CLXXXIII. account of this trans action. CHAP. Minister, nothing could be more natural than that Erskine should be Chancellor. Politically, the arrangement was Feb. 180 6 laudable; but, judicially, it was not to be defended. Romilly Romilly's in his Diary, speaking of the new Administration, says, "There are some few appointments which have been received by the public with much dissatisfaction, and none with more than that of Erskine to be Lord Chancellor. The truth undoubtedly is, that he is totally unfit for his situation. His practice has never led him into Courts of Equity; and the doctrines which prevail in them are to him almost like the law of a foreign country. It is true that he has a great deal of quickness, and is capable of much application; but, at his time of life, with the continual occupations which the duties of his office will give him, and the immense arrear of business left him by his tardy and doubting predecessor, it is quite impossible that he should find the means of making himself master of that extensive and complicated system of law, which he will have to administer. He acts, indeed, very ingenuously on the subject; he feels his unfitness for the office, and seems almost overcome with the idea of the difficulties which he foresees that he will have to encounter. He called on me a few days ago, and told me that he should stand in great need of my assistance, that I must tell him what to read, and how best to fit himself for his situation. You must,' these are the very words he used to me, 'You must make me a Chancellor now, that I may afterwards make you one. 999 * Memoirs, ii. 128. CHAPTER CLXXXIV. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE WHILE HE WAS CLXXXIV. A.D. 1806. Transfer of the Great Seal from Erskine. THE transfer of the Great Seal took place at the Queen's CHAP. Palace on the 7th of February, 1806, when, being delivered up by Lord Eldon, his Majesty multa gemens put it into the hand of Erskine, declaring him Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and directed him to be sworn of the Privy Council. The same day the new head of the law was created a Peer Eldon to of the United Kingdom, by the title of Baron Erskine of Restormel Castle, in the county of Cornwall, this locality being designated as a mark of favour by the Heir Apparent, because it was the ancient residence of the Princes of Wales. The following day an honour was conferred upon him by which, I make no doubt, he was far more gratified. A meeting of the Bar was held in Westminster Hall, and although a vast majority of those present were high Tories, the following resolution was carried unanimously : — "That we cannot deny ourselves the satisfaction of presenting our sincere congratulations to the Rt. Honble. Thomas Lord Erskine on his appointment to the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and of expressing the deep impression made upon us by the uniform kindness and attention which we have at all times experienced from him during his long and extensive practice amongst and we farther beg leave to assure his Lordship that in retiring from us he is accompanied by our best wishes for his health and happiness." us; This being presented to him in the name of the Bar, by the two senior barristers, the following was his reply: “GENTLEMEN, Address of the Bar to this eleva tion. "I cannot express what I felt upon receiving your address, and His anwhat I must ever feel upon the recollection of it. I came ori- swer. CLXXXIV. A.D. 1806. CHAP. ginally into the profession under great disadvantage. Bred in military life, a total stranger to the whole Bar, and not entitled to expect any favourable reception from similar habits or private friendships, my sudden advancement into great business before I could rank in study or in learning with others who were my seniors also, was calculated to have produced in common minds nothing but prejudice and disgust. How, then, can I look back without gratitude upon the unparalleled liberality and kindness which for seven and twenty years I uniformly experienced among you, and which alone, I feel a pride as well as a duty in acknowledging, enabled me to surmount many painful difficulties, and converted what would otherwise have been a condition of oppressive labour into an uninterrupted enjoyment of ease and satisfaction? I am happy that your partiality has given me the occasion of putting upon record this just tribute to the character and honour of the English Bar. My only merit has been, that I was not insensible to so much goodness. The perpetual and irresistible impulses of mind, deeply affected by innumerable obligations, could not but produce that behaviour which you have so kindly and so publicly rewarded. I shall for ever remain, "Gentlemen, "Your affectionate and faithful humble servant, "Lincoln's Inn Fields, Feb. 9. 1806." * "ERSKINE. His "Supporters and "new Motto." Considering how political enmities and private jealousies oppose such an expression of good will to a barrister on his elevation to the woolsack, we need not wonder that this is a solitary instance of it in the annals of our profession, and we may form some conception of the fascinating manners and real kindness of heart, as well as of the brilliant genius, which called it forth. Re I must, however, relate that he caused a good deal of merriment in Westminster Hall, by the heraldic honours which, on his own suggestion, were accorded to him. taining his family shield and crest, he had for supporters "a Griffin, wings elevated, gules charged with a mullet, and a Heron, wings mounted, holding in the beak an eel proper," * Annual Register, 1806, p. 363. CLXXXIV. (on which many jokes were made)*, and he took for his CHAP. motto, "TRIAL BY JURY." That of his father being "JUDGE NOUGHT," all allowed that it would not have been very ap- A.D 1806. propriate, but it was said that " BY BILL IN EQUITY" would have been a better substitution on his going into the Court of Chancery, and that "Trial by Jury" was a vain imitation of Lord Camden's motto from Magna Charta, “Judicium Parium, aut Lex Terræ."