Star.
London, England, 1810-03-26 00:00:00

FRIDAY'S DEBATE.

The following is a more copious Report of some of the Speeches
in the Debate on Mr. SHERIDAN'S Motion on Friday, for re-
ferring to the Committee of Judicature a Petition against tke
Bye-Law passed by the Society of Lincoln's Inn.
[We regret that we arc not able to give a fuller
report of Mr. SHERIDAN'S Speech than we gave in
our last ; but when Mr. S. was applied to for assis-
tance, he replied, " that he had long since given up the
prac:ice of ccrrecting his speeches.]
Mr. STEPHEN said that his connection with the
society of Lincoln's Inn, of which he had had the ho-
nour of being a member for thirty-five years, might
;alone have led him to take a part in the debate ; but
a particular consideration, known to many Gentle-
men around him, and of which he should probably
put the House in possession before he sat down, call-
ed on him more strongly to express his sentiments on
this occasion. He hoped nothing that might fall from
him would be construed into any disrespect towards
the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn : he felt for them col-
lectively, and as far as their characters were known
to him, individually too, the most unfeigned respect.
Among them, he could reckon some of his earliest
and most intimate professional friends ; and he be-
lieved that men of more liberality of sentiment could
not easily be found. But he must nevertheless freely
avow his concurrence in the views of the Right Ho-
nourable Gentleman who made this motion, and de-
clare, that he thought the regulation in question
highly illiberal and unjust. He doubted not it must
have proceeded from some hasty feelings, and would
on due consideration be revoked. To fix a stigma
upon a whole class of men, by shutting against them
indiscriminately, the door of a liberal and honoura-
ble profession, open to all the rest of their fellow sul:s
jects, was in his judgment quite unjustifiable, unless
there were something in the common description
which belonged to them, that implied of necessity a
universal unfitness for that profession; or unless their
exclusion by any other and fairer criterion could not
be attained. Now it could not be alledged, in the
case of admission to the bar by the law societies, that
there was no power of ascertaining the qualifications
of students applying to be called, and inquiring, if it
were thought fit, into their past character and con-
duct. Already, the standing regulations required,
that every Gentleman, before he could perform his
exercise, or if he remembered right, before he even
entered into Commons, must produce a certificate
from a practising barrister of the society, that he was
qualified in point of character for the profession of the
bar ; and prior to his being actually called, he must
have a like testimonial from one of the Bencbers
themselves. If these precautions wore net sufficient,
further and stricter ones might be framed, so as to
scrutinize effectually into the moral and intellectual
character of every individual candidate fur admis-
sion, without branding the class of fellow subjects to
which he had belonged. There was not in this case,
therefore, such an apology, as necessity or strong
reasons of public convenience might afford, for a
general rule of exclusion. Was it then the principle
of this regulation that persons who had at any time
written for a periodical press, and not written gratui-
tously, were, as such, universally unworthy of ad-
mission into an honourable profession ?IA reproach in
illCh Johnstone and Hawkesworth, Steele and Ad-
dison, would have been included, was surely more
likely to reflect disgrace on its authors than its ob-
jects. He was at a loss for the distinct views on
which such a prejudice against persons waiting for
newspapers could be founded. Was it supposed that
persons of that description were always destitute Of
education and liberal sentiments, or were, in point
Of origin and connections in life, if those were mate-
rial circumstances, unfit for the society of gentlemen?
—Without admitting that writing for the periodical
press, though a man's original occupation, and how-
ever long persevered in, wopl4 constitute any dispa-
iagement, cases might be put, in which, from acci-

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dental circumstances, a Gentleman, originally de•
to the profession of the law, might have been
resource

stilted .
driven to engage in such an employment as a _
for his immediate subsistence, and continued in it,
perhaps, but for a brief period, without much inter-
ruption of his professional studies, and yet by this
harsh rule his return to his professional path would

