitor General, to be communi- 
 cated to the Lord Chancellor, that it was my 
 intention to mention in the House the subject 
 of certain vacant sinecures, not knowing that 
 they had been filled up. It was attempted to 
 ground a complaint that I had not given any 
 notice of my intention. The Solicitor General 
 (the noble biographer) admitted the notice, but 
 said he did not know that it was directed to the 
 appointment in question, and he had been pre- 
 vented, under peculiar circumstances, from see- 
 ing the Lord Chancellor upon the subject. This 
 was on the 25th July. The offices, it appears, 
 had been filled up with a brother of the Lord 
 Chancellor. When I asked the question as to 
 the offices, I stated that I had not made a 
 personal attack upon the Lord Chancellor ; I 
 had asked the question merely to obtain infor- 
 
 <» Yol. 14, Third Series, 816. I have found it necessary to 
 give what passed, in the Appendix. 
 
DEFENCE. 19 
 
 mation. The Chancellor's brother had resigned 
 his seat in Parliament for the purpose of filling 
 the offices. Sir Robt. Peel, Sir Chas. Wetherell, 
 Mr. Robinson, Mr. Wason, Sir F. Burdett, Mr. 
 Alderman Venables, all considered, after what 
 had passed, that the appointment was provi- 
 sional only; Sir Frederick Trench thought it 
 was permanent. Lord Althorp tried to establish 
 that I had made a personal attack on the 
 Chancellor. All this passed on the 25th July. 
 On the 26th, I again mentioned the subject, in 
 order to show that I had given proper notice, 
 according to the practice of the House. I 
 alluded to what I had heard had passed in the 
 other House that evening, and that some of the 
 Chancellor's observations were directed against 
 me : I said that I waited to see them from a 
 more authentic source, and I would then defend 
 myself against the sarcasms of the noble and 
 learned Lord, or against those of any other per- 
 son who might have attacked me.* 
 
 On this same 26th July, the Lord Chancellor 
 in the House of Lords, after he had left the 
 
 ** 14 Hans. Third Series, 815. Appendix to this volume. 
 B 2 
 
20 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 Court in the manner described, made an elabo- 
 rate prepared speech upon Chancery sinecures, 
 and vindicated his own conduct, and then re- 
 ferring to the question that I had asked in the 
 Commons, he said : it surely never entered into 
 the head of any man having brains, that he 
 should refrain from taking possession of some 
 of the emoluments of office falling vacant before 
 any regulation had been adopted for placing 
 them on a better footing.* He then, in well- 
 considered words, made an inexcusable attack 
 on me, in language ill-suited to his position 
 and the place in which he spoke. I only heard 
 of this speech from a friend as I was riding 
 down to the House of Commons. 
 
 The next day, when in possession of the Lord 
 Chancellor's speech, I went down to the House 
 of Commons early ; it was hardly formed when 
 I arrived. Peel was not there, but Goulburn 
 was, and he, at my request, started for Peel, 
 who arrived quickly. I was deeply sensible of 
 their kindness. I intended to rest my defence 
 upon the improper language of the attack upon 
 
 " 14 Hans. Third Series, 738. 742. 
 
DEFENCE. 21 
 
 me, and upon what I deemed a question of 
 privilege. I was called to brder by Mr. Stanley, 
 and the Speaker held I was out of order.* I 
 insisted that I was not out of order, and by 
 the courtesy of the House I proceeded. I spoke 
 in the strongest terms of the language of the 
 speech, and concluded by declaring that, for 
 once and for ever, I had lost all personal respect 
 for the Lord Chancellor. An animated debate 
 followed .-f There was no further call to order, 
 but every JSIember spoke freely on the subject 
 without interruption. Sir Robert Peel's first 
 observation was, that he had just read the ex- 
 pressions of which his honourable and learned 
 
 * I had the good sense to avoid reading to the House, as I 
 was several times called upon to do, the sarcasms of the Chan- 
 cellor. My reason was obvious enough ; but taking advantage 
 of my silence, it was urged that I was out of order, for I had 
 not stated that any charge was made against me, but merely 
 that I objected to some expressions in the other House. But 
 although I was allowed to proceed, I felt I was acting against 
 the decision of the Speaker, and I therefore confined myself to 
 the language used by the Lord Chancellor, being assured that 
 my friends would rely also on the other ground, which they 
 amply did. 
 
 f 14 Hans. Third Series, 827—850, and in the Appendix to 
 this volume. 
 
 B 3 
 
22 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 friend complained, and he had read them with the 
 greatest pain. Mr. Stanley, at once inter- 
 rupting him, said he had seen the noble Lord 
 that morning, and he complained of the manner 
 in which he was reported ; and Lord Althorp 
 said that the noble and learned Lord had called 
 on him to say that the report in that paper and 
 in another paper was very incorrect. This led 
 to messengers going backwards and forwards 
 between the two Houses, and we were soon 
 informed that the Lords had risen.* 
 
 I was strongly supported by Sir Robert Peel, 
 Mr. Goulbum, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Charles 
 WethereU, Mr. Robinson, and Sir Henry Har- 
 dinge. The latter, in consequence of a state- 
 ment that the Duke of Wellington was in the 
 House of Lords, and made no objection to the 
 Lord Chancellor's speech, observed that he was 
 satisfied that if his noble friend had been aware 
 
 « Sir Robert Peel said that the accuracy of the report was 
 called in question ; he hoped it -would be so found. It was a 
 report in "The Times" newspaper, and in one respect it had 
 the appearance of accuracy— it was very elaborately given. 
 
DEFENCE. 23 
 
 of the manner in which his honourable and 
 learned friend put the question to the House 
 of Commons, and if he distinctly heard the 
 epithets apphed to his honourable and learned 
 friend by the Lord Chancellor, he knew the 
 gallant nature of his noble friend, and his 
 steady friendship to his honourable and learned 
 friend too well, to beheve that he would for a 
 moment have allowed such expressions to pass 
 unnoticed. 
 
 I had reason to be perfectly satisfied with the 
 Debate, and was gratefid. to my friends for their 
 kind testimony and able defence. The House 
 was evidently on our side. As I desired to 
 forget the past, I have never opened these 
 Debates, which of course I read at the time, 
 until the pubhcation of Lord Campbell's book, 
 and I now abstain from calling further attention 
 to the expressions on either side.* I yet may 
 be excused for observing, that it will be found 
 that I did not utter one which, in his defence, 
 
 * It is indeed unnecessary to repeat Brougham's, as they 
 were similar to those he addressed to the jury in the Durham 
 clergy case, which are already referred to. 
 
 B 4 
 
24 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 one gentleman might not address to another 
 after such an attack. The result could not but 
 be painful to the Chancellor. It was suggested 
 in the Debate that he should set himself right 
 in the House of Lords, but the subject was, as 
 far as the two Houses were concerned, allowed 
 altogether to drop. 
 
 The morning after the Debate I had to open 
 the first case before the Chancellor. I found 
 the large haU in Lincoln's Inn — ^it was before 
 I had divided it, when Chancellor, into two 
 Courts — filled so as to render it impossible I 
 should reach my place unless the crowd made 
 way for me, which they readily did, and this 
 was repeated for a few mornings, in the hope, 
 no doubt, to witness an open quarrel between 
 the Chancellor and myself. Upon this first 
 morning the Chancellor was already in his seat, 
 with his note-book open before him, upon 
 which his eyes were intently fixed, and I think 
 I may venture to say that he never looked off 
 his book until he rose in the afternoon. I was 
 arguing all the day, as usual, but in a tone 
 probably of independence and dissatisfaction. 
 
DEFENCE. 25 
 
 The crowds at length dispersed, and business 
 took its ordinary course. There were no bicker- 
 ings between the Chancellor and myself, but 
 no marks of good feeling. When cases were 
 heard in his private room, he used, of course, 
 to come forward and shake hands with the 
 leading counsel ; but now he was always seated 
 in his arm-chair, with his note-book open before 
 him, and he never stirred, but made a shght 
 salute as he sat. He was always making 
 changes, which much deranged business ; and 
 just, I think, before Whitsuntide, he declared 
 that he would sit several days before the usual 
 day, which would have debarred the Barristers 
 of their usual, and, as I knew, necessary holi- 
 day ; and he declared that it was useless for 
 anyone to apply to him for an alteration. I was 
 not in Court, but this was considered to aUude 
 to me, as I was always asked by the Bar to 
 appeal to him when he made an order of which 
 they complained. Now several men came to me, 
 and asked me to appeal for them to the Chan- 
 cellor. Under existing circumstances I did not 
 
,26 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 like to undertake this duty, but I was so much 
 pressed that 1 assented. 
 
 I must here observe that I had had several 
 indications that the Government were desirous 
 to get me to accept preferment from them. At 
 length Lord Lyndhurst, then Chief Baron, came 
 into my room, and said, as he walked in, " 'Non 
 mens hie sermo.' I have refused to come to 
 you, although desired by the Chancellor, but 
 now he has written to me, and I cannot refuse 
 to do as he desires. He desires me to offer you 
 the place of a Baron of the Exchequer (arrange- 
 ments being made to prevent your being re- 
 quired to go Circuit, or act as a common-law 
 Judge), the Privy Council, and the Deputy 
 Speakership of the House of Lords. I answered 
 at once, that I declined to accept the offer. But 
 I said, " I should like to send a message by you, 
 but I do not ask you to take it." He replied 
 that he would take anything I had to send. 
 Then said I, "Tell the Chancellor that whilst 
 things remain as they are, there is nothing 
 which he can ever have to offer which I would 
 
DEFENCE. 27 
 
 accept;" and there the matter seemed to drop, 
 Lyndhurst went the Circuit without delivering 
 my message to the Chancellor, or to me the 
 Chancellor's letter. 
 
 In execution of my promise to the Bar, I 
 wrote a note to the Chancellor's secretary, to 
 say that I wished to have an interview with the 
 Chancellor on. the part of the Bar. When I 
 entered his room, instead of sitting in his arm- 
 chair as usual, he was standing; and coming 
 towards me with both hands open, he saluted 
 me as an old friend. " Well," he said, " what 
 brings you here ? " I told him the objection to 
 his order, and I added that I did not come on 
 the part of the Bar to ask a favour, but to de- 
 mand a right. He said, that was the true 
 way of putting it. I said, I was sure he 
 would think so. " I will," he added, " have it 
 looked into." "I think I can save you the 
 trouble ; I have investigated it with some pains." 
 Then he said, " Let it be so." 
 
 Drawing a little back, I said, " I am afraid, 
 before I leave this room, I must say what may" 
 be disagreeable to you." " Good God ! what 
 
28 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 can you have to say that is disagreeahle to me ?'' 
 " When," I said, " I entered this room, you held 
 out both your hands ; taken by surprise, I ac- 
 cepted one of them. I am compelled to tell 
 you that whilst things remain as they are, those 
 are terms upon which we cannot meet." " Good 
 God ! have you not seen Lyndhxu*st ? have you 
 not received a letter from me ?" , I told him of 
 my interview with Lyndhurst, and that I had 
 received no letter. " Well, then," he said (it 
 was so Uke him), "I wiU give you secondary 
 evidence of its contents. At eight o'clock in 
 the morning, in bed, I called for pen, ink, and 
 paper, and I wrote a letter to Lyndhurst, but 
 which was intended for you, in which I told him 
 that I should think it the best act of my legal 
 administration if I could prevail upon you to 
 accept the offers I desired him to take to you." 
 I remained perfectly still. He then said, "I 
 think if I had been in your place I should have 
 thought such an offer and such a letter a full 
 satisfaction." Still I remained silent. Gather- 
 ing himself up, and turning half away, he said, 
 " Well, I think when a man feels that he has 
 
DEFENCE. 29 
 
 done wrong, the sooner he says so the better." 
 I went up to him, gave him my hand, which he 
 grasped kindly, and I said, " I am much obhged 
 to you, and I shall never again think upon what 
 has passed." He then said I should have the 
 letter intended for me through Lyndhurst. I 
 assured him that I did not desire it ; but he per- 
 sisted, and accordingly wrote to Lyndhurst, who 
 was on Circuit, and he sent the letter to me, 
 excusing himself for having left town without 
 showing me the letter, but desiring me to 
 return it to, him. I accordingly did so, but 
 informed him that, as Brougham stated the 
 letter was intended for me, I had kept a copy 
 of it. 
 
