"I have been in cabinets where years afterwards , the great struggle has not been to advance the public interests; not by coalition and mutual assistance to strengthen the hands of government, but, by cabals, jealousy, and mutual distrust, to thwart each other's designs, and to circumvent each other, in order to obtain power and preeminence."

Lord Mansfield had now attained the station which, it is very probable, he had always regarded as the summit of his ambition. His temperament, cautious even to timidity, had prevented him from preferring those just pretensions to political offices to which his fame and talents entitled him; the same reasons probably induced him to refuse the office of the great seal, when it was, upon more than one occasion, tendered to him. The resignation of the Duke of Newcastle, at the close of the year 1756, was shortly afterwards followed by that of Lord Hardwicke, the chancellor, and strenuous endeavours were made to induce Lord Mansfield's acceptance of the seals; but his attachment to the Duke of Newcastle, and his disinclination to a political life, led him to decline the office. The great seal was consequently given in commission to Lord Chief Justice Willes, Mr. Justice Wilmot, and Mr. Baron Smyth. In the following year, it was again offered to Lord Mansfield, upon whose repeated refusal, it was committed to the hands of Sir Robert Henley, afterwards created Lord Northington. +

One of the first occasions on which Lord Mansfield distinguished himself in the house of lords, after his elevation to the peerage, was in the debate on the bill for the amendment of the habeas corpus act. A gentleman having been impressed and confined in the Savoy, his friends applied for a writ of habeas corpus; but as the imprisonment was not for any criminal matter, it was found that the statute of 31 Car. 2. c. 2. did not apply. This palpable deficiency in the law attracted

Parl. Hist. vol, xviii. p. 279. + Walpole's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 106. + Id. p. 226.

the attention of some friends to liberty, who introduced a bill into the house of commons for the purpose of extending the provisions of the statute of Charles II. to cases where the imprisonment was not upon any criminal charge. The bill passed the lower house, but was violently opposed in the house of lords by Lord Mansfield and Lord Hardwicke. The king himself talked openly against the bill at his levee, and the supporters of it were understood to incur his displeasure. The motives which actuated Lord Mansfield in his opposition to a bill so reasonable and so constitutional, are attributed by Horace Walpole to personal feelings; and such was the earnestness and so great the ingenuity and eloquence which he exerted on the occasion, that the bill was ultimately rejected. "The fate of the bill," says Horace Walpole, " which could not be procured by the sanction of the judges, Lord Mansfield was forced to take upon himself. He spoke for two hours and a half: his voice and manner, composed of harmonious solemnity, were the least graces of his speech. I am not averse to own that I never heard so much argument, so much sense, so much oratory united. His deviations into the abstruse minutiæ of the law served but as a foil to the luminous parts of the oration. Perhaps it was the only speech which, in my time at least, had real effect; that is, convinced many persons; nor did I ever know how true a votary I was to liberty, till I found that I was not one of the number staggered by that speech. I took as many notes of it as I possibly could; and, prolix as they would be, I would give them to the reader, if it would not be injustice to Lord Mansfield to curtail and mangle, as I should, by the want of connection, so beautiful a thread of argumentation.” * In the year 1816, a bill † passed without opposition, similar in its provisions to that which was rejected by the efforts of Lord Mansfield.

On the occurrence of the disputes between England and her North American colonies, Lord Mansfield sup

ported the right of the mother country to tax the colonists, without any assent on their part; and in the debate which took place in the month of February, 1766. spoke at considerable length on the subject. Of that speech a copy, corrected with his lordship's own hand, has been preserved. * A great portion of it was directed in answer to Lord Camden, who had spoken against the right of taxation without assent. In reply to those arguments, Lord Mansfield insists upon the unintelligible doctrine of virtual representation.

