SPEECHES OF LORD ERSKINE. THE HONOURABLE THOMAS ERSKINE was the third and youngest son of Henry David, Earl of Buchan, and was born in Scotland, in 1750. In 1764, he entered the navy, but abandoned the service four years afterwards, and obtained a commission in the first regiment of foot, which regiment he accompanied to Minorca, from whence he returned to England in 1772. At the earnest desire of his mother, Mr. Erskine threw up his commission, and, applying himself to the study of the law, became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and at the same time entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner, for the purpose of taking his degree, to which he was entitled by birth, and thereby reducing the number of terms required by the rules of the Inn, to be kept by students previously to being called to the bar. He diligently applied himself to his professional studies, in the chambers of Mr. Buller, one of the most celebrated special pleaders of the time; and afterwards, on Mr. Buller being raised to the bench, he became the pupil of Mr. Wood. In Trinity term, 1778, Mr. Erskine was called to the bar, where fortune befriended him, by affording him an early opportunity of distinguishing himself; and his rise was so peculiarly rapid, that, after being scarcely five years at the bar, a patent of precedence was granted to him on the suggestion of Lord Mansfield. In the same year (1783), he entered Parliament as member for Portsmouth through the influence of Mr. Fox, in the room of Sir William Gordon, who was induced to resign his seat for the purpose of Mr. Erskine's return; and shortly afterwards he received the appointment of AttorneyGeneral to the Prince of Wales, but of which office he was shamefully deprived in 1792 for his defence of Thomas Paine, against whom an information had been filed, for his violent attack on the government and constitution in his noted work called "The Rights of Man." As a reparation for this injustice, Mr. Erskine was appointed by the Prince of Wales, in 1802, Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall. During the administration of Mr. Addington, the office of Attorney-General to the King was offered to him, but he declined it in deference to the wishes of the Prince, at whose instance, according to Mr. Erskine's own account, he was, in 1806, made Lord Chancellor, and created Baron Erskine, of Restormel Castle, in the county of Cornwall. In 1807 he went out of office on the dissolution of the ministry, and seldom afterwards appeared in public. He died on 17th November, 1823, at Almondale, near Edinburgh, and was buried at Uphall church. He was twice married, and had issue, three sons and five daughters, by his first wife. T 250 The style of Lord Erskine's eloquence has been universally admired for its purity, simplicity, and energy, and its complete freedom from all vulgarism, on them the stamp of sincerity and honesty, and to this may be, in a great and is regarded as the model of serious forensic oratory; his addresses bear measure, attributed his great influence and success with juries. SPEECH on showing cause against a Rule for an Information against Captain Baillie, for libel, 24th November, 1778. CAPTAIN BAILLIE, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, considering that great abuses existed in the administration of the charity, and, amongst others, that those whose duty it was, from the offices they filled, to observe the due performance of the contracts for the supply of the hospital were themselves interested in them, much to the prejudice of the charity, had on various occasions presented petitions on the subject to the Directors and Governors of the hospital, and to the Lords of the Admiralty; but finding that they received no attention, he, as a last resource, drew up a formal statement of the case, and caused it to be printed and distributed among the General Governors of the hospital. In this pamphlet, after setting forth the alleged grievance of the contracts being submitted to interested parties for approval, he complained bitterly of lucrative situations in the hospital (designed exclusively for seamen), being filled by landsmen, and insinuated that they were placed there by the Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to serve his own election purposes; and in the heat of his zeal for the exposure of what he considered as gross abuses, he severely reprobated the conduct of many individuals by name, and, among the number, the First Lord of the Admiralty himself. There is no doubt that Captain Baillie was actuated by an honest desire to promote the interest of the charity, which he considered he was bound to protect, and not by any desire to prejudice the individuals of whom he complained, in the eyes of the public; since, instead of publishing his pamphlet generally, he confined its circulation exclusively to the General Governors of the hospital, whose duty it was to investigate the charges preferred. Shortly after the appearance of the pamphlet, Captain Baillie was suspended from office, by the direction of the Board of Admiralty; and the individuals who had been personally attacked applied, in Trinity term, 1778, to the Court of King's Bench, for a rule for a criminal information for libel. This rule coming on for argument in the succeeding Michaelmas term, Captain Baillie's leading counsel first addressed the court in opposition, on the 23rd November, and the court having adjourned till the 24th, Mr. Erskine on that day rose from one of the back benches, and, continuing the argument against the rule, made the following speech. It may be observed, that Mr. Erskine had been only called to the bar on the last day of the preceding term, and it is believed that his speech on this occasion was the first he ever delivered in court. "MY LORD, "I am likewise of counsel for the author of this supposed libel; and if the matter for consideration had been merely a question of private wrong, in which the interests of society were no further concerned than in the protection of the innocent, I should have thought myself well justified, after the very able defence made by the learned gentlemen who have spoken before me, in sparing your lordship, already fatigued with the subject, and in leaving my client to the prosecutor's counsel and the judgment of the court. "But upon an occasion of this serious and dangerous complexion, when a British subject is brought before a court of justice only for having ventured to attack abuses, which owe their continuance to the danger of attacking them; when, without any motives but benevolence, justice, and public spirit, he has ventured to attack them though supported by power, and in that department, too, where it was the duty of his office to detect and expose them; I cannot relinquish the high privilege of defending such a character;—I will not give up even my small share of the honour of repelling and of exposing so odious a prosecution. "No man, my Lord, respects more than I do the authority of the laws, and I trust I shall not let fall a single word to weaken the ground I mean to tread, by advancing propositions which shall oppose or even evade the strictest rules laid down by the court in questions of this nature. "Indeed, it would be as unnecessary as it would be indecent; it will be sufficient for me to call your lordship's attention to the marked and striking difference between the writing before you, and I may venture to say almost every other, that has been the subject of argument on a rule for a criminal information. "The writings, or publications, which