be for ever cut off.
I will, for instance, (said Mr. S.) suppose a young
man by family and education a Gentleman, and from
his earliest years designed for the legal profession, to
be a member of Lincoln's Inn, regularly prosecuting
his studies as a lawyer, and to have arrived at within
a year and a half of the proper standing to entitle
him to be called to the bar, when' by the death of his
parents and previous family misfortunes, he finds
himself totally deprived of all present means of sup-
port. The resource which he might have found in
the aid of near relations is preoccupied by fellow-
orphans, who from their sex and tender years are more
helpless than himself, or perhaps he finds his heart too
delicate or too proud for dependency. He has con-
fidence enough in himself to think that when the time
comes that he can put on the gown, he shall find in
it an ample resource. But what expedient can he
possibly explore in the mean time for his subsistence ?
In this emergency, a literary friend, a man of charac-
ter and honour, connected with one of the periodical
prints, proposes to oar young law student that he
' should undertake, as a temporary expedient, to con-
duct for a liberal remuneration, one of the depart-
ments of his newspaper in which there happens to be
a vacancy. He proposes, for instance, that of re-
porting the debates of this House ; can it be doubted,
Sir, that if the rule now in question had not existed,
such an offer would. be joyfully accepted ? Let us
suppose it, then, to be so. During one session, our
young student reports the debates of this House, and
performs what he finds an arduous, duty, with satis-
faction to his own heart, recording honestly and im-
partially the deliberations of Parliament, for the in-
formation of his country. At the end of a single
year, he finds himself enabled by the death of a rela-
tion, and its consequences, to resign this employment,
and resume his professional path, and he is grateful
to HEAVEN for an intermediate occupation which had
not only rescued him from dependence and want, but
improved his qualifications for future success at the
bar. But when he petitions the Bench of this So-
ciety to be called, how sad would be his disappoint-
ment, how cruel would be his humiliation and dis-
tress, to find that this inexorable rule of the Society
has given a death-blow to his new-born hopes ! How
would his mind be stung when told that the expedi-
ent which he had regarded with self complacency as
his honest refuge from dependency. and distress, had
covered him with indelible disgrace, and for ever
barred against him the door of an honourable pro-
fession ? Sir, (said Mr. S.) I can conceive better
than .1 can express what would be the anguish, and
what the indignant feelings of such a man as I have
described, on such an occasion. But I may be
thought, perhaps, to have stated an imaginary and
highly improbable case. No, Sir, it is not so. The
case that I have described, is not imaginary ; it really
did exist ; all but the rejection, which did not take
place, because no such rule as that in question had
then been made. In other respects the case is real.
Thirty years ago, it was•the case of the individual,
who has row the honour to address you." (Re p:aged
eria of Hear, hear.) When the cheers of the House
subsided, Mr. Stephens proceeded to say—" I feel,
Sir, not at all abashed at this avowal. It is an ir.ci-
dent of my life, which I am much more disposed to
be proud of, or let rue rather say, to be grateful for,
to a kind disposing PROVIDENCE, than to blush for. I
should indeed blush to be supposed to be ashamed of it.
Ido not believe, thatany Gentleman in this House,
or in my profession, will think meanly of me on this
account ; but should there be such a man, I hope I
shall never hear of it, for I should be tempted to hold
him in more contempt, than it is allowable for us frail
beings to feel for any of our fellow mortals."—
Mr. Stephen went on to state, that his own case was
by no means too favourable a specimen of the class
of persons who were his contemporaries in the same
employment. He could recollect about eight or nine
of them, and of these he did not know one, whose
subsequent conduct in life reflected any discredit on
his former occupation. He believed only one of them
still continued connected with any periodical. press.
Of the rest, five or six had been called to the bar ;
and he never heard that any of them had been sup-
posed at all to discredit his profession. One had been
since very eminent :n the Courts of our sister island ;
another had made a fortune in the colonies, and had
since held a situation of honour and confidence under
the Crown ; a third had retired from the English liar I
on the acquisition of a private fortune, before his very
eminent talents, natural and acquired, had time to be
known in his profession. He was now, alas! no more;
but this he would say of him, that no man he ever
knew in his very varied walks in life possessed a nicer
sense of honour and integrity. The-la-st.he should no- I
Lice of thittit, and whom he might without impropriety
mention, was long a Member of that House, and the
very intimate friend of the Right Hon. Gentleman
who made this motion ; he meant the late Mr. Rich-
ardson. He must add, with gratitude, that to his kind-
ness, under PROVIDENCE, he was indebted for tha tseaso-
nal:de resource in misfortune to which he had lately ad-
verted. Mr. S. added, that, with a single exception or
two at the most, he did not know who the o.entlemen
were that now conducted that department of the
newspapers, in which he and the friends he had al-
luded to were once employed. He could not speak,
therefore, from any private partiality to them, and
was confident, that such Members as took the trouble
to observe how his speeches had in general been
reported, would not think he was much in their
favour ; but it was the profession or employment it-
self, not the individuals who now or at any other
time filled it, that he thought it his duty to defend
against an unjust proscription ; and it could be hardly i
thought that there was any thing essentially degra-
ding in the employment itself after the facts of which
he had mentioned, in addition to those which had
been alluded to by the Right Honourable Mover of
this question. For his part, indeed, he could 'not,
see, what there was more disparaging to a gentleman',
or a man in a liberal profession, in reporting the
proceedings and debates of the Legislature, than
in reporting the judgments of a Court of taw.—
Mr. Stephen then proceeded to argue against the
regulation in question, on grounds of public and con-
&motional policy. To fix a stigma Ca any class pg

