As an Equity Judge Lord Camden fully sustained the reputation he had acquired while presiding in the Court of Common Pleas. When he pronounced a decree upon the conA.D. 1766— struction of a will, or the liability of a trustee, he 1770. was not received with shouts of applause from hundreds of thousands of persons assembled round the Court, as when he ordered the liberation of WILKES, or adjudged the illegality of "general warrants; " but he now conciliated the calm respect and good opinion of all parties by his extensive legal information, by his quickness of perception and soundness of understanding, by the perspicuity with which his opinions were propounded, by the patience and impartiality which he uniformly displayed, and by his dignified politeness, which appeared more graceful by contrast with the unrefined manners of his predecessor. Although without the qualification, now considered indispensable and all-sufficient for the Equity bench, of having passed many years in the drudgery of drawing bills and answers, his mind was deeply imbued with the general principles of jurisprudence; he had studied systematically the Roman civil law, he was acquainted with the common law of England in all its branches, the most familiar and the most abstruse,-his time in his earlier years after entering the profession not having been engrossed by “præpropera praxis," instead of a hurried attention to a great variety of points, he had acquired the habit of deliberately investigating great questions,—as a Nisi Prius leader he possessed the faculty of sifting evidence and dealing rapidly and skilfully with facts,―he had taken infinite pains to make himself master of Equity doctrines and practice,-and for some years he had been first in business, as well as in rank, at the Chancery bar. In those days the notion had not sprung up that a common lawyer was unfit to be an Equity Judge, and Lord Camden was allowed to discharge his duty most admirably, even by hoary fixtures of the Court, such as AMBLER, who had “ practised as a barrister for upwards of forty years, of which thirty

his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, the Lord Viscount Barrington, Secretary at War, Lord Edgecombe, Treasurer of the Household, Sir Charles Saunders, Knight of the Bath, First Lord of the Admiralty, the Master of the Rolls, the Judges, King's Serjeants, King's Counsel, and other persons of quality. The Lords accompanied him to the Court of Chancery, where (before he entered upon business), in their presence, he took

the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the oath of Chancellor of Great Britain, the Master of the Rolls holding the book, and the Deputy Clerk of the Crown reading the said oaths: which being done, the Attorney-General moved that it might be recorded, and it was ordered accordingly. Then the Lords departed, leaving the Lord Chancellor in Court."-Cr. Off. Min., No. 2, p. 14.

A.D. 1766-70.

DEFECTIVE REPORTS OF HIS DECISIONS.

381

were employed in the Court of Chancery, under five Lord Chancellors, three sets of Commissioners, and five Masters of the Rolls." I

66

But we must appreciate his merits chiefly by the general testimonies in his favour from his contemporaries; for, when Chancellor, he was most unfortunate in the want of a 66 vates sacer." Not unfrequently his chief reporter, after a brief statement of the arguments of the defendant's counsel, thus deals with a judgment on which the Judge had bestowed infinite labour, and which was admired for its learning, precision, and lucid arrangement: "And Lord Camden being of the same opinion, which he delivered at large, the bill was dismissed." But though these chroniclers only give us his dry conclusions of law in the fewest and most ordinary words, we may form a notion of his style and manner from a Reminiscence" of BUTLER. "I distinctly remember," says he, "Lord Camden's presiding in the Court of Chancery. His Lordship's judicial eloquence was of the colloquial kind-extremely simple,diffuse, but not desultory. He introduced legal idioms frequently, and always with a pleasing and great effect. Sometimes, however, he rose to the sublime strains of eloquence; but the sublimity was altogether in the sentiment; the diction retained its simplicity; this increased the effect." i About his dress and manner he seems to have been very little solicitous. "He wore a tie-wig in Court," says a contemporary, "and has been frequently observed to garter up his stockings while counsel were the most strenuous in their eloquence.'

t

I do not think that during the time he held the Great Seal (only three years and a half) he added much to our Equity code. I do not find questions of greater importance settled by him, than that a bequest to "the most necessitous of my relations" shall go among the next of kin, according to the Statute of Distributions, without any inquiry into their circumstances ;* and that by a bequest "of all the testator's pictures," (he having at the making of his will a good collection,) after-purchased pictures shall pass."

Only one of his decrees was reversed, and the general opinion has been that the reversal was wrong. A testator having devised freehold estates to certain uses, and bequeathed a lease

r Preface to Ambler, vi.

s Ambler, 660. Dickens is generally more

provokingly deficient.

Butler's Reminiscences.

u Political Anecdotes, 385.

* Wedmore v. Woodroffe, Ambler, 636. y Ib. 640.

hold messuage to trustees to convey to the uses of the freehold, "so that they should not separate," suffered a recovery of the freehold estates, whereby, as to them, the will was revoked, Lord Camden held, that the bequest of the leasehold was revoked also." This decree was reversed on appeal; but Lord Eldon said, in Southey v. Somerville," that "he should be disposed to agree with the opinion of Lord Camden rather than the judgment of the House of Lords;" and, on principle, I conceive it must be assumed (however contrary to the fact), that the testator knew and intended all the consequences of the recovery which he suffered."

Lord Camden's plans for legal reform were defeated by the unhappy turn which politics and parties took (so contrary to his seemingly well-founded expectations) almost from the moment of his elevation to his present office. He had intended, under the auspices of Lord Chatham, again to bring forward his Habeas Corpus Bill, with some other measures to improve the administration both of criminal and civil justice; but the great luminary to whose light and influence he had trusted was eclipsed, and for a time seemed blotted out of the system, so that darkness was spread over the political world, and chaos seemed to have come again.