 From that time to his death Brougham and I 
 were good friends ; and I cannot but look with 
 displeasure at Campbell's life of him. When 
 he heard that I had decUned to accept the 
 Great Seal a second time, he laid hold of my two 
 arms in the House of Lords, which was then not 
 quite made, and, with tears in his eyes, lu-ged 
 me to retract my refusal. He sent me copies of 
 all his books, and showed me every mark of 
 
30 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 good will. His habit of sitting on the Con- 
 servative benches, while voting with the other • 
 side, placed him for a very long time next to me, 
 and we were always on friendly terms, although 
 of opposite politics. Nothing but the attack of 
 his biographer, on both him and myself, could 
 have induced me to give pubhcity to what 
 passed between us. The same reason induces me 
 to add a few of the many of his letters to me, 
 to prove his good feelings towards me ; they 
 otherwise would never have been published. If 
 Lord Campbell's statement of Lord Brougham's 
 disUke to me were true, his letters would do him 
 no credit. But I give credit wholly to the letters 
 and to his conduct, which harmonised with them, 
 and none to his calumniator. I can truly assert 
 that Lord Brougham's kind feelings towards me 
 were fully reciprocated by me. Whilst I was in 
 Ireland he, without any application from me, 
 undertook my defence in the Lords in regard to 
 a letter vrritten by me as Chancellor, of which 
 parts had been much criticised, but it was 
 loudly cheered when he read the whole of it 
 to the House. He added to this great act of 
 
DEFENCE. 31 
 
 kindness by writing to me from the Privy 
 Council the following letter : 
 
 My dear Chancellor, 
 
 As I am told that one newspaper at 
 least so entirely misrepresents my defence of 
 you last night as to say that I held that your 
 act alone as good and your reasons for it as 
 bad, I write to relieve your mind from all such 
 impression — / said the very reverse [the italics 
 are Brougham's], and only said that Lans- 
 downe had narrowed down the whole charge 
 to this, 'The act is right, the reasons bad.' 
 It was my representation of his argument, and I 
 at once met him on the ground thus narrowed, 
 and proceeded to issue, defending your 
 reasons— which I now deemed to be impugned 
 — ^as well as your act, which I deemed to be 
 now admitted. Indeed, Campbell complained 
 of my taking a higher ground than the 
 Government did. As you know all clients 
 are apt to be dissatisfied with their counsel, 
 I am anxious to relieve myself from any 
 charge of having put your defence too low. 
 
32 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 Look, by the way, at G. Ponsonby's de- 
 claration of his course of conduct while 
 Chancellor in 1806. He said, in June 1816, 
 that he never gave any reason at all. 
 
 Yours ever sincerely, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 I shall add a few more of his letters to show 
 what terms we were upon. 
 
 " Grafton Street, 
 
 " 5 February 1857- 
 " My dear Sir Edward, 
 " I have just received your kind letter, with 
 the longer document [this refers to a cause 
 upon which he states his views] . Let me say, 
 in consequence of a rumour which reached me 
 of some one having represented me as under- 
 valuing your most able, most learned, and most 
 interesting book (I mean your criticism on the 
 House of Lords), that there never was anything 
 more contrary to the fact than such a statement. 
 I had intended to write to you to deny it, and 
 also to express my gratitude for the pleasure I 
 had received from the perusal of the work 
 
DEFENCE. 33 
 
 before I received your letter this morning. I 
 have uniformly said that I compared it to 
 Bentley's ' Phalaris,' which no scholar can lay 
 down when he has taken it up, and which 
 interests even readers who are no scholars. 
 However, I must, add that as to your conclusions, 
 I of course ' stand by my order.' I daresay some 
 jokes which were had in the House of Lords 
 about your library at Dublin being ill fur- 
 nished, &c., gave rise to the absurd report.* I 
 beg my respects to Lady S., and believe me 
 sincerely yours, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 4 Grafton- street, 
 17th February 1857- 
 My dear Friend, 
 I assure you I feel extremely annoyed at 
 leaving town without having seen you, which 
 I daily hoped to do at the House, and to thank 
 you for your most valuable present, and to beg 
 
 * This refers to my statement in the Preface to the 13th 
 edition of my book on " Purchases," that, at starting, my shelves 
 ■were but scantily furnished. My library in Dublin was well 
 furnished from mine in Lincoln's Inn. 
 
34 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 your acceptance in return — a much inadequate 
 return — of my last three volumes. Your book 
 (I mean your new edition) is most welcome. 
 The 1,200 cases astound me ! I thought I could 
 work a little bit, and poor Wilde used to talk 
 of the hard labours which I called my holidays. 
 But truly you beat us all to nothing, I hope 
 and trust that ill-health has had no share in 
 keeping you away from us, and that when I 
 return (D.V.) at Easter, I shall find you threaten- 
 ing to require my issuing an injunction again as 
 to riding, which I may be obUged to make per- 
 petual if I find it necessary. 
 
 Believe me ever 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 I cannot admit that you have not lost much 
 in the way of amusement by your absence. 
 
 Writing to me from H6tel Meurice, Paris, 
 on the last day of 1860, he wrote at large on 
 Berryer, and expressing his sorrow for the 
 sufferings of one of my family ; and hoping that 
 
DEFENCE. 35 
 
 the new spring would be some compensation to 
 us for the past, he adds, of which I heartily 
 wish you and yours aU the good wishes. 
 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 Brougham, 
 4th November 1860. 
 My dear Friend, 
 I grieve to see from the papers that you are 
 unwell, but I hope and trust not seriously, as the 
 paper represents, and I send to amuse you in 
 yoiu" recovery a copy of my address at Glasgow, 
 of which I only got seven copies. 
 
 Yours ever most sincerely, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 I am preparing to seek, as usual, a milder 
 climate in the South, where I wish you would 
 come also. 
 
 I may add, that he several times pressed 
 me to pay a visit to Brougham as well as to the 
 South. 
 
 c 2 
 
36 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 A postscript at the head of a letter, dated 
 from Brougham, 27th August 1861, "I heard 
 you often spoken of with respect and regard." 
 
 My dear S., 
 A thousand thanks for the volume. It is 
 really a library of law and equity in itself; 
 it is a corpus juris. I have only had time to 
 turn over the titles of it, and I see much in 
 abundance which had escaped me. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 H. Brougham. 
 
 To return once more to Lord Campbell's book, 
 he states that at the opening of the Session in 
 1852 Brougham was at his post, and without 
 any ulterior object began badgering the Lord 
 Chancellor, and joined with Lyndhurst in ob- 
 structing the law reform proposed on the part 
 of the Government, and Campbell proceeds to 
 show to what a "pitch of fractiousness " they 
 proceeded. When, he adds. Lord John Russell 
 fell, Brougham imagined that his opposition had 
 materially contributed to the change, and for 
 
DEFENCE. 37 
 
 this he quickly felt remorse. Instead of " Jona- 
 than Wilde," he now saw on the Woolsack 
 Sugden, whom he disliked more heartily. 
 Brougham bore the misfortune with apparent 
 magnanimity. In public he affected to be 
 rather cordial with the new Lord Chancellor, 
 but he poured out his griefs pathetically into 
 the ear of a private friend. The truth was, 
 that he stood considerably in awe of Sugden, 
 who was infinitely superior to him in profes- 
 sional knowledge, and had far higher reputation 
 as a lawyer, while infinitely inferior to him in 
 eloquence and in liberal acquirements. When 
 he (Campbell) returned from the Spring Circuit 
 in April, he found, he says, that the new Chan- 
 cellor had been setting aU the law lords at 
 defiance, and had threatened to repeal a Bill 
 which he had introduced, as head af the Real 
 Property Commission, to regulate the execution 
 of wills of real and personal property. He 
 (Campbell) was called in by Brougham, and 
 " we gave our noble and learned Mend " a 
 lesson which made him comparatively modest 
 
 c 3 
 
38 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 and humble during the remainder of his short 
 tenure of office. Thus far Lord Campbell. 
 
 This statement is damaging to Brougham's 
 reputation, and was intended to damage mine. 
 As far as the facts are before us, every part of 
 the statement is false ; we have only Lord 
 Campbell's statement that Brougham's conduct 
 towards me in pubhc was wholly opposed to his 
 real feelings. The private friend in whose ear 
 he is stated to have pathetically poured his 
 griefs, we must understand to have been Lord 
 Campbell himself, so that the statement cannot 
 be disproved. But as aU his statements which 
 we can test by evidence prove to be untrue, it is 
 no harshness to conclude that those which rest 
 on his own statements only are equally false. 
 
 I now come to this additional charge against 
 me. I had set aU the law lords at defiance, and 
 threatened to repeal the Act of 1st Vict. Camp- 
 bell was called in by Brougham, and they gave 
 me a lesson which made me modest and 
 humble. I would plead guilty to the modesty 
 and humiUty, because I deeply felt the responsi- 
 
DEFENCE. 39 
 
 bility of the duties I had undertaken. But the 
 entire charge otherwise is simply false. I had 
 not -set any law lord, much less all of them, at 
 defiance, nor had I threatened to repeal the Act 
 of 1st Victoria, nor did Brougham and Campbell 
 give me any lesson whatever. 
 
 If Campbell's statement, that I had set aU the 
 law lords at defiance should be considered as 
 not confined to my amendment of the Wills 
 BUI, but to refer also to the judicial pro- 
 ceedings of the House, I am furnished by a 
 friend with an answer from the Lords' Journals 
 to that view. I took my seat on the Woolsack 
 on the 4th of March : on the 29th of March 
 Lord Campbell reappeared in the House, after 
 no doubt his absence on Circuit, and when he 
 speaks of the state in which he found things on 
 his return, he of course refers to what had 
 taken place before the latter day. Now the 
 Journals show that seven appeals were heard 
 in the above interval : two were not of sufficient 
 importance to be reported ; in one of the re- 
 ported cases I sat alone, and certainly, there- 
 forcj there was no difi'erence of opinion ; then 
 
 c 4 
 
40 LORD ST. Leonards' 
 
 four remain to be accounted for — they were all 
 heard by only two law lords, Brougham and 
 myself, and we entirely agreed in our judg- 
 ments. If the charge of setting all the law 
 lords at defiance is my conduct in passing the 
 amendments to the Wills Bill, and the charge, 
 no doubt, includes, if it is not confined to that, 
 my answer to it is the following facts. 
 
 While I was out of office, I had, in one of 
 my law pubhcations, pointed out the duty of 
 the Government to at once repeal a portion of 
 the Act of 1st Victoria, which required the 
 testator's name to be signed at the foot or end of 
 the Will. I can best explain to the general 
 reader by a quotation from my Handy Book 
 what the decisions were in consequence of these 
 words, and what was the operation of the Act 
 which I prevailed upon the Legislature to pass. 
 " Upon this sUght foundation, the words above, 
 in itahcs, it was decided that if there was some- 
 what more room than enough for the signature 
 between the end of the will and the actual 
 signature, the will was void, so that at last it 
 rather "^quired a carpenter to measure the 
 
DEFENCE. 41 
 
 distance in each case than a Judge to decide 
 upon the application of the Act. The sad result 
 was, that this law made hundreds of wills void. 
 They were, when attempted to be proved, 
 carried away in basketfuls as valueless." I 
 at once did what I had called upon the pre- 
 ceding Government to perform. I introduced 
 a Bill to amend the Wills Act in that respect. 
 For the operation of my Act I may again refer 
 to my Handy Book. " This great reproach to 
 the law has been removed by an Act for which 
 I am responsible, and it would be difficult now 
 for a man to place his signature so as to render 
 his will void, for it will be vahd if the signature 
 be so placed, at, or after, or following, or under, 
 or beside, or opposite to, the end of the wiU, 
 that it shall appear on the face of the will that 
 the testator intended to give effect by such his 
 signature to the writing signed as his will. The 
 Act has put an end to all difficulty." Now this 
 is the Act upon which Lord CampbeU founds 
 his charge against me. I had set all the law 
 lords at defiance, and threatened to repeal the 
 Wills Act. I made no such threat, but I added 
 
42 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 two or three clauses to my Bill, further amend- 
 ing, as I thought, the Wills Act, but as objec- 
 tion was made to them I at once struck them 
 out, so as not to endanger my great and prin- 
 cipal object. The Debate upon the second 
 reading will be found in Hansard.* It appears 
 that in regard to what I may call the additional 
 clauses, I stated that if any of my poble and 
 learned friends objected to either of these two 
 clauses I would not retain them ; but if I should 
 have the concurrence of my noble and learned 
 friends to the first clause, which I expected, I 
 should be very well content. I then stated what 
 steps I might in future take in regard to certain 
 portions of the Wills Act, but no threat of any 
 kind, much less to attempt to repeal the Act. 
 Looking at the report of the Debate, modesty 
 and humility on my part could, I think, no 
 further go. Not an appearance of any defiance. 
 Lord Brougham agreed with me that the first 
 clause should pass, and approved of the course 
 suggested by me of striking out, for the present 
 at least, all but that, and agreed with me that 
 
 <» 120, Third Series, p. 2. 
 
DEFENCE. 43 
 
 at all events the first clause should be passed. 
 Lord Cranworth expressed himself in favour of 
 the Bill, and he should not therefore oppose the 
 second reading of it. Lord EUenborough 
 thought that I was perfectly justified in intro- 
 ducing the Bill, and it was then read a second 
 time. There was no other speaker. This was 
 on the 23rd March 1852. I struck out the 
 clauses objected to, and on the 26th of March 
 the amendments were reported ; further amend- 
 ments were made, and after an observation from 
 Lord Cranworth as to the words used, the BiU 
 was ordered to be read a third time on Monday, 
 and on the 29th of March it was read accord- 
 ingly, without any debate. Lord Campbell 
 appears from the Journals to have been in the 
 House on that day.* This plain statement re- 
 futes aU Lord Campbell's charges. The pro- 
 ceedings in the Commons on the BUI have no 
 bearing on the question before us, and therefore 
 I shall only refer to them.f The BiU passed the 
 Commons by a considerable majority, on a 
 
 -■ 120 Hans., Third Series, 2. 171. 683. 
 t 121 Hans., Third Series, 1234. 
 
44 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 division, and ultimately passed with my words 
 as originally framed , but not without a serious 
 opposition in the Commons. 
 
