of the press, for the individual benefit of any body of men. Notwithstanding the strong interest which the bill possessed in the support of the minister and of the members for the universities, it was rejected by a majority of forty-five votes, immediately on Mr. Erskine's retiring from the bar. It has been mentioned, as a circumstance much to the credit of the then Lord Elliott, the brother-in-law of Lord North, that though he came, at the desire of his noble relative, from Cornwall, to support the bill, yet, having heard Mr. Erskine's speech, he divided against it, saying publicly in the lobby, that he found it impossible to vote otherwise. *

But, signal as had been the success which attended his exertions, the extraordinary powers of Mr. Erskine's eloquence had not yet been fully developed. He had not hitherto enjoyed the opportunity, in any important case, of addressing to the feelings of a jury that fine union of argument and passion which constituted the character of his oratory. A noble occasion, which might seem expressly designed for the display of his peculiar powers, soon occurred in the trial of Lord George Gordon for high treason. That young nobleman, as it is well known, having been elected the president of the Protestant Association, proceeded, at the head of upwards of forty thousand persons, to the house of commons, to present the petition of the associated protestants. This meeting was unfortunately the origin of the fatal riots which for so many days desolated the metropolis, and shook for a time even the foundations of the government. Shocked at these outrages, Lord George Gordon tendered his services to suppress them, and accompanied the sheriff of London into the city for that purpose; but, notwithstanding this disavowal of any illegal intent, he was afterwards committed to the Tower, and indicted for high treason, in levying war against the king. The trial took place on the 5th February, 1781, when Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Erskine appeared as counsel for the prisoner. The evidence for the crown having been concluded, Mr.

Kenyon, as senior counsel for Lord George, addressed the jury, and, according to the usual course, would have been followed by his junior, Mr. Erskine. He, however, insisted upon reserving his address till the conclusion of the evidence on both sides, which, he said, was matter of great privilege to the prisoner, and for which, he stated, there was a precedent, the authority of which he should insist upon for his client. This being assented to, the witnesses for the defence were examined, and at the close of that evidence, about midnight, Mr. Erskine rose, and addressed to the jury a speech, which, in powerful argument, animated oratory, and successful effect, has, perhaps, never been equalled in this country. After a most argumentative and energetic attack on the dangerous doctrine of constructive treason, he applied himself to the evidence in a manner so singularly skilful, judicious, and masterly, that even in reading the speech, deprived of all the powerful auxiliaries of the presence, the voice, and the action of the speaker, the reader is irresistibly impelled to regard the prisoner as a man, who, whatever might have been his imprudence, stood, in heart and intention, wholly free from offence. The two leading principles, which pervaded the speech, were the unconstitutional nature of the doctrine of constructive treason, and the blameless intentions of the prisoner; and to the enforcing of these two arguments the whole of the speaker's powers were, with the most skilful art, directed. Satisfied that on the establishment of these arguments his client's acquittal would necessarily follow, the advocate never for a single instant lost sight of them, but to their enforcement and illustration devoted every effort of his art.

At the conclusion of his argument against constructive treason, Mr. Erskine thus pledged his individual character for the correctness of the views which he had expounded. "Gentlemen, you have now heard the law of treason; first in the abstract, and, secondly, as it applies to the general features of the case; and you have heard it with as much sincerity as if I had addressed you upon

my oath from the bench where the judges sit. I declare to you solemnly, in the presence of that Great Being, at whose bar we must all hereafter appear, that I have used no one art of an advocate, but have acted the plain unaffected part of a Christian man, instructing the consciences of his fellow-men to do justice. If I have deceived you on the subject, I am myself deceived; and if I am misled through ignorance, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it. I am not stiff in my opinions; but before I change any one of those which I have given you to-day, I must see some direct monument of justice that contradicts them, for the law of England pays no respect to theories, however ingenious, or to authors, however wise; and therefore, unless you hear me refuted by a series of direct precedents, and not by vague doctrines, if you wish to sleep in peace, follow me!

