this great measure. It appears from the Journals, that, during the sitting of the convention, there was not a single committee appointed on any subject of constitutional importance of which he was not a member. There was, perhaps, no individual in existence who was at that moment so well qualified as he was to lend important aid in conducting his country with safety through the difficulties and dangers of a change of government, and in placing the interests of the nation upon a secure and solid foundation. Fortunate was it for the people of England and their posterity that the services of a man of Somers's industry and settled principles, of his sound constitutional information, and his rational and enlightened views of the respective rights and duties of kings and subjects, were, at that critical juncture, available to his country; and that, at the instant of the occurrence of this momentous revolution, his character was sufficiently appreciated and acknowledged to render those services fully effective. ་ On the 9th of May, 1689, Somers was made solicitor-general, and received the honour of knighthood. In the warm debates which took place in parliament in the following year, on the bill for the recognition of the king and queen, and for avoiding all questions touching the acts made in the parliament assembled on the 13th of February, 1688, a doubt was suggested in the house of commons, whether the convention, not being summoned by the king's writ, had any legal sanction. Upon this occasion Somers greatly distinguished himself by the spirited and able manner fin which he answered the objection. If,' said he, that convention was not a legal parliament, this is not a legal parliament, and we who are now met, and have taken the oaths prescribed by that parliament, are guilty of high treason; the laws repealed by that parliament being still in force, we must presently return to king James; and all the money collected, levied, and paid by virtue of the acts of that parliament, makes every one that was concerned in it highly criminal. Besides, if the laws of that parliament want confirmation, it is impossible for you to give it: upon the va lidity of the acts then done depends the authority of your's; and if those acts want confirmation, this parliament cannot confirm them*. He spoke,' says Bur Grey's Debates, vol. x. p. 50. net, with such zeal and such an ascendant of authority, that none were prepared to answer it, so that the bill passed without more opposition. This was a great service done in a very critical time, and contributed not a little to raise Somers's character * In the debates which took place on the bill for the exercise of the powers of government by the queen in the king's absence, Somers also greatly distinguished himself by his profound acquaintance with precedents, and his argument on the effect of a delegation of the regal authority +. During the period that Sir John Somers filled the office of solicitor-general, it devolved upon him, in the absence of the attorney-general, to conduct the prosecution against Lord Preston for high treason. Lord Preston, who had been secretary of state to James II., had joined with several gentlemen in an illconcerted and unpromising conspiracy to overthrow the government, and restore the exiled king, by the introduction of a French army and a French fleet. Notice having been given to the government, in December, 1690, that a vessel had been engaged for the purpose of carrying some unknown persons to France, a search was made at Gravesend, and three passengers were found concealed among the ballast in the quarter-hatch of a smack: one of those persons proved to be Lord Preston; a second was Ashton, who had held a place in the household of the late queen; and the third a gentleman named Elliot. On their discovery, Ashton attempted to throw some papers into the sea, which were recovered, and in them the treasonable nature of their design was clearly developed. Lord Preston was tried and convicted of high treason, at the Old Bailey, on the 17th of January following, before the lord chief-justices Holt and Pollexfen, and the lord-chief baron Sir Robert Atkynst. The report of the proceedings on this trial, which was the first state prosecution that had occurred since the revolution, is extremely interesting. The three presiding judges were individuals of the highest professional reputation, and the honour and independence of their character were so universally known and acknowledged, as to give extraordinary Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 42. + Grey's Debates, vol. x. p. 102. How. St. Tri., vol. xii. p. 645. authority and dignity to the proceedings. To those who had witnessed the brutal coarseness, the indecent impatience, and the cruel ribaldry of Seroggs and Jefferies, in the state trials of the preceding reigns, it must have been a new and striking picture of the administration of criminal justice, to behold Lord Holt mildly and patiently explaining to the understanding of a somewhat pertinacious prisoner the legal reasons upon which the court refused him a copy of the indictment. Nor was it a less novel or less satisfactory part of the exhibition to observe, on the part of the counsel for the crown in a state prosecution, a studied abstinence from all invective or declamation against the prisoner, and a rigid adherence to an unvarnished statement of the facts in support of the charge, as they were about to be proved in evidence. More palpable cowardice and injustice can, indeed, hardly be conceived, than an attempt, by exaggerated statements or vituperation, to inflame the passions and mislead the judgment of a jury against a delinquent, who has not the assistance of counsel, and who, from his ignorance of the law, and inexperience in courts of justice, is