CHAP. XLVI. relative to the rank of Chief Justice, and the title of Lord Earlsfort,' adjudged the Sheriff guilty, and sentenced him to be fined. five marks, or imprisoned for a week. The matter was brought before Parliament, and on February 24, 1784, Motion Lord Charles Fitz Gerald moved, That the proceedings of attachment the Court of King's Bench in attaching the Sheriff, and in 1785. punishing him in a summary way, as for a contempt, was contrary to the principles of the Constitution, as depriving him of his trial by jury, and is a precedent of dangerous tendency.' The motion was seconded by Mr. Brownlow. The power of attaching the Sheriff for holding a public meeting, assembled pursuant to requisition, caused a very animated debate in the Irish House of Commons. ran's speech in When Mr. Curran rose to address the House, he ob- Mr. Curserved the Attorney-General, whose conduct was most involved in the issue, indulging, or pretending to indulge, the debate. in sleep upon one of the benches. This was at once seized upon as a good text by the orator. I hope,' he said, 'I may be allowed to speak to this great question without disturbing the sleep of any right honourable Member; and yet perhaps I ought rather to envy than to blame his tranquillity. I do not feel myself so happily tempered as to be lulled to rest by the storms that shake the land, but if they invite rest to any, that rest ought not to be lavished on the guilty spirit.'3 General's He then proceeded to argue the question before the Chair, and having concluded, the Attorney-General, who had awakened during part at least of Curran's speech, delivered one of his usual caustic harangues, concluding with the opinion, that it was vain for any puny babbler Attorneywith vile calumny to blast the Judges of the land.' Stung reply. by the plain personal allusion, Curran retorted, "The gen- Curran's tleman has called me babbler. I cannot think that this retort. is meant as a disgrace, because in another Parliament, before I had the honour of a seat in this House, and when I was in the gallery, I have heard a young lawyer called 2 Grattan's Life, vol. iii. p. 213. Curran's Speeches. 1 Afterwards Earl of Clonmel. CHAP. babbler-the Attorney-General. I do not indeed recollect that there were sponsors at the baptismal font, nor was there any occasion, as the infant had promised and vowed so many things in his own name. Indeed, Sir, I find it difficult to reply, for I am not accustomed to pronounce a panegyric on myself. I do not well know how to do it; but since I cannot tell the House what I am, I will tell what I am not. I am not a young man whose respect in person and character depends on the importance of my office. I am not a man who thrusts himself into the foreground of a picture which ought to be occupied by a better figure. I am not a man who replies by invective. when sinking beneath the weight of argument. I am not a man who denied the necessity of Parliamentary reform at a time when I proved the expediency of it by reviling my own constituents, the parish-clerk, the sexton, and the gravedigger; and if there is any man who can apply what I am not to himself, I leave him to think of it in the Committee, and contemplate it when he goes home.' The Ministry had a majority, the resolution having only 71 for, to 143 against. A resolution was brought forward a few days later by Mr. Flood, That the practice of attachment for contempt of court stands in the same ground of law in both kingdoms, and ought not to be extended further in Ireland than in England.' This was also ably argued, but rejected by 120 to 48. CHAPTER XLVII. LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR EARL OF CLARE, CONTINUED. CHAP. XLVII. The question of I NOW approach the great question which tended for the time to endanger the relations between England and Ireland, and, divested of all the colouring to be given by high-sounding phrases and questions of State policy, Regency. it is not very creditable to find how much party spirit, and a desire to hold the reins of Government, were mixed up with the sad affliction which had befallen the King. In 1788 the subjects of the Empire became aware of the melancholy fact that his Majesty King George III. had lost his reason.1 It was necessary to place him under restraint, and the eminent physicians, Doctors Willis and Warren, with others, attended his Majesty. Mr. Pitt, then Prime Minister, felt reluctant to entrust the Prince of Wales, who of course was heir apparent, with a Regency unfettered by conditions. The Prince was supposed to have shown such a predilection for the Whig party, that Pitt, and his colleagues, felt their tenure of office depended upon restricting the power of the Prince Regent, and he and his party spread this notion amongst the people. The Whig party, led by Charles James Fox, and, it is said, advised by Lord Loughborough, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, but expecting to be Lord Chancellor under the Regency, insisted that the Prince should not be restricted, that he had as clear a right to assume the reins of government unfettered as if his Majesty had He had been afflicted with temporary insanity in 1765, but the fact was concealed from the public.-Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors of England, vol. v. p. 581. 2 Life of Grattan, vol. iii. p. 342. CHAP. XLVII. Mr. Pitt's letter to of Wales. undergone a natural demise. The Chancellor of England, Lord Thurlow, was in deep perplexity. He did not wish to resign the Great Seal, and he was in this dilemma. If he sided with Pitt he was sure to be displaced by the Prince Regent on the first opportunity; if he went against Pitt, he was not quite sure that he would be allowed to retain office, as Lord Loughborough had strong claims on the Whig party. Lord Thurlow was sounded by the Prince's party, who wished to gain so learned an ally, and his Lordship showed a disposition to encourage the Prince to hold out for unrestrained powers. With a keen eye to his own security, Lord Thurlow required a distinct promise that he should retain the Great Seal in the event of the Regency, and an effort was made to induce Lord Loughborough to forego his claim, and his reply conveys a very strong hint that no reliance whatever was to be placed upon Lord Thurlow, 'I think he will find the key of the backstairs, and with that in his pocket, take any situation that preserves his access, and enables him to hold a line between different parties. In the present moment, however, he has taken a position that puts the command of the House of Lords in his hands.' The result of the negotiations was, that if Lord Thurlow supported the Prince's party in Parliament he was to retain the Great Seal. Mr. Pitt was too sagacious a Minister, and too familiar with the movements of parties not to be aware of Lord Thurlow's duplicity, and he employed Lord Camden to manage the Regency in the House of Lords. Mr. Pitt wrote to the Prince, 'It was the opinion of the the Prince Ministry that his Royal Highness should be empowered to exercise the Royal authority in the name and on behalf of his Majesty, during his Majesty's illness, and to do all acts which might be legally done by his Majesty, with 1 Wedderburn, one of the most eminent advocates of the English Bar, became Solicitor-General in 1771, Attorney-General in 1778, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1780, with the title of Lord Loughborough. In 1793 he became Lord Chancellor, and in 1801 was advanced in the peerage as Earl of Rosslyn. He opposed the repeal of 6 Geo. I. c. 5. 2 Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors of England, vol. v. p. 585. XLVII. tion. provisions nevertheless, that the care of his Majesty's CHAP. royal person, and the management of his Majesty's household, and the direction and appointment of the officers Restricand servants therein, should be in the Queen, under such regulations as should be thought necessary. That the power to be exercised by his Royal Highness should not extend to the granting, for any other term than during his Majesty's pleasure, any pension or any office whatever, except such as must by law be granted for life, or during good behaviour, nor to the granting any rank or dignity of the Peerage of this realm to any person except his Majesty's issue, who shall have attained the age of 21.'1 These were the principal stipulations suggested by the King's Ministers. writes the answer. Burke is stated to have been employed by the Prince of Edmund Wales to write his reply to this letter. It could not have Burke been entrusted to abler hands, and displays a depth of Prince's statesmanship, a range of talent, and just sense of the Prince's position that only was possessed by our great countryman, with whom I am proud to claim consanguinity. The Prince's answer was as follows:"The Prince of Wales learns from Mr. Pitt, that the Reply of proceedings in Parliament are now in a train which enables Mr. Pitt, according to the intimation of his former of Wales. letter, to communicate to the Prince the outlines of the plan which his Majesty's confidential servants conceive proper to be proposed in the present circumstances. Concerning the steps already taken by Mr. Pitt, the Prince is silent-nothing done by the two Houses of Parliament 'Grattan's Life, vol. iii. p. 352. 2 Ibid. p. 351. • Edmund Burke's mother was Miss Nagle, of Monanimy Castle, not far from Castletown Roche, County Cork, a branch of the Nagles of Anikissy, nearly related to me. Monanimy Castle, anciently a preceptory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, is splendidly situated on the picturesque banks of the Munster Blackwater. It was long the residence of the Nagles, and, in the ruined church close by, is their tomb. The castle is a massive square building, and the portion yet habitable is now the seat of Richard Barry, Esq., who is married to my first cousin. H.R. H. the Prince |