Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/443

 'as to be quite remarkable.' On 3 July 1778 he was called to the bar, and within a few months mere accident brought him employment from which he started into instant fame and fortune. [q.v.] had made charges of corruption in the management of Greenwich Hospital against Lord Sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, and others, and they in Michaelmas term obtained a rule in the king's bench calling on Baillie to show cause why a criminal information for libel should not issue against him. While this was pending a shower of rain brought Erskine to the house of Welbore Ellis, and there at dinner was Captain Baillie. Quite ignorant of his presence Erskine inveighed against Lord Sandwich's conduct. Baillie heard he had been at sea, and sent him a retainer next day. Four other counsel were in the case; three advised a compromise, Erskine resisted it, and thereupon Baillie refused it. Cause was shown on 23 Nov. Erskine's leaders consumed the day in argument, and the court adjourned. On the 24th, when the solicitor-general was about to reply, Erskine rose, finding courage, as he said, by thinking that his children were plucking at his gown, crying to him that now was the time to get them bread, and made so fierce an onslaught on Lord Sandwich that, although it was perfectly irregular, it carried the day. Jekyll, coming into court in the middle of the speech, said he found the court, judges, and all ' in a trance of amazement.' Erskine at once received many retainers, and stepped into a large practice. It is characteristic of him that this account given to Jekyll differed from that given by him to Rogers, and that the number of the retainers steadily increased, and reached sixty-five before he died (, Diary, vi. 75, vii. 271). He joined the home circuit, and in January 1779 represented Admiral Lord Keppel on his trial by court-martial at Portsmouth for incapacity shown in the engagement off Ushant against the French fleet under Count d'Orvilliers. Erskine advised Keppel during his thirteen days' trial, and wrote and delivered the speech for the defence (see letter printed in Academy, 22 Jan. 1876). It was successful, and on his acquittal Keppel gave him 1,000l. On 10 May he appeared at the bar of the House of Commons for Carnan, a printer, against the claim to a monopoly of printing almanacks, set up by the two universities and the Stationers' Company, and about the same time in the king's bench, in defence of Lieutenant Bourne, R.N., who was tried for sending a challenge to Admiral Sir James Wallace, his commanding officer. On 5 Feb. 1781 Lord George Gordon was tried for high treason in connection with the 'no popery' riots of June 1780, during which, by his own account, Erskine had offered to protect Lord Mansfield's house with a small military force himself, and did assist in defeating an attack on the Temple. Kenyon defended Gordon, with Erskine as his junior; but it was the speech of Erskine, delivered after midnight, that won the verdict of not guilty. From this time his civil practice was enormous. By 1783 he had made 8,000l. to 9,000l. since his call, besides discharging his debts. This appears from his will, the only one he ever made, executed 16 Nov. 1782, on the eve of a duel—a bloodless one—arising out of a ballroom quarrel with a surgeon, Dennis O'Brien, at Brighton. He easily excelled Lee, Garrow, and all his rivals. He early announced that he would not hold junior briefs. In 1783, on Lord Mansfield's suggestion, he received a silk gown, then a rare and great distinction, and in that year received his first special retainer of three hundred guineas, said indeed to have been the first known at the bar. From that time he had on an average one per month. He made while at the bar 150,000l. (, Memoirs, vi. 76), and his clerk was said to have received fees to the extent of 20,000l. (, Autobiography, i. 193). 'I continue highly successful in my profession,' he writes to Lord Auckland, 16 July 1786, 'being now, I may say, as high as I can go at the bar. The rest depends on politics, which at present are adverse' (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 29476). His income reached 10,000l. in 1791, sixteen hundred guineas more than had ever been made in a year at the bar before. He was the first barrister who made it a rule not to go on circuit except for a special fee. He was a favourite alike with Lord Mansfield and his successor. Lord Kenyon. The growth of commerce and the many maritime and commercial questions arising out of the hostilities with France during his career produced a great increase in litigation, out of which an almost new department of law was created. Erskine was in almost every one of these causes, generally for the plaintiff, for twenty years, and although never a profound jurist must have thus helped no little to form our commercial law. He excelled, however, in cases of criminal conversation. In Parslow v. Sykes he obtained a verdict for the plaintiff for 10,000l.; and appearing for the defendant in Baldwin r. Oliver, he reduced the damages to a shilling, lie enjoyed perfect health. During twenty-seven years of practice indisposition never caused him a single day's absence from court. A severe illness with abscesses in the throat in 1792 fortunately occurred in September (Gent. Mag. April 1824). His figure was elastic and erect, his