ANECDOTES OF IRISH JUDGES.
Baron Monckton—Judge Boyd—Judge Henn—Legal blunder of a judge, and Curran’s bon-mot thereon—Baron Power—His suicide—Crosby Morgal’s spirit of emulation—Judge William Johnson—Curious anecdote between him and the author—Judge Kelly—His character and bon-mots—Lord Kilwarden—His character—Murder of him and his nephew the Rev. Mr. Wolfe—Mr. Emmet executed—Memoir of that person—Judge Robert Johnson—Arrested in Ireland, and tried in London, for a libel written on Lord Redesdale in Ireland and published by Cobbett—Doubts of the legality of his lordship’s trial—He is found guilty.
Before, and for some time after, I was called to the bar, the bench was in several instances very curiously manned as to judges. The uniform custom had previously been to send over these dignitaries from England;—partly with a view to protect the property of absentees,[[78]] and partly from political considerations: and the individuals thus sent appeared as if generally selected because they were good for nothing else. In truth, as the judges of Ireland were not made independent of the crown until 1784, no English barrister who could earn his bread at home would accept a precarious office in a strange country, and on a paltry salary. Such Irishmen, also, as were in those days constituted puisne judges, were of the inferior class of practising barristers, on account of the last-mentioned circumstance.
[78]. The interest of money in England was only five per cent; in Ireland, six. Moneyed Englishmen, therefore, lent out large sums on Irish mortgages. Lord Mansfield had vested much money in this way; and as Irish mortgages, from the confused state of Irish entails at that time, were generally considered rather ticklish securities, the Irish judges were sent over from England to take care of that matter, and were removable at pleasure, for the same reason.
A vulgar idea, most ridiculous in its nature, formerly prevailed in Ireland, of the infallibility of judges.—It existed long before and at an early period of my observations, and went so far even as to conceive that an ignorant barrister, whose opinion nobody probably would ask, or, if obtained, nobody would act upon—should he, by interest, subserviency, or other fortuitous circumstances, be placed on the judicial bench, immediately changed his character—all the books in his library pouring their information into his head! The great seal and the king’s patent were held to saturate his brain in half an hour with all that wisdom and learning which he had in vain been trying to get even a peep at during the former portion of his life; and the mere dicta of the metamorphosed barrister were set down, by reporters, as the infallible (but theretofore inexplicable) law of the land; and, as such, handed round to other judges under the appellation of precedents, entitled to all possible weight and authority in judicial decisions.
This old doctrine of the infallibility of dicta and precedents, (which presented, in fact, an accumulation of enigmas and contradictions,) was at one time carried to great lengths;—I believe partly from a plausible system of making legal decisions uniform, whether right or wrong; and perhaps partly from the inability of the adopters to make any better sort of precedent themselves. A complaisance so ridiculous has of late been much relaxed.[[79]]
[79]. A judge who feels himself bound by old precedents in the teeth of his own convictions, is much to be pitied. If he decides according to the said precedents, he does wrong with his eyes open. If he decides against them, he will be considered as deciding against the settled law of the land, and the Courts of Error quickly set the ancient mistake on its legs again.