The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-09 00:00:00

Boning power, the knowledge, the learns
energy, and the independence of the bar
try. (Cheers.) We are happy to have f.
paying the tribute of our respect to a pro,
eminently deserves it. We rejoice exceedinglyla finotitta►
this celebration has afforded us the opportunity a wecom-
ing the most eminent member as well as official head of
the profession, of which we are all members, in the neigh-
bouring country : and allow the to say, that of all those in-
tellectual qualities and attainments which distinguish our
fellow-advocates as eminent and illustrious man, whom wo
have this day met to honour, there is, in my mind, one vir-
tue and quality essentially the crowning and particular
quality of their advocate, that of having conducted the
functions of his great profession with unsullied and untar-
nished honour in defending his political clients. My noble
friend, Lord Brougham, whose words are words of wisdom,
said that an advocate should be Fairless as well as carry out
the interests of his client ; but I couple it with this quali-
fication, that is, that the aims he wields are to be the arms
of the warrior, and not of the assassin. It is his duty to
strive to achieve and accomplish the interests of his client
per fas, but not per steles; to do the business of his client
to the utmost of his power; to seek to auricle the interest
which he is bound to maintain and the duty which it is
.incumbent upon him to dis,chlage. with the entire and im-
mutable interests of truth and justice. (Cheers.) Mons.
Dorryer, in alt the great causes ho has been called upon to
conduct—in all the great interests he has had to uphold--
in these cases the advocate Berryer has never forgotten the
gentleman and man of honour, and I respect him us mu.:h
fur that as for the eminent talents which has cast so much
lustre on his name, and upon the profession of which he is.
such a distinguished ornament. In my name, and in the
name of my brethren, I beg to thank you most cordially,
and most sincerely, for the opportunity you have afforded
us of doing that which has been so gratifying to our feel-
ings, namely, doing honour to M. Berryer and his com-
panions. (Cheers)
The ()HARMAN then rose and said—There is one more
toast, which the presence amongst us of other illustrious
and eloquent guests on this occasion has rendered necessary.
It is a toast which on all occasions Englishmen are glad to
drink—l mean the toast of the two Houses of Parliament
—(cheers)—the Lords and Commons of England, with
which I beg to couple the name of one of our most honour-
able and learned judges—l mean Lord Kingadown—(cheers)
—and one of our most illustrious statesmen,whose presence
on this occasion I suppose we owe to the unhappy accident
of his also being constructively a judge—(a laugh),4 ewan
'Mr Gladstone, (Loud cheers.)
Lord KINQSDOWN briefly returned thanks for the Rouse
of Lords.

Mr GLADSTONE, who was received with cheers again
and again renewed, said—Sir Roundell Palmer, I have to
thank you for having been kind enough to state to this
great assembly the title under which it is my privilege to
address you; but I will venture to ask one favour of those
to whom I have now been called upon to speak, and that
is that they will not exercise any portion of their legal
ingenuity in the invidious endeavour to discover flaws in
that title. (A laugh.) For my own part, be it as a judge
or be it as a layman—and I am afraid the latter is the
title to which I have the better claim—l rejoice in hav-
ing been permitted to share with you, almost perhaps
alone to share with you, in rendering the tribute of British
admiration to the guests whom you entertain to-day. I
am glad to speak in behalf cf the House Of Commons.