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men, tad degrade them below'their fella* subjects,
by eichisio- n from a common privilege, was the surest
way to make them disaffected to the State. Such,
at least, must be the case, when the ground of exclu-'
sion was an impeachment of their moral or honorary
character. But if such oppression was to be intro,
duced in this land of freedom and equality, at least
we should take care not to select, as the victims of it,
a set of men who had so much political power in
their hands as the conduction of the periodical press.
The military profession was every where held honour-
able, and to degrade it would be felt by every body
to be in the last degree imprudent and dangerous ;
but he would be bold to say, that the military had
not more the fate of the country in their bands under
despotic Governments, than the Conductors of News-
papers had in this kingdom. Against their united
and systematic hostilities, the Constitution could not
long stand. To sanction an innovation therefore,
that would tend to raise an esprit du corps among
them universally against our public establishnients,
would be to aggravate greatly the dangers of the
country. As a friend to the liberty of the Press,
he deprecated such a precedent ; for the Press would
soon become dangerous and obnoxious, if it was to
fall into the hands of degraded and disaffected cha-
racters. It was in this view chiefly, that he thought
the interference of Parliament justifiable, it the per-
severance of the Benehers should make it neces-
sary, notwithstanding the arguments of the Attor-
ney-General. It was not a private or particular
case, to be redressed by appeal to the Judges, but a
case of general and public mischief, fit for the presi-
ding wisdom of Parliament, as the guardian of the
public weal, to notice and correct. He regarded
such-stigmas on a particular class or cast of men, in
any society, as cruel and mischievous in another
view. If they did not find men worthy of contempt,
they would soon make them so. Degrade any por-
tion of society, and you will infallibly reduce its mo-
ral character, till it seems deserving of the ignominy
to which it has been unjustlylsubjected. He had lived
long in a part of the world which furnished a striking
proof of this remark ; and there was nothing more
odious in a contemptuous oppression, than its cor-
rupting effect on the minds of its unfortunate victims.
If this were so when the badge of degradation was
the colour of the skin, or some other subject of public
contempt which the individuals derived from nature
or some other unavoidable source, how much more
when entering into the degraded cast, was matter,
not of necessity, but choice. Men would not choose
an employment proscribed as dishonourable,• unless
their moral character were already corrupted. Were
we prepared then, at once to maintain the liberty of
the Press, and to say that its conductors should here-
after be men so low in moral and honorary senti-
ments, as to choose an ignominious employment.
Mr. Stephen further argued, that to select the po-
pular, open profession of the bar, as the only subject
of this degrading disfranchisement of a portion of the
Commons of England, was peculiarly improper and
strange. That profession was in a pre-eminent man-
ner the partrimony of the people at large ; and to it
indeed, they owed, more than to their Parliaments,l
that general equality of rights, and exemption fromi
all aristocratical oppression, which it was their dis-,
tinguishing happiness to possess. The Courts of
Law, by their liberality, had abolished that distinc-
tion of casts, which, in the times of Villanage, de-
graded a great majority of our ancestors, and exclud-
ed them from liberal professions. It was a blessing
which the people of England owed to their lawyers,
and it was singular that a departure from the prin-
ciple of constitutional equality, should in these days
begin in the same profession. He 4could not help
suspecting, in this regulation, a latent principle of
aristocratical pride and contempt for poverty, as such;
for why otherwise, should the restriction apply only
to those who wrote Tor emolument ? If the act of
writing for the newspapers was immoral or disho-
nourable, he did not see how the doing it ratuitously
could redeem the act from reproach. Certainly it
was presumable, that those who exercised such an
employment for gain, were not in affluent circuro-
stances ; but if poverty or humility of origin were to ,
become reproachful in the Inns of Court, many a
proud scutcheon which now ornamented their walls,
must be taken down. In other professions, as the
church, or army, hereditary claims or fortune might
facilitate preferment ; but at the bar, a profession
which was a much more frequent road to rank and
fortune, no such extrinsic advantages were of any
avail. On the contrary, it was proverbial, that a ne-
cessity arising from poverty in the early part of life,
was almost the only source of splendid success at the
bar. It was the most amiable and valuable fruit of our
happy Constitution, that every path of honourable am-
bition was open to talents and industry, without dicinc.
tion of ranks;. but in the law, especially, the strongest
examples of the happy effects of this equality were to
be found. On the whole, therefore, if we were to begin
to form proscribed and degraded casts in this country,
he thought we should, at least, not begin the innova-
tion in the profession of the law, and against those
who were in possession of the great organs of public
information, the conductors of the periodical Press.
—Mr. Stephens concluded by saying, that he should
vote for the practical course proposed by the Right
Honourable Mover, merely because it had been pro-
posed by him, and was the only remedy at present,
'suggested. Had Mr. Sheridan moved for leave to
bring in a Bill declaring such disfranchisements of any
class of British subjects, by the inns of Court, un-
constitutional and void, lie would also have sup-
ported that measure, or any other that raight be more
proper to be taken for the same just and necess
end.

