The first term. 1798, Hilary and Easter. 'From the 19th June, 1772, to June, 1789, I received at the bar 45,912l. 88. 8d. Of this, 36,9391. 3s. 11d. was received by me in the last five years and a half. "1788. N.B. In this year the Court of Chancery was shut from the first day of Michaelmas Term till the 14th or 15th of December; and for the very few days on which the Chancellor or the Commissioners sat, little or no business was done. In this year but one long cause was heard in the Court of Chancery, which was heard by Lord Chief Justice Carleton; and not one long cause was heard in the Exchequer in Michaelmas Term; and one decree to account, and only one long cause in Trinity Term.' John Fitz Gibbon made in his first term, Trinity, 1772, 94l. 14s. 9d.-a very respectable commencement, which I suspect few who have been called in my time can boast. One very distinguished contemporary of mine, who now N.B. This year I was prevented appearing in the Courts during the whole of the Easter Term. 2 N.B. This year (1783) I did not attend the Courts after the first week in Easter Term, nor during the whole of Trinity Term. To this I add the sum which I received March 1783, and begin a new account from the time I was appointed Attorney-General. Easter Term, 1783 £ s. d. 55 14 CHAP. XLV. adorns the Bench, told me he received twenty-eight guineas his first term, which I thought was doing well, but it was nothing to the large sums he had soon to enter in his feebook. On the last day for drawing Declarations in term, as we were both leaving the Law Library of the Four Courts, Dublin, about half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, I said: 'I am sure you have had a busy day.' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I have been drawing Declarations since three o'clock this morning.' He must have made fifty guineas in the progress of that day's hard work. The first fee which a young barrister receives he regards with peculiar affection-it is an earnest of the success which he hopes to achieve. Fitz Gibbon's first fee was not the usual guinea, but a substantial one-5l. 138. 9d. The Fitz case was marked Farrell v. Crosbie.' His last fee was in the cause of Redmond v. Carr, in Trinity term, 1789. It was worth receipting, 391. 5s. 3d.1 In the previous year, 1788, Fitz Gibbon was Counsel in Immense practice. no fewer than one thousand three hundred and sixty-seven. cases, but then he was Attorney-General, and a brief was sent him in every Crown case, when he merely decided whether or not to prosecute. The fees were not large, indeed many of them were under three guineas. In some years the fees are thus entered in his book: Gibbon's first fee. Munster John Fitz Gibbon naturally selected the Munster Circuit Selects the as that he would travel. His father's reputation as a circuit. careful and painstaking lawyer was of great use to him; and the large estates of his father were in the neighbourhood of Limerick, one of the Assize towns, which was not without some influence on the legal status of the heir. I cannot say how the shillings and pence came to be computed, but suppose the difference between Irish and British currency occasioned it. 2 Dublin University Mag. vol. xxx. p. 676. CHAP. Brethren on the Munster circuit. Personal appearance and manner. The Munster Circuit has always numbered names high in the legal annals of Ireland, and at this period Barry Yelverton,' John Philpot Curran,' and Hugh Carleton3 were acknowledged leaders. Into the agreeable companionship of men of enlarged minds, cultivated tastes, and social habits, which endear to my mind the memory of the Munster bar, John Fitz Gibbon was kindly received. Fitz Gibbon was soon a great favourite with the discriminating attorneys of the Munster Circuit. Of slender figure, not very robust health, and rather delicate features, he had the haughty air, the imperious glance, and despotic will of a Roman emperor. He was an able and ready advocate, exceedingly painstaking, always master of his case, and these qualifications ensured him abundance of briefs. The solicitors of the circuit towns-Ennis, Limerick, Tralee, and Cork-eagerly sought the rising junior, and contributed in no small degree to his rapid progress at the Bar. Unfortunately, the traditions of the circuits Success on which I have collected' do not go so far back as the last century, but I am able to state that John Fitz Gibbon was regarded from the first as one of the most promising members of the Circuit. Before he was quite four years called, his professional income exceeded a thousand a year; and when we remember that he derived an income of six thousand a year from his father, and was not incited to labour by the sharp spur of necessity, we may be sure it was not mere love of money that made Fitz Gibbon work hard. But there are other spurs beside poverty, and the adage is true, 'A spur in the head is worth two in the heels.' Ambition-the thirst of great minds, the greed of his circuit. 1 Mr. Yelverton was called to the Bar in 1764. Attorney-General in 1782, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1784, with the title of Lord Avonmore, in 1789. He died in August 1805. 2 Mr. Curran was called in 1775. Appointed Master of the Rolls in 1806. Retired from the Bench in 1813; died in 1817. Mr. Carleton was a native of Cork, born in 1739, and became SolicitorGeneral in 1779, he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1787, and elevated to the peerage as Baron Carleton in 1789. He retired on a pension in 1802, and died in 1826. Recollections of the Munster Bar.' Law Magazine for the year 1858. power, the lust of dominion was John Fitz Gibbon's spur; ever goading, goading, and urging him onwards and upwards, till he reached the pinnacle of his greatness. How he rose, I proceed to trace. The success of his conduct on the College Election Petition in 1778 strongly recommended him to the electors as a Member for the University, and he was placed in the distinguished position of Member of the Irish Parliament for the University of Dublin in 1780. CHAP. XLV. CHAP. College requisition to support the Decla ration. Fitz Gibbon's reply. CHAPTER XLVI. LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR EARL OF CLARE, CONTINUED. FITZ GIBBON was one of the members of the Dublin University when the electors called on him and on his colleague, Hussey Burgh, to support Mr. Grattan's Declaration of Rights. Burgh's reply forms a strong contrast to that of Fitz Gibbon. Burgh's answer was concise and firm, short and pithy; Fitz Gibbon's more diffuse and argumentative. It ran thus: 'Gentlemen,-I am just now honoured with your instructions, which have been forwarded to me by post. Be assured I shall always feel the utmost satisfaction in receiving the suggestions of that very great and respectable body which I have the honour to represent; and that you shall ever find me ready, to the best of my ability, to vindicate your rights. I have always been of opinion that the claims of the British Parliament to make laws for this country is a daring usurpation on the rights of a free people, and have uniformly asserted the opinion in public and in private. When a declaration of the legislative right was moved in the House of Commons, I did oppose it, upon a decided conviction that it was a measure of dangerous tendency, and withal inadequate to the purpose for which it was intended. However, I do, without hesitation, yield my opinion on this subject to yours, and will, whenever such a declaration shall be moved, give it my support. With respect to an explanation of the law of Poyning, I confess the more I consider the subject the more difficult it appears to me. Allow me to remind you that the University did, on a very recent occasion, experience that this law, in its present form, may operate beneficially. A total |