 Happily, the fears expressed of its operation 
 were groundless ; the Bill has worked admirably ; 
 htigation has ceased, and thousands of wills 
 have had full effect given to them, which without 
 the Bill would have been void ; and now for all 
 time men's wills cannot be so recklessly set 
 aside, and this paj"ticularly appKes to the wills of 
 the middle and lower classes. Some time after 
 the Bill had passed I met in London my friend 
 the Judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland ; 
 he told me that the Bill had put an end to his 
 business ; he had nothing to do ; for I had so 
 provided for every possible case, that no will 
 could be set aside on the ground of the signa- 
 ture not being in the right place. 
 
 Campbell was proud of his position as head 
 of the Real Property Commission. He was not 
 appointed to it until I had resisted Lord Lynd- 
 hurst's pressure to accept the office ; he would 
 take no denial, but I felt that it was impossible 
 for me, with my engagements at the Bar, to give 
 
DEFENCE. 45 
 
 to the Commission the labour which would be 
 exacted from me. Lord Campbell, who I believe 
 did not know that the office had been offered to 
 me, was in the habit of treating the able BiUs 
 which the Commissioners framed as his own. 
 The subjects before the Commission were alto- 
 gether out of his hne of study and practice ; and 
 he had no hand in framing the Bills. He con- 
 verted the heads of one of the Bills in the Report 
 of the Commissioners into a BiU, which of course 
 was laid on one side, and the BiU was drawn 
 elaborately by another hand. One of the learned 
 Conveyancers, who was one of the Commis- 
 sioners, said to me at the time, speaking of this 
 Bill, that Campbell had no more to do with it 
 than his footman. He seems, from his book, to 
 have taken a great interest in the WiUs Bill, but 
 it was prepared by an eminent Conveyancer, a 
 Member of the Real Property Commission, and 
 was, in the improved form in which it passed, 
 brought into the House of Lords in 1837, by 
 Lord Langdale, with an elaborate speech, on the 
 second reading.* 
 
 » 36 Hans., Third Series, 963. 
 
46 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 I will only refer to one more attack upon me, 
 which escaped my attention until aU the pre- 
 cedent part of my defence was written. The 
 biographer, adverting to Lord Brougham's con- 
 duct in regard to the codification of the criminal 
 law, says that he had some countenance from 
 Lord St. Leonards, now an ex-Chancellor, who, 
 from being a legal optimist, had suddenly be- 
 come an ardent reformer, and to gain popularity 
 for his party was willing to join in an experiment 
 which would have thrown the administration of 
 criminal law into confusion. This, which is 
 wholly unfounded in fact, implies that the expe- 
 riment would lead to the consequence predicted ; 
 and that I foresaw it, and with that knowledge 
 I was ready for party purposes to give counte- 
 nance to so dangerous a measure. I have seldom 
 been more shocked than in reading this atrocious 
 hbel from such a quarter. I feel ashamed at 
 having to defend myself against it. Such a 
 charge is best answered by my judicial and 
 poUtical life, and upon that I confidently rely. 
 If I had acted in such a case upon the vile motive 
 attributed to me, I should have deeply disgraced 
 
DEFENCE. 47 
 
 myself, and the attempt to vindicate my cha- 
 racter against the other charges by Lord Camp- 
 bell would hardly be received with much favour. 
 I may be allowed to state that the mass of papers 
 in my possession shows how much time and at- 
 tention I bestowed upon the proposed legislation. 
 I look in vain for any probable cause of 
 Lord Campbell's rancour against me. I 
 effectually opposed the Registration Bill, 
 and I thought that might have been a cause ; 
 but that could hardly be, for I find* that in 
 referring in the Lords to the intention to bring 
 a Registration Bill into the House of Commons, 
 he observed that the question had been lately 
 propounded — " Will you register your deeds r" 
 and to that question a right honourable friend 
 of his. Sir Edward Sugden, who was justly con- 
 sidered as one of the brightest ornaments of the 
 profession, had replied, " No."t Now he said, 
 " Yes," &c. Removing this cause, I know of no 
 other. 
 
 * 119 Hansard, 182, 5 February 1852. 
 
 f The title of my pamphlet was, " Shall we Eegister our 
 Deeds ? " Answer, " No." 
 
48 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 He observes, under the date of 1853, that 
 Lyndhurst was Ukewise very useful this Session 
 in supporting and improving the Bill for the 
 Registration of Deeds respecting Real Property. 
 But although it passed the House of Lords, 
 Lord St. Leonards alone dissenting, it was lost 
 in the Commons, &c. This again is a misrepre- 
 sentation. The BUI had passed the House of 
 Lords before I was Chancellor, but had been 
 dropped. AVhen it was introduced after I had 
 ceased to be Chancellor, I was aware that I 
 could not, as Lyndhurst said in a sort of loud 
 whisper, as if speaking to himself, ask the 
 House to stultify itself; and yet I feared if I 
 allowed it to pass the Lords vdthout opposition, 
 it might pass in the Commons ; I therefore spoke 
 against it, and divided the House. It was, of 
 course, carried ; not as represented by Campbell, 
 but by 57 to 24. 
 
 Just after the Incumbered Estates (Ire- 
 land) Bill passed, Campbell and I dined, as 
 Benchers, at Lincoln's Inn. Leaving the Inn 
 together, I to reach Waterloo Station and he to 
 go to Kensington, we walked arm-in-arm down 
 
DEFENCE. 49 
 
 the Strand, which was somewhat out of his way, 
 and had much confidential conversation. He 
 appeared to take a hvely interest in my adminis- 
 tration of the law in Ireland, and expressed his 
 regret that I had not accepted the offer of the 
 Chief Judge of the new Court. I said that I 
 declined to take a lower position in Court than 
 the one I had occupied ; besides, the place, with 
 aU its novelty and difficulty, was not attended 
 with any income beyond my retiring pension. 
 He expressed the greatest surprise, said it was a 
 mistake, that 10,000/. a year would not be too 
 much for me, and that the Government would 
 immediately obtain an Act of Parliament to 
 authorise the grant. I told him that money 
 alone was not the object, but that if they had 
 intended to grant a large salary, they should 
 have provided for it at once, and that nothing 
 would induce me to allow an appeal to Parha- 
 ment for a large salary to be granted to me. 
 We parted apparently very good friends.* 
 
 * I may here mention, that while the Bill was passing, the 
 Government gave some mysterious hints as to the manner in 
 which the Chief Judgeship was to be filled. As soon as it 
 passed, Lord John Russell sent for me and made the ofEer, 
 
 D 
 
50 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 Lord Campbell paid me the neatest compli- 
 ment on my Handy Book I ever received. On 
 the Bench, as Lord Chief Justice, he said that if 
 it was proposed to pass an Act to declare that 
 everything in the book was law, he would sup- 
 port it. I sent him a copy of my last edition, 
 and he thus acknowledged it. 
 
 " Stratheden House, 
 
 "July 6th, 1859. 
 " My dear St. Leonards, 
 " Accept my warm thanks for the copy of the 
 7th edition of your invaluable Handy Book you 
 
 which I of course declined. He said he supposed I knew the 
 nature of the Bill. I answered, it would be singular if I did 
 not, as I was the author of the measure. He looked incredu- 
 lous. I explained to him that Sir Robert Feel had a scheme for 
 relieving the incumbered estates in Ireland, and he sent it to me 
 for my opinion. (I have it now before me, a long and elaborate 
 paper.) I wrote to him to say that I thought his plan would 
 not work; and I then gave him a sketch of a BiU which would 
 work, but I observed that I did not say that I would pass 
 such a hard measure if I had the power. I considered it, as 
 to property, like the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act 
 as to person, and, like it, it should not be carried beyond the 
 actual necessity of the case. That letter Sir Robert sent to 
 Lord Clarendon in Ireland, and he sent it to the Government at 
 home, and upon that scheme the Bill was founded, as I think 
 Sir Robert Peel informed me. I understood Lord John Russell 
 to say that he believed some paper was sent. 
 
DEFENCE. 51 
 
 have had the goodness to send me. A proposal 
 has been made that it should be declared law 
 by Act of Parliament, but this form is quite im- 
 necessary. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Campbell." 
 
 I shall add a few more letters from him, 
 merely to show upon what friendly terms we 
 appeared to be. 
 
 When he was made Chancellor, I acted with 
 the greatest forbearance towards him, frequently 
 going into his private room and pointing out 
 objections to his BiUs, instead of attacking them 
 in the House. There was one most important 
 BiU which he introduced, although he was 
 not the author of it. It contained many 
 amendments of procedure, &c., at common 
 law, and two other clauses with one of form, 
 to which there was no objection.* 
 
 But it further enabled the Common Law 
 
 ' One of these clauses was to extend in certain cases the 
 power to grant iniunctions to courts of law, where I, for the 
 first time, had already in one "of my Bills given that power to 
 Courts of Equity. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 •Judges to administer generally equitable relief. 
 This I strongly opposed in the House, and the 
 Bill would have been rejected had he not 
 elected to send it upstairs to a Select Com- 
 mittee. The Committee was a large one, and, 
 of course, so selected as to support the Govern- 
 ment, who desired to carry their Chancellor's 
 BiU. The Bill, of course, had been read a 
 second time in the House. When in Com- 
 mittee, I rose and said that, as the Members 
 could not know much about the nature of the 
 case before them, I would, with their permis- 
 sion, draw their attention to the present state of 
 the two jurisdictions of Law and Equity. Lord 
 Kingsdown and several other Members ex- 
 pressed their desire to hear me. Lord Camp- 
 bell was in the Chair, and he strongly opposed 
 my being heard ; he said that the principle of 
 the Bill had been established in the House by 
 the second reading, and therefore it was his 
 duty to commence with the sections of the BiU, 
 the few first clauses of which were those not 
 disputed, which he attempted to do accordingly, 
 but the Committee determined to hear me, and 
 
DEFENCE. 53 
 
 he was compelled to give way. I occupied 
 some time, and, at the conclusion, Kingsdown 
 and several other Members thanked me for the 
 information I had given to the Committee. We 
 then voted on the sections open to objection, 
 and as there were many sections upon every 
 new rule, I moved to strike them out in a body. 
 I was always supported, and the Chancellor 
 every time had to run his pen through a long 
 list of sections. At last, seeing that he could 
 not prevail, when he put a new rule to the vote 
 without stopping for any action on the part of 
 the Committee, he at once struck out aU the 
 sections depending on the rule. This Lord 
 Granville in vain endeavoured to stop. In two 
 sittings, nothing was left of the Equity clauses 
 but two innocent ones and a formal one, to 
 which no one objected,* and although the 
 Chancellor said that he would appeal to the 
 House, he did not do so, and the Bill was 
 passed without those clauses. It is possible 
 that this proceeding may have caused the 
 Chancellor to look upon me as an adversary, 
 
 ** 23 & 24 Vict. c. 126, sections 1—3. 
 D 3 
 
54 LORD ST. Leonards' 
 
 and have induced him to leave behind him all 
 the sarcasms and misrepresentations he had 
 accumulated against me. I could not have 
 believed it. 
 
 At length he died suddenly. Lord GranviUe 
 came across the floor to me and asked me if 
 I should object to The House being adjourned, 
 out of respect to the late Chancellor. I said I 
 thought it would be quite right, and I would 
 support it. When The House was about to rise, 
 as no one attempted to speak, I thought it be- 
 came The House to express its regret at the loss 
 which it had suffered by the death of the Chan- 
 cellor. I made no motion, but I spoke, without 
 a moment's preparation, in favour of the Chan- 
 cellor. I called the attention of the House to 
 the manner in which he had presided in the 
 House, gave him unqualified praise as a Com- 
 mon Law Judge, softened down his difiiculties 
 as an Equity Judge, and expressed my feeling 
 for the sufferings of his family from the sud- 
 denness of their bereavement. I do not regret 
 a word that I uttered 
 
DEFENCE. 55 
 
 I had no intention to criticise Campbell's 
 lives ; and I have looked at them in regard 
 only to my own defence. But in rising 
 from even this slight perusal, I cannot but 
 feel how insignificant is my cause of com- 
 plaint when England herself has just grounds 
 of lament. With all their faults— and who is 
 without them?— Lyndhurst and Brougham in 
 civil life were two of the men of this age whom 
 she justly admired ; she was proud to call them 
 her Sons, and wiQ not allow them to be thrown 
 from the Pedestal upon which she placed them, 
 and upon which they still stand. Their Lives 
 remain to be written. 
 
 D 4 
 
66 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 The following are the Letters before referred 
 
 to: 
 
 " Stratheden House, 
 
 "22 August 1859. 
 " Dear Lord St. Leonards, 
 
 " In settling with Lord Lyndhurst the names 
 to be inserted in his Commission about the 
 mode of taking evidence in Equity suits, not- 
 withstanding our deep conviction of the import- 
 ance of your opinion on such a subject, it was 
 thought that we could hardly ask you to attend 
 as a Commissioner ; but I find that there is a 
 disappointment, among those who wish well to 
 the Commission, that your name is not in it, 
 and I beg your permission still to introduce it. 
 
 " Without regularly attending the meetings 
 of the Commissioners, you may be able to give 
 us valuable advice, and I am sure that all the 
 Commissioners will receive any opinion you 
 may express, with the greatest deference. 
 " I remain, yours very faithfully, 
 
 " Campbell." 
 
