The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-27 00:00:00

THE LATE SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT

No one ever ventured to calculate upon Sir William
Follett's overlooking a slip or failing to seize an advan-
tage. Rotus teres algae rotundus must indeed have been
the case which was to withstand his onslaughts. So ac-
curate and extensive was his legal knowledge, so acute his
discrimination, so dexterous were all his movements, so
lynx-eyed was his vigilant attention to what was going on,
that the most learned and able of his opponents were
never at their ease till after victory had been definitively
announced from the Bench—from a Court of Error—or
even the House of Lords. They were necessarily on the
qui vice to the very latest moment. Some short time be-
fore he was compelled to relinquish practice, a certain
counsel was engaged with him as junior in a case before
the Privy Council, which it was deemed of great moment
that Sir William Follett should be able to attend to.
1 don't exactly know how I stand in the Queen's
Bench to-morrow morning," said he, at the consultation
late over night—" but I fear that that long troublesome
case of the Railway will be brought on by
at the sitting of the Court. I'm afraid I can't get him to
put it off—but I'll try : and if he won't, I may yet be able
to settle the case before he has gone over into it—for it
will be very strange if all their proceeding

are right

On this-slender chance reseed the liielikood of Sir
William's attendance at the Privy Council. The next
morning at ten o'clock, beheld all the counsel on both
sides ready for action.

" You're not going to bring on the
morning, are you ?" whispered Sir William Follett, as
soon as be had taken his seat, this opponent, who was
arranging his papers.
" I am indeed, and no mistake whatever about it."
" Can't we bring it on to-morrow, or some day next
week ? It would greatly oblige me—l really have scarcely
read my papers, and, besides, want to be elsewhere."
" I'll see what my clients say,"—and then he consulted

hem, and

resumed

No—my people are peremF

.
" Very well. Then keep your eyes wide open. I must
bring you down as soon as possible, for I want to be else-
where."

" Ah—l must take my chance about that,"—then,
turning round to an experienced and learned junior, he
whispered—" You hear what Follett says ?—Are we really

all right ?"

"Ph, pho ! never mind him—we are as right as possi-

A few moments afterwards, up rose —, and soon got
in'o his case, and very soon, also, to the end of it. The
case bad not been heard more than half an hour, Sir
William Follett at once attentively listening to his oppo-
nent, and hastily glancing over his own papers, when he
rose very quickly and said—" If my learned friend will
pardon me, I think, my lord, I can save the Court a very
long and useless inquiry—fur there is clearly a fatal
objection in limine to these proceedings."
" Let us hear what it is," said the Court.

Sir William had completely checkmated his opponent !
A statutory requisition had not been complied with ; and
in less than ten minutes time the enemy were all prostrate
—their expensive and elaborate proceedings all defeated—
and that. too, permanently, unless on acceding to the
terms which Sir William Follett dictated to them, and
hiph it need hardly he observed. were somewhat advan.

tageous to his own client !
" Really this is too bad, Follett," might have been
heard whispered by his opponent, as the case was called

" Not at all—wby didn't you let it stand over, as I

asked you

" O6—you would have done just the same then as you

have now."

" I don't know that," replied Sir William Follett, with
a significant style. " But why wont your people be more
careful ?" And then. turning to his junior, said—" Now
for the Privy Council 1" And all this with such provok-
ing, easy, smiling nonchalance Blackwood.

PROGRESS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL

(Front the Church of England Review,)

