CLXXXII.

A. D. 1801.

On this occasion, he said: "I cannot, Sir, refuse myself CHAP. the pleasure of expressing the most unqualified approbation of the manner in which the Convention has been so happily concluded. Not long ago I saw three great nations of the North confederated against the vital interests of our country; yet in so short a time afterwards I now see the same powers pledged to concur with us in their support, by upholding our ancient system of international law. The effect of such a successful conspiracy must have been to establish universally, that free bottoms should make free goods; because they who denied the right of search, and enforced the refusal, annihilated every regulation against enemies' property as contraband of war, since it is only by search that the invasion of neutrality can be detected. The right of search is now recognised as the general law of civilised states. We have preserved the honour and interests of our own country by not forgetting that other countries have honour and interests also. Without this reasonable compromise we could not have had a peace so likely to continue, for it will be pursued as it was made · in the spirit of peace. I wish France and

every
other nation to see that our divisions are at an end.
We have made many sacrifices in the course of the late con-
test, and we must make many more to redeem our country
from the consequences of a war, the continuance of which
might have been fatal to it, and to the whole civilised world.
I hope, Sir, that Ministers will now pursue towards their
fellow-subjects the same liberal policy which upon this occa-
sion they have shown towards adversaries. This is still
wanting. I am now looking forwards, and confidently main-
tain that, if the people of Great Britain and Ireland were
governed according to the spirit of our laws, mildly ad-
ministered, they would, to use the language of Mr. Burke,
'for ever cling and grapple to you, and nothing could tear
them from their allegiance.' Nothing, indeed, can estrange
them from our invaluable Constitution but shutting them out
from its benefits."*

CHAP. CLXXXII.

May 7. 1802.

During the present session, Erskine again came forward in the debate caused by Mr. Nicholl's motion to "thank the Crown for the removal of Mr. Pitt;" and Sir H. Mildmay's amendment," That Mr. Pitt, for his services while Minister, deserved the gratitude of the House." He was particularly severe on Mr. Pitt's injudicious refusals to treat for peace with Bonaparte; and on his resignation, which he represented as a desertion of the vessel of the state when she was labouring in the tempest, and in danger of being dashed to pieces among the rocks which surrounded her." The vote of thanks, however, was carried by a majority of 224 to 52*, partly from the recollection of Pitt's former Administration, and still more from the anticipation that he must ere long be Minister again.

66

* 36 Parl. Hist. 616, 653.

CHAPTER CLXXXIII.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE TILL HE BECAME
LORD CHANCELLOR.

CHAP. CLXXXIII.

visits Paris.

In the long vacation of this year, Erskine went to Paris, where he expected that he must be gazed at-on account of his fame as an advocate, and the leading part which he A. D. 1802. conceived he had taken for many years in the House of Com- Erskine mons; but his vanity was considerably mortified by his reception there. He knew hardly any thing of the French language, so that he could not assist in spreading his own fame;-none of his forensic speeches had been translated into French, and his political consequence was utterly extinguished by the presence of Fox, who had gone over to collect materials for his "History of the Reign of James II.," and was run after as a prodigy.

tion by the

First Con

sul.

We have the following account from an eye-witness of our His recephero's reception by the First Consul: "Bonaparte, at the levee, made a long florid address to Fox, to which the modest statesman made no reply. Erskine's presentation followed. I am tempted to think that he felt some disappointment at not being recognised by the First Consul; there was some difficulty at first, as Erskine was understood to speak little French. Monsieur Talleyrand's impatient whisper to me, I fancy I yet hear: " Parle-t-il François ?" Mr. Merry, the English Consul, already fatigued with his presentations, and dreading a host to come, imperfectly designated Erskine —when the killing question followed, "Etes-vous légiste?" This was pronounced by Bonaparte with great indifference, or, at least, without any marked attention.*

* Trotter's Memoirs of Fox, p. 268. However, the Right Hon. Thomas Erskine writes to me," Mr. Trotter has misunderstood the circumstance to which he alludes, obviously in no friendly spirit. My father was introduced to

