The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-21 00:00:00

Lord Colonsay and the Scottish Bar.

On Tuesday the LordJustice-General of Scotland.
who is about to be called to the Upper House of
Parliament, as Baron Colonsay.of Colonsay and
Oronsay, in the county of Argyle, took farewell of
the members of the College of Justice, in presence of
an overflowing audience, in the Court-room of the
first division..
m A meeting had been held that morn-
ing of the embers of the Faculty of Advocates,
who requested the Dean, Mr. Moncreiff, M.P., ex-
Lord Advocate, to express the seutimeuts enter-
tained by the Bar towards the distinguished head
of the civil and criminal courts of Scotland, and
meetings had also been held of the Society of
Writers to the Signet and the Society of Solicitors
to the Supreme Courts, at which addresses were
unanimously voted. All the judges were present
except Lord Deas,who'was absent from indisposition.
The DEAN of FACULTY, in an eloquent address,
observed that the occasion marked rather the culmi-
nation than the termination of a singularly success-
ful legal career. His lordship had discharged with
distinction the functions of every high office open to
the ambition of the legal profession of Scotland.
While at the Bar he was chosen as its head by the
free voice of his brethren ; he had been honoured
by the confidence of the Crown as the first law
officer in Scotland, and after a Parliamentary career
of great distinction, leaving behind it impressed on
the statute-book its memorial in the shape of wise
and enduring legislation, he had been selected nearly
15 years ago to preside in the Supreme Courts of
Scotland. Never, he believed, in the history of this
Court had more lustre been shed on the exposition
of the law, or more dignity been imparted to its ad-
ministration, than under his Lordship, and he could
not omit in the name of the Faculty thanking him
sincerely for that unvarying courtesy, that kindly
judicial demeanour, that forbearance and conside-
ration, and that generous aid which the members of
the bar had ever received from him, and which had
lightened to them the discharge of anxious and re-
sponsible labour. We have, added Mr. Moncreiff,
heard it is the pleasure of her Majesty to bestow
still higher rewards in token of your Lordship's long,
services. If a peerage.were only the reward of ser-
vices, long meritoriously and ably discharged, we
should think the bar of Scotland honoured in your
Lordship's person, and look on it as a gratification
and embellishment to our order ; but it also is said
that not only the effect, but one of
the objects of
conferring on you this high distinction is that the
public may have the benefit of your Lordship's ser-
vices in the courts of last resort, and in that light
it is a matter of importance far beyond the limits of
the body for whom I speak. It is, as we regard it,
a recognition of a debt due to Scotland tardily but
well conferred. We are' conscious of the many
benefits which Scotland has obtained from the ap-
pellate jurisdiction ; Lut we cannot but rejoice in
your Lordship's addition to their number, feeling
assured that if your Lordship's career in that more
elevated seat be as useful to the public as your pre-
sidency in that chair has been you will confer on the
country in which we live, and on a system of juris-
prudence of which we are justly proud, fresh and
increased obligation. (Cheers.)
The LORD JUSTICE-GENERAL, addressing the
Dean, said--More than 50 years have elapsed since I
joined the ranks of the Faculty, at a time when some
of those great men whose names we still revere and
cherish were in the zenith of their power and fame.
The lapse of half a century has necessarily brought
great changes in the ranks of the Faculty, but it is
most gratifying to receive the assurance that it
brought no change in those kindly feelings which,
during the whold period of my forensic career, I
have experienced from my brethren. You have been
kind enough to allude to the circumstance that I
have been the recipient of not a few marks of pro-