 " I leave London to-morrow, and my address 
 will be — " Hartrigge, 
 
 " Jedburgh, N. B." 
 
DEFENCE. 57 
 
 " DekT Lord Chancellor, 
 "I am much obliged to you for your kind 
 letter. I fully appreciate the motive which 
 induced Lord Lyndhurst and you not to mention 
 to me the intended Commission in regard to the 
 taking of evidence in om* Equity Courts. I have 
 never mentioned the subject to anyone, nor has 
 any person mentioned it to me ; so that until I 
 received your letter I was unaware that atten- 
 tion had been drawn to the omission of my 
 name in the Commission, although it contains 
 the names of all the other Law Lords. It was 
 obviously impossible to explain why my name 
 was not included, and of course I could have 
 afforded no explanation. However, as the Com- 
 mission has been published, and to add my 
 name now would call forth further observations, 
 and perhaps explanations, which I think it 
 desirable to avoid, I am clear that it is not 
 advisable to tack my name to the Commission, 
 and I therefore respectfully dechne to act. Cir- 
 cumstances have not altered since the Commis- 
 sion issued. If I had agreed to act, I should 
 assuredly have given my earnest attention to the 
 
58 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 subject of the inquiry, as a supplement to my 
 labours of 1852, for improving the law and the 
 procedure of our Courts of Equity. My en- 
 deavours to that end have been carried on to 
 the last day of the last Session, when my last 
 BUI received the Royal Assent. 
 
 "P.S. — Since writing this letter, the noon- 
 day's post has brought me a letter by which I 
 learn that Lord Brougham was left out of the 
 Commission without any apphcation to him. 
 This alone would now prevent me from accept- 
 ing the office of a Commissioner." * 
 
 It is seldom that I have kept a copy of any 
 letter written by me. I do not know how this 
 was signed ; probably — 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 St. Leonards. 
 
 * The letter was from Lord Brougham ; he was much dis- 
 pleased with the omission of our names, and in one of his letters 
 he says that " it can only be a vulgar exhibition of power." 
 
DEFENCE. 59 
 
 " Stratheden House, 
 
 " 30 August, 1859. 
 "My dear Lord St. Leonards, 
 
 " We should have done better (I now admit) 
 if we had asked Brougham and you whether 
 you would consent to your names being intro- 
 duced into the Commission ; but I am sure that 
 the omission did not arise, in the most remote 
 degree, from any disrespect to either of you. 
 
 " Brougham has thus answered my apphca- 
 tion to him to aUow his name, with yours, to be 
 now added ; — ' By all means do as you suggest 
 about the Commission ; but, although of course 
 I shall attend it in London, I cannot undertake 
 to be there tUl Parliament meets. If anything 
 occurs to me, I wiU communicate it through 
 you.' 
 
 " I do most earnestly request that you too 
 will overlook the mistake which was made, and 
 allow the Commission to be complete, as we 
 should have been glad from the beginning that 
 it should have been. 
 
 "I am here from a summons to attend a 
 
60 LORD ST. LEONARDS' 
 
 Cabinet, and I return immediately to Hart- 
 rigge. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Campbell. 
 
 " I ought to have thanked you for your very 
 courteous answer to my letter.— C." 
 
 " Stratheden House, 
 
 " 17th October 1859. 
 " Dear Lord St. Leonards, 
 " I have had the satisfaction to put the Great 
 Seal to a new Commission including your name, 
 and I have directed the Secretary to send you a 
 copy of the returns made to our questions about 
 Equity evidence. I do not think that we can 
 have any meeting of the Commissioners till 
 Term begins.* 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 " Campbell." 
 
 ** See the Report of the Chancery Evidence Commission, 
 my separate Report, and, in the Appendix, a Memorandum of 
 mine, and two letters from me to Lord Chancellor Campbell. 
 
DEFENCE. 61 
 
 " Stratheden House, 
 
 "24 May 1858. 
 " Dear Lord St. Leonards, 
 
 " Would you have the goodness, for the 
 assistance of myself and my brother Judges in 
 Queen's Bench, to look at the 7th Condition in 
 the enclosed Particulars, and tell us how it 
 ought to be construed r 
 
 The purchaser failed to comply with the Con- 
 ditions, so that the deposit was forfeited. The 
 vendor proceeded to a re-sale, and brought an 
 action against the first purchaser, seeking to 
 recover damages for a deficiency which arose on 
 the re-sale, together with the expenses attending 
 the same. 
 
 In calculating the deficiency, ought the ven- 
 dor to give credit for the amount of the deposit 
 on the first sale ; or, is the deficiency to be cal- 
 culated on the difference between the sum at 
 which the premises were sold at the first sale, 
 and on the re-sale ? 
 
 We do not find the point settled by your in- 
 valuable works, and we are not aware of any 
 
62 LORD ST. LEONARDS' DEFENCE. 
 
 case which comes nearer it than " Palmer v. 
 Temple," 9 Ad. & Ell. 508. 
 
 '•' Yours very truly, 
 
 " Campbell." 
 
 I should hardly have felt at hberty to publish 
 this letter if the Chief Justice, in delivering 
 the opinion of the Court, had not stated that 
 I took the same view with themselves. 
 
 Law students may like to see the answer : 
 " Clearly the deposit, which is part payment, is 
 to be brought into the account by the seller, 
 although forfeited, so that the purchaser could 
 never have recovered it." 
 
63 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 14 Hansard's Debates, Third Series, p. 721. 
 
 Chancery Sinecures.] Sir Udward Suff den called 
 the attention of tlie noble Lord opposite, to the filling 
 up of the sinecure offices of the Court of Chancery, 
 which he understood were to have been abolished. 
 The promise to abolish them was made in that House, 
 when the Bankruptcy Bill, which had entailed such a 
 great and useless expense on the country, was intro- 
 duced; yet he now found that they had been filled 
 up. The greatest complaints were made when one of 
 these offices was held by a son of Lord Eldon's, and 
 the various offices and the various fees of the Court of 
 Chancery were then attacked freely enough ; but not 
 one word of objection was uttered now that the money 
 was to be received by different persons ; and the 
 offices themselves, that were then so vigorously attacked 
 as abuses, were now quietly filled up, and filled up 
 too, he begged to observe, after he had intimated that 
 he should call the attention of the House to them.* 
 He complained, besides, of the delay that had taken 
 place in settling the salary and the retired allowances 
 of the Chancellor. He did not wish to mix up that 
 which was a personal matter with another and a 
 
 * I do not find any report of this. 
 
64 APPENDIX. 
 
 different subject, and he had thus been prevented from 
 moving what he should otherwise have done — the 
 repeal of nine-tenths of the Bankrupt Act. He wished 
 to know in what way the noble Lord opposite ex- 
 plained the recent appointment of Registrar of the 
 Court of Chancery ? 
 
 Lord Althorp regretted that the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman had availed himself of the opportunity of 
 putting a question, to make an attack upon the Lord 
 Chancellor, and said, that those offices which were in 
 the gift of the Lord Chancellor must be filled up as 
 they became vacant, until they were legally abolished. 
 He was desirous that the question of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor's salary should be decided as soon as possible ; 
 but he had hitherto been unable to bring it forward 
 on account of the important business already before 
 the House. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel said that it was impossible to 
 believe that the appointments in question could be 
 otherwise than merely provisional. In the Committee 
 appointed to inquire into what reduction could be 
 made in salaries of offices held during the pleasure of 
 the Crown, the Lord Chancellor himself declared his 
 intention to abolish all sinecure offices. He thought 
 it would be a great improvement, if the measure were 
 extended to the Court of Chancery which was applied 
 to other Courts, for putting an end to sinecures, and 
 making proper compensation to the persons holding 
 them. To show that this was the view which the 
 Lord Chancellor himself took of the subject, he would 
 read a passage from the evidence of the noble and 
 learned Lord before the Committee. Being asked, 
 " Are the Committee to understand that it is your 
 intention to divest the office of Lord Chancellor of all 
 sinecure situations ?" he replied, " If I can obtain 
 
APPENDIX. 65 
 
 the concurrence of Parliament, it is my intention to 
 divest the office of Lord Chancellor of all the sinecures 
 which have hitherto been given for the maintenance 
 of his family." Under these circumstances it was 
 impossible to consider the present appointment as more 
 than provisional. Of course, if the sinecure offices 
 should be abolished, the Lord Chancellor must receive 
 a fair consideration for them. 
 
 Mr. Hume said, that as a member of the Committee, 
 he could corroborate what had been said by the right 
 hon. Baronet respecting the declared opinions and 
 intentions of the Lord Chancellor. He was sure, 
 therefore, that the appointment must be provisional, 
 for the whole tenor of the noble Lord's evidence was, 
 that the head of the Court of Chancery ought to be 
 deprived of all sinecure appointments. As to the 
 offices held by the son of the late Lord Chancellor, he 
 (Mr. Hiime) took it as a matter of course that the five 
 sinecures of that Gentleman (Mr. Scott) would be 
 abolished without delay. The Ministers were bound 
 in honour to the House, and to the country, that all 
 appointments of the kind were only provisional, and 
 were accepted by the persons appointed to them, sub- 
 ject to the contingency of abolition or reduction, as 
 soon as the other more pressing questions which now 
 occupied Parliament should allow the House to take 
 up the subject of these offices. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell said, that the salary of the 
 Lord Chancellor ought to have been settled long ago, 
 and that when the patronage of the Bankruptcy Court 
 was taken from that Judge, he ought to have been 
 compensated by an addition to his salary. 
 
 Mr. Robinson expressed his astonishment at the 
 appointment, which he could not reconcile with the 
 solemn and repeated pledges given by the Lord Chan- 
 
 E 
 
66 APPENDIX. 
 
 cellor in favour of retiendiment and Reform. He 
 thought this was a sorry instance of the spirit with 
 which his ^Majesty's Ministers meant to fulfil their 
 promises of economy. Was it possible that the Lord 
 Chancellor filled up the office of Eegistrar without 
 consulting his colleagues ? 
 
 Mr. Wason was satisfied that the appointment could 
 only be provisional. He had no doubt that Mr. 
 William Brougham had accepted the oflSce with the 
 understanding that he was appointed merely to fill it 
 up until it should be formally abolished. 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett was also of opinion that the 
 appointment was only provisional ; for it would be 
 impossible to suppose that there was any intention to 
 maintain those offices after the repeated declarations 
 of the Lord Chancellor himself on the subject. The 
 appointment must have been merely an official pro- 
 ceeding ; as it was necessary to have some one in the 
 place of Registrar until the office should have been 
 abolished by law. 
 
 Mr. Alderman Venables was sure that the appoint- 
 ment would cause great disappointment and regret 
 throughout the country, and would be looked upon as 
 a breach of faith on the part of the Government. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden begged that it might be under- 
 stood that he had not made a personal attack upon the 
 Lord Chancellor. He had asked the question merely 
 to gain information. 
 
 Lord Althorp said, that if the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman had not made a personal attack upon the 
 Lord Chancellor, he did not know what a personal 
 attack was. 
 
 Sir Eobert Peel considered the question altogether 
 premature. It was impossible that the appointment 
 could have been intended to be permanent, inasmuch 
 
APPENDIX. 67 
 
 as the Lord Chancellor was pledged to the abolition 
 of all sinecure oflSces in his Court, 
 
 Sir Frederick Trench trusted that his Majesty's 
 Ministers would take a hint from the lesson which 
 their adversaries had generously read to them. For 
 his part, as a plain man, he could not suppose anything 
 else than that the appointment was intended to be 
 permanent. He could not imagine that the Lord 
 Chancellor's brother was put to the inconvenience of 
 resigning his seat in Parliament for the purpose of 
 filling provisionally an office of which the abolition 
 was looked upon as no very remote contingency. 
 However, he trusted that the Government would act 
 upon the generous suggestion which had been just 
 thrown out, and would make the appointment only 
 provisional. 
 
 Mr. Hume said, that it was most probable that the 
 Lord Chancellor had appointed his brother because he 
 could more easily abolish an office held by him than 
 one held by any other person. Subject dropped. 
 
 14 Hansard's Debates, Third Series, p. 816. 
 
 Chanceky SiNECUEES.J Mr. Boldero moved for 
 a Copy of the Appointment of Clerk of the Patents 
 and Registrar of Affidavits in the Court of Chancery. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden would take that opportunity of 
 saying a word upon what had fallen from his hon. and 
 learned friend, the Attorney General, late last night, 
 in reference to what he (Sir Edward Sugden) had 
 said in the early^part of the evening, on the subject of 
 
 E 2 
 
68 APPENDIX. 
 
 the recent appointment in the Court of Chancery.* 
 His hon. and learned friend seemed surprised that he 
 should have mentioned anything relating to the Lord 
 Chancellor in his (the Attorney General's) absence. 
 He was sure that at whatever time the subject of the 
 Lord Chancellor, or anything relating to him, was 
 mentioned in that House, he could not be without 
 friends present to attend to his interests. For his own 
 part he had not felt it necessary to wait for the pre- 
 sence of the Attorney General, on the subject to which 
 he had called the attention of the House ; and the less 
 so, ag he had given notice to his hon. and learned 
 friend, the Solicitor General, for the purpose of having 
 it communicated to the Lord Chancellor, that it was 
 his intention to mention the subject in the House, and 
 this, let it be understood, was before he had any know- 
 ledge whatever that the offices in question had been 
 filled up. Indeed, he did not know of any appoint- 
 ment having taken place, until he was within a few 
 yards of the House, when he was informed of it by 
 an hon. Member whom he met. He was anxious to 
 set himself right with the House as to the facts of the 
 case, as he understood that the matter had been made 
 the subject of some remarks by the noble and learned 
 Lord that evening in another place, some of which 
 were directed against himself. However, he would 
 not take any further notice of those remarks until he 
 had them from a more authentic source. He would 
 wait until he saw them, and would take the oppor- 
 tunity when the noble Lord (Lord Althorp) should 
 bring forward his Motion respecting the Lord Chan- 
 cellor's salary, when he would defend himself against 
 the sarcasms of the noble and learned Lord, or against 
 
 * I do not find any report of it. 
 
