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314

ANOMALOUS POSITION

CH. X.

prudent enough to confine his animadversion to the House of Commons and the Ministry.

Conduct of

These sentiments, however just, reflected more discredit on the speaker himself than on the Lord Camden. objects of his censure. Why did Lord Camden behold with silent indignation the measures of a ministry in which he occupied the most prominent position? Why did he sanction, by his presence and the authority of his great name, measures which he did not approve? The Lord Chancellor seemed to think it a triumph to provoke his expulsion from office, by holding up to public scorn and detestation those colleagues with whom he had chosen to associate himself in confidential counsel, and from whom he could separate whenever he thought fit. There might have been policy in this position; but certainly it was very different from the conduct of that great man whom he affected to call 'his pole star,' when he was placed in a similar position. Pitt would not remain in office a moment after the Government, of which he was a leading member, determined on a course of policy contrary to his opinion and advice. Lord Camden, notwithstanding his denunciation of the policy of the Government, continued to keep possession of the Great Seal. But his conduct in this particular, though it had the sanction of his friends, seems to have been still more unworthy than his retention of office during the past year. The policy of the Opposition in forcing the Government to deprive Lord Camden of his office, was to make it appear that an upright judge had been dismissed for declaring the law; an independent member of Parliament, for pronouncing his opinion. Nothing could be more false and uncandid. It was not for anything done in his judicial capacity that Lord Camden was to be dismissed. When Chief Justice, he had gained great applause by vindicating, with more than judicial

Anomalous position of Lord Camden.

1770.

OF LORD CAMDEN.

315

emphasis, the rights of the people against the proceedings of the Government. The law which had passed at the commencement of the reign protected him from being deprived of his office, but could not have prevented his advancement being barred by this fearless discharge of his duty. Yet so far from feeling the displeasure of the Crown, the bold and independent judge was soon afterwards promoted to the highest dignity of his profession. The position of the Lord Chancellor is a peculiar one. While every other judge of the land is confined exclusively to judicial duties, the Chancellor alone has a two-fold capacitythat of judge and that of minister of state. A judge of the land can be removed by the Crown only upon a joint address of both Houses of Parliament. The Chancellor, who has no commission, but is appointed solely by the delivery of the Great Seal into his possession, is expected to surrender that symbol of his rank as a privy councillor, as well as of his judicial authority, when he ceases to be a political adviser of the Crown. Neither could there be any pretence for comparing the case of Camden to that of a military or other officer not immediately connected with administration, dismissed from his employment for a vote in Parliament. Such a stretch of power is unconstitutional and unnecessary. But when a cabinet minister differs from his colleagues upon an important, question of want of delipolicy, he should either acquiesce in the decision of the majority, or relieve himself from responsibility by resignation. He has no right to appeal from the Council to the Parliament; and he

*Upon the maturest consideration, I am bold to say, this warrant is illegal. If a

superior jurisdiction should declare my opinion erroneous, I submit, as will become me, and

Camden's

cate feeling.

kiss the rod; but I must say, I shall always consider it as a rod of iron for the chastisement of the people of Great Britain.'-Charge to the Jury by PRATT, C. J., Money v. Leach.

316

LORD MANSFIELD'S SPEECH.

CH. X.

deserts his duty as a confidential adviser of the Crown, if he absents himself from the deliberations of the Cabinet, and reserves his opinion for the House of Lords. Moreover, there is something of treachery in holding office as the Chancellor did, in concert with the Opposition, and in subservience to their party objects. It would be impossible for any confidence to exist among public men, or for the Sovereign to have the least reliance upon his ministers, if Lord Camden's conduct is to be justified.

Lord Mansfield also took a part in this remarkable

Lord Mansfield's speech.

debate; but, with his usual caution, studiously forbore expressing an opinion as to the legality of the proceedings of the House of Commons with reference to the Middlesex elections. He treated the question as one of privilege; and consequently as one the Lords were precluded from entertaining by constitutional etiquette. Arguing upon this narrow ground, he deprecated the amendment which Chatham had moved, as calculated only to produce a collision between the two Houses.

