Part 7 (1/2)
The common law chiefs were slow to follow in the Lord Keeper's steps, and many years pa.s.sed before the reform, effected in Chancery by accident or design, or by a lucky combination of both, was adopted in the other great courts. In his memoir of Lord Cowper, Campbell observes: ”His example with respect to New Year's Gifts was not speedily followed; and it is said that till very recently the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas invited the officers of his court to a dinner at the beginning of the year, when each of them deposited under his plate a present in the shape of a Bank of England note, instead of a gift of oxen roaring at his levee, as in ruder times.” There is no need to remind the reader in this place of the many veracious and the many apocryphal stories concerning the basket justices of Fielding's time--stories showing that in law courts of the lowest sort applicants for justice were accustomed to fee the judges with victuals and drink until a comparatively recent date.
Lucky would it have been for the first Earl of Macclesfield if the custom of selling places in Chancery had been put an end to forever by the Lord Keeper who abolished the custom of New Year's Gifts; but the judge who at the sacrifice of one-fourth of his official income swept away the pernicious usage which had from time immemorial marked the opening of each year, saw no reason why he should purge Chancery of another scarcely less objectionable practice. Following the steps of their predecessors, the Chancellors Cowper, Harcourt, and Macclesfield sold subordinate offices in their court; and whereas all previous Chancellors had been held blameless for so doing, Lord Macclesfield was punished with official degradation, fine, imprisonment, and obloquy.
By birth as humble[16] as any layman who before or since his time has held the seals, Thomas Parker raised himself to the woolsack by great talents and honorable industry. As an advocate he won the respect of society and his profession; as a judge he ranks with the first expositors of English law. Although for imputed corruption he was hurled with ignominy from his high place, no one has ventured to charge him with venality on the bench. That he was a spotless character, or that his career was marked by grandeur of purpose, it would be difficult to establish; but few Englishmen could at the present time be found to deny that he was in the main an upright peer, who was not wittingly neglectful of his duty to the country which had loaded him with wealth and honors.
Amongst the many persons ruined by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble were certain Masters of Chancery, who had thrown away on that wild speculation large sums of which they were the official guardians. Lord Macclesfield was one of the victims on whom the nation wreaked its wrath at a crisis when universal folly had produced universal disaster. To punish the masters for their delinquencies was not enough; greater sacrifices than a few comparatively obscure placemen were demanded by the suitors and wards whose money had been squandered by the fraudulent trustees. The Lord Chancellor should be made responsible for the Chancery defalcations. That was the will of the country. No one pretended that Lord Macclesfield had originated the practice which permitted Masters in Chancery to speculate with funds placed under their care; attorneys and merchants were well aware that in the days of Harcourt, Cowper, Wright, and Somers, it had been usual for masters to pocket interest accruing from suitors' money; notorious also was it that, though the Chancellor was theoretically the trustee of the money confided to his court, the masters were its actual custodians. Had the Chancellor known that the masters were trafficking in dangerous investments to the probable loss of the public, duty would have required him to examine their accounts and place all trust-moneys beyond their reach; but until the crash came, Lord Macclesfield knew neither the actual worthlessness of the South Sea Stock, nor the embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances of the defaulting masters, nor the peril of the persons committed to his care. The system which permitted the masters to speculate with money not their own was execrable, but the Lord Chancellor was not the parent of that system.
Infuriated by the national calamity, in which they were themselves great sufferers, the Commons impeached the Chancellor, charging him with high crimes and misdemeanors, of which the peers unanimously declared him guilty. In this famous trial the great fact established against his lords.h.i.+p was that he had sold masters.h.i.+ps to the defaulters. It appeared that he had not only sold the places, but had stood out for very high prices; the inference being, that in consideration of these large sums he had left the purchasers without the supervision usually exercised by Chancellors over such officers, and had connived at the practices which had been followed by ruinous results. To this it was replied, that if the Chancellor had sold the places at higher prices than his predecessors, he had done so because the places had become much more valuable; that at the worst he had but sold them to the highest bidder, after the example of his precursors; that the inference was not supported by any direct testimony.
Very humorous was some of the evidence by which the sale of the masters.h.i.+ps was proved. Master Elde deposed that he bought his office for 5000 guineas, the bargain being finally settled and fulfilled after a personal interview with the accused lord. Master Thurston, another purchaser at the high rate of 5000 guineas, paid his money to Lady Macclesfield. It must be owned that these sums were very large, but their magnitude does not fix fraudulent purpose upon the Chancellor.
