The Sun.
London, England, 1823-11-22 00:00:00

remark on the conduct of a powerful Statesman, who held an
elevated post in the Administration, and distinguishing himself
by a species of confidence not usually felt in early efforts of
public speaking, under circumstances that rendered it prudent
to abstain from personal severity, and conciliate the Bench he
was addressing.
This was the first trial of his talents at the Bar, having been
called only in Trinity Tenn, and having been employed for
Captain Baillie in the Michaelmas Term following. He is said

to have been indebted for this opportunity to no-interference,
recommendation, or connection. Mt acquaintance with Capt.
Bailie originated in his having accidentally met him at the table
of a common friend. Almost immediately after, Mr. Erskine

appeared at the Bar of the House of Comiiions as Counsel for
Mr. Carnan, the bookseller, against a Bill introduced by Lord
North, then Prime Minister, to revert in the Universities the

monopoly in almanticks; which Mr. Carnet's 'had succeeded in
abolishing by legal judgments, and he had the good fortune
to place the Noble Lord in a considerable minority upon a

division.

To the reputation which these speeches conferred upon him,
it has been said that he attributed the subsequent success he ex-
perienced in his profession ; and that, us he left the Court upon
one of these occasions, nearly thirty briefs were offered to him
by the attornies who happened to be present. He was now sur-
rounded by clients, and occupied by business. Of the various
cases in which he was employed, it would be absurd to expect
any mention, as they consisted only of the ordinary and daily
transactions of the Term and the Sittings.
The public feelings were now altogether occupied by the in-
teresting trial of Admiral Keppel. Mr. Erskine was retained
as Counsel for the Admiral—a circumstance owing to the ig-
norance the Counsel (Mr. Dunning and Mr. Lee, who were
originally engaged) displayed relative to the sea phrases, with-
out some knowledge of which the case was in a great measure
unintelligible. The former, afterwards created Lord Ash-
burton, recommended Mr. Erskine as completely qualified
for the task, in consequence of having been made acquainted
with the manner in which he had passed the former part of

his life.
Having drawn up his defence, he personally examined all
the Admirals and Captains of the Fleet, and satisfied himself
that he could substantiate the innocence of his client, before the

