motive but a regard for the constitution and a reverence for the wisdom

of ages.

When the proposal came to be debated of vesting

in the Queen the power of appointing to all the offices [JAN. 19, 1789.]

in the Household, Sir John Scott said,—

"When gentlemen tell me that by withholding from the Regent the patronage of the Royal Household they would be guilty of a breach of the Constitution, let them explain how I am to discharge my allegiance to the sovereign on the Throne, without taking care that his resumption of his royal authority may be rendered as little difficult as possible. I do not speak with indelicacy towards the Prince of Wales, if I show that jealousy which belongs to my character as a member of Parliament-which it is my duty to show to the other branch of the Legislature, and to the Executive Government. If the sense of the people be taken at your bar, or in any other way, the language they would hold would undoubtedly be, What! could you not do your duty for three short months? Were you so hasty to dethrone your lawful Sovereign, that you treated him with the grossest disrespect, and stripped him of every mark of regal dignity and distinction, after he had been ill no longer than a month?' Do gentlemen seriously argue that the Regent, with the army, the navy, the church, and all the offices connected with the public revenue at his command, cannot carry on a vigorous and effective government? Where is the integrity of the House, if such arguments are used? Are there no men who will act from the impulse of a higher feeling—from a sense of duty, and from what they owe to their country and to their own character? I ask, is not his Majesty alive, and afflicted with a severe malady ?-and is not this a reason for giving him additional attendance, rather than taking away what he before had? It has been said, that to give this patronage to the Queen would be so much influence thrown into the hands of Opposition; but it would be a gross and indecent reflection on that exalted and virtuous personage, to suppose that she would employ her power for the purpose of opposing the government of her son. No plan can be sug- [A. D. 1789.] gested which is not clogged with some evil; but upon

my honour, and upon my conscience, that which we are called upon to adopt I sincerely believe the most safe, the most constitutional, and the most expedient."

Finally, on the motion that the Great Seal should be put to a commission for opening Parliament, Mr. Solicitor said,— [FEB. 2.] "This is the only legal mode of proceeding; the other-that of addressing the Prince to take upon him the Regency, (a term unknown to the law,) is wholly illegal. You must proceed by Act of Parliament; and the Great Seal once put to it gives it all the authority of law, so that no inquiry can be instituted as to the mode in which it has been passed. If letters patent are sealed with the Great Seal, without the King's warrant having been previously granted, however criminal may

*27 Parl. Hist. 825.

† Ibid. 1033.

be the conduct of the person who has so acted, they are of full force, and bind the King himself as much as if signed with the King's own hand. We are not now discussing a party question, and I know that my opinion is not influenced by any party bias. If the Prince were to accept the regency on an address, he must represent the King in the House of Lords without authority, and he must give the royal assent to a Regency Bill, thereby appointing himself Regent, so that he might be exposed to future difficulties from grave questions arising as to his authority. The commission is a fiction, I admit; but there are many fictions of law, and from some of these fictions arise the best security of the rights of the subject. The present may be called a wholesome fiction, inasmuch as it saves the Constitution from danger, and proves this Constitution to be so admirably constructed that it contains in itself a provision for every emergency."

Such arguments prevailed in England; although, after the consideration I have repeatedly given to the subject, I must ever think that the Irish Parliament proceeded more constitutionally by considering that the Heir Apparent was entitled to exercise the royal authority during the King's incapacity, as upon a demise of the Crown, and by presenting an address to him, praying him to do so, instead of arrogating to themselves, in Polish fashion, the power of electing the supreme magistrate of the republic, and resorting to the palpable lie of the proceeding being sanctioned by the afflicted Sovereign. While the bill was still pending in the House of Lords, all these speculations were cut short, for this turn, by George's happy recovery.

The disappointed Whigs tried to assuage their grief by ridiculing Sir John Scott, and the others who had fought most stoutly against them, in the following jeu d'esprit, which they published in the "ROL

OR RAISING A PHANTOM; IMITATED FROM MACBETH,' AND LATELY PERFORMED BY HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS IN WESTMINSTER.

All.

Liver of the lily's hue,

Which in Richmond's carcass grew;
Tears which, stealing down the cheek
Of the rugged Thurlow, speak
All the poignant grief he feels
For his Sovereign-or the Seals;
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Third Witch. Clippings of Corinthian brass
From the visage of Dundas;
Forg'd address, devis'd by Rose,
Half of Pepper Arden's nose;
Smuggled vote of city thanks,
Promise of insidious Banks;
Add a grain of Rollo's courage,
To inflame the hellish porridge.
Cool it with Lloyd Kenyon's blood.
Now the charm is firm and good.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Enter HECATE, Queen of the Witches.

First Witch.

All.

Hecate.

Oh! well done! I commend your pains,
And ev'ry one shall share i' th' gains."

The losing party likewise raised a laugh against their antagonists, by pretending that Lord Belgrave, afterwards Marquess of Westminster, who, on this occasion, declared against them, and quoted, in debate, a passage from the Greek text of Demosthenes, had actually spouted the following line from Homer,

“'Τον δ' απαμειβόμενος προσέφη πόδας ωκυς Αχιλλευς”.

publishing translations of it (for the benèfit of the country gentlemen) by those who had chiefly combated the right of the Prince of Wales during the late crisis.

TRANSLATION BY SIR JOHN SCOTT.