Chatham felt the force of this reasoning, and made a laboured reply. But instead of putting the question on its proper footing, namely, that the Commons, under the pretext of privilege, had interfered with the law of the land, which defined capacity and incapacity to sit in Parliament, the great orator went off into a declamation about liberty, which, however eloquent and impressive, did not meet the plausible objection which Mansfield had stated with his usual perspicuity and reasoning power.

Motion for

The address was carried by a large majority. Immediately after the division, Lord adjournment. Rockingham gave notice of a motion to inquire into the state of the nation for the morrow, upon which Lord Pomfret moved an adjournment for a week. Temple said the purpose for which the

1770.

CHARLES YORKE.

The Great

to Yorke.

317

adjournment was required was obvious; it was to settle the disordered state of the administration; and, particularly, to dismiss the virtuous and independent lord who sat on the woolsack, and supply his place with some obsequious lawyer who would do as he was commanded. Lord Shelburne used still stronger language. The Great Seal,' he said, 'would go a begging; but he hoped there would not be found in the kingdom a wretch so base and mean-spirited as to accept. of it on the conditions on which it must be offered.' It seemed that Shelburne's hope was likely to be realised. A week elapsed before any appointment was made. It was known Seal offered that neither of the Chief Justices would take it. The Solicitor-General, Dunning, whose distinguished merit would have added lustre to the Great Seal, retired with his friend Lord Camden, at whose instance alone he had retained office after the resignation of Chatham. At length it was offered to Yorke, the son of the great Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. No man was better fitted for such preferment. He was a ripe lawyer, and still in the His political vigour of his age. He had been ap- history. pointed Solicitor-General so far back as the year 1757, on the occasion of Mansfield's elevation to the bench. He had twice filled the office of AttorneyGeneral; the last time, in the administration of Rockingham. The Great Seal had ever been the object of his ambition; and was one to which he might fairly look, from his professional standing, the high legal offices which he had filled, his acknowledged merit, and even the very name he bore. One reason only has been suggested why Yorke should have refused the splendid offer of the Duke of Grafton; and that was, that his acceptance of it would be a violation of those party engagements, from which no public man can honourably set himself free for the purpose of his own benefit and advancement. But

318

HIS POLITICAL CONNECTIONS.

сн. х.

in reality, it appears that no such obstacle existed. Yorke had been in office under Newcastle, under Bute, and under Rockingham. He resigned with the Marquis, not from political attachment, but from private pique and resentment, because the King, after having promised him the Great Seal, had refused him the Chief Justiceship with a peerage.* For the same reason he abstained from giving his opinion in Parliament on the Middlesex election, although he approved of the course which the House of Commons had taken under the direction of the Court. 'I cannot do it,' said he, when pressed by his brother, Lord Hardwicke, to deliver his sentiments, because if I go with the Court, they will betray me, or give me up as they did before; and if with the Opposition, it will be against my convictions.' He expressed himself in this manner when the Yorke family were assembled at Wimpole in the Christmas of 1769 to consider the line they should follow in the approaching parliamentary session. On that occasion, Lord Hardwicke warns his brother to be cautious in not committing himself to the Rockingham party. It is true that he consulted Lord Rockingham as well as his brother upon the Duke of Grafton's offer of the Great Seal; and that they both advised him to decline it, not because his acceptance of it would be a breach of any party engagement; but on the ground that it was intended only to make use of him as a prop to a government which could not stand. Convinced by this reasoning, he determined to decline the offer.

* From his own MS. Journal, printed by Mr. Harris in his lately published Life of Lord Hardwicke, vol. iii.

† Lord Hardwicke's MS. Journal. Harris's Life, vol. iii.

Lord Chatham also viewed the matter in the same light. Mr. Yorke's refusal is of mo

All this time his mind,

ment; and I can readily believe it, from my opinion of his prudence and discernment. No man with a grain of either would em.. bark in a rotten vessel, in the middle of a tempest, to go he knows not whither.'-Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 398.

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