APPENDIX. 69 
 
 those of any other individual who might have attacked 
 him. 
 
 The Attorney General said, he had not expressed 
 any surprise at his hon. friend having brought forward 
 the subject in his absence. His surprise was, that it 
 should be brought on at all that evening, as he had 
 understood from his hon. and learned friend, the 
 Solicitor General, that the Lord Chancellor was to be 
 asked respecting the office, and whether it was to be 
 filled up. All he had done was, to express his regret 
 that he was not present when his hon. friend had 
 introduced the subject, and that regret he still felt ; 
 for on looking at the usual vehicles of information, as 
 to what passed in the House, he found that the remarks 
 which had been made were calculated to produce 
 rather an unfavourable impression in the public mind 
 against the noble and learned Lord. If he had been 
 present, two minutes would not have elapsed after the 
 statement, till he should have given such an explana- 
 tion as would have at once removed from the mind of 
 every hon. Member any unfavourable impression 
 which the previous remarks might have made. 
 
 The Solicitor General said, that the impression 
 upon his mind had been, that the places in question 
 had not been filled up at all, nor was he aware that 
 the inquiry intended by his hon. and learned friend 
 the Member for St. Mawes was directed to the 
 appointment in question. Indeed, he had been pre- 
 vented, under peculiar circumstances, from seeing the 
 Lord Chancellor upon the subject. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugilen considered he was perfectly 
 justified in pursuing the course which he had felt it 
 his duty to adopt, a course which did not want prece- 
 dent, it was a mere matter of inquiry or question to 
 the Government, such as it was quite regular to make, 
 
 E 3 
 
70 APPENDIX. 
 
 as he would contend, without notice. He denied that 
 he had been guilty of anything that was inconsistent 
 with the usual practice of the House. Similar in- 
 quiries had been made on former occasions with refer- 
 ence to the appointments held by many individuals 
 without notice, and been answered without any charge 
 of irregularity. But in fact he told the Solicitor 
 General that he had intended to put a question in the 
 House as to what had been done with the sinecure 
 places held by Mr. Scott, but he had afterwards heard 
 of Mr. James Brougham's vacating his seat, and he 
 had then asked why this had been done, and he was 
 not bound in courtesy to wait for the presence of the 
 Attorney General. He should treat the Lord Chan- 
 cellor in that House as the Lord Chancellor had 
 treated him in the House of Lords, and he should 
 bring the subject regularly forward. 
 
 Mr. William Brougham maintained, that if ever a 
 question had been put that meant or was intended to 
 convey a censure, it was the question put by the hon. 
 and learned Gentleman, on a former occasion, without 
 any notice. He, however, could say, with reference 
 to the oflSces in question, that they had been pro- 
 nounced to be absolutely necessary after a consulta- 
 tion upon the subject, by the Chancellor, the Master 
 of the Kolls, and the Vice Chancellor. He must 
 again complain of the want of notice when the subject 
 had been before introduced, for if such notice had 
 been given, he should have excused himself from the 
 duties which he had to discharge elsewhere, and have 
 been in his place to have met the question with the 
 fullest information upon the subject. He was also 
 certain, that such information would have sufficed to 
 satisfy the House, that nothing had been done with 
 regard to these appointments of which even the most 
 
APPENDIX. 71 
 
 captious could complain. Such questions, conveying 
 as they did more or less censure upon the parties to 
 whom they referred, should not be made without 
 notice ; for though he was sure that the characters of 
 the parties referred to in the present inquiry were 
 above all suspicion ; yet an injury might arise even if 
 a delay of twenty-four hours should occur in answer- 
 ing such an inquiry, tending as it did to censure. He 
 should hope that, on all occasions of attacks being 
 thus personally made against individuals, whoever 
 they might be, that notice would be given, and if 
 such a course had in this case been pursued, he should 
 have been ready in the first instance to meet it. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell said, that some imputations 
 had been thrown out against his learned friend (Sir 
 E. Sugden) of having, with reference to the question, 
 violated the usual courtesy of debate. He (Sir C. 
 Wetherell) saw not the slightest ground for that im- 
 putation. On the contrary, he thought that the con- 
 duct of the learned Gentleman had been perfectly 
 open, gentlemanlike, and honourable. Many reflec- 
 tions had been cast on the conduct of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor ; but the most censorious of all who had spoken 
 was the hon. Member for Westminster (Sir F. Bur- 
 dett) who said, in the course of his observations, that 
 he could not believe it possible the Chancellor had 
 made any permanent appointment to the offices in 
 question. 
 
 Lord Althorp was not ignorant that the appoint- 
 ments had been made ; though, from the nature of the 
 offices, it was not incumbent on him to be acquainted 
 with the period of their being filled up. It was 
 undoubtedly in the power of any Member to ask a 
 question, whether it implied a censure or not ; but 
 from his experience of parliamentary usage, he would 
 
 E 4 
 
72 APPENDIX, 
 
 say, in reference to that point, that he did not think 
 the question which had been put, was one that should 
 have been put without such a notice as was usually 
 given. 
 
 Sir Francis Bnrdett said, the observation alluded to 
 by the Member for Boroughbridge (Sir C. Wetherell) 
 was founded on his belief, from a knowledge of the 
 character and understanding of the Lord Chancellor, 
 that he could not have done that which was attributed 
 to him. 
 
 Sir Frederick Trench thought, that the course pur- 
 sued by the hon. and learned Member for St. Mawes 
 (Sir E, Sugden), had been perfectly courteous and 
 decorous. What had the hon. Member done? He 
 had merely asked a question as to the filling of certain 
 offices, after telling the Solicitor General that he 
 meant to ask it, and that question was one of a kind 
 that were frequently asked without any notice what- 
 ever. It was impossible to act more honourably. 
 The Lord Chancellor could not have wanted defenders, 
 even in the absence of the Attorney General, when 
 his Lordship's brother, and so many of his friends, 
 were in the House, 
 
 Mr. Spence stated, that he had been instructed some 
 time since, by the Lord Chancellor, to prepare two 
 bills for the Reform of the Court of Chancery. One 
 of these bills was already on the Table ; the delay in 
 bringing forward the other was attributable only to 
 himself. It happened that the very first paragraph of 
 that second bill (which was actually prepared) was — 
 " Whereas it is expedient that the ofiSce of Registrar 
 of Affidavits in the Court of Chancery be abolished," 
 Under these circumstances, on learning .the death of 
 Mr, Scott, he thought it his duty to wait immediately on 
 the Lord Chancellor, to ascertain whether that noble 
 
APPENDIX. 73 
 
 Lord had altered his intention with respect to the 
 office in question. The instant he mentioned the sub- 
 ject, the Lord Chancellor assured him most distinctly 
 that it was his intention to bring in the Bill as it was, 
 without the least variation as respected the abolition of 
 that office. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor hardly 
 allowed him to finish his sentence before he stopped 
 him with this assurance. He must further say, that 
 it was on Tuesday, the 10th of July, when he moved 
 for leave to bring in his Bill, that he had§an inverview 
 with the Lord Chancellor, when he stated, as appears 
 in the reports of the debate, that it was his intention 
 as soon as possible to bring in the Bill he had drawn, 
 for regulating the officers, &c., but the Chancellor 
 wished that a clause should be added, for constituting 
 an appellate Court, and desired him to add such a 
 clause, and when that was done he would immediately 
 bring in the Bill. The delay in bringing in the Bill 
 between the time of the office of Registrar of Affidavits 
 becoming vacant, and the period of the depending dis- 
 cussion, was attributable to him, and not to the Chan- 
 cellor. The Master of the Rolls, and others who were 
 consulted on the subject, gave it as their opinion, that 
 the offices should for the present be filled up, because 
 there were important duties to be performed by the 
 deputies, and it was necessary those deputies should 
 have a principal. 
 
 Mr. Boldero said, a plain question had been asked 
 last night, and it had received no answer. He knew 
 nothing of the Lord Chancellor, or his affairs, or con- 
 nections, but finding that a plain question was not 
 answered, he felt it his duty to move for a return of 
 ' the appointments. There was nothing in that either 
 singular or unbecoming, and perhaps its best defence 
 was to be found in the fact, that the Lord Chancellor's 
 
74 APPENDIX. - 
 
 friends admitted the offices to be useless ones, and that 
 they ought to be abolished. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden observed, that the learned 
 Gentleman (the Solicitor General) had been the organ 
 through which he had hitherto communicated any of 
 his motions with respect to the Lord Chancellor or his 
 Court ; but if that was not the regular one, he must 
 choose another for the future. 
 
 Motion agreed to. 
 
 14 Hansard's Debates, Third Series, p. 827. 
 
 Chancery Sinecures.] Lord Althorp moved the 
 Order of the Day for the House to resolve itself into 
 a Committee of Ways and Means. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugdeii, : I must beg. Sir, to take this 
 opportunity of claiming th6 attention of the House for 
 a short time, while I refer to a subject in which I am 
 deeply interested. I find that, in another place, a 
 noble and learned Lord, in the course of some ob- 
 servations made with reference to my conduct, has 
 thought fit to use expressions towards me, which no 
 gentleman, who has a regard for his own personal 
 honour, nor anyone whose acts could be influenced 
 by personal fear, would have ventured to direct to- 
 wards any other gentleman. These expressions are 
 so far removed from anything that one meets with in 
 society — they are so different from what one should 
 expect from a person of his exalted station, and 
 especially from that place in which he ought to set an 
 example of decorum to all others — that, with reference 
 to the person by whom they were uttered, and the 
 place in which they were uttered, they are either so 
 degrading" to the person making the attack, or to the 
 person against whom that attack is levelled, that 
 
APPENDIX. 75 
 
 Mr. Stanley rose to order, and gave his reasons.* 
 
 Sir Edward Sitgden : I know not. Sir, the meaning 
 of this interruption. I dare say, that no one of those 
 with whom the noble and learned Lord is connected 
 in thii House, felt the slightest degree of regret at the 
 charge made against me in another place. I dare say, 
 that they 
 
 The Speaker held I was out of order, and gave his 
 reasons. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden ; I am always most ready. Sir, 
 to yield obedience to you. I have always been most 
 obedient to the Orders of this House, and I am happy 
 to say, that I have always found it very indulgent. 
 In the short period during which I have been a Mem- 
 ber of this House, I have never seen a desire on the 
 part of the party to whom an offending Member 
 belonged, to deny to the party offended the right of 
 answering any attack made upon him. That right, 
 however, is now denied me. I have been deeply 
 offended. It is impossible that one Gentleman could 
 have been more deeply offended than I have been 
 offended on this occasion, and yet the right hon. Gen- 
 tleman has refused when the defence is to be heard 
 — he has refused to hear me. 1 was not out of order. 
 Sir. I should not have been out of order, had I been 
 allowed to proceed. The right hon. Gentleman has 
 put me wrong by the observations he has made ; if 
 he had not risen to order, to give his representations 
 of what I was saying, I should not have been out of 
 order : that I am so is, therefore, owing to him. By 
 him I have been prevented from making observa- 
 tions, which I had as good a right to make here as the 
 noble Lord had a right to make them in another place. 
 
 •* See the note to p. 21, supra. 
 
76 APPENDIX. 
 
 If dignified conduct and silence are to be observed, 
 why are they not recommended to the noble and 
 learned Lord ? and if he knows not how to restrain 
 himself from making charges, surely the person against 
 whom he makes them may be allowed to defend him- 
 self against those charges. If restraint is to be prac- 
 tised, why does not he put a bridle on his expres- 
 sions ? I have been personally insulted and abused in 
 the grossest manner, by the use of offensive epithets 
 from a vulgar vocabulary in language, which no 
 private gentleman should utter on the one hand, or 
 submit to on the other ; and yet I am not to be 
 allowed to answer this abuse ; but I am to be told, 
 that, if I attempt to do so, I am breaking through the 
 privileges of this and the other House of Parliament. 
 As regards the language, I shall carefully abstain 
 from following the example that has been set me. I 
 have always spoken of the noble and learned Lord and 
 of his conduct, publicly, openly, and manfully, never 
 using, with respect to him, any expression that any 
 one man could take exception to ; and I will now only 
 say, that these observations, let them be made when 
 they will and how they will, shall never prevent me 
 from investigating chiirges which I think ought to be 
 made against the public conduct of any man. On the 
 occasion in question, however, I made no t;harge — X 
 only asked for information. I never used towards the 
 noble and learned Lord, of whose public conduct I 
 was then speaking, one disrespectful expression; and 
 if I were now to do otherwise, I should but imitate 
 his conduct. That noble and learned Lord has 
 attacked me in a place in which I cannot answer him : 
 the place where the attack was made rendered it im- 
 proper — it was doubly so, as in no place can I answer 
 him, for he presides as the Judge in the Court in 
 
APPENDIX. Tl 
 
 which I chiefly practise, and there I shall not attempt 
 to answer him ; for however I may have lost, as I 
 have lost, all respect for his person, I am yet bound to 
 silence by the respect I entertain for his office. I 
 must, however, when addressing him, feel sensible that 
 I am addressing a man who has forgotten how to act 
 towards me as one gentleman should act towards 
 another. I must say, that, in my absence, he has used 
 words towards me which no gentleman would have 
 ventured to use towards me in my presence. I am not 
 open to such observations — I have never done anything 
 to deserve them. They are painful to a man's family — 
 they are disagreeable to his children — they give pain 
 to his friends, and the more so, as the situation of the 
 person uttering them exempts him from all responsi- 
 bility for his conduct. I must say, for once and for 
 ever, that I have lost all personal respect for the per- 
 son who used these expressions \Jiear, hear!']. 
 