"With metaphysic art his speech he plann'd,

And said what nobody could understand."

However, we have "ANOTHER BY THE CHANCELLOR," in honour of his protégé :

The ultra-loyal lawyer was abundantly compensated for all these gibes by a message, some little time afterwards, from George III., requesting a call from him at Windsor. [1789, 1792.] Being ushered into the Royal presence, the King most graciously said to him, "I have no other business with you, Sir John Scott, than to thank you for the affectionate fidelity with which you adhered to me when so many had deserted me, in my malady."+

* Rolliad, 20th edition, p. 531.

Lord Eldon used to discredit the report of Thurlow's double-dealing on the late occasion, saying, "I was at the time honoured with his intimacy; scarcely

Sir John Scott led a very quiet life from this time for four years,till he was promoted to be Attorney General, and the " Reign of Terror" began. During this long interval, he hardly ever had occasion to open his mouth in the House of Commons,-there were no state prosecutions; -and, answering a few Government cases, which could have given him little trouble, he had only to attend to his business in the Court of Chancery. There, those who came next to him were at an immense distance behind him, and his gains must have been enormous. Yet he was at great pains to inculcate the doctrine that a successful barrister is a loser by becoming a law officer of the Crown; and in the "Anecdote Book" he gives this account of a dialogue with George III., in which I must say he seems considerably to have mystified his worthy old

master:

"Soon after I became Solicitor General, his Majesty George III. at Weymouth, with the kindness which he uniformly manifested to me, said, 'Well, I hope your promotion has been beneficial to you?' I asked his Majesty, if he meant in professional income? He said 'Yes,

in that and in other respects.' I told him, what was strictly true, that in annual receipt I thought I must lose about two thousand pounds a year. He seemed surprised, and asked how that could be accounted for? I stated to him that the attention of his law officers was called to matters of international law, public law, and the laws of [A. D. 1790.] revenue, and other matters, with which not having been previously familiar, they were obliged to devote to them a vast deal of time, and to withdraw it from those other common matters of business which were very profitable; and I concluded by stating what was then the habit of the solicitors of the public offices, to give the Solicitor General only three guineas with his Majesty's (the Government's) cases, which required more time and attention fully to consider, and satisfactorily to answer, than the cases of private individuals, with which their attorneys frequently left fees of ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five guineas. 'Oh!' said the King, then for the first time I comprehend what I never could before understand, why it has been always so difficult to get any opinions from my law officers!'"

I must be permitted to doubt whether, while in the tranquil times of his Solicitor-Generalship, he ever sacrificed a particle of private prac tice to his public duty; and his professional emoluments-with the

a day passed in which there was not much interesting conversation upon that subject between Lord Thurlow and the King's friends, with which I was acquainted, and I do not believe there was a word of truth in the charge." But the truth of it has been established beyond all possibility of contradiction or doubt. (See Vol. V. Chap. CLX.) I have heard it insinuated that Sir John Scott himself was privy to these intrigues, and had a hope, under Thurlow's auspices, of being Solicitor General to the Regent; but I do not believe that there is any foundation for this. He never seems to have been privy to Thurlow's negotiations with the Whigs; and I make no doubt that he acted on the occasion of the Regency with entire singleness of purpose. Gratitude made him eager to disbelieve any thing to Thurlow's disadvantage, as well as to magnify his good qualities.

higher fees given by ordinary clients to a counsel who enjoys the highest dignity at the Bar-must have abundantly indemnified him for giving up his circuit.-In spite of his heavy losses, instead of being again reduced to buy sixpennyworth of sprats for supper in Fleet Market, in the course of a few years he bought the fine estate of Eldon, in the county of Durham, from which he afterwards took his title.*

Parliament being dissolved in June, 1790, he was again returned from Weobly, and made a speech to the rustics on the blessings enjoyed under the English Constitution,-cautioning them against French principles, of which he early became apprehensive.

The first subject discussed in the new House of Commons was "whether the impeachment against Mr. Hastings had abated by the dissolution?" and, this being considered an open question, although Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas held the negative, Mr. Solicitor, under the influence of Lord Thurlow, contended strongly for the affirmative. In answer to the argument, that this would enable the Crown at all times to defeat an impeachment by dissolving Parliament, although it be declared by the Bill of Rights that a pardon under the Great Seal cannot be pleaded in bar to an impeachment, he went so far as to aver, that "the Crown ought to have the right of dissolving for the express purpose of abating an impeachment,-saying that the new House of Commons, if they think fit, may commence proceedings de novo." But this most preposterous doctrine, which I am sorry to say several lawyers of eminence supported, was overruled by the good sense of the house, and is now universally allowed to be untenable.-It seems to have been absurdly insinuated in the newspapers, that Sir John Scott and his associates of the long robe had been bribed by Mr. Hastings; for, a few days after the decision, writing to Henry, at Newcastle, to

* Since writing the last paragraph, I have met with an exact statement of Sir John Scott's gains from his own fee-book-abundantly corroborating my conjectures; for it appears that the first year he was in office, instead of losing 20007., he made more than 10007. beyond the receipts of the preceding year, and that his income went on constantly increasing

£ S. d. 6,833 7 0

-Twiss, i. 218. Some of the fees then received by the law officers of the Crown have fallen off, but we have been pretty well indemnified by "patents of invention."

+ 28 Parl. Hist. 1074, 1028, 1150.