It may seem strange to the mind of Sir Robert Peel
that his plans are so continually frustrated, and his policy
of expediency so constantly recoils upon himself, and
that, no sooner has he met one giant difficulty, and ap-
parently quieted it, than it assumes another head, and
shows him that he has greater and greater obstacles to
overcome ere he can effectually silence and allay the com-
motion it produces. And if it does at times astonish
him, we are at a loss to conceive that a mind so gifted as
his own undoubtedly is does not an once perceive one
chief and manifest cause why he fails to satisfy the clash-
ing interests of the country. and brings himself and his
measures into contempt. The fast is, for years past, he
and his colleagues in power have been progressing with-
out any distinctive principle to guide them. Time was
when we could understand men by their measures, and
arrive at their intentions by their actions f ut that period
seems to have passed entirely away, and the fashion is
altogether changed. Out of office and in opposition, Sir
R. Peel led on an unceasing and persevering attack upon
all and each of the measures of the then Government.
He was then the active partizan and defender of every
existing interest. The Church he strenuously defended
from every assault made upon her, and many an attempt
to invalidate her influence, and to crush her existence for
usefulness, did he nip in the bud by unflinching and un-
compromising adhesion to her in her hour of peril. No
one could be more loud in his denunciation of the mea-
sures, which were introduced to secure the favour of the
pro-Popery party, and many craftily concocted schemes
to advance their pretensions were put aside simply from
the knowledge that he would certainly use every influence
and strain every nerve to cut it off in detail, should it be
introduced into Parliament, if he perceived himself
unequal to annihilate it by one open and decisiveonslaught.
The promoters of change, and the lovers of discord, alike
trembled at his vigour in defence of the existing institu-
tions of the country : and never had his talents greater
opportunity of display, than when night after night, ses-
sion after session, be fought the battle of the opposition
on the left hand f the Speaker's chair in the Commons
House of Parliament. Not gradually, but with increas-
ing-rapidity, the popularity he had lost, by introducing
the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill, and by refusing
to proceed in a revolutionary course under the name of
reform, returned : from being, perhaps, the most un-
popular man in her Majesty's dominions, if we except the
iron Duke, he became the observed of all observers, and
instead of meeting with insult from the populace f the
metropolis, which he bad been accustomed to, upon and
for a short time after the passing of the Reform Bill, his
presence was hailed on evt.ry side with acclamations, both
vociferous snd hearty. Every class of the people looked
to him as the man who should restore the failing commerce
of the land ; the monied interests hailed him as the only
statesman who could rectify the financial difficulties of his
opponents, which every day grew worse and worse; tbe
clergy, thankful for his zeal in their defence, anticipated
from him protection, and security against assault from
within and from without. The agriculturists beheld in
him an imaginary means of securing their capital and of
realising a profit upon their labours, instead of the
positive losses
•they had been year after year incurring.
In a word, as the confidence in his opponents declined,
so did it increase in him. He was " the man of the peo-
ple i" atd as such, as a proof of their belief in his
integrity of purpose, and of his inclination and desire
to prove himself the benefactor of his countri, they
threw away all suspicion of him ; they forgot, or at least
pardoned, his former tergiversation ; and gave him so
overwhelming a majority, as a proof and evidence of their
returned conviction that he would not again deceive
them, as to render any measure he might bring forward
secure from the moment it was proposed, and easy to be
carried in detail. In every partidular, if we except the
financial arrangements of Lie country, he has sir •Ily
disappointed the high expectations he had raised. The
measures his opponents had introduced, and which he
had defeated, now became his own ; schemes they shrank
from the responsibility of carrying forward, he took in
hand, and, with imperious command, demanded the co-
operation of his followers, who had adhered to him under
the impression that he would clog the wheel of revolution.
ary motion. At one time threatening them with his re-
solve to resign office unless they held to him, and to
throw the country into confusion by the return to office
of a Whig-Radical faction,—at another, casting himself
by the ultraism of his proposed measures, upon the ne-
cessary support (for consistency's sake) of his opponents,
he has strided on and on, making all things bend before
his match, and yielding to his nod of determination.
Every Session since his accession to power he has more and
more shaken off the trammels of the pledges his conduct
in opposition had fastened upon him,—but it remained
till the last to behold the crowning act of desertion of
former principles completed, and it sewed, however much
it was supposed he had deplored the fatal step of 1829, the
supposition was but ideal,—inasmuch as he resolved to
eclipse that undoing of the Protestantism of Great Britain,
by a more decisive and vigorous blow against her princi-
ples. We were not backward in presenting to our readers
and the public how full of danger, how inconsistent with
former pledges, how unworthy of a great and powerful
statesman, was the conduct of the minister, who passed
the Maynooth Endowment Bill with indecent haste
through the Houses of Legislatures refusing to give time
! for the expression of the sentiments of the people.—
whose almost united efforts bad placed him on the high
position he occupied,—and disregarding the entreaties of