literally brought out to fight without a weapon against an armed and practised adversary. It must be considered as a proof of the good taste of Somers, as well as of the enlightened justice of his mind, that he was the first English advocate who set the example of moderation and gentle demeanour towards the accused in the conduct of a criminal prosecution. I did never think,' says he, in his address to the jury in Lord Preston's case, that it was a part of any who were of counsel for the king in cases of this nature, to endeavour to aggravate the crime of the prisoners, by going about to put false colours upon evidence, or to give it more than its due weight, and therefore I shall be sure to forbear any thing of that nature. But I think it my duty to give some short account of the nature and course of the evidence to be produced to you, which, consisting of several kinds, it will be in some sort necessary to open it, that you may the more clearly apprehend it, and with more ease make your observations upon it. He uses nearly the same language in other criminal prosecutions conducted by him, and on all occasions he faith fully adhered to the rule which he had laid down for himself. In April, 1692, Sir Henry Pollex fen, the chief justice of the common pleas, died; and Sir George Treby being raised to his office, Somers became attorney-general, and in the month of March following was appointed Lord Keeper of the great seal. While he presided in the court of chancery as lord keeper, he delivered his celebrated judgment in the Bankers' case, which Mr. Hargrave characterizes as one of the most elaborate arguments ever delivered in Westminster-hall*. It is said that Lord Somers expended several hundred pounds in collecting books and pamphlets for this argument. Consistently with the good sense and modesty of his character, it appears that, after he received the great seal, he repeatedly declined a peerage when pressed upon him by the king, declaring that he had not a sufficient fortune to support the dignity. In a letter to him from the Duke of Shrewsbury, dated May, 1695, the duke says, I had directions to have said everything I could imagine to persuade you to accept of a title, and the king is really convinced that it is for his service that you should. I beg the answer I may have may be a bill for the king's signing. As for arguments, I have used all I have already; and by your objections, you may give me leave to tell you, you are as partial and unreasonable, with too much modesty, as some are with too much ambition.' Notwithstanding this friendly remonstrance, he still declined a peerage for several years; and it was not until the year 1697, when appointed Lord Chancellor, that he was raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron Somers of Evesham. Upon this occasion the king granted him an annuity of 2100l., together with the manors of Reigate and Howleigh, in Surrey. The acceptance of these grants formed one of the charges upon which he was afterwards impeached by the commons. In the following year Lord Somers succeeded Mr. Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, as president of the Royal Society. The particular circumstances which led to this appointment are unknown; in all probability, however, his election to an office, the duties of which were entirely inconsistent with his judicial and political engagements, was intended merely as a compliment to his public character. The journals of the How. St. Tri. vol. xiii. p. 3. † Hardwicke State Papers, vol. ii. p. 427. Royal Society state, that he was elected a fellow, a member of the council, and president on the same day (the 30th Nov. 1698), and was annually re-elected as president till the year 1703. During the five years that Lord Somers filled the chair of that institution, it appears, from the same authority, that he attended the meetings of the members only twice; no papers were written or communicated by him either while he was president, or before, or afterwards; nor is there any evidence, beyond the present of a Chinese chair to the Society, that he took the slightest interest in their proceedings. In the year 1703 the council seem to have considered that the objects of the institution would be more efficiently promoted by a scientific president, who would actively direct and superintend their transactions, than by one whose time and thoughts were necessarily absorbed by political business; and, in accordance with this rational impression, at the annual day of election under the charter,-they placed Sir Isaac Newton in the chair. For some years after Lord Somers was in possession of the great seal, and before he was raised to the peerage, he enjoyed the fullest confidence of the king, and was of essential use to him in the difficult circumstances in which he was placed. There is, perhaps, no part of the history of England more devoid of interest than the narrative of the endless contentions between the whig and tory factions at the close of the seventeenth century at the same time, there is no period which more clearly exhibits the utter worthlessness of faction, the inconsistencies and absurdities of party spirit, and the extent to which the real interests of the people may be neglected and injured, when rival parties are struggling for power in the administration of government. Scarcely were the principles of the revolution defined and established by the Act of Settlement, when each house of parliament became the arena of fierce contention between the whigs and tories; no occasion was too trivial for the exhibition of skirmishes discreditable to both parties, detrimental to the public_service, and mortifying, almost beyond endurance, to the feelings of the king. Embarrassed and provoked by the conduct of the two factions, William