for proof, Lord Chatham is a hare-brained, desperate oid fellow, and Lord Mansfield the very quintessence of integrity

recti. He fairly stated his opinions, and the principles on which they were grounded, and, without recrimination, he threw down his glove to you, and to all, daring you to convict him of an error, upon fair and legal argument.

"He did more; to prevent that misrepresentation and misconstruction which might arise from words spoken, he delivered to the House the opinion given by him in court in the case alluded to in writing; candidly and formally declaring, that he meant to ground no motion upon it, but merely for the information of every member, that those who had not steeled their minds against conviction might be convinced how falsely the censure had been made, and that your Lordship and your party might have a more open ground of objection to the doctrine which the writing contained.

"When I give this account of Lord Mansfield's reasons for submitting this paper to the House, I do wrong to the moderation of his expressions; but I speak to a man whose conscience tells him, that the distinction between him and those who are open to conviction is but too well founded. Be that as it may, one would have thought you could wish for nothing more than that a person whose doctrines you arraigned should give them under his hand, and dare you to the trial of their truth. Instead of closing with the proposal, you rose up and objected to the delivery of the paper as informal; but it is no new thing with you, after you have made a malicious and groundless attack, when you see it likely to produce consequences, to shrink back, and shelter yourself under some pitiful evasion; catching at form, or any other twig, to save you from the effects of your own folly and ill-nature.

"But if you had made an end here, your audience had gone away, convinced only that you were happy to get out of the scrape into which you had brought yourself by your unprecedented and unjust attack on Lord Mansfield. But, as if you were determined that every man who hears you should bear witness to your rambling inconsistency and ignorance, you did not make an end here. After having affirmed that the paper could not be receivedafter declaring you knew not what was censured in the proceedings of the courts of justice, nor against whom in particular that censure was directedafter having declared also your ignorance of what the paper contained, you entered into a discussion of its contents. You said the paper contained an extrajudicial and unprecedented opinion, and that the judgment was not warranted by the record, and the two motions on which the judgment was to operate. All this you asserted in terms unbecoming the place in which you stood, unbecoming the person to which they were addressed, and highly improper to be used by one who spoke about what he did not understand. All the world knows that you are ignorant of every science. This country severely smarts, and will long severely smart, for your ignorance in politics and finance. Your ignorance of the law may not perhaps produce such fatal consequences, but it was such on the occasion I speak of that your dependant, the man who has sold himself to you soul and body, who trembles at his tyrant's frown, durst not say a word in defence of your position, nor even by a distinction endeavour to shade the glare of your absurdity.

"I know you are not ashamed of the grossest ignorance and absurdity; but

VOL. II.

Y

wisdom, moderation, and firmness. I wonder he did not assure us on the same foundation that this worthy judge never drank the Pretender's health upon his knees; or that his brother was not secretary to that most Catholic Prince or that Peg Trentham's father had not his left foot in th stirrup in the year 1715, to go off to what he thought the best side of the question: all this too I suppose we shall be told is mere fiction, mere inference of law, and the suggestion of the devil; but, setting aside ornament, let us look a little to matters of fact.

I would ask you one question. When the great man, whom you had treated so injuriously, rose up to explain, and with the most amiable moderation, and intuitive perspicuity, pointed out your mistake, and rectified your blun der, had you no feelings of remorse for your injustice towards him? Did you not see how lovely virtue was, and mourn your loss? Did not the demon o faction and malice retire dejected from your heart, and leave you in the mo mentary possession at least of better angels? If not, you are unhappy indeed! But I err. Perhaps your familiar whispered to you, that your opponent's temper was an argument of his contempt; and, to sting you to madness, suggested that your brutal violence was unable to ruffle the steady tenor of his soul. I own this were a galling reflection to a man of your pride; but pride like yours must suffer every indignity.

"If this was his motive for calmness and moderation it was taking indeed vengeance, but a heroic vengeance. Were it your fortune to catch him at a fair advantage (an event which can never happen), how differently would you use it! With what vehemence would you not press it home! How would you exaggerate a molehill to a mountain, and call heaven and earth to witness that the nation was ruined and our liberties at an end! But all men are not born to be heroes, nor all men candid, just, or wise. You, my Lord, have imposed long enough on the world; your faculties have been greatly misjudged; your organs have been mistaken for talents, your facility and versatility for parts, your boldness (I could give it a harsher name) for knowledge, and your precipitation for dispatch. You are a memorable exception to the general rule of humanity, for years and exercise have not endowed you with experience or wisdom, and you possess, together with the cold heart of age, the hot brain of rash and intemperate youth. Already hath your furious prodigality brought this nation to the brink of ruin. Do not persist in your impious intention to accomplish what you have already well nigh performed. Retire from the stage, and try in retirement to repent of the evils you have brought on your country. If your proud heart cannot brook the idea of sincere repeatance, let the repeated defeats which you have lately suffered in the prosecution of your outrageous designs teach you to assume a virtue though you have it not. By that appearance of contrition, and by that only, you may soften the odium which must attend you to the grave, and alleviate the load of indignation which posterity will lay on your memory,

"NERVA,"