Sir JOHN ANSTRUTHER, as a Bencher of
Lincoln's Inn, greatly regretted that the regulation
in question had ever been adopted, and professed his
entire concurrence in all the sentiments which the

last speaker had so eloquently expressed. The cha-
racter of the Honourable and Learned Gentleman
was as convincing an argument as any that he had
used., No man who considered what the profes-
sion and the House would have lost, if that Gen- ,
tleman had been excluded from the Biir, by a rule
of this kind, could hesitate to pronounce it both
unjust and unwise, and one that ought not to be
Suffered to exist. ln fact, the regulaticii had been
suddenly adopted by a very small Board of pePchers,
aftei dinner, on a sufgestion from some Barristers in
l ir
the Hall. Though it might surprise the ppsip the
Barriiter whose name was at the head of t ose who
aigaed Upt proposition was no other than ~, erth

_ '4.4"

-
ford--(Neer, hMr)—and the Bendier in the Chair,
about four only being present, was the late Lord
Chancellor Erskine,-4 Hear, hear, and a tsretty genera'
laugh.) Sir John Anstruther added, that knowing
the opinions of several of his fellow Benchers on the
subject, he had no doubt that when the return (-,f
term gave a proper opportunity for the purpose, the
regulation would be withdrawn, and he hoped there,
fore the Right Honourable Gentleman would not
press his proposition, which he deemed an improper
and unnecessary interference with the Benehers in the
government of the Society ; especially as an appeal
might bring the particular case to the revision of the
twelve Judges.
The SOLICITOR GENERAL thought himself'
bound in candour to confess, that he was one of tha
few Benchers who, on the suggestion of eight Barris-
ters, had hastily adopted this regulation, which he
would not undertake to defend. He paid very high
compliments to Mr. Stephen, both on the score of his
talents and personal character, and said thax like
Longinus, he had illustrated by his own example,
his own tenets on this subject. His own charac.
ter was the best proof that such a rule ought not
at least to be indiscriminate. He strongly main-
tained, in opposition to Mr. Sheridan, that the Twelve
Judges had a jurisdiction, nor merely to redress the
individuals aggrieved by the rule in question, bat to
reverse the rule itself ; and, therefore, the interference

of Parliament woald, at least, be premature. The pe-
titioner came/it,- saltum to the House, before he had
pursued the regular course to obtain legal redress.--
The Solicitor General, however, professed his confi-
dent expectation, that the Benchers of Lincoln's-inn,
now that the merits of the question had been dis-
cussed, and were better understood, would see cause
at least to revise and alter th 4 regulation, if not
wholly to revoke it.
Mr. CROKER, in strong terms, condemned the
regulation as illiberal, impolitic, and unjust, and
thought that the credit of the Honourable Society
demanded its repeal. He also professed the highest
respect for the character of Mr. Stephen, and the
manly manner in which he had conducted/himself on
this occasion. To say more would only be to repeat
the arguments of that Gentleman, in all of which
he heartily concurred. But he trusted that the Right
Honourable Gentleman, on seeing that his object
was likely to be attained in a more satisfactory way,
would withdraw his motion. Should the event be
different from what such respectable Benchers of the
Society as had expressed their opinions, expected, he
pledged himself to support a future application to
Parliament to the best of his power.
The motion was accordingly withdrawn.