repeatedly threatened to retire to Holland, and leave the government of England to the queen. He told the Duke of Hamilton, that he wished he were a thousand miles from England, and had never been king of it; and declared to Lord Halifax, that all the difference he knew between the two parties was, that the tories would cut his throat in the morning, and the whigs in the afternoon.' In this state of affairs, the wisdom and integrity of Lord Somers became of important service, not only to the king personally, but to the general interests of the nation. Himself a whig, and zealously attached to whig principles, he contrived in some degree to moderate and restrain the impetuosity of his own party; and, by the obvious good sense of his advice, so recommended himself to the confidence of the king, that none of his ministers, with the single exception, perhaps, of Lord Sunderland, ever obtained a greater influence in his councils. Bishop Burnet says*, that, as Lord Somers was one of the ablest and most incorrupt judges that ever sat in chancery, so his great capacity for all affairs made the king consider him before all his ministers, and he well deserved the confidence the king expressed for him on all occasions.' His conduct on the death of Queen Mary, in 1694, in promoting a reconciliation between the king and the Princess Anne, as exhibited in the following anecdote, shows at once the extent of his influence, and the judicious mode in which he used it :-Soon after the queen's death, the princess was prevailed upon by Lord Sunderland to write a letter to the king, condoling with him on the event, and soliciting a reconciliation. A short time after this letter had been received, and as soon as he concluded that it had produced its effect, Lord Somers, who had long regretted the unhappy dissensions in the royal family, repaired, to the palace at Kensington; he found the king sitting at the end of his closet, in an agony of grief more acute than seemed consonant to his phlegmatic temper. Absorbed in reflection, William took no notice of the intrusion, till Somers broke silence by proposing to terminate the unhappy difference with the princess: the king replied, My lord, do what you will, I can think of no business. To a repetition of the proposal the same answer was returned. By the agency of Somers an interview was accordingly arranged, in which the king received the princess Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 218. + Coxe's Life of Marlborough, vol. i. p. 58. with cordiality and demonstrations of apparent regard, informing her that the palace of St. James's should be appropriated for her future residence. By his influence with the king, and the skill and discretion with which he covertly guided the movements of his own party, Lord Somers had been, for some time before his elevation to the peerage, the means of preserving the whig administration; and in 1698, after the resignation of the Earl of Sunderland, the chief power of the government rested in his hands, and those of Lord Orford and Mr. Montague. Within two years, however, from the period of his appointment as lord chancellor, he was destined to experience the force of party malignity, and the selfishness and instability of royal favour. The tories plainly perceived that there were no hopes of power for their party, unless they could succeed in destroying his popularity, and removing him not only from his office, but from the private confidence of William. To this object, therefore, the combined efforts of the faction in both houses of parliament were directed incessantly and effectually, aided by the innumerable artifices of insidious intriguers distributed about the person of the king. In a letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury, which, though without a date, was undoubtedly written about the close of the year 1698, Lord Somers distinctly alludes to the progress which had then been made in undermining the stability of the whig ministry. There is nothing,' says he, to support the whigs, but the difficulty of the king's piecing with the other party, and the almost impossibility of finding a set of tories who will unite. So that, in the end, I conclude it will be a pieced business, which will fall asunder immediately. The first symptom of the decline and fall of the whig administration was unquestionably the failure of the proposal for the maintenance of a standing army in 1697, and the consequent resignation of Lord Sunderland. Though holding only the insignificant office of lord chamberlain, Lord Sunderland had long acted the part of prime minister, and was universally believed to have encouraged and promoted, if he did not originally suggest, the obnoxious and unsuccessful project for a standing army. Alarmed at the national clamour, and the rapidly declining popularity of the • Hardwicke State Papers, vol. ii. p. 436. storm The next object of attack was the Earl of Orford, who had been for many years at the head of both the admiralty and navy departments. In the early part of 1699, he also resigned his employments, not choosing to risk the consequences of a threatened contest with the house of commons respecting his accounts as treasurer of the navy; and, in the course of the same year, Mr. Montague, foreseeing a arising, which he had not courage to encounter, also retired from the ministry. On the other hand, Lord Somers, who still retained a great degree of influence over the king, determined to continue at his post till he could no longer be serviceable to his country. He reprobated the conduct of his colleagues in thus deserting their party, and declared that in his opinion it was altogether unnecessary to surrender at discretion to the tories; that if the king would be true to his friends, they would be true to him:' and