 Mr. Stanley : I must be allowed to say. Sir, that I 
 had no wish whatever to interfere with the explanation 
 of the hon. and learned Gentleman ; but I must say, 
 that when he denies having made a charge on the 
 former occasion against the noble and learned Lord, I 
 do not understand him. I think that it was a charge, 
 and a personal charge, which he then made ; it was a 
 charge most disgraceful, if true, and if not well- 
 founded, it was one which ought not to have been 
 made except upon the fullest and the fairest de- 
 liberation, and, after the amplest opportunily afforded 
 to the party accused, to appear by himself or his 
 friends to answer the charge. I say, that the noble 
 and learned Lord's conduct was made the subject of 
 a serious charge, and he took the opportunity of 
 vindicating himself in the other House ; and, in doing 
 so, he stated, that the charge made against him was 
 
78 APPENDIX. 
 
 one that imputed motives, for which imputation there 
 was no charge whatever. The noble and learned 
 Lord, in another place, only exercised that right which 
 the hon. and learned Gentleman claims for himself 
 here — of taking an opportunity of explaining and 
 vindicating his conduct ; and he does this in a manner 
 which cannot fail to convince any dispassionate man 
 in the kingdom, that the charge brought against him 
 by the hon. and learned Gentleman was utterly 
 destitute of foundation. The noble and learned Lord 
 did this so, as at once to convince ninety-nine men out 
 of a hundred, that the charge brought against him 
 was utterly groundless. The noble and learned Lord 
 rose, not to attack the hon. and learned Gentleman, 
 but to vindicate his own character from a matter of 
 charge and accusation that had been preferred against 
 him ; and it appears that in this vindication he has 
 said something offensive to the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman. If the noble and learned Lord had 
 brought any charge against the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman as a professtioiaal man or a gentleman, then 
 he would be entitled to exculpate himself in this 
 House. But the hon. and learned Gentleman does 
 not accuse the noble Lord of having done so ; he 
 merely complains of certain expressions, which he has 
 not stated to the House, as having been used towards 
 him in another place, and has gone on making com- 
 ments on those expressions ; but the nature of them he 
 has not stated. The hon. and learned Gentleman has 
 made the observations we have just heard ; but they 
 are in answer to no charge preferred against him; 
 and he himself has not mentioned any such charge, 
 nor has he specified even a single expression, but has 
 gone on making comments on expressions of which he 
 has complained, but of the nature of which he cannot 
 
APPENDIX. 79 
 
 give us the least idea. KecoUecting the important 
 business which is about to come before the House, I 
 called the hon. and learned Member to order. If the 
 hon. and learned Gentleman, when complaining of the 
 strong language of an individual in another place, is 
 to get up, and, in his own justification, use stronger 
 expressions, there is an end to the dignity which gene- 
 rally characterizes the proceedings of Parliament. 
 For these reasons, 1 expressed my regret that he did 
 not confine himself to replying to the charge, what- 
 ever it might be ; and, in defence against a charge, 
 I would be the last man to ofier any interruption. 
 When I saw that the object of the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman was to resort to invective, and to use 
 strong expressions and harsh language, in reply to the 
 expressions and language he complained of, and the 
 only effect of which would be to waste the time of the 
 House, I though that it was time to interfere, and I 
 feel that I was perfectly justified in the course which I 
 then took. The speech of the hon. and learned Gen- 
 tleman was not a defence against a charge, but was a 
 recriminatory attack against strong language, which 
 he supposed to have been used in another place, I 
 will leave it to the House to determine how far I was 
 justified in interrupting the hon, and learned Gentle- 
 man ; but I then thought, as I still think, that I was 
 only acting in conformity with the rules of the House 
 in doing so. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel : I have just read the expressions of 
 which my hon. and learned friend complains, and I 
 have read them with the greatest pain. 
 
 Mr. Stanley (interrupting the right lion. Baronet) 
 said : I have seen the noble and learned Lord this 
 morning, and he complains of the manner in which he 
 is reported. 
 
80 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel: I only know them from the re- 
 ports in the public journals, and, until I hear them 
 contradicted, I must believe them correct. I must 
 say. Sir, I think this is a matter of deep importance, 
 not only as it affects my hon. and learned, friend, who, 
 in my opinion, has shown a very proper sense of what 
 is due to himself in the notice he has taken of these 
 expressions, but it is a matter of importance as it 
 affects the privileges of Parliament. Of the noble 
 Lord who has made use of these expressions, no ex- 
 pression ever fell from me calculated, to convey a 
 feeling of disrespect towards him. On the occasion to 
 which the present discussion refers, it will be recol- 
 lected that I recommended, the House to abstain from 
 further discussion, for that I was convinced the noble 
 Lord would be able to explain satisfactorily what he 
 had done. I stated, that having heard the noble 
 Lord's evidence given with respect to those offices, I 
 was satisfied that the appointment which he had made 
 was only provisional, and that he meant to abolish the 
 offices in question ; but still I heard nothing in the 
 speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman which was 
 at all inconsistent with the performance of his public 
 duties as a Member of this House, or which called 
 for those observations of which he now complains. 
 Two offices, notorious sinecures, fell vacant, and, not- 
 withstanding the declaration of the Lord Chancellor, 
 that he intended to abolish them on the first vacancy, 
 they were filled up. When the appointments were 
 made, ■what was more natural than an hon. Member 
 of this House should ask for some information re- 
 specting those appointments, and comment upon the 
 proceeding? In former times, and when the noble 
 and learned Lord was a Member of this House, not a 
 moment would have been lost in putting such a ques- 
 
APPENDIX. 81 
 
 tion. That question was no attack on the individual 
 Peer, hut an inquiry into the public conduct of the 
 Government. Answers were given to that question, 
 and, in another place, that noble and learned Lord 
 himself, presiding in the place in which he gave the 
 answer, the Chief Judge of that Bench in whose 
 Courts these appointments had taken place, described 
 the Member of Parliament who put the question in a 
 manner which would effectually deter many indivi- 
 duals, shrinking from abuse, and from the power of 
 that sarcasm, which, we all know, he can so irre- 
 sistibly wield, from the performance of that duty 
 which, as Members of Parliament, they are bound to 
 discharge. When the Member, too, against whom 
 these attacks are directed, is a Gentleman practising 
 in the Court in which the noble Lord presides, it 
 becomes highly probable, that if they do not influence 
 him to abandon his duty, they will operate to his 
 serious prejudice, and might occasion the ruin of any 
 professional man who did not happen to be of the first- 
 rate eminence. My respect for that noble Lord, and 
 my admiration for his abilities, prevent me from quot- 
 ing those opprobrious epithets which he is said to have 
 used. " Crawling reptile," and " insect " of a certain 
 sort, are the terms which I may mention, and from 
 the use of which I may leave the House to judge 
 what are the rest. I agree, however, fully with the 
 right hon. Secretary, that nothing can be more incon- 
 venient than to refer to the proceedings of the other 
 House of Parliament ; but, if the use of such expres- 
 sions is to be allowed, what situation are we in ? How 
 are we to perform our duties in this House, if we are 
 liable to be abused for so doing by the noble and 
 learned Peer who presides over the other branch of 
 the Legislature. Either the right hon. Gentlemau 
 
 F 
 
82 APPENDIX. 
 
 must not interfere when a Member is defending him- 
 self from attacks of this sort, or the Member must 
 submit to suffer from the use of these opprobrious 
 epithets. I say again, that I deeply regret the noble 
 and learned Lord should so far have forgotten himself, 
 as he must have done, when he trenched in this man- 
 ner on the privileges of- this House, and interfered 
 with the performance of the duties of a Member of 
 Parliament, by holding him up to public reproof and 
 reprobation, in terms so offensive that no man can sub- 
 mit to them without uttering his decided protest against 
 them. The right hon. Gentleman calls in question 
 the accuracy of the report. I hope he will be found 
 to be justified in doing so. It is a report in The 
 Times newspaper, and, in one respect, it has the 
 appearance of accuracy — it is very elaborately given. 
 Still, however, I should rather hope that it is incorrect 
 and spurious, than believe that the noble Lord would 
 have used the privilege of his station to make the 
 attack on my hon. and learned friend in the terms 
 which he is represented to have used. 
 
 Lord Althorp : The noble and learned Lord called 
 on me to say, that the report in that paper, and in 
 another paper, was very incorrect. I do not know in 
 what respect the report was incorrect. I shall take this 
 opportunity of saying, that however justifiable may 
 have been the use of any expressions, or of any ex- 
 planations, under particular circumstances, it is utterly 
 impossible, consistently with order in our proceedings, 
 that, from day to day, strong expressions should be 
 bandied about from one place to another. I have not 
 read the expressions that are now the subject of dis- 
 cussion, and I can only say, that my noble friend 
 complains of the incorrectness with which his obser- 
 vations were given. 
 
APPENDIX. 83 
 
 Mr. Goulbvrn had read the report in question with 
 the same feelings as his right hon. friend. He hoped 
 that inaccuracy in the report would account for those 
 expressions, of which his hon. and learned friend com- 
 plained. However, he could not but think that it 
 would not have ill become the character of the noble 
 and learned Lord to have taken the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of assuring the victim of those expressions, that 
 they had been misrepresented; and the question of 
 their accuracy would depend a great deal, in his mind, 
 on the fact that the noble Lord made the first ex- 
 planation to those who heard them, and satisfied them 
 that the expressions were not those which he used. 
 If the noble Lord omitted that — if he did not take 
 the first opportunity in the place where the calumnious 
 expressions were said to have been used, to satisfy the 
 victim that they never had been used, there could be but 
 one inference drawn from the omission. The question 
 was of the very highest importance, and it involved 
 the point, whether the Members of that House were 
 to be checked in making inquiries into public matters, 
 by the dread of drawing down upon themseves lan- 
 guage which no gentleman would suffer to be applied 
 to him. If this were to be the case, there was an end 
 to the discharge of one of the most important duties of 
 a Member of Parliament — the duty of questioning a 
 Minister upon any proceedings supposed to be under 
 contemplation. He begged the hon. Gentlemen who 
 heard him to recollect, that when the present Lord 
 Chancellor was a Member of that House, he took 
 precisely the same course of inquiry, with reference 
 to appointments which were supposed to be making, 
 or to have been made, as that which had been taken 
 by the learned Member for St. Mawes. Did that noble 
 Lord, on any such occasion, ever suppose, that, be- 
 
 F 2 
 
84 APPENDIX. 
 
 cause he asked a question, it was competent for any 
 person in the other House to cast upon him impu- 
 tations which no man would dare to cast upon him 
 from any other situation ? He would not pursue the 
 question any further, and he was willing to trust that 
 the report in the newspapers was incorrect, and mis- 
 represented the words of the noble and learned Lord. 
 He trusted that the noble and learned Lord would 
 feel himself bound to give his hon. and learned friend 
 (the Member for St. Mawes) that full satisfaction 
 which he had a right to demand. The noble Lord 
 ought to explain these expressions in the place in 
 they were first used. 
 