That he believed himself fairly ent.i.tled to a moderate present on appointing to a masters.h.i.+p is certain; that he regarded 2000 as the gratuity which he might accept, without blus.h.i.+ng at its publication, may be inferred from the rest.i.tution of 3250 which he made to one of the purchasers for 5250 at a time when he antic.i.p.ated an inquiry into his conduct; that he felt himself acting indiscreetly if not wrongfully in pressing for such large sums is testified by the caution with which he conferred with the purchasers and the secrecy with which he accepted their money.
His defence before the peers admitted the sales of the places, but maintained that the transactions were legitimate.
The defence was of no avail. When the question of guilty or not guilty was put to the peers, each of the n.o.ble lords present answered, ”Guilty, upon my honor.” Sentenced to pay a fine of 30,000, and undergo imprisonment until the mulct was paid, the unfortunate statesman bitterly repented the imprudence which had exposed him to the vengeance of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the pa.s.sions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that ”Staffords.h.i.+re had produced the three greatest scoundrels of England--Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wilde, and Tom Parker.” Jonathan Wilde was executed in 1725--the year of Lord Macclesfield's impeachment; and Jack Sheppard died on the gallows at Tyburn, November 16, 1724.
Throughout the inquiry, and after the adverse verdict, George I.
persisted in showing favor to the disgraced Chancellor; and when the violent emotions of the crisis had pa.s.sed away it was generally admitted by enlightened critics of public events that Lord Macclesfield had been unfairly treated. The scape-goat of popular wrath, he suffered less for his own faults, than for the evil results of a bad system; and at the present time--when the silence of more than a hundred and thirty years rests upon his tomb--Englishmen, with one voice, acknowledge the valuable qualities that raised him to eminence, and regret the proceedings which consigned him in his old age to humiliation and gloom.
[15] It should be observed that many persons are of opinion that the Lord Keeper's a.s.sertion on this point was not an artifice, but a simple statement of fact. To those who take this view, his lords.h.i.+p's position seems alike ridiculous and respectable--respectable because he actually intended to forbear from taking the barrister's money; ridiculous because, through clumsy and inadequate arrangements, he missed the other and not less precious gifts which he did not mean to decline. Anyhow, the critics admit that credit is due to him for persisting in a change--wrought in the first instance partly by honorable design and partly by accident.
[16] The cases of John Scott, Philip Yorke, and Edward Sugden are before the mind of the present writer, when he pens the sentence to which this note refers. The social extraction of the English bar will be considered in a later chapter of this work.
CHAPTER XVI.
A ROD PICKLED BY WILLIAM COLE.
”A p.r.o.neness to take bribes may be generated from the habit of taking fees,” said Lord Keeper Williams in his Inaugural Address, making an ungenerous allusion to Francis Bacon, whilst he uttered a statement which was no calumny upon King James's Bench and Bar, though it is signally inapplicable to lawyers of the present day.
Of Williams, tradition preserves a story that ill.u.s.trates the prevalence of judicial corruption in the seventeenth century, and the jealousy with which that Right Reverend Lord Keeper watched for attempts to tamper with his honesty. Whilst he was taking exercise in the Great Park of Nonsuch House, his attention was caught by a church recently erected at the cost of a rich Chancery suitor. Having expressed satisfaction with the church, Williams inquired of George Minors, ”Has he not a suit depending in Chancery?” and on receiving an answer in the affirmative, observed, ”he shall not fare the worse for building of churches.” These words being reported to the pious suitor, he not illogically argued that the Keeper was a judge likely to be influenced in making his decisions by matters distinct from the legal merits of the case put before him.
Acting on this impression, the good man forthwith sent messengers to Nonsuch House, bearing gifts of fruits and poultry to the holder of the seals. ”Nay, carry them back,” cried the judge, looking with a grim smile from the presents to George Minors; ”nay, carry them back, George, and tell your friend that he shall not fare the better for sending of presents.”