Lord Chatham had scarcely called into existence his motley administration, pleasantly depicted by Burke as "a cabinet so curiously inlaid-such a piece of diversified mosaic—such a tesselated pavement without cement-here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white, which had a chance of coherence only from the controlling genius of its framer,"-when, by fresh and aggravated attacks of his old malady, the gout, he was almost disabled from attending to public business; and soon after, on account of a nervous disorder which is supposed even to have affected his mind, he was long seen only by his wife and his medical attendants. The consequence was, that Lord Camden's situation soon became most embarrassing and distressing. After a period of utter confusion, the members of the Government from whom he most differed got the ascendency; and, from the protracted hope of the restoration of his friend, who nominally continued in office, he was cut off from the resource of resigning and going into opposition.

The first difficulty which arose after the formation of the

* Darley v. Darley, Amb. 653.

a 13 Ves. jun. 492.

b 3 Br. P. C. 365; and see Carrington, v.

Payne, 5 Ves. jun. 404; Lowndes v. Stone, ib. 649; Ware v. Polhill, 11 Ves. jun. 280.

A.D. 1766. HIS FAMOUS EXPRESSION "FORTY DAYS' TYRANNY." 383

new government was from the scarcity, and apprehension of famine, produced by the failure of the harvest. The price of provisions was rapidly advancing, and the greatest alarm prevailed in the public mind. The prime minister was confined to his bed at Bath. A proposal being made that the exportation of corn should be prevented, the Chancellor recommended that this object should be effected by an order of the King in council. Lord Chatham, who was still able to communicate with his colleagues by letter, concurred in this advice, and the measure was carried into effect. It was popular in itself, but rendered odious by the manner in which it was defended. I have already mentioned the scrape into which the Government was on this occasion precipitated by the indiscretion and intemperance of Lord Northington, now President of the Council. He ought to have been thrown overboard, and the foundering vessel would have righted. Lord Camden thought that he must be supported, and was so far misled by his zeal to serve a colleague as to persuade himself (in trying to persuade others) that the act of interfering with lawful commerce, although against an express statute, was not only justifiable from expedience, so as to entitle the parties concerned in it to be protected by an indemnity, but was in itself strictly legal, and, without any indemnity, might be defended in a court of justice.--According to the evidence of credible witnesses present, he at last worked himself up to say:—

"The necessity of a measure renders it not only excusable, but legal; and consequently a judge, when the necessity is proved, may, without hesitation, declare that act legal which would be clearly illegal where such necessity did not exist. The Crown is the sole executive power, and is therefore intrusted by the constitution to take upon itself whatever the safety of the state may require during the recess of parliament, which is at most but a forty days' tyranny. The power exercised on this occasion was so moderate, that Junius Brutus would not have hesitated to intrust it even to the discretion of a Nero." d

He now received from Lord Temple the severest chastisement ever inflicted upon him :

"Forty days' tyranny!" exclaimed his opponent. 'My Lords, tyranny is a harsh sound. I detest the very word, because I hate the thing. But is this language to come from a noble and learned

c Ante, p. 339.

d Lord Charlemont's Correspondence, p. 22.

Lord, whose glory it might and ought to be to have risen by steps which Liberty threw in his way, and to have been honoured as his country has honoured him, not for trampling her under foot, but for holding up her head? I have used my best endeavours to answer the argument of the 'forty days' by argument founded on principles ; I will now give the noble and learned Lord one answer more, and it shall be argumentum ad hominem. That noble and learned Lord has said, I believe, on other occasions, and he has said well, the price of one hour's English liberty none but an English jury could estimate; and juries under his guidance have put a very high value upon it, in the case of the meanest of our fellow subjects when opprest by the servants of the state. But'forty days' tyranny' over the nation by the Crown! Who can endure the thought? My Lords, less than 'forty days' tyranny,' such as this country has felt in some times, would, I believe, bring your Lordships together without a summons, from your sick beds, faster than our great patriots themselves, to get a place or a pension, or both, and, for aught I know, make the subject of your consultation that appeal to Heaven which has been spoken of. Once establish a dispensing power, and you cannot be sure of either liberty or law for forty minutes."

Lord Mansfield, more calmly but not less forcibly, pointed out the fallacy and the dangerous consequences of the Chancellor's reasoning, and on this occasion gained a signal triumph over his rival. There can be no doubt that Lord Camden was confounding acts which the law says may be lawfully done in a case of necessity-with acts done in violation of the law for the public good; and that his doctrines led inevitably to a power in the Crown to suspend or repeal all laws, without the previous or subsequent sanction of parliament. The doctrine has never since been contended for; and whenever ministers, for the safety of the state, have acted contrary to law, they have thrown themselves upon parliament, and asked for a bill of indemnity."

to see Lord Mansfield bestriding the high horse of Liberty, while Lord Chatham and Lord Camden were arguing for the extension of prerogative beyond its true limits; and it was in these debates that the upright Chancellor, in the warmth of speaking, inadvertently made use of the expression, that if it was a tyranny, it was only a tyranny of forty days.'"-Duke of Grafton's Journal.

"With regard to Lord Camden, the truth is, that he inadvertently overshot himself, as appears plainly by that unguarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, which I myself heard. Instead of asserting that the proclamation was legal, he should have said, My