For what reason Lord Mansfield laid his paper upon the table, he best knows. He gave none to the House of Lords, except that he thought calling them together was the most compendious way of informing them where each lord might, if he pleased, procure a copy of his charge to the jury in Woodfall's cause. This was the whole, for he made no motion whatsoever, nor did he pretend to say that, in their corporate capacity as a House of Peers, they could take the least notice of the paper. Now, Sir, it remains with Lord Mansfield to give us an example, if he can, of any respectable peer having ever moved for a call of the House for so trifling, so nugatory, so ridiculous a purpose. I think it strongly deserves these epithets, and after much consideration I can find but one possible way of reconciling the fact with the cunning understanding of the man. When he summoned the House, he never meant to do what he afterwards did; some qualm, some terror intervened, and forced him hastily to alter his design, and to substitute a silly, absurd measure in the place of a dangerous one. As for his having dared Lord Chatham to a trial of his doctrines, I should be glad to know by whom the combat was refused. Lord Chatham attacked him directly upon the spot, and on the very next day it is known to the whole world, that the great Lord Camden addressed him in the following words: "I consider the paper delivered in by the noble Lord upon the woolsack as a challenge directed personally to me, and I accept of it; -he has thrown down the glove, and I take it up. In direct contradiction to him, I maintain that his doctrine is not the law of England. I am ready to enter into the debate whenever the noble Lord will fix a day for it. I desire and insist that it may be an early one." The devil's in it if this be declining the trial; but what was the consequence? Lord Mansfield, after an hour's shuffling and evasion, finding himself pushed to the last extremity, cried out in an agony of torture and despair, No, I will not fix a day—I will not pledge myself*.

To what is stated in the Appendix (vol. i. p. 473) it may be added that Lord Mansfield's conduct, on the occasion referred to in the text, was the weakest portion of his public .ife. His behaviour was pusillanimous in the extreme, and evinced such want of firmness, consistency, and legal competence to maintain his judicial dicta, that he rendered himself an object of pity.

As to Lord Chatham's declarations concerning the irregular production of Lord Mansfield's opinion in the Court of King's Bench, I am sorry to say that your correspondent Nerva neither knows the fact, nor understands the argument He talks of a judgment in a cause where no judgment was ever given. Leaving therefore this poor man to his own unhappy reveries, let me state briefly to the public what was the fact, and what was the irregularity of the proceeding upon it.

The verdict given at Nisi Prius in the King and Woodfall was, guilty of printing and publishing only. A motion in arrest of judgment was made by the defendant's counsel, grounded upon the ambiguity of the verdict. At the same time a motion was made by the counsel for the crown, for a rule upon the defendant to show cause why the verdict should not be entered up according to the legal import of the words. On both motions a rule to show cause was granted, and soon after the matter was argued before the Court of King's Bench. Lord Mansfield, when he delivered the opinion of the court upon the verdict, went regularly through

almost contempt, to the House of Lords. Horace Walpole, who witnessed the scene, says, "The dismay and confusion of Lord Mansfield were obvious to the whole audience; nor did one peer interpose a syllable in his behalf.” He was so closely pressed on the point that he would not answer "interrogatories" by Lords Chatham and Richmond, that the House became desirous the matter should drop, from commiseration of the embarrassment of the Chief Justice, and it was never resumed. Next morning Lord Chatham sent a note to Lord Camden complimenting him on his triumph, and inquiring after his health, and adding, "I think I ought rather to inquire how Lord Mansfield does."-Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. p. 489.

Lord Campbell, in his report of the scene, omits the two last questions of Lord Camden.-ED.

*The whole of this paragraph is taken by Junius from a speech of Lord Chatham, delivered December 11, 1770, that is, a few days before it appeared in the Public Advertiser. Junius long after, in his Preface, quotes the same passage, introducing it with a note which was accidentally omitted in its proper place, p. 95 of vol. i., and acknowledges it to be from a speech of Lord Chatham, and which, in his letter under the signature of Phalaris, he omits. "The following quotation," says he, "from a speech delivered by Lord Chatham, is taken with exactness. The reader will find it very curious in itself, and fit to be inserted here." He then gives the extract verbatim, as in the above paragraph. It became important afterwards, as one of the means of identifying Sir Philip Francis to be Junius, it being known that Francis re ported several of Lord Chatham's speeches and gave copies to Almon, and in consequence was a good judge of the one "taken with exactness."-ED.

the whole of the proceedings at Nisi Prius, as well the evidence that had been given as his own charge to the jury. This proceeding would have been very proper had a motion been made of either side for a new trial, because either a verdict given contrary to evidence, or an improper charge by the judge at Nisi Prius, is held to be a sufficient ground for granting a new trial; but when a motion is made in arrest of judgment, or for establishing the verdict, by entering it up according to the legal import of the words, it must be on the ground of something appearing on the record; and the court, in considering whether the verdict shall be established or not, are so confined to the record that they cannot take notice of anything that does not appear on the face of it; to make use of the legal phrase, they cannot travel out of the record. Lord Mansfield did travel out of the record. I affirm therefore with Lord Chatham, that his conduct was irregular, extrajudicial. and unprecedented; and I am sure there is not a lawyer in England that will contradict me. His real motive for doing what he knew to be wrong was, that he might have an opportunity of telling the public extrajudicially, that the other three judges agreed with him in the doctrine laid down in his charge.

When you have read this paper, I am sure you will join with me in opinion, that to support an uniform system of falsehood, requires greater parts than even those of Lord Mansfield.

PHALARIS.

LETTER LXXXIII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, December 24, 1770. WITHOUT attempting to account for all the political changes which have happened since his Majesty's auspicious accession to the throne, it requires but little sagacity to observe that the general principle from which they have arisen is uniform and consistent with itself. A prince of the house of Brunswick searches for the consolation and endearments of privsse