have been brought before this court, or before grand juries, as libels on individuals, have been attacks on the characters of private men, by writers stimulated sometimes by resentment, sometimes, perhaps, by a mistaken zeal; or they have been severe and unfounded strictures on the characters of public men, proceeding from officious persons taking upon themselves the censorial office, without temperance or due information, and without any call of duty to examine into the particular department, of which they choose to become the voluntary guardians :—a guardianship which they generally content themselves with holding in a newspaper for two or three posts, and then, with a generosity which shines on all mankind alike, correct every department of the state, and find, at the end of their lucubrations, that they themselves are the only honest men in the community. When men of this description suffer, however we may be occasionally sorry for their misdirected zeal, it is impossible to argue against the law that censures them. "But I beseech your lordship to compare these men and their works, with my client, and the publication before the court. "Who is he?—What is his duty?—What has he written?—To whom has he written?—And what motive induced him to write? "He is Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Hospital of Greenwich,-a palace built for the reception of aged and disabled men, who have maintained the empire of England on the seas, and into the offices and emoluments of which, by the express words of the charter,* as well as by the evident spirit of the institution, no landmen are to be admitted. "His duty-in the treble capacity of Lieutenant-Governor, Director, and a General Governor, is, in conjunction with others, to watch over the internal economy of this sacred charity; to see that the setting days of these brave and godlike men are spent in comfort and peace, and that the ample revenues, appropriated by this generous nation to their support, are not perverted and misapplied. "He has written, that this benevolent and politic institution has degenerated from the system established by its wise and munificent founders ;—that its governors consist indeed of a great number of illustrious names and reverend characters, but whose different labours and destinations in the most important offices of civil life rendered a deputation indispensably necessary for the ordinary government of the Hospital;-that the difficulty of convening this splendid corporation had gradually brought the management of its affairs more particularly under the direction of the Admiralty;—that a new charter has been surreptitiously obtained, in repugnance to the original institution, which enlarges and confirms that dependence; that the present First Lord of the Admiralty (who, for reasons sufficiently obvious, does not appear publicly in this prosecution) has, to serve the base and worthless purposes of corruption, introduced his prostituted freeholders of Huntingdon into places destined for the honest freeholders of the seas;-that these men (among whom are the prosecutors) are not only landmen, in defiance of the charter, and wholly dependent on the Admiralty in their views and situations, but, to the reproach of all order and government, are suffered to act as Directors and Officers of Greenwich, while they themselves hold the very subordinate offices, the control of which is the object of that direction ;‡-and inferring from thence (as a general proposition) that men in such situations cannot, as human nature is constituted, act with that freedom and singleness which their duty requires, he justly attributes to these causes the grievances which his gallant brethren actually suffer, and which are the generous subject of his complaint. "He has written this, my lord, not to the public at large, which has no jurisdiction to reform the abuses he complains of; but to those only whose express duty it is to hear and to correct them; and I trust they will be * The words of the charter are- " Provided that all officers to be employed in the said Hospital be seafaring men, or such who have lost their limbs or been otherwise disabled in the sea service." Nearly 200; including the chief officers of State, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Judges, Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, and the principal public officers. In allusion to the persons filling the offices of superintendents of the contracts for the supply of the Hospital being themselves interested therein. solemnly heard and corrected. He has not published, but only distributed his book among the governors, to produce inquiry, and not to calumniate. "The motive which induced him to write, and to which I shall by and by claim the more particalar attention of the Court, was to produce reformation —a reformation which it was his most pointed duty to attempt, which he has laboured with the most indefatigable zeal to accomplish, and against which every other channel was blocked up. “My Lord, I will point to the proof of all this: I will show your lordship that it was his duty to investigate-that the abuses he has investigated do really exist, and arise from the ascribed causes-that he has presented them to a competent jurisdiction, and not to the public-and that he was under the indispensable necessity of taking the step he has done to save Greenwich Hospital from ruin. "Your lordship will observe by this subdivision, that I do not wish to form a specious desultory defence: because, fecling that every link of such subdivision will in the investigation produce both law and fact in my favour, I have spread the subject open before the eye of the Court, and invite the strictest scrutiny. Your lordship will likewise observe by this arrangement, that I mean to confine myself to the general lines of his defence; the various affidavits have already been so ably and judiciously commented on by my learned leaders, to whom I am sure Captain Baillie must ever feel himself under the highest obligations, that my duty has become narrowed to the province of throwing his defence within the closest compass, that it may leave a distinct and decided impression. "And first, my lord, as to its being his particular duty to inquire into the different matters which are the subject of his publication, and of the prosecutors' complaint: I believe, my lords, I need say little on this head to convince your lordships, who are yourselves Governors of Greenwich Hospital, that the defendant, in the double capacity of Lieutenant-Governor and Director, is most indispensably bound to superintend everything that can affect the prosperity of the institution, either in the internal economy or appropriation of revenue; but I cannot help reading two copies of letters from the Admiralty in the year 1742-I read them from the publication, because their authenticity is sworn to by the defendant in his affidavit-and I read them to show the sense of that Board with regard to the right of inquiry and complaint in all officers of the Hospital, even in the departments not allotted to them by their commissions. 666 "To Sir John Jennings, Governor of Greenwich Hospital. "Admiralty Office, April 19, 1742. 'SIR,-The Directors of Greenwich Hospital having acquainted my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, upon complaint made to them that the men have been defrauded of part of their just allowance of broth and pease-soup, by the smallness of the pewter dishes, which, in their opinion, have been artificially beaten flat, and that there are other frauds and abuses |