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FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TILL THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE IV.

BY JOHN LORD CAMPBELL, LL.D., F.R.S.E.

FOURTH EDITION.

IN TEN VOLUMES.-VOL. IX.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1857.

The right of Translation is reserved.

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LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

LIVES

OF THE

LORD CHANCELLORS OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER CLXXXV.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE TILL HE RESIGNED THE GREAT SEAL.

A.D. 1806.

We must now regard Erskine in his political capacity while he was a member of the Fox and Grenville Government. He does not seem to have had any great weight either in Parliament or in the Cabinet. He rather shocked the Peers by the egotism of his maiden speech among them, which was upon the bill to indemnify witnesses who were to be examined on the trial of Lord Melville :

"I feel it my duty, my Lords," said he, "to communicate my sentiments on a subject of so much consequence to proceedings in Courts of Law. I have been seven-and-twenty years engaged in the duties of a laborious profession, and while I have been so employed I have had the opportunity of a more extensive experience in the Courts than any other individual of this generation. In the profession there have been and there now are men of much more learning and ability than I pretend to, but it is very singular that in these twenty-seven years I have not for a single day been prevented from attending in the Courts by any indisposition or corporeal infirmity. Within much the greater part of this period I was honoured with a patent of precedency, and have been engaged in every important cause in the Court of King's Bench. Your Lordships would have no concern with the history of my political life were it not connected with the present inquiry; but when I declare that I have never known an objection taken to an interrogatory, that the answer might subject the witness to a civil suit,' it is material for your Lordships to know that my experience is not only equal to that of any individual Judge, but of all the Judges collectively. A decision of Lord Kenyon to the contrary has been cited; but the report must be wrong, for I was counsel in the cause, and I have no recollection of such a point VOL. IX.

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