In observing upon the evidence, Mr. Erskine occasionally broke out into a vehemence of expression which almost seems to overstep the bounds of good taste and discretion; but no advocate was ever less likely to be betrayed into an exhibition of passion which the jury could not share with him; and there is no doubt, that in these instances their minds were fully prepared for the reception of those passages, which in the coolness of the closet almost bear a character of extravagance. In arguing upon the construction of certain words attributed to Lord George Gordon, Mr. Erskine exclaimed- "But this I will say, that he must be a ruffian, and not a lawyer, who would dare to tell an English jury, that such ambiguous words, hemmed closely in between others not only innocent but meritorious, are to be adopted to constitute guilt, by rejecting both introduction and sequel, with which they are absolutely irreconcileable and inconsistent." And again, after noticing the offer of the prisoner to government to assist in the quelling of the disturbances, he ventured upon the following bold and extraordinary sentence: "I say, by God, that man is a ruffian, who shall, after this, presume to

build upon such honest, artless conduct as an evidence of guilt." By those who witnessed and felt this singular experiment upon the feelings of the jury, it is said to have been completely successful. "I may now, therefore, relieve you," said Mr. Erskine, in conclusion, "from the pain of hearing me any longer, and be myself relieved from speaking on a subject which agitates and distresses me. Since Lord George Gordon stands clear of every hostile act or purpose against the legislature of his country, or the properties of his fellow-subjects; since the whole tenor of his conduct repels the belief of the traitorous intention charged by the indictment, my task is finished. I shall make no address to your passions: I will not remind you of the long and rigorous confinement he has suffered: I will not speak to you of his great youth, of his illustrious birth, and of his uniformly animated and generous zeal in parliament for the constitution of his country. Such topics might be useful in the balance of a doubtful case, yet even then I should have trusted to the honest hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without excitation. At present, the plain and rigid rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle him to your verdict."

The solicitor-general having replied, and Lord Mansfield having summed up, the jury retired to deliberate, and about three in the morning returned into court, and delivered a verdict of "Not guilty."

So rapidly did the reputation and practice of Mr. Erskine increase, that, on the suggestion of Lord Mansfield, as it is said, it was thought proper, in the year 1783, when he had scarcely been five years at the bar, to confer upon him a patent of precedence.

Talents so extraordinary and eloquence so powerful as Mr. Erskine's, are, in this country, speedily engaged in the public service. His political predilections had already led him to associate himself with those celebrated men, who, during the administration of Lord North, headed the opposition, and whose characters and genius were then in their highest meridian. Fox, Burke, and

Sheridan, the three most splendid names in the modern political history of England, had hitherto preserved unblemished the fair and brilliant reputation with which they entered into public life. The "coalition" had not yet dimmed the splendour of Fox's name; the purity of Burke's principles had not yet departed from him; nor had the fatal web of pecuniary embarrassment been wound round the soul of Sheridan. To associate with men like these was worthy of Erskine; but it was not until after the formation of the coalition ministry that he became the public coadjutor of this distinguished phalanx. When the ill-judged and unfortunate measure of the India bill had been introduced, it became evident that ministers would require every assistance to carry it, opposed as it was by so many and such various interests. The fame and the genius of Erskine at once pointed him out as an invaluable ally; and it was determined to bring him without delay into the house of commons. Sir William Gordon, the member for Portsmouth, was therefore prevailed upon, for an adequate consideration, to resign his seat, to which Mr. Erskine immediately succeeded.

It has not unfrequently happened, that men of the most distinguished reputation at the bar, when introduced into the house of commons, have failed to realise the high expectations of their admirers. Such appears to have been the case with regard to Mr. Erskine, who never acquired any considerable accession of fame by his parliamentary exertions. His first speech was delivered during the debate on the first reading of the East India bill*, and, as reported, bears few marks of those extraordinary talents which distinguished his forensic efforts. The opinion of a person, opposed in principle to Mr. Erskine, who was at that time a member of the house, and who heard the speech, has been preserved. "Mr.

Erskine, who, like Mr. Scott, has since attained to the highest honours and dignities of the bar, first spoke as a member of the house of commons in support of this obnoxious measure. His enemies pronounced the perform

Parl. Hist. vol. xxiii. p. 1245.