 The Attorney General ; I was not in the House, 
 Sir, when this matter was for the third time brought 
 before it. I was about to apologise. Sir, for having 
 been absent during a part of this discussion, so that 
 to only a part of it could I reply. I must say, that, 
 in the first place, it appears to me singular that this 
 complaint should be made in this House of Parlia- 
 ment, where we cannot properly know what has 
 passed in another place — where, whatever occurred, 
 must have occurred in the presence of many friends 
 of the hon. and learned Member for St. Mawes. 
 Those friends did not complain of the expressions 
 used by the Lord Chancellor ; and not only they did 
 not complain, but they expressed their approbation of 
 what the Lord Chancellor then uttered. That fact 
 seems to me sufficient to show, that what was then 
 uttered by no means deserves the attacks that have 
 been made on it this evening. What was the conduct 
 of the hon. and learned G-entleman in this House on 
 the occasion that gave rise to the remarks of which he 
 now complains? He put a question respecting the 
 appointment to certain offices in the Court of Chan- 
 
APPENDIX. 85 
 
 eery. That question was put without notice, and a 
 remark was made that the offices were then filled — 
 that he had been prevented, by the course taken by 
 the Lord Chancellor, from putting the question be- 
 fore ; but that if he had put it before, the vacan- 
 cies never could have been allowed to have been filled 
 up. This matter was brought on in the absence of my 
 hon. and learned friend the Solicitor General, to 
 whom, it seems, some kind of notice of the intended 
 question had been given — it was brought on in my 
 absence, and in the absence of my hon. and learned 
 friend, the Member for Ripon, and of any one who 
 could at the moment have given an answer for the 
 liord Chancellor. If the question had been put in 
 the presence of either of my hon. and learned friends 
 or myself, there would have been given that answer, 
 the want of which made it a subject of one of the 
 most invidious attacks that can well be conceived on 
 the conduct of anyone. This was followed by get- 
 ting a book from the Library, and reading extracts 
 from former speeches of the Lord Chancellor, and 
 contrasting them with what was described as totally 
 dififerent, namely, his present conduct. Except in the 
 way of attack, how came it to be said, that the public 
 would hear with regret of these appointments? I 
 repeat, that if that question had been put while any 
 man able to answer it had been present, — any one 
 possessed of knowledge of the fact — there could have 
 been none of these subsequent differences. I think 
 we have a right to express our regret, with reference 
 to the courtesy used among gentlemen, that the ques- 
 tion was not put in a manner that would have pre- 
 vented these unpleasant discussions. I repeat, that 
 had anyone acquainted with the facts been present, 
 these things might have been avoided. The Lord 
 
 F 3 
 
86 APPENDIX. 
 
 Chancellor, when a Member of this House, was, I 
 know, in the habit of putting such questions on all 
 occasions on which he felt it his duty to do so ; but he 
 always put them openly and manfully, and gave the 
 parties concerned the full means of knowing when 
 they would be put, and of being prepared with their 
 answers. In the present case, the Lord Chancellor 
 meant to abolish the offices before they fell vacant. 
 The bill of my hon. and learned friend the Member 
 for Kipon had been prepared, and- the first line of 
 that Bill declared that they were to be abolished. 
 "When they fell vacant, the Lord Chancellor had a 
 communication with my hon. and learned friend, and 
 distinctly declared that the change which put the 
 appointments into his hands made no change as to his 
 arrangements. His words were — " Let the offices of 
 Patent Registrar be at once abolished." Under these 
 circumstances, the attack on him was, in my mind, 
 most unjustifiable; and it was the more to be re- 
 gretted, when it is considered that if the question had 
 been put in a proper manner, the explanation might 
 have been instant and complete. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel repeated, that what he had said on 
 the former evening was, that he thought it very 
 possible that there might be duties attached to those 
 offices, which rendered it necessary that the appoint- 
 ments should be made ; but he did not believe that it 
 was the intention of the Lord Chancellor to make the 
 appointments permanent. He could not say, what 
 the hon. Member for Worcester might have intended 
 to say ; but he knew, that an hon. and gallant friend 
 of his got up, and said that he difiered from him, and 
 that he thought that the appointment was intended to 
 be permanent. When the hon. Baronet opposite (the 
 Member for Westminster) said the appointment would 
 
APPENDIX. 87 
 
 only be provisional, he expressed his concurrence in 
 that opinion, and declared, that, from what the Lord 
 Chancellor had frequently said, it was impossible that 
 the appointment, could be permanent. He, at all 
 events, could not be accused of having made an attack 
 upon the Lord Chancellor. On the contrary, he had 
 asserted, that if those offices were abolished, the Lord 
 Chancellor ought to be compensated for the loss of 
 patronage. 
 
 The Attorney General had judged simply from what 
 he saw in the newspapers. He knew it was not 
 possible to catch the exact words of a speaker ; but he 
 considered the report to be substantially correct. He 
 looked upon what had fallen from the right hon. 
 Baronet as an additional proof of the inconvenience of 
 such questions being put in such a manner. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel repeated, that he had always insisted 
 that compensation ought to be given to the Lord 
 Chancellor, if offices in his patronage are abolished. 
 
 Sir Robert Iiiglis thought that the attack which had 
 been made upon his hon. and learned friend was more 
 injurious to the reputation of the person from whom 
 the attack came, than to the person attacked. But if 
 such attacks upon Members of the House of Commons 
 were permitted to pass unnoticed by the House, then 
 the independence of the Members was at an end. 
 Another noble and learned Lord, from another part of 
 the kingdom, had made a similar attack upon another 
 Member of the House of Commons in language which 
 no gentleman in England would apply to another. 
 On the same principle on which he now complained of 
 the attack made upon his hon. and learned friend, he 
 had on a former occasion taken the liberty to reprehend 
 an atta<5k made upon the late Lord Chancellor, by the 
 noble and learned Lord, who was then Mr. Brougham, 
 
 F 4 
 
88 APPENDIX. 
 
 and a Member of that House. He said then, as he 
 said now, that it was improper and unjust to make an 
 attack upon an absent person who had no means of 
 defending himself or vindicating his character. If the 
 noble and learned Lord denied that he had used the 
 language attributed to him, he ought to contradict the 
 report, in the presence of those who heard him, at 
 the time. But, until he should have done so, his hon. 
 and learned friend had a right to stand up in that 
 House and complain of the attempt which had been 
 made to interfere with the independent discharge of 
 his duties as a Meniber of Parliament. No station, 
 however exalted, could justify such an attack. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay said, that every Gentleman in that 
 House must be aware that, however accurate the 
 reports in the newspapers generally might be, it was 
 impossible to expect that they should give the exact 
 words of a speaker. Now, the whole of the present 
 discussion respected words — ^he might say syllables. 
 If the words complained of had been used by the 
 Lord Chancellor, he was sure that some of the 
 Members of the other House, present at the time, 
 would have remarked upon them ; and he thought it 
 was evident that no such language was used, from the 
 fact that the only remark which the observations of 
 the Lord Chancellor elicited from any of the noble 
 friends of the hon. and learned Member for St. Mawes 
 was the statement of Lord Eldon, that he had read the 
 speech of his hon. and learned friend (Sir Edward 
 Sugden) with the greatest concern. Now, the facts of 
 the case were these : an attack had been made upon 
 the Lord Chancellor in the most ungracious manner — 
 an imputation was thrown out that he had been guilty 
 of a most indecent, and (as it would be in him) a most 
 dishonest proceeding ; and this attack was made upon 
 
APPENDIX. 89 
 
 h im at the very moment when the noble and learned 
 Lord was making a great sacrifice to the public in- 
 t erest. Was it to be wondered at, then, that he felt 
 hurt, and expressed his indignation warmly, and, per- 
 haps in the contemptuous language which be might 
 naturally think was called for by such an attack? 
 Hon. Gentlemen on the other side seemed to forget 
 altogether, that the provocation came first from the 
 hon. and learned Member for St. Mawes. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell might have supposed, from 
 what had been said by his learned and hon. friend on 
 the Treasury Bench, that instead of his being the 
 Attorney General, he had been some Major General. 
 His learned friend had done nothing but attempt what 
 a military gentleman often attempted. He had en- 
 deavoured to get an advantage over his adversaries by 
 making a diversion. He had said, that his hon. and 
 learned friend, the Member for St. Mawes, had given 
 a great provocation to the Lord Chancellor ; but he 
 (Sir Charles Wetherell) would contend that the ques- 
 tion relative to the appointment was not, in a parliar- 
 mentary sense, or in any sense of one gentleman 
 speaking of another, to be considered in the light of 
 a provocation. Since he had been a Member of that 
 House, when public offices were about to be filled up, 
 he had repeatedly heard questions put, upon the pro- 
 priety or fact of filling them, and such questions were 
 always put without the ceremony of any previous 
 notice, although the hon. Member who put the ques- 
 tion might mean clearly to insinuate that, if the places 
 had been filled, they had been given unnecessarily and 
 improperly. Surely, in a parliamentary sense, he was 
 not to be told by a Lord Chancellor, or by any man, 
 that if a Member of that House put a question, which, 
 if answered affirmatively, would involve, in the 
 
90 APPENDIX. 
 
 opinion of him who put the question, a censure 
 against one of the Ministers, he had done wrong if he 
 had not previously given notice of his intention to put 
 that question. But, however, in the present instance, 
 the question had not been put without notice having 
 been previously given. His Majesty's Solicitor Gene- 
 ral had been present when the question had been put, 
 and his learned friend (the Member for St. Mawes) 
 had previously communicated to the Solicitor General 
 that it was his intention to put that question. In his 
 opinion, therefore, his hon. and learned friend had 
 done everything which he ought to have done, in 
 communicating to the Solicitor General that he in- 
 tended to put the question to the Treasury Benches 
 relative to the filling up of the places. Not only had 
 the Solicitor General told the House that such had 
 been the communication made to him, but he had 
 even avowed that he had forgotten to speak to the 
 Lord Chancellor on the subject. Really a person 
 might be led to suppose that the case was of such 
 high importance, that, like the question of the Russian 
 Dutch Loan, it required a secret consultation upon it 
 before it could be mentioned in the House of Com- 
 mons. He would say, at once, that his learned friend 
 had never faltered — had never been backward in any- 
 thing which became a gentleman and a man of the 
 highest honour. No man had ever known his hon. 
 friend to be peccant or defective in anything that be- 
 came a gentleman, and if there had been any faltering 
 in not making this communication to the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, it was quite palpable that the whole error had 
 rested with the Solicitor General. The next point that 
 had been adverted to was, whether the report in ques- 
 tion were, or were not, accurate. His hon. and learned 
 friend had said, that the report was not accurate. He 
 
APPENDIX. 91 
 
 had read over The Times of that morning, and he 
 remarked that, in addition to a report, it contained a 
 commentary on the report. And as to the accuracy 
 of this paper, he could not bring himself to think, 
 that a journal to which eminent men, who were now 
 eminent, lawyers — ay, and eminent Lords — had for- 
 merly been in the habit of contributing — he could 
 not, animated as it had been by the flashes of their 
 wit and the flow of their genius, think of looking to 
 The Times newspaper as a peculiar magazine of 
 errors and inaccuracies. If a man said anything 
 peculiarly sarcastic — peculiarly stringent — keenly cau- 
 terizing, it was not to The Times newspaper he should 
 look for any inaccuracy in relating it. This, at all 
 events, was the first occasion on which The Times 
 had failed to do justice to the manner and scope of the 
 noble and learned Lord. It had been said that 
 there might be mistakes in the words of the re- 
 port. True, so there might ; and, perhaps, the 
 paper in question never caught the Etteo liTtpoma 
 of Lord Brougham. There was, however, in nature 
 a class of animals denominated reptiles. He did 
 not know how many were the subdivisions of the 
 class, but he supposed that three or four kinds of 
 the reptile tribe had been showered on the head of his 
 hon. and learned friend. And how had this taken 
 place ? How had it happened that the Lord Chan- 
 cellor should pour down upon the head of one of the 
 leading members of the Court of Chancery, his vo- 
 cabulary — he would not say of abuse, he woidd employ 
 a stronger phrase — his vocabulary of calumny reported 
 in the public papers ? His hon. and learned friend, 
 the Attorney General must permit him to say, that if 
 such things were tolerated, there would not only be 
 an end of the independence of any member of the Bar, 
 
92 APPENDIX. 
 
 but of the Independence of any Member of that House. 
 He would beg hen. Members to consider how the error, 
 if it were an error, could have taken place. The Lord 
 Chancellor, be it remembered, did not speak from the 
 Woolsack. He stepped forward and poured out, at 
 considerable length, upon his learned friend formerly 
 the Solicitor General for his Majesty, that vocabulary 
 of abuse, or of calumny, which was now supposed to 
 be incorrectly reported in the public press. The hon. 
 Gentleman opposite had said, that when the Member 
 for St. Mawes was attacked, his friends and the Duke 
 of Wellington were present. Now he (Sir Charles 
 Wetherell) did not suppose that his Grace the Duke of 
 Wellington was particularly well acquainted with the 
 interior of the Affidavit Office of the Court of Chancery. 
 But, then, there was the Earl of Eldon in the House of 
 Peers, and the Lord Chancellor must have forgotten 
 that when he was a Member of the House of Commons 
 he was always in the habit of attacking Lord Eldon. 
 Such arguments might do very well as the peroration 
 of a speech before a jury, but that House was not to 
 be told that, because Lord Eldon and the friends of 
 the hon. Member for St. Mawes were present in the 
 House of Peers, the Lord Cnancellor might, therefore, 
 pour out his torrents of abuse as he pleased. The 
 right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland had 
 indeed said, that ninety-nine persons out of every 
 hundred were satisfied with I^ord Brougham ; but he 
 would tell that right hon. Gentleman what everybody 
 but himself well knew, that the proportion between 
 the satisfied and the dissatisfied was in the inverse 
 ratio. Ninety-nine out of every hundred were not 
 satisfied. The right hon. Baronet (the Member for 
 Tamworth) had been fallen foul of by the Attorney 
 General for taking this report as the correct report of 
 
APPENDIX. 93 
 
 the speech. When the Lord Chancellor was examined 
 before the Committee of that House, these offices of 
 the Court of Chancery were recommended by him to 
 be abolished, and yet when they became vacant he 
 filled them up ; and all the question asked by the hon. 
 Member for St. Mawes was, were they filled up pro- 
 visionally or not ? Was the person filling them bound 
 to consider himself a trustee for the public, and liable 
 to be turned out even the next day. Lord Brougham 
 had not answered that question. Lord Brougham 
 ought to have taken an obligation from the person he 
 appointed, that when the place was abolished he 
 should give it up without any claim upon the public 
 for vested interests. The only material question 
 which Lord Brougham ought to have answered he had 
 not answered. All he had condescended to say was 
 merely, that he had put his brother into the office 
 because he was under his control. Let any man now 
 get up and say whether Lord Brougham had or had 
 not given this office to his brother under a condition, 
 that if Parliament abolished the places, he should yield 
 them up, and have no right or claim whatever to any 
 compensation. 
 