Rare indeed are the occasions when it is in the power of an
individual member of that assembly, without pretension, to
make himself the organ of its sentiments; but I am well
assured that this is ono of these few occasions, and that if
the House of Commons had it in its power to speak by a
single voice, that voice would be one of thorough and pro-
found sympathy with the enthusiasm that pervades this as-
sembly. (Cheers.) lam not here to speak of the House of
Commons, because that house is in England a household
word, It is so inseparably associated with all our traditions,
with all our feelings, and with all our hopes, that if it were
possible to tear away the House of Commons from the con-
stitution of England, England would cease to be what she
is. (Cheers.) But it has been well stated—and it represents •
the lively sympathy which runs through the whole chain of
free institutions, that those who pursue in this country the
business of legislation for the complicated concerns of a
great erepire—those.whose lot it may be, however unworthy,
to be charged with the special responsibilities of govern-
ment—the longer they live, the longer their experience
grows, the more deeply do they become convinced of the
inestimable value of the independent honesty of a free and
fearless bar, in order to secure and sustain the liberties of
the people. (Cheers.) I have been told to-night—and told
in terms of eloquence that cannot be matched—what have
been the recent achievements of the members of your illus-
trious profession on behalf of liberty. Even under the mild
and temperate sway of the House of Brunswick, the want of
the bar has been felt, and that want, whenever it has been
felt, has been supplied. We might go furth,T back; we
might go to the remote, to the worst, to the darkest times;
we might go to the reign of James 11., and the trial of the
seven bishops; we might go to the reign of Charles 1. and
the trial of (lamp len ; and whenever it has been a quc,tion
of ex uniting, a seat citing, of vindicating, and ut i.abliBh-
lag the libel iicsof E agl,n I, there the b it has lione:Xy, has
steadily, been in the torttnost rank. (Uata.rs.) rtthaps,
Mr Attorney General, I may he perulit led to recur to the
imi re,sion upon an individual mind. I have known, as all
in this country have known, that the bar too is inseparable
trom the nivional life and the petrectsecurity of cur instil a.
lions; but never, as lung as I looked at England alone, did I
understand the true secret of its value, I: was ray fate souse
t 5 years ego to be witness of erne' opprestious in a country
in Soul horn Europe, in a country where the exr.cutive power
did nut merely break the law, but supplanted and set a=ids
the law, and established instead a system of arbitrary will.
But, to my astonishment, I found that the audacity of
tyranny itself, which had put down Chambers, which heel
put down municipalities, which had extinguished the press,
could not put down ono thing—and that was that it could
not silence the bar. (Great cheering.) I heard in courts of
justice, under the bayonets of the soldiers—for those courts
bristled with the bayonets of soldiers—in the teeth of power,
in contempt of corruption, in defiance of violence and arbi-
trary rule, lawyers rise in their places to defend the cause
of the accused against the domineering power of Govern-
ment, and with a freedom and force and fearless honesty of
purpose that could not have been surpassed in our happy
England, that could hardly have been surpassed by M.
Berryer himself. (Cheers.) He well knows, no man better,
that we are not met here to enter into and discuss the merits
of particular schools of political opinion. We are here for
more purposes than one, and one of those purposes I confi-
dently believe is to render and add another to the many tes-
timonies that recant history has afforded of the growth of a
cordial union of heart and sentiment between the two gre at
nations of England and France. (Cheers.) We are here also
to render a more special homage to an object more narrowly
defined. As there are ties which bind together the classes of
the samecountry, so there are electric currents which passing
the boundaries of political distinctions, establish sympathies
which run through the world. Those sympathies are deep
in the heart of our illustrious guest and of his distinguished
companions, and those sympathies throb with equal truth
and power within the breast of every member of this great
assembly. lam permitted—and a high privilege it ise—to
look upon you from without; but I echo back at least the
sounds of favour, of applause, of confidence, of admiration,
which have been rendered to M. Berryer personally for the
great achievements of his life. But yet, great as that life
has been, not to that life only for what it has been and is in
itself, but to that life because it is a symbol of something
greater still—namely, of the indestructible principles which.
are involved in the very constitution of a free and indepen-
dent bar—namely, of the high obligations to speak, under
all circumstances, the voice of truth, and to follow truth,
through whatever difficulty and danger—to have faith in
the moral forces which my eloquent friend near me has so
twheellbdeefilienfed thaotvienr t thhee
wrival
upnr isne el
si polfo
lo)fr
ovviiodl
cenn
cc
oe ;
froamndatilay
to day, as the world grows older, we may hope to have by
sure, if by slow degrees, the domination of that moral force
progressively widened and enlarged, and to see the rival
power of mere brute and barbarous violence gradually as"
serf less and less an effective action upon the conduct of
mankind. (Loud cheers.)
The remaining toasts were" The Committee," responded
to by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, and " The Chairman." proposed
by Justice Knight Bruce, and gracefully replied to by the
Attorney-General.
The banquet was furnished by Messrs Ring and Brymer.