CHAP. Erskine was better treated at the Cour de Cassation,

CLXXXIII. if we may credit Monsieur Berryer the Elder, who, in A. D. 1802. his "Souvenirs," is rather imaginative. "One morning,' Reception says he, in narrating his visit to London in 1822, "I reof English and French paired to the Court of King's Bench, accompanied by a lawyers, by solicitor, with no other intention than that of being present

their re

spective Bars.

as a looker-on at one of its sittings. The Attorney General
perceives my white head, the only one in the crowd; he
sends a huissier, bearing a wand of ivory, to speak to me.
The huissier presses through the crowd, reaches the place
where I stand, and in a few words of English, translated by
my solicitor, invites me to follow him to the bar of the am-
phitheatre set apart for the advocates. The bar opens. Two
young advocates, in wigs à la Louis Quatorze, come forward
to introduce me. All the advocates-the Broughams, the
Scarletts, being of the number-rise to salute me.
I was
dressed in a plain black surtout. My two young attendants
assigned me a seat between them. They keep me, during
the sitting, au courant of what is going on. It was a bank-
ruptcy matter, under an inquiry by a jury. The jury having
retired to deliberate, I took a respectful leave of the advo-
cates en masse. - All the London newspapers of the day fol-
lowing gave a report, highly flattering to both countries, on
this solemn reception of a Parisian advocate. I have since
ascertained that it was by way of return for my having,
twenty years before, procured the famous Erskine a reception
equally warm from all my brethren at one of the sittings of
the Appeal Court at Paris." But if Erskine had not more

Bonaparte not by name, but by his official title as Chancellor to the Prince of Wales. The First Consul, not knowing the nature of this office, or the name of the individual who filled it, put the question, Etes-vous légiste?' When my father was afterwards, at an evening party given by Madame Josephine, introduced to the hero by his name, Napoleon alluded to his former interview by saying, 'You are better known to me by your name than your office.'"

Curran, who was then likewise at Paris, escaped the mortification of such a question being addressed to him, by luckily keeping away from Bonaparte's levee. Thus he wrote to a friend while still in some doubt upon the subject:"I don't suppose I shall get myself presented to the Consul;—not having been privately baptized at St. James's would be a difficulty;-to get over it a favour; - and then the trouble of getting myself costumed for the show; - and then the small value of being driven like the beasts of the field before Adam when he named them. I think I shan't mind it."

CLXXXII.

to boast of from the attention paid to him by his brethren at CHAP. Paris than Berryer had in London, I can testify, from having been present at the scene so pompously described, that much A. D. 1802. was left to be supplied by self-complaisance and imagination. I well recollect regretting that more was not done to testify our sense of the honour conferred upon us by a visit from such a distinguished foreign jurist. We could not have summoned him by a huissier with a wand of ivory, having no officer with any such emblem of dignity, and it would have been contrary to our customs to have interrupted a jury-trial by the Bar all rising in a body to do homage to any stranger, however distinguished, were he even a crowned head. But we ought to have taken care that M. Berryer was placed on the bench, by the side of the Judge, whereas he was squeezed in among the barristers; and although several of them spoke to him very courteously, he remained in an inconvenient seat during a tedious trial respecting an act of bankruptcy, which could not be made intelligible to him; and when the jury withdrew to consider their verdict he left the Court, with his "solicitor," almost unnoticed.

rencontre with Ar

thur

O'Connor

at Paris.

During this visit to Paris, Erskine was placed in a situation Erskine's of great embarrassment by meeting in society the man whose political principles he had vouched to be exactly the same as his own, and who had since, having confessed his treasons, been banished by Act of Parliament, and had engaged in the military service of France. "At a sumptuous dinner given by Madame Cabarras, ci-devant Tallien, to Fox, Erskine, and other distinguished foreigners, to the surprise and displeasure of some, Arthur O'Connor was a guest. Erskine was extremely uneasy, remembering how much he had been deceived in his testimony at Maidstone, and afraid lest evil report should misrepresent this matter in England; but Fox treated it as unavoidable, though unlucky. He spoke to O'Connor as usual."* I confess that this seems to me to have been carrying complaisance to a hurtful extreme, and that Erskine did better by avoiding all conversation with a man who had violated alike the duties of allegiance and of friendship.