[76] Thomas Fonnereau, of Christ-church Park, near Ipswich. He was out of humour with the Minister for having refused him the place of Receiver-General of Suffolk. It is said that he had the offer of being Joint Postmaster General, which did not suit or satisfy him. He had the reputation of being very acute and persevering in business; the Lizard Lighthouses were projected and erected by him, and he had a lease of the tolls, which must have been very productive; but his expenses at Aldborough and Sudbury, for which he also returned a member, kept him poor. He had made himself remarkable for his loyalty in the rebellion of 1745, when he made a speech to the grand jury of Suffolk, which was publicly distributed at their request. He was obstinate rather than peevish, and his manners were generally very agreeable. He died a bachelor in 1779, in the eightieth year of his age.—E.
[77] Nullum tempus occurrit regi et ecclesiæ: an old absurd maxim of law.
[78] Vide The Character of Wilkes as a Politician and a Writer, in Lord Brougham’s “Statesmen of the Time of George the Third,” vol. iii. p. 181.
[79] “An Enquiry into the Doctrine lately propagated concerning Libels, Warrants, and the Seizure of Papers, with a view to some late proceedings, and the defence of them by the majority upon the principles of the Constitution, in a letter to Mr. Almon from the father of Candor.” In the later editions it is intituled “A Letter concerning Libels, &c.,” and both Almon and “the father of Candor” are removed from the title page. “Candor” is the signature of a very clever letter to the Public Advertiser published a short time before by Almon on the same subject, severely attacking the Government under the pretence of defending it. The humour is sustained through fifty-four pages with great skill and vivacity, and the points in controversy are very cleverly handled. It may still be read with interest. “The Enquiry” was one of the most popular tracts of its day. It went through five editions in a few months. It has the merit of propounding sound constitutional doctrines in a clear and familiar style; of boldly denouncing error, and disseminating truth. The reasoning is forcible, and the legal research and knowledge displayed throughout are very considerable, especially in the use made of the early decisions of the Courts of Law. It may fairly be said to have settled the question, for very little was urged on the other side afterwards. As a literary composition, it can claim but moderate praise. The style is loose and careless, and wants the easy flow, the perspicuous diction and classical taste which may be found in some other contemporary tracts—such, for instance, as Mr. Charles Yorke’s “Considerations on the Law of Forfeiture.” In parts it is rather dull, and the materials, valuable as they are, might have been arranged with more effect. They appear to have come from different and unequal hands; for if the acuteness, wit, and learning of Dunning may be traced through many pages, remarks occasionally occur which could hardly have proceeded from a practising lawyer. I can find no authority in support of the general belief of his being the author. I suspect he only revised it, and that Lord Chatham did the same. There are passages strongly partaking of the spirit and peculiar mode of expression of the latter.
Some interesting extracts might be made from this able tract. The following severe censure of Lord Mansfield must have been written by one who well knew the character he was describing. “I wish that when a Chief is found to be clandestinely meddling in matters of State in perversion of the law, he may be dragged into broad day-light, and his name and memory be branded for ever to the latest posterity. I cannot indeed figure to myself a meaner or more pernicious person than a chief justice, with a great income for life given him by the public, in order to render him independent, privately listening to every inclination of every ministry, and warping and wire-drawing the plain letter of the law in order to accommodate it to their inclinations, instead of pursuing the course of established precedents, inviolably, intrepidly, and openly, without regard to party or person. The chapter of expediency is the very worst source of adjudication, inasmuch as it tends to the setting afloat, by degrees, of the whole law of the realm.
“In our law the judges are bound by a sacred oath to determine according to the known laws and ancient customs of the realm, set down in judicial decisions and resolutions of learned, wise, and upright judges, upon a variety of particular facts and cases, which, when they have been thus in use, and practised time out of mind, are a part of the common law of the kingdom * * * ‘To allow of any man’s discretion,’ says Lord Coke, ‘that sits in the seat of justice, would bring forth a monstrous confusion.’ It is indeed wonderful that any man should have so servile a disposition; for let his abilities be what they will, he will always be regarded as a contemptible personage. This sort of profligate magistrate may be sure of being used by every ministry, but of being esteemed by none; seeing no set of men can depend upon him any longer than they remain in office and power, his only principle of action being an implicit obedience to the old tutelar Saint at St. James’s. He must be in truth—
‘A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend,
Dreading even fools:’
and cowardice in a judge is but another name for corruption.” P. 85.—E.
[80] They were not written by Dr. Franklin, but by John Dickenson, a citizen of Pennsylvania, and gained for their author the thanks of the Assembly of Massachusets. He warned his countrymen not to be deluded by the moderate rate of the new duties,—a circumstance which he characterized as artfully intended to prepare their reception of a collar, whose increasing weight would gradually bow them to the ground; and he encouraged them to hope that a deliverance from this evil would be obtained by a resumption of the same general and animated opposition which had procured the repeal of the Stamp Act. The arguments by which the author supported his doctrine of the illegality of internal taxes on America, are said to have converted Dr. Franklin. They had at least the merit of furnishing an excuse for his change of opinion.—(Grahame’s History of North America, vol. iv. p. 262.)—E.
[81] See infra.