speech which be had written for him was read. For his exec
t ions on this memorable occasion, Mr. Erskine received 1,000
guineas.
He was now in possession of the best second business in the
King's Bench : by the phrase second business is meant that sort
of business in which the lead is not given to the Counsel who
are not yet arrived at the dignity of a silk gown, and of a seat
within the Bar of the Court ; but an event took place which
called his talents into activity on a most memorable occasion :
we allude to the riots which disgraced the City of London in the
year 1780. Every one knows the universal consternation which
at that time agitated the kingdom; when the security of the
nation was threatened in the destruction of the capital. After
the suppression of these tumults, the vigilanceof the Magistracy
was exercised in directing the insulted justice of the country
against the actors in that dreadful conflagration. The part at-
tributed to Lord George Gordon in these outrages is well known.
Mr. Erskine was retained Counsel for his. lairdship, in con.
junction with Mr. Kenyon, afterwards Chief Justice of the
-King's Bench. The duty which more immediately devolved
on the former was that of replying to the evidence : a duty
which he sustained with infinite judgment and spirit. Ills
speech on this trial abounds with many of the most finished
graces of rhetoric. It is rapid and impetuous ; and altogether
in that style and character which are most impressive in Judi.
cial assemblies. The exordium is after the artificial method
of the ancients, who never begin an oration without an appeal
to the tribunal they are addressing upon the embarrassments and
peril of the function they have undertaken. I stand,' said
Mr. Erskine, ' much more in need of compassion than the
Noble Prisoner. lie rests secure in conscious innocence, and
in the assurance that his innocence will suffer no danger in your
hands. But I appear before you a young and inexperienced
Advocate ; little conversant with Courts of Criminal Justice,
and sinking under the dreadful consciousness of that inexpe-
rience.'
There is perhaps no department of his profession in which
our Advocate has reached higher excellence than in his obser-
vation on evidence. The defence of Lord George Gordon re.
quired the exercise of these powers to their amplest extent as
the case on the_part of the Crown was supported by a variety
of witnesses. Having delivered to the Jury the doctrine of
High Treason, as It heal been established by the celebrated
Act.of Edward the Third, and as it was expounded by means
of the best authorities, he made :most dextrous application of
thoserules to the evidence which had been adduced. They who
study this speech will observe, with emotions of admiration, the
subtledes with which he abates the force of the testimony he
is encountering, and the artificial eloquence with which he exposes
its defects, and its contradictions. I say, by God, that man
is a ruffian, who on such evidence as this, seeks to establish a
conclusion of guilt r was his exclamation as he was finishing
this topic of his defence. An impassioned mode of address,
which, although it may find some apology in the perpetual ex-
ample of Cicero, Is not altogether suited to the soberness of
English eloquence. Of this speech, the concluding sentence is
truly pathetic. We scarcely hesitate to pronounce it to be the
best effort of Mr. Erskine's talents ; it doei not, indeed, dis-
play the minute beauties of cultivated diction, nor those grave
remarks of moral wisdom with which his latter speeches, in
imitation of Mr. Burke, are pregnant; but? considered in re-
ference to the occasion on which it was delivered, it is a most
astonishing effort of vigorous and polished intellect.
In the month of May, 1783, 1 r. Erskine received the ho-
nour of a silk gown : his Majesty's Letters of Precedency being
conferred upon him, us has been said, on the suggestion of the
venerable Lord Mansfield. His professional labours were now
considerably augmented, and he succeeded to that place which
had been so long occupied by Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord
Ashburton.
It would be impossible, within the space allotted to this
article, to give an account of the causes pleaded by Mr. Er.
skine ; his exertions being, for the most part, absorbed in the
transactions of daily occurrences which are discussed in our
Courts of Justice.
From the infinate variety of these causes it is not extraor-
dinary that he should have acquired too artificial and common-
place a method of putting Ins topics ; but It is no just cause of
reproach that Mr. Erskine should„in a great measure, have ex-
pended his store of expression and on thinking on these sub-
jects ; this is not poverty, but exhausted wealth—the indigence
arising from too lavished a prodigality of his mental opulence.
lie who looks for a perfect model of the style of Mr. Erskine,
must examine his speech on the trial of Stockdale. When the
charges against Mr. Hastings were published by the House of
Commons, a 31r. Logie, a Clergyman of the (lurch of Scot-
land, and a friend of the Governor-General, wrote a tract, in
which those charges were investigated with some acrimony, but
with considerable warmth and vigour; so that the pamphlet
being considered as libellous by a resolution of the House, a
criminal information was filed by the Attorney-General against
Stockdale, the publisher.
In the course of his defence. Mr. Erskine urged many col-
lateral topics in favour of Mr. Hastings, in a style of fervid and
ornamented eloquence.
Mr. Erskine was elected one of the Members for Ports-
mouth in the year 1783 can honour which lie probably derived
from the reputation he had acquired at the Court Martial which
sat there on the trial of Admiral Keppel. His political charac-
ter may be extracted from his speeches in Courts of Justice,
as well as from his uniform conduct in Parliament ; hut from
no transaction in his life did he derive a more permanent rep-
tation than in his noble struggles in defence of the Trial by Jury.
In his celebrated argument in support of a Rule for anew trial
in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, he made an admirable effort
to concentrate all the doctrines, and to combine all the reason-
ing' which lay scattered throughout so many volumes of legal
learning. Upon the principles laid down in this speech Mr.
Fox framed his Bill.
The independence exhibited by our Advocate on every
oc-
casion, threw upon him the defence of a multitude of persons
prosecuted for sedition or libel by Government. His defence
of Paine, however, occasioned his sudden dismission from the
office lie held as Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales;
but he was subsequently appointed to the dibniity of Chancellor
to his Royal Highness, an office which had- lain dormant for
many years.
One of the most brilliant events in Mr. Erskine's profes-
sional life was the part cast upon him, in conjunction with Mr.
ith
n tot
could'
fatiguesd
tend
(afterwards Sir V.) Gibbs, in the State Trials, in the year 1794.
The accused persons looked up to Mr. Erskine as their instru-
mentiineeg overioo insensible
oed the
h at e
of safety. He undertook their several defences with an
'elucidate enthusiasm
their which
ic
innocence,—nothing
renderednce,— m
ofnda
long and continued exertion; nothing was omitted that
to weaken the force of the case stated against
them by the Crown
Lawyers.
One of Mr. Erskine's hat speeches as a Counsel was on
the prosecution of the publisher of Pain's Age
inf 1 ea".
Subsequently to this period, a great change•
the political
hemisphere converted the eloquent Advocate
a Peer of the Realm. S after t
oon aft death
of Mr. Pitt, the
subject of this memoir was sworn Member of Privy
Council, created a Baron (February a'
4
the
7, 1806) by the title of
Lord Erskine, of Restormail Castle,in Cornwall"
, and en.
asLord trusted with the Great Seal
Britain. High Chancellor of Great
That he did not long hold his h• h • •
ig judicial office is suffi-
ciently known to the Imblic, nor •
sion that his Chancellorship w ofis i
shortt regretted by the proles_
and habits had but ill qualified duration. His par.
and h appealed is decisions are never to him for his new station,
Lord Erskine has since occasionally as authority.
dis-
cussions, and written a taken part in public ome pamphlets
thing to his Courier reputation. , but without adding any