Then the duke's solicitor. "Afterwards the duke's solicitor." Having once got a footing in court, and found means to hold forth great assurances of future services at large, it is no wonder that he was taken in on that side of the court, that desired such men as would act without reserve, as it was ⚫termed. While he was in this post, he made a great bustle in the duke's affairs, and carried through a cause which was of very great consequence to his revenue; which was for the right of the penny post-office. It was the invention of one Docwra, who put it into complete order, and used it to the satisfaction of all London, for a considerable time. The Duke of York was grantee of the revenue of the post-office; and his counsel, finding this project of a penny post turn out so well, and apparently improvable, upon consulting the act, thought the duke had a right to all posts, and, consequently, to that. Thereupon an information, grounded on the post act, was exhibited against Docwra,* and, upon a trial at the King's Bench bar, he was convicted; and ever since, the crown hath had the benefit of the penny post. Docwra would not submit himself, but insisted on his right to the last; otherwise it was thought he might have secured to himself a good office, by being commissioner for life, to manage that revenue. But his wayward * See Docwray's case, Skinner's Reports, 80. ness to the court would not give him leave to be so wise. place of "Upon troubles in parliament, he would not Left the "stand his ground, but quitted his recordership recorder, ❝in fear, and with great entreaty.* Whereupon Treby. "Sir George Treby was made. This whole affair, and all the circumstances of it, is fully accounted for in the Examen, so shall say little here; only that this Sir George Treby, who succeeded Jeffries in the recordership, was no fanatic; but, of the fanatic party, true as steel. His genius lay to free-thinking, and, conformably to his fellows at that time, made the scriptures and christianity, or rather all religion, a jest; and so constant in his way, that no man could say that ever he was the first, and not the last, that left the bottle.f * He was attacked in Parliament as one of the abhorrers, and was reprimanded at the bar on his knees; upon which "the ever-facetious king was pleased to laugh and say,' that Sir George Jeffries was not parliament-proof.'" (Examen, p. 550.) +"He was," says Evelyn, "a learned man in his profession, of which we have now few, never fewer." (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 73.) Treby was one of the counsel for the City in the great case of the quo warranto, and was subsequently deprived of the office of Recorder in 1685, but was restored by William III. in 1688. He was appointed Attorney-General May 7, 1689, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 13th April, 1692. Ob. 1701. for fear; to His ambi tion to the "He aimed at the place of Chief Justice of "the Common Pleas, after the judgment, in the better men. 66 quo warranto, settled to the prejudice of Jones, prejudice of Some notes of the Chief" who had served in giving it; and expedient Justice the loss of Sir Job Jones, and "being found by room in B. R. was made so." It was a cruel thing in Jeffries to press so very hard, as he did, to come over the head of Mr. Justice Jones, against whom there was no sort of objection; but, on the contrary, a merit in doing the king justice, in so great and consequential a cause as that against the city was. And, in the end, Saunders, the chief justice, being disabled by his apoplexy, Jones pronounced that judgment, and expressed the reasons so short and sound, and delivered with that gravity and authority, as became the court, and greatness of the occasion. And one, that had a grain of consideration of any thing but himself, and being of the same interest and sentiment, would not have pushed, with a flaming violence at court, to the injury of so venerable a person as that judge was; whose character I should have particularly set forth here, if it had not been done already in the Examen.* Jeffries did not gain his point of * P. 563, where Jones is termed a very reverend and learned judge, a gentleman, and impartial. "He was made chief justice of the Common Pleas in 1663, and was removed in 1666, for giving his opinion," says Roger Coke," that the king could not dispense with the test and penal laws." (De him; but matters rested awhile, and the place of chief justice of the Common Pleas being void by his lordship's promotion to the seal, Jones was placed there, which was his advantage, and Jeffries took the cushion in the King's Bench. This was not the only instance of the unreasonable ambition of Jeffries, to the prejudice of deserving men. For he laid his eye on the place of Chief Justice of Chester, which was full of Sir Job Charleton, than whom there was not a person better qualified for his majesty's favour; an old cavalier, loyal, learned, grave, and wise. He had a considerable estate towards Wales, and desired to die in that employment. But Jeffries, with his interest on the side of the Duke of York, pressed the king so hard that he could not stand it; but Sir Job Charleton must be a judge of the Common Pleas, and Jeffries* at Chester in his place, being more tection, vol. ii. p. 423.) On being pressed by the king to declare himself in favour of the dispensing power, he said, “ he could not do it:" and on his majesty answering that he would have twelve judges of his own opinion, Sir Thomas observed, that possibly he might find twelve judges of his opinion, but that he would scarce find twelve lawyers to be so. (Kennett, vol. iii. p. 449.) The same anecdote is related by Sir John Reresby. (Memoirs, p. 229.) * Mr. Booth, afterwards Earl of Warrington, has thus described the conduct of Jeffries, while he filled the place of Chief Justice of Chester. "But I cannot be silent as to our Chief Judge, and I will name him, because what I have to say will appear more probable. His name is Welshman than himself. Sir Job laid this heavily upon his heart, and desired only that he might speak to the king, and receive his pleasure from his own mouth; but was diverted, as a thing determined. But once he went to Whitehall, and placed himself where the king, returning from his walk in St. James's park, must pass; and there he set him down like hermit poor. When the king came in, and saw him at a distance, sitting where he was to pass, concluded he intended to speak with him, which he could not by any means bear he therefore turned short off, and went another way. Sir Job, seeing that, pitied his poor master, and never thought of troubling him more, but buckled to his business in the Sir G. Jeffries, who, I must say, behaved himself more like a Jack-pudding, than with that gravity that beseems a judge. He was mighty witty upon the prisoners at the bar. He was very full of his jokes upon people that came to give evidence, not suffering them to declare what they had to say in their own way and method, but would interrupt them, because they behaved with more gravity than he. But I do not insist upon this, nor upon the late hours he kept in our city. It is said he was every night drinking till two o'clock, or beyond that time, and that he went to his chamber drunk; but this I have only by common fame, for I was not in his company I bless God I am not a man of his principles or behaviour; but in the mornings he appeared with the symptoms of a man that over-night had taken a large cup." (Chandler's Debates, vol. ii. p. 163.) |