The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-11 00:00:00

MR. EDWIN JAMES AT NEW YORK.

Our readers will be amused at the following
account of Mr. Edwin James's recent proceedings in
New York. On the 17th of May he met a number
of the members of the bar of New York to defend
himself against the charges preferred against him
by the committee of the Law Institute, who have
moved his expulsion from the bar of New York.
The New Y•rk Herald says :—" The attendance
was respectable, and, although the judiciary and
the rising members of the profession were well
represented, some of the old heads, the sympathisers
with the committee of five of the Law Institute,
were missing. The Irish element was predominant,
though there was a mixture of English with the
American audience." Mr. James, in his opening
remarks, said he had come there to practise in
courts where, he thought, he should "receive more
generosity and more liberality than in those courts
where the cold shade of aristocracy frowns upon
any man who dares to be independent." After the
"great applause" which greeted this sentence, he
proceeded to attribute the " defamation" which
had been heaped upon him in England to the
opinion he expressed in favour of the conduct
of Captain Wilks in seizing Messrs. Mason
and Slidell. He then dealt with the charges
preferred against him—the first in order
being his " pecuniary transactions" with Lord
Worsley. On this point he said :—" There were
transactions of a most private and confidential
character, and had no more to do with my profes-
sional character and capacity at the bar than if I
asked of a friend to loan me a £lO note, or he had
asked me to do the same thing. They were purely
private transactions. We were members of the
same House of Commons, members of the same
clubs, and upon terms of intimate social relations.
I gave up everything upon the demand of Lord
Yarborough, even to my library, family plate, and
to every testimonial that had been presented to me
for causes I had gained, subject to the exactions
that he demanded of me. In the same article in
the infamous publication in England that attacked
me for the opinion I had written upon the Trent ques-
tion, I was called a fugitive insolvent.' Fugitive
insolvent! It is painful (affected to tears) to look
back upon one's ruin. I represented and had the
confidence of the largest constituency in England.
I had worked my way up to the bar by honour and
independence. The Judges disliked me because I
was not servile and subservient; and I was told,
because in a celebrated case where I bearded them
and told them they were trying a man upon grounds
that they knew were illegal and unconstitutional,
that I should suffer for it. You are aware that in
England there still remains a barbarous relic of
that system of imprisonment for debt, without fraud,
without any improper conduct ; it becomes a
struggle, just like that of harpies struggling for a
carcass, to every Jew creditor and every merciless
usurer against the unhappy man who has given up
everything. While you are a member of the House
of Commons you are protected from arrest. Read
my address to my constituents. I told them that I
scorned to represent a great constituency, and
to hold the confidence they had given me, merely
for my 'pecuniary protection, and I resigned my
seat and called my creditors together. I arranged
with them all, and I have a deed in my possession
signed by every one of them; but there was a
cabal working against me that destroyed my posi-
tion at the bar, and I was cast out upon the wide
waters through this cabal that was working
against me in my absence, without the power
to pay my creditors. I was obliged to leave Eng-
land for personal protection. I had not a fraction
in the world ; but a lady who had been attached
to me for years, who knew my position, declared to
me for the first time that her heart had been mine,'
and she placed at my disposal an independent for-
tune. (Applause.) Under these circumstances I
came to America, and under no other. It is just to
the representatives of Lord Yarborough to say that
they have not complained, and they refuse to com-
plain, before this self-constituted tribunal of
benchers—my political rivals, my personal and pro-
fessional enemies." Then as to his "unprofessional
conduct" in the case of Mr. Herbert Ingram. He
was counsel for the plaintiff in the case " Scully v.
Ingram," and obtained a verdict for £3OO. In the
following month he became a candidate for Mary-
lebone, and his election expenses amounted to
£9,600. Mr. Ingram, who was a member of his
committee, two other members of Parliament, and
two private friends agreed to advance him £l,OOO
each to defray his expenses. He was at the head
of the poll, and, he added, " in that contest I com-
m.itted an unpardonable offence ; for I defeated, by
a majority of 7,000 the Government nominee, and
Lord John Russell's nephew. (Applause.) They
never forgave me to the hour I left England." He
repaid all the gentlemen who had lent him money,
except Mr. Ingram, who was drowned in 1860.
" Meanwhile," he continued, " the second trial of
the case Scully v. Ingram' came on. I opened the
case against Mr. Ingram, and in my speech to the
tribunal—the shorthand writers' notes of which
were suppressed by the very man who has published
the libel against me—l deliberately charged him
(Mr. Ingram) again, as I had before, with fraud.
That is suppressed in the libel. The Chief Justice
suggested that it should be referred. It was re-
ferred. I had obtained before a verdict for £3OO,
but now I got a verdict for £3,500 against Ingram.
It had cost him £lO,OOO. Then the executors had
to pay it. So far from Mr. Scully's complaining,
ho personally thanked me by letter for my exer-
tions, and dined with me a fortnight before I left
England. Gentlemen, you little know what a man
has to contend with at the bar of England. Pe-
cuniary and social relations are made the subject
of attack. Though before now we have had
executions in the houses of Judges in England,
and in the houses of Lord Chancellors, yet when
a man has attained his position he is comparatively
scathless. When ho is struggling at the bar it is
that this exclusive influence is brought against him.
Far from the land where his forefathers sleep rests
the consecrated dust of Thomas Addis Emmett—
(applause)—a greater man, but not more perse-
cuted than I have been. The opposition to him
came from the same cowardly source—namely,
source—
from England. He lived to make the bar recant

their hostility. Ile lived to make the Chancellor
Kent regret that he had opposed him. He made
the Daniel Lords of that day cower before him.
And he lived, as I hope to live, if I have the ver-
dict of your good opinion, to turn jealousy into re-
spect, and wretched narrow professional rivalry
into esteem and regard." (Great applause.) The
meeting considered Mr. James's explanations ex-
planations satisfactory, and passed resolutions de-
precating the efforts which were being made to
obtain a revocation of the order admitting him to
the New York bar.