Rich in satire directed against law and its professors, the literature of the Commonwealth affords conclusive testimony of the low esteem in which lawyers were held in the seventeenth century by the populace, and shows how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen of the long robe would practice any sort of fraud or extortion for the sake of personal advantage. In the pamphlets and broadsides, in the squibs and ballads of the period, may be found a wealth of quaint narrative and broad invective, setting forth the rascality of judges and attorneys, barristers and scriveners. Any literary effort to throw contempt upon the law was sure of success. The light jesters, who made merry with the phraseology and costumes of Westminster Hall, were only a few degrees less welcome than the stronger and more indignant scribes who cried aloud against the sins and sinners of the courts. When simple folk had expended their rage in denunciations of venal eloquence and unjust judgments, they amused themselves with laughing at the antiquated verbiage of the rascals who sought to conceal their bad morality under worse Latin. 'A New Modell, or the Conversion of the Infidell Terms of the Law: For the Better promoting of misunderstanding according to Common Sense,' is a publication consisting of a cover or fly-leaf and two leaves, that appeared about a year before the Restoration. The wit is not brilliant; its humor is not free from uncleanness; but its comic renderings[17] of a hundred law terms ill.u.s.trate the humor of the times.
More serious in aim, but not less comical in result, is William Cole's 'A Rod for the Lawyers. London, Printed in the year 1659.' The preface of this mad treatise ends thus--”I do not altogether despair but that before I dye I may see the Inns of Courts, or dens of Thieves, converted into Hospitals, which were a rare piece of justice; that as they formerly have immured those that robbed the poor of houses, so they may at last preserve the poor themselves.”
Another book touching on the same subject and belonging to the same period, is, 'Sagrir, or Doomsday drawing nigh; With Thunder and Lightning to Lawyers, (1653) by John Rogers.'
Violent, even for a man holding Fifth-Monarchy views, John Rogers prefers a lengthy indictment against lawyers, for whose delinquencies and heinous offence he admits neither apology nor palliation. In his opinion all judges deserve the death of Arnold and Hall, whose last moments were provided for by the hangman. The wearers of the long robe are perjurers, thieves, enemies of mankind; their inst.i.tutions are hateful, and their usages abominable. In olden time they were less powerful and rapacious. But prosperity soon exaggerated all their evil qualities. Sketching the rise of the profession, the author observes--”These men would get sometimes Parents, Friends, Brothers, Neighbors, sometimes _others_ to be (in their absence) Agents, Factors, or Solicitors for them at Westminster, and as yet they had no stately houses or mansions to live in, as they have now (called Inns of Court), but they lodged like countrymen or strangers in ordinary Inns. But afterwards, when the interests of lawyers began to look big (as in Edward III.'s days), they got mansions or colleges, which they called Inns, and by the king's favor had an addition of honor, whence they were called Inns of Court.”[18]
The familiar anecdotes which are told as ill.u.s.trations of Chief Justice Hale's integrity are very ridiculous, but they serve to show that the judges of his time were believed to be very accessible to corrupt influences. During his tenure of the Chiefs.h.i.+p of the Exchequer, Hale rode the Western Circuit, and met with the loyal reception usually accorded to judges on circuit in his day. Amongst other attentions offered to the judges on this occasion was a present of venison from a wealthy gentleman who was concerned in a cause that was in due course called for hearing. No sooner was the call made than Chief Baron Hale resolved to place his reputation for judicial honesty above suspicion, and the following scene occurred:--
”_Lord Chief Baron._--'Is this plaintiff the gentleman of the same name who hath sent me the venison?' _Judge's servant._--'Yes, please you, my lord.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'Stop a bit, then. Do not yet swear the jury. I cannot allow the trial to go on till I have paid him for his buck!' _Plaintiff._--'I would have your lords.h.i.+p to know that neither myself nor my forefathers have ever sold venison, and I have done nothing to your lords.h.i.+p which we have not done to every judge that has come this circuit for centuries bygone.' _Magistrate of the County._--'My lord, I can confirm what the gentleman says for truth, for twenty years back.' _Other Magistrates._--'And we, my lord, know the same.' _Lord Chief Baron._--'That is nothing to me. The Holy Scripture says, 'A gift perverteth the ways of judgment.' I will not suffer the trial to go on till the venison is paid for. Let my butler count down the full value thereof.' _Plaintiff._--'I will not disgrace myself and my ancestors by becoming a venison butcher. From the needless dread of _selling_ justice, your lords.h.i.+p _delays_ it. I withdraw my record.'”