strongly urged the dissolution of the parliament, for the purpose of giving the whigs an opportunity of recovering their ascendancy in the house of commons. The king was himself favourable to a dissolution, but the great majority of his ministers dissuaded him from so bold, and, as they represented it, so dangerous a measure, and it was consequently abandoned. But though powerful in influence, and still more powerful in his acknowledged talents and integrity, Lord Somers was at this period the only remaining support of the tottering fabric of the whig administration: to his removal, therefore, as the last obstacle to their return to power, the strenuous efforts of the tories were now directed. In pursuance of this design, the tory party in the house of commons, in the course of the stormy session of parlia ment which commenced in November, 1699, made several violent but ineffectual attacks upon the lord chancellor. The first charge brought against him was, that in the exercise of his office as superintendent of the magistracy of the Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 207. country, he had improperly dismissed many gentlemen from the commission of the peace. Upon a full explanation of the circumstances, it appeared that in 1695 and 1696, when the rebellious project commonly called the Assassination Plot was discovered, a voluntary association had been formed for the support of the king and the government, which originated in the houses of parliament, and was generally entered into through out the country: it was thought that those who refused to enter into this association were so ill-affected, or at least so little zealous for the government, that they ought not to continue justices of peace; and an order was made in council that such persons should be excluded from the commission. All that Lord Somers had done was to obey this order upon the representations of the lords-lieutenant of the different counties; and so cautious had he been to do no injustice in this respect, that he laid all these representations before the privy council, and refused to strike out a name without a special order in each particular case. This charge was proved to be so utterly groundless, that it was abandoned by those who introduced it*. The second accusation had no better foundation than the first. Great complaints having been made of certain English pirates in the West Indies, who had plundered several merchant ships, it was determined to send out a ship of war for the purpose of destroying them. But as there was no fund to bear the charge of such an expedition, the king proposed to his ministers that it should be carried on as a private undertaking, and promised to subscribe 30007. on his own account. In compliance with this recommendation, Lord Somers, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earls of Romney, Orford, Bellamont, and several others, contributed a sufficient sum to defray the whole expense of the armament; and as the adventure was entirely supported by the private funds of individuals, the whole of the prizes which might be taken were given by letterspatent to the persons who had subscribed towards it. Burnet says, that Lord Somers understood nothing of the matter, and left it wholly to the management of others: only that he thought it became the post he was in to concur in such a public service.' Unfortunately, one Captain Kidd was • Burnet's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 241. appointed, on the recommendation of Lord Bellamont, the governor of New York, to command the expedition, who, instead of attacking the pirates, was unprincipled enough to turn pirate himself, and having committed various acts of robbery on the high seas, was eventually captured, brought to England, and some time afterwards tried and executed for his offences. Upon this occurrence it was insinuated that the lord chancellor, and the other individuals who had subscribed towards the expedition, were engaged as partners in Kidd's piratical scheme, with full knowledge of his intentions. The enterprise was said, by some speakers in the house of commons, to be framed on a mere pretence of public service, but in truth for the sake of spoil; those who were too tender-conscienced to commence pirates in the first instance, feeling no repugnance to sharing among themselves that which had been unjustly taken from others. So that an undertaking, which was not only innocent, but meritorious and patriotic, was construed, by the blindness of party prejudice, into a premeditated design for robbery and piracy. The chancellor, as a magistrate placed at the head of the highest department of justice, became the peculiar object of invective and reproach, and he was said to have disgraced his high station by participating in an enterprise so scandalous.' Some of the members even went so far as to visit Kidd in Newgate, for the purpose of extracting evidence; but the sturdy pirate stoutly declared, both in private, and upon his examination at the bar of the house, 'that he had never spoken to Lord Somers in his life, and that the only orders he had received were to pursue his voyage against the pirates." A motion in the house of commons was founded upon this absurd imputation, but was rejected by a great majority. Shortly afterwards, after ordering a list of the privy council to be laid before the house, a question was moved in the house of commons, 'That an address should be made to his Majesty to remove John Lord Somers, Chancellor of England, from his presence and councils for ever.' This motion, however, was also negatived by a large majority. In reference to this motion, Matthew Prior, the celebrated wit and poet, who was then under-secretary of state to the Earl of Jersey, in a letter to the Earl of Manchester, dated |