that tried to turn him aside from his great purpose. When the Duchess of Marlborough strove to put him under obligations by sending him a retainer of a thousand guineas, he returned nine hundred and ninety-five, with the remark that a retaining fee was never more nor less than five guineas. When Newcastle offered him a pension of £6,000 a year, if he would remain in the House of Commons, instead of taking the Bench, he put the offer aside without a moment's hesitation, saying: "What merit have I, that you should lay on this country, for which so little is done with spirit, the additional burden of £6,000 a year?" He was Lord Chief Justice for nearly thirty-two years. Though he probably did more to strengthen the cause of the mother country against the colonies than any other one man, yet his great services have been no less generously acknowledged in America than in England. It was Mr. Justice Story who said: 66 England and America, and the civilized world, lie under the deepest obligations to him. Wherever commerce shall extend

its social influences; wherever justice shall be administered by enlightened and liberal rules; wherever contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal principles of right and wrong; wherever moral delicacy and judicial refinement shall be infused into the municipal code, at once to persuade men to be honest and to keep them so; wherever the intercourse of mankind shall aim at something more elevated than that grovelling spirit of barter, in which meanness, and avarice, and fraud strive for the mastery over ignorance, credulity, and folly, the name of Lord Mansfield will be held in reverence by the good and the wise, by the honest merchant, the enlightened lawyer, the just statesman, and the conscientious judge. The proudest monument of his fame is in the volumes of Burrow, and Cowper, and Douglas, which we may fondly hope will endure as long as the language in which they are written shall continue to instruct mankind. His judgments should not be merely referred to and read on the spur of particular occasions, but should be studied as

models of juridical reasoning and eloquence." When the matter of repealing the Stamp Act came before Parliament, the question turned, as we have already observed, chiefly on the subject of the clause declaring the right of Parliament to levy the tax. While Chatham arrayed all his powers against the right, Mansfield was its most strenuous supporter. His speech on the subject is of great importance to the American student, because it is by far the most able and plausible ever delivered in support of the British policy. It is avowedly directed to the question of right, not at all to the question of expediency. Lord Campbell, although inclined to the doctrines of the Whigs, refers to the speech as one of arguments to which he "has never been able to find an answer." The position of Mansfield undoubtedly had a very great influence in determining and strengthening the policy of the King and of the ministry. The speech was corrected for the press by the orator's own hand, and may be regarded as authentic.

LORD MANSFIELD.

ON THE RIGHT OF ENGLAND TO TAX AMERICA.

HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 3, 1766.

The discussion, of which the speech of Pitt already given, formed a part, came up on the adoption of the motion declaring the right of England to tax America, -a motion accompanying the bill repealing the Stamp Act. The motion was strenuously opposed, not only by Pitt in the House of Commons, but also by Lord Camden in the House of Lords. Camden said: "In my opinion, my Lords, the legislature have no right to make this law. The sovereign authority, the omnipotence of the legislature is a favorite doctrine; but there are some things which you cannot do. You cannot take away a man's property, without making him a compensation. You have no right to condemn a man by bill of attainder without hearing him. But, though Parliament cannot take away a man's property, yet every subject must make contributions, and this he consents to do by his representative. Notwithstanding the King, Lords, and Commons could in ancient times tax other people, they could not tax the clergy." Lord Camden then went on to show at length, that the counties palatine of Wales and of Berwick, were never taxed till they were represented in Parliament. The same was true, he said, of Ireland; and the same doctrines should prevail in regard to America. It was in answer to Lord Camden that the following speech of Lord Mansfield was made.

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MY LORDS:

I shall speak to the question strictly as a matter of right; for it is a proposition in its nature so perfectly distinct from the expediency of the tax, that it must necessarily be taken separate, if there is any true logic in the world; but of the expediency or inexpediency I will say nothing. It will be time enough to speak upon that subject when it comes to be a question.

I shall also speak to the distinctions which have been taken, without any real difference, as to the nature of the tax; and I shall point out, lastly, the necessity there will be of exerting the force of the superior authority of government, if opposed by the subordinate part of it.

I am extremely sorry that the question has ever become necessary to be agitated, and that there should be a decision upon it. No one in this House will live long enough to see an end put to the mischief which will be the result of the doctrine which has been inculcated; but the arrow is shot and the wound already given. I shall certainly avoid personal reflections. No one has had more cast upon him than myself; but I never was biased by any consideration of applause from without, in the discharge of my