 The Attorney General: It is so. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell continued. It was said so 
 now ; but what a posthumous saying. 
 
 Mr. fVilliam Brougham : The learned Member was 
 really arguing hypothetically, and occupying the time 
 of the House in vain. The Lord Chancellor had 
 clearly stated, that it was necessary to fill up the 
 vacant offices, for, otherwise, certain deeds could not 
 be entered, and he had put his brother into the situ- 
 ation because he was a person in whom he could place 
 the most perfect reliance as to his throwing up the 
 places at the instant, if Parliament thought fit to 
 
94 APPENDIX. 
 
 abolish them ; and, in that case, not one single word 
 ■would be heard about vested interests. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell resumed. The hon. and 
 learned Member was only attempting to put right a 
 person who was already right. All that the Lord 
 Chancellor had said, was, that he had appointed his 
 brother because he had over him a control. Nothing 
 whatever was said of vested rights. 
 
 Mr. W. Brougham : Certainly there was. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell s The most certain person 
 might be uncertain, as well as that the most certain 
 reporter might be incorrect. The noble Lord had said 
 at the same time, that he had a right to fill up the 
 office, which was not consistent with his having said 
 what he was reported to have said respecting vested 
 rights. The consequence or the inference from the 
 proposition was, that he had a right to fill up the 
 office, with all the emoluments and vested interests 
 belonging to it. 
 
 Mr. William Brougham : No, no, no. 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell : The hon. and learned Mem- 
 ber might shake his head, but he would not shake him 
 from his argument. His report of the conversation 
 was by far more incorrect than the report of the 
 speech in The Times. He (Sir Charles Wetherell) 
 would repeat, that Lord Brougham had said nothing 
 of the sort attributed to him by the hon. and learned 
 Member for Southwark, and the supposition was alto- 
 gether inconsistent. Now, his hon. and didactic 
 friend, the Attorney General, complained that he was 
 not present when the question was put ; but he must 
 say that everything which could be done, everything 
 that was due from one gentleman to another, had been 
 done by his hon. and learned friend the Member for 
 St. Mawes. The language and sarcasm which had 
 
APPENDIX. 95 
 
 beea thrown out by the noble and learned Lord in 
 another place were of a nature utterly to extinguish 
 many men who might be less competent to maintain 
 themselves, either as men of honour or of professional 
 standing, than the hon. and learned Gentleman was. 
 He would say, that such language used elsewhere 
 would go to demolish a man, not only as a Member of 
 Parliament, but as a private gentleman. He differed 
 materially from the hon. Member for Calne, who had 
 said that provocation had been given sufficient to 
 bring out a strong blow. It had been argued that the 
 question was not to be put without notice, but he well 
 remembered when the right hon. Baronet opposite, 
 (his friend, he believed he might call him) now First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, sat on his (Sir Charles 
 Wetherell's) side of the House, he was very prone to 
 put questions upon all occasions, in common with his. 
 hon. friend. If there was an appointment to which a 
 salary of 100/. or 300?. a-year attached, or if my Lord 
 Bathurst had a son, or any relation put into any public 
 situation, then there was such catechising, aye, such 
 cheerings, and queryings too — aye, he would say, such 
 queryings as never were known, and which were cer- 
 tainly much out of place. Questions were put, and 
 upon a mere verbal promise made in Committee, 
 regular discussions were entered into. But, in the 
 present instance, there was a case of a particular 
 nature, about which it was proper to ask questions ; 
 and would the House of Commons allow a man, an 
 hon. and learned Member of the House, to be put 
 down by the anvil in the smithy of the noble and 
 learned Lord ? Absurd ! "Would they permit him to 
 be crushed by this Vulcan-like force played upon him 
 elsewhere ? If the House did allow this, he would 
 
96 APPENDIX. 
 
 say, they would demolisli the independent spirit of the 
 House. 
 
 Mr. Robinson had said, on a former evening, that 
 he took no part in the discussion, until he heard a 
 noble Member of the Government say that he knew 
 nothing about the appointment, and that he was not 
 able to give any answer. He thought that no one 
 had a right to complain of his putting his veto upon 
 the filling up of an office which all parties allowed to 
 be unnecessary. He would ask, was it ever known 
 in that House, that it was not proper for any Member 
 of that House to ask such questions ? Whatever in- 
 convenience might have arisen from the discussion of 
 that evening, it was altogether to be attributed to the 
 line of conduct adopted by the Lord Chancellor in the 
 other House ; who, not satisfied with making the 
 explanation which he was called upon to make in his 
 own defence, had stepped out of his way to cast impu- 
 tations upon a Member of the House of Commons, in 
 a manner peculiarly oflPensive. If the House was not 
 prepared to surrender the independence of its Mem- 
 bers to the Lord Chancellor, it would not suffer such 
 conduct to pass unnoticed. If such proceedings were 
 allowed to go on, it would be necessary at last to adopt 
 serious measures to check them. 
 
 Mr. Ridley Colborne confirmed what had been said 
 respecting the explanation of the Lord Chancellor, 
 and added that the noble and learned Lord further 
 said, that he did not believe that his brother would 
 hold the office a sufficient time to reimburse himself 
 by the fees, for the expenses to which he had been 
 put in accepting it. He trusted that the discussion 
 would be carried on no longer. 
 
 Lord John Russell said, I should not have entered 
 into the discussion, had not hon. Gentlemen opposite 
 
APPENDIX. 97 
 
 thought proper to do that which is not generally done, 
 by attacking the noble and learned Lord Chancellor, 
 for language attributed to him in a newspaper, and in 
 some measure disclaimed for him ; at the same time 
 that they say nothing of the substance of his explana- 
 tion respecting the offices which he has given to his 
 brother, but speak as if he had not given any reply to 
 the charges brought against him. I beg to remind 
 them, that the substance of his defence was this — that 
 he still maintained the opinion that those offices ought 
 to be abolished ; that he had prepared a BUI for the 
 abolition of them, which he had not yet had an oppor- 
 tunity of bringing forward ; and that, as there were 
 certain duties which some one must perform so long as 
 the offices existed, he had given them to his brother, 
 as a person in whom he could place the most 
 perfect confidence, and who would not claim com- 
 pensation on the ground of vested rights, whenever 
 the Legislature should make the necessary regulations 
 for the abolition of the office. If that be not an 
 answer to the charges brought against my noble and 
 learned friend, I know not what answer could satisfy 
 the constitutional and parliamentary jealousy of hon. 
 Gentlemen opposite. Some Gentlemen have laid 
 much stress upon the words of the Lord Chancellor, 
 that he had a right to make these appointments. 
 Surely, I say, when his filling up the offices was made 
 the subject of a grave accusation against him, by a Mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons, he could not very well 
 do otherwise than assert, in his vindication, that he had 
 a right to make the appointment. It is not fair deal- 
 ing on the part of the hon. Member for Worcester, 
 and other hon. Gentlemen, to say that we find fault 
 with them for asking a question respecting the filling 
 
 G 
 
98 APPENDIX. 
 
 up of any office which may have become vacant. We 
 do no such thing. ' It is the right of every Member of 
 this House to ask such questions, even if,' in doing so, 
 he should exceed a little, in constitutional and parlia- 
 mentary jealousy. We have not complained. Sir, that 
 questions were put, such as we ourselves were accus- 
 tomed to put, when we sat upon the other side of the- 
 House. Every Gentleman in this House has a right 
 to put such questions ; but, perhaps, some Gentlemen 
 opposite, from not having had so much experience in 
 opposition as we had, from not having served so long 
 an apprenticeship as we served, have not yet learned 
 to put their questions in a proper manner. Thus it 
 was, perhaps, that the hon. and learned Member 
 for St. Mawes put his question in such a way that, 
 as my noble friend the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer remarked in his reply, it was impossible to 
 pick the question out of the invective which sur- 
 rounded it. When the ■ hon. and learned Gentleman 
 was accused of having made a violent philippic, he 
 denied the charge, intimating, that if he did not de- 
 liver a violent philippic last night, he would take an 
 early opportunity of doing so. I cannot help thinking 
 that the whole of this debate would have been 
 avoided, if the hon. and learned Gentleman had con- 
 tented himself with asking a simple question about 
 the continuation of the office in question, or the com- 
 pensation connected therewith. If he had done this, 
 he would not this evening have had to complain of the 
 language he supposes to have been used by the Lord 
 Chancellor ; and, in my opinion, so far from what has 
 taken place, acting in future as an impediment to 
 questions being put, I think it will only prove a useful 
 precedent for inducing Gentleman to ask real bond 
 
APPENDIX. 99 
 
 fide questions, and not to take the advantage of no one 
 being present to answer them, for spreading latent 
 accusations against those who are absent. 
 
 Sir Henry Hardinge : It appears to me that the 
 lecture we have just heard from the noble Lord has 
 been deKyered for the purpose of preventing any 
 similar questions being ever again asked in this House. 
 The greater part of the noble Lord's speech referred 
 to the vindication of the noble and learned Lord ; but 
 no one has found fault with the noble and learned 
 Lord for entering into that vindication. The com- 
 plaint of my hon. and learned friend referred to the 
 terms of which the Lord Chancellor thought proper 
 to make use in the course of that vindication ; and, 
 for myself I beg to say, that I think that those terms 
 were excessively indecent, and that the language was 
 of a most opprobrious kind. When we look at what 
 certain members of the present Cabinet have done, 
 are we, indeed, bound to suppose they are so very im- 
 maculate on the subject of sinecures ? I remember, 
 that, according to the Report on the Civil List, the 
 Lord Privy Seal said, that he found so little to do in 
 his oflSce, that he really could not think of touching 
 any of the fees, or of taking any of the salary ; the 
 Postmaster General also stated that he could, on no 
 account, take his salary, when he saw his neighbours 
 round Goodwood suffering so much from the distressed 
 state of the country ; and yet now both these noble 
 Lords were in the receipt of their salaries, and had, 
 therefore, shown that they were not altogether free 
 from human infirmity. In my opinion, the question 
 of my hon. and learned friend was quite fair; all that 
 he did was, to ask whether this sinecure office was to 
 be given up, or not, and to that question no Cabinet 
 Minister had been able to give an answer. Under 
 
 g2 
 
100 APPENDIX. 
 
 f 
 these circumstances, I think that my hon, and learned 
 
 friend has a most decided right to complain of the 
 Lord Chancellor having used terms so indecent and 
 improper. The noble Lord (Althorp) has rightly said, 
 that he thinks it wrong for the Members of the two 
 Houses of Parliament to be bandying phrases, and to 
 irritate each other by accusation on one side, and re- 
 crimination on the other. In that opinion I quite 
 agree with him. But is this an isolated case ? Quite 
 the contrary. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, foUow- 
 the example of the Ivord Chancellor of Great Britain, 
 took an opportunity last night of attacking the hon. 
 Member for Dundalk, and of stating that that hon. 
 Gentleman had rendered himself odious as a Member 
 of Parliament to his constituents. How dare the Lord 
 Chancellor of Ireland make that accusation, in the 
 absence of the hon. Gentleman ? And yet, with such 
 violations of decorum as these staring us in the face, 
 we are to be told, forsooth, that it is indecent to ask 
 what I assert to have been a strictly parliamentary 
 question. To what do these examples amount ? Here 
 we have the Lord Chancellor of England, high on 
 account of his station, and still higher on account of his 
 abilities, in conjunction with another noble and learned 
 Lord, pursuing a course directly opposite to their 
 duties as Peers of Parliament ; a course, too, which, if 
 not resisted, must put an end to the freedom of debate 
 in this House. Reference has been made in the course 
 of the debate to the Duke of Wellington not having 
 taken any notice of the expressions made use of last 
 night by the Lord Chancellor. Now, I beg to say, 
 that I am satisfied that if my noble friend had been 
 aware of the manner in which my hon. and learned 
 friend put the question in this House, and if he dis- 
 tinctly heard the epithets applied to my hon. and 
 
APPENDIX. 101 
 
 learned friend by the Lord Chancellor, I know the 
 gallant nature of my noble friend, and his steady 
 friendship to my hon. and learned friend, too well to 
 believe that he would, for a moment, have allowed 
 such expressions to pass unnoticed. 
 
 Mr. Robert Palmer thought thai too much time had 
 already been occupied by this debate. If the Lord 
 Chancellor had used the expressions imputed to him, 
 no one could help regretting it; but he (Mr. Palmer) 
 must confess that he could not bring himself to be- 
 lieve that those terms had been made use o£ 
 
 Order of the Day read. 
 
DA 356 L9 CXQ 
 
 Author 
 
 Sugden, Edward B 
 
 Vol. 
 
 ^'fe-srepresentations in Campbell';"^' 
 
 Copy 
 
 
 
 Date 
 
 Borrower's Name