† He took his seat on the woolsack on the 10th of February ‡, and on the last day of Hilary Term. Lord Chancellor Erskine, seated in a state carriage, adorned with this blazonry, rode in grand procession from his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields to Westminster Hall, accompanied by his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., many peers and privy councillors, and all the Judges and King's counsel. The oaths were administered to him with due solemnity, and he commenced his judicial career. § * The Buchan supporters were two ostriches. † Soon after, a barrister whom I knew well, setting up his carriage, — in still worse taste put upon the panels, "Causes produce Effects," - equal to the tobacconist's" Quid rides," or the water-doctor's ducks crying Quack! quack! The following is the copy from the Lords' Journals on his taking his seat as a peer : "10th Feb. 1806. - His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence acquainted the House That his Majesty had been pleased to create the Right Honourable Thomas Erskine, Lord Chancellor of that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Great Britain, a Peer of these realms.' 66 Whereupon his Lordship, taking in hand the purse with the Great Seal, retired to the lower end of the House, and having there put on his robes, was introduced between the Lord Holland and the Lord Rawdon (also in their robes), the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, Garter King at Arms, and the Earl Marshal preceding. "His Lordship laid down his patent upon the chair of state, kneeling; and from thence took and delivered it to the clerk, who read the same at the table. "Then his Lordship at the table took the oaths, and made and subscribed the declaration; and also took and subscribed the oath of abjuration, pursuant to the statutes. "Which done, his Lordship took his seat at the lower end of the Baron's bench; from whence he went to the upper end of the Earl's bench, and sat there as Lord Chancellor, and then returned to the woolsack." § 12th February, 1806.—John Lord Eldon, Lord High Chancellor of that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Great Britain, having delivered the Great Seal to the King at the Queen's Palace on Friday, the 7th day of February, 1806, his Majesty the same day delivered it to the Honourable Thomas Erskine, with the title of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, who was then sworn into the said office before his Majesty in Council; and on Wednesday, the 12th day of February, 1806, being the last day of Hilary Feb. 12. He is in stalled in the Court of Chan cery. CHAP. CLXXXIV. conduct of Bar. The Equity Counsel behaved to him with great liberality. He had been in the constant habit of jeering, although in a A. D. 1806. good-natured way, at their complicated and interminable Handsome proceedings, which he contrasted with the simplicity and the Equity despatch of the Common Law. They had been often taunted in society with his pathetic appeal to Lord Kenyon, who recommended that his client should apply to Chancery for relief," Would your Lordship send a dog you loved there?”* and the answer was handed about which he had lately given to a question connected with equity: "My opinion is, that the present case should be sent to some gentleman conversant with this branch of practice." Yet they not only behaved to him with much respect and courtesy, but abstained from seeking to derive any unfair advantage from his inexperience, and showed a general disposition to keep him out of “ scrapes.' His demeanour, in his new office, to all who approached him, was so noble and so benevolent, that it conquered all prejudices, repressed the natural ebullitions of envy and of selfishness, and created an emulation of reciprocal good feeling. He continued all the officers of his predecessor in their new Chan- situations; he did not dismiss one commissioner of bankrupts; and as, by a combination of independence and deference, he had been a model of what is due to the Court from an advocate, he now, by his uniform patience, impartiality, firmness, and politeness, showed what is due from a Judge Demea nour of the cellor. 66 Term, he went in state from his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields to Westminster * The proper pendant to this sarcasm is the advice given to send a dog that could not be confined at home, and went astray doing mischief, into the Court of Chancery," for no living thing once there can ever get out again." †This was in the time of the " Septuagint," or Seventy Commissioners, who were all removable at pleasure. I was then a student of law, and having had a promise of a commissionership from the new Chancellor in respect of his friendship for my father, felt disappointed, like other expectants, that there was not a "scratch". '— or turning out of those who were wealthy and inefficient. |