"There can be no doubt but that the inhabitants of the colonies are represented in parliament, as the greatest part of the people of England are represented; among nine millions of whom, there are eight who have no votes in electing members of parliament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency of the colonies upon parliament, which arises to it upon the ground of representation, goes to the whole present constitution of Great Britain; and I suppose it is not meant to new-model that too. People may form their own speculative ideas of perfection, and indulge their own fancies, or those of other men. Every man in this country has his particular notions of liberty; but perfection never did, and never can, exist in any human institution. For what purpose, then, are arguments drawn from a distinction in which there is no real difference, of a virtual and actual representation? A member of parliament, chosen for any borough, represents not only the constituents and inhabitants of that particular place, but he represents the inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain. He represents the city of London, and all other the commons of this land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain; and is in duty and conscience bound to take care of their interests."

According to another report of his lordship's speech preserved in the Hardwicke Collectiont, he advanced in the course of his argument doctrines which in other

Holliday, p. 242.

+ Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 172.

times would have subjected him to the well-merited censures of the commons. "In Great Britain the legislative is in parliament, the executive in the crown. The parliament first depended upon tenures. How did representation by election first arise? Why, by the favour of the crown."

Lord Mansfield thus concluded:-" You may abdicate your right over the colonies. Take care, my lords, how you do so, for such an act will be irrevocable. Proceed then, my lords, with spirit and firmness, and when you shall have established your authority, it will then be a time to shew your lenity. The Americans, as I said before, are a very good people, and I wish them exceeding well; but they are heated and inflamed. The noble lord who spoke before concluded with a prayer; I cannot end better than by saying to it Amen! and in the words of Maurice, prince of Orange, concerning the Hollanders, God bless this industrious, frugal, and well-meaning, but easily-deluded people.'

It may not be improper in this place to notice the part which, at subsequent periods, Lord Mansfield took with regard to the American question. In the stormy debate of the 7th of February, 1775, on the address to the king upon the disturbances in North America, his lordship stated, that this country was reduced to the alternative of adopting coercive measures, or for ever relinquishing her claim of sovereignty and dominion over the colonies. He argued also that the Americans were in a state of actual rebellion, and asserted the right of the mother country to repress them. In answer to some observations of the Duke of Grafton, he explained and defended the part that he had taken as a minister of the crown in the different administrations which had governed the country." He said he had been a cabinet minister part of the last reign, and the whole of the present; that there was a nominal and an efficient cabinet; that for several years he acted as a member of the latter, and consequently deliberated with the king's

administration in which the noble marquis (Rockingham) presided at the head of the treasury, and some considerable time before the noble duke succeeded him in that department, he had prayed his majesty to excuse him, and from that day to the present he had declined to act as an efficient cabinet minister. He said he had lived with every administration on equal good terms, and never refused his advice when applied to'; that particularly the noble marquis must recollect his giving him every assistance his poor abilities were capable of affording; nor was it his fault that the noble duke did not experience the same; for had he been applied to, he would have cheerfully rendered him every assistance in his power." The attack made upon Lord Mansfield by the Duke of Grafton was followed up by Lord Shelburne. "The noble and learned lord," said he, "has disclaimed having any direct concern in the present business, and endeavours to strengthen his bare assertions by shewing what little or no temptation he could have to interfere. But the noble lord knows, every noble lord in this house knows, a court has many allurements besides even place or emolument. His lordship denies any obligations or personal favours whatever. I am ready to give his lordship full credit for this declaration; but he will permit me, at the same time, to observe, that smiles may do a great deal; that if he had nothing to ask for himself, he has had friends, relations, and dependents amply provided for; I will not say beyond their deserts, but this I may say, much beyond their most sanguine expectations." In answer to these observations, Lord Mansfield, rising with great passion, said, "He thought it had been the leading characteristic of that assembly, when contrasted with the other house, which too often descended to altercations and personal reflections, always to conduct themselves like gentlemen; but he was sorry to see this rule departed from this evening for the first time. He charged the last noble lord with uttering the most gross falsehoods. He totally denied that he had any hand in framing all the bills of the last session;