Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 346, August, 1844

by Various

The services of the attorney-general were in another less wide, but not less important province. On the Continent, the conspirators against the state would have been thrown into dungeon for life, or shot. In France, the idol of the revolutionist of all countries, they would heave been carried before a mob tribunal, their names simply asked, their sentences pronounced, and their bodies headless within the first half hour. In England, they had the benefit of the law in all its sincerity, the assistance of the most distinguished counsel, the judgment of the most impartial tribunal, and the incalculable advantage of a trial by men of their own condition, feelings, and passions. On the 28th of October, at the Old Bailey, commenced the trial of Hardy, one of the secretaries of the chief treasonable society. The bill brought in by the grand jury had included twelve. The charges were those of "compassing the death of the king, and the subversion of the government." Hardy was a shoemaker, a man of low attainments, but active, and strongly republican. His activity had made him secretary to the London Corresponding Society, and by its direction a member of a similar body, named the Society for Constitutional Information. The direct object of all those societies was the same—to summon a national convention, which must, of course, supersede Parliament. As those societies grew more mature, instead of becoming more rational they exhibited more savage ferocity. Placards were distributed in the form of a playbill, announcing, "For the Benefit of John Bull, La Guillotine," or, "George's Head in a Basket." The airs of their meetings were Ca Ira and the Marseillaise. Attempts were made to corrupt the army. It was openly declared in their harangues, that it was "impossible to do any thing without some bloodshed, and that Pitt's and the King's heads would be upon Temple Bar." The sentiment was general, but at the conclusion of the especial harangue in which this atrocious language was first used, the whole meeting rose up, and shook hands with the madman by whom it was uttered.

The attorney-general's speech on this occasion was masterly; English jurisprudence had never before witnessed so striking a combination of refined knowledge with clear arrangement and unanswerable facts. It had one disadvantage, it was overwhelmingly long; it lasted nine hours, a period, if not beyond the strength of the advocate, palpably beyond any power of attention in the jury. But even this disadvantage arose from an honourable public feeling. The judges who examined the papers declared them to be high treason. The warrants of commitment had declared them to be high treason. Lord Eldon, in his "anecdotes" of this period, says, that, "after this, he did not think himself at liberty to let down the character of the offence." An additional and still stronger reason is given, that "unless the whole evidence was laid before the jury, it would have been impossible that the country should have ever been made fully acquainted with the danger to which it was exposed. And it appeared to him more essential to the public safety that the whole of those transactions should be published, than that any of these individuals should be convicted." This was a sentiment which does honour to the memory of a great man. He had been urged by his fellow counsel, and probably by others, to bring the accused to trial only for a misdemeanour, in the expectation of thus being sure of a verdict. But he determined to bring the case before the jury in its true shape, be the result what it might. It has been rumoured that this, too, was the opinion of Pitt, in contradiction to that of some of the cabinet. With that pre-eminent man the blood of these criminals could never have been the object. No servant of the British crown was ever less chargeable with cruelty. But the true object was, to expose the treason; to prove to the nation the actual hazards of revolutionary intrigue, and to extinguish conspiracy, however the conspirators might escape. The consequence amply justified this bold and candid determination. The conspiracy was crushed; all conspiracy was crushed. Nothing of the same degree of guilt, nor even of the same shape of guilt, ever recurred. The lesson was not the less complete, for its sparing the country the sight of the abhorred scaffold. The conspirators, though successively acquitted, were so warned by their peril that they never sinned again. All, if not converted, sank into total obscurity. The nation, freed from this nightmare, started up in fresh vigour, and began, with a unanimity in its heart, and irresistible strength in its hands, that illustrious battle for Europe, which accomplished the liberation of mankind.

The attorney-general had now given such undeniable proofs of fitness for the highest rank of his profession, that office seemed to fall to him by right of universal acknowledgment; and on a vacancy in the Common Pleas, he was promoted to the chief-justiceship in 1799, and at the same time raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Eldon. It is an instance of the dutiful and affectionate nature, which long connexion with the world and the pride of success—the two strongest temptations to heartlessness—could not extinguish, that he made a point of writing the first letter which he signed with his title to his aged mother. In this interesting document, after mentioning his double promotion, and attributing it, "under the blessing of Providence," to the lessons of virtue which he had received from his parents; he adds—"I hope God's grace will enable me to do my duty in the station to which I am called. I write in some agitation of spirits; but am anxious to express my love and duty to my mother, and affection to my sisters, when I first subscribe myself, your loving and affectionate son, ELDON."

Lord Kenyon, then chief-justice of the King's Bench, pronounced a panegyric on this promotion, congratulating the profession, and especially those who practised in the Common Pleas, on the appointment of one who would probably be found "the most consummate judge that ever sat in judgment."

The step from the office of attorney-general to the presidency of one of the courts, has been not unusual; but, as modern experience has shown, it is by no means a necessary procedure. In Lord Eldon's instance, it received the universal approval of the bar. But he held the chief-justiceship only for a year and a half, when he was raised to the summit of the bar, and sat down lord chancellor.

We hasten over the melancholy details of the following period. The labours of the attorney-general were light and cheerful compared with the toils and responsibilities of the chancellor; the disturbed state of the king's mind; the growing difficulties of that millstone round the neck of English legislation, the Popish claims; the retirement of Pitt, and the general alarm of the nation at its external hazards, formed a trial of unexampled severity to all public men. The death of the Great Minister in 1806, (23d of January,) at length broke up the Tory administration; the Whigs assumed power, and Lord Eldon, of course, resigned the Seals.

But the mere official routine of a chancellor's life is tremendous. Lord Eldon's account of one of his days, shows at what a price the honour of the Seals must be purchased. In one of his letters he says—"Mine has been no easy life. I will tell you what once happened to me. I was ill with the gout, it was in my feet, and so I was carried into my carriage, and from it was carried into court. There I remained all the day, and delivered an arduous judgment. In the evening, I went straight from my court to the House of Lords. There I sat until two in the morning, when some of the lords came and whispered to me, that I was expected to speak. I told them that I really could not, that I was ill, and could not stand. It was an important question, (the peace of Amiens,) I forgot my gout, and spoke for two hours. Well, the House broke up, I was carried home, and at six in the morning I prepared to go to bed. My poor left leg had just got in; when I recollected that I had important papers to examine; so I put on my clothes, and went to my study. I examined the papers; they related to the Recorders' Report, which had to be heard that day. I was again carried into court, where I had to deliver another arduous judgment. Again went to the House of Lords, and it was not till the middle of the second night that I got into bed!" Such desperate performances do not occur every day in the life even of lord chancellors; but the judicial labours, combined with the political, are too heavy a task for the body or the mind of any man.

The Whigs are never destined to a long supremacy. They have never come into power but in some perverted state of the public feelings. There must be some terror, or some infatuation, in the public mind, before it calls in the quack; but the moment that sees quiet succeed to disturbance, and the nation has recovered its composure, always sees the Whigs driven out of office. The death of Fox, in 1806, unquestionably deprived the party of a great popular name, but the whole strength of Whiggism survived. It was in full possession of power, and the late dissolution had filled Parliament with its adherents; still its old fate prevailed. Like ships floating over the land only by the help of an inundation, when the waters return to their channel the ships remain, only to be broken in pieces, the Whig government was broken up never to be restored, until a new convulsion in France, producing a corresponding convulsion in England, brought them into office, after a lapse of another quarter of a century.

In March 1807, a bill having been prepared as a preliminary to the Popish concession, the king pronounced it contrary to his coronation oath, and insisted on its withdrawal; the Whigs consented; but the king further insisting on a pledge that they would attempt no similar measure, they demurred, and his majesty instantly dismissed them, amidst the general rejoicing of the empire. The Duke of Portland was placed at the head of a new ministry, and Lord Eldon received the Seals.

We have now seen his lordship secure in that station which he was to retain until the close of his useful and vigorous life; we shall, therefore, abandon politics, and turn to his more numerous recollections of incident and character.