Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/417

 ing contraband of war to French ports during the war with France a pretext for withholding payment of money due to English subjects on account of the Silesian loan. A report on the subject (printed in Martens's 'Causes Celebres du Droit des Gens,' ii. 46 et seq.) drafted by Murray and communicated to the Prussian minister in 1753 amply justified the arrest by the law of nations. The king of Prussia, however, by continuing the lien on the loan, eventually succeeded in extorting 20,000l. from the British government.

On the death of Pelham, Murray became, 9 April 1754, attorney-general to the Duke of Newcastle's administration, which for two years he defended almost single-handed against the incessant attacks of Pitt. On the death of Sir Dudley Rider [q. v.] he claimed the vacant chief-justiceship and a peerage, and though offered the Duchy of Lancaster for life and a pension of 6,000l. to remain in the House of Commons, refused to waive his claim, and on 8 Nov. 1756 was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law, sworn in as lord chief justice of the king's bench, aud created Baron Mansfield of Mansfield in the county of Nottingham. He celebrated the event the same evening by a splendid banquet in Lincoln's Inn Hall. On 11 Nov. he took his seat in the court of king's bench, and in acknowledging a purse of gold presented to him by the Hon. Charles Yorke [q. v.], treasurer of Lincoln's Inn, on behalf of that society, paid an eloquent tribute to Lord Hardwicke (, p. 106).

On the formation of the Duke of Devonshire's administration (November 1756) Murray was sworn of the privy council and offered but declined the great seal. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 2 Dec. following, and made his maiden speech against the bill for releasing the court-martial on Admiral Byng from their oath of secrecy. During the interval between the dismissal of Legge (5 April 1757) and his return to the exchequer (30 June) Murray held the seals of that office. In Newcastle's new administration, formed at the latter date, he accepted a seat without office, but with the disposal of Scottish patronage in lieu of the great seal, which was again pressed upon him. In May 1758 he opposed the bill for the extension of the Habeas Corpus Act to civil cases. He attached himself to Lord Bute when that nobleman became prime minister (1762), and supported him throughout his administration. He retired on the formation of the Grenville administration in April 1763, but gave some support to Lord Rockingham's government (July 1766), although he opposed

its repeal of the Stamp Act, arguing with perverse ingenuity that the American colonists were ' virtually ' represented in parliament. With the Duke of Grafton's administration, formed under Pitt's guidance in July 1766, he was not much in sympathy. He attacked ministers for the technical breach of the constitution involved in the prohibition by order in council of the exportation of corn during the scarcity of the autumn of 1766. But he again held the seals of the exchequer during the interval between the death of Townshend and the appointment of Lord North (September-December 1767) (Add. MS. 32985, f. 53).

In May 1765 he had given his general support to Pratt in the case of Leach v. Three King's Messengers, in which general warrants were affirmed to be illegal, as they were declared to be by a resolution in the House of Commons in the following year. In 1767, however, he incurred some popular odium by discountenancing some prosecutions under the penal law of 1700 (11 & 12 William III, c. 4), which made celebration of mass by a Roman catholic priest punishable by imprisonment for life (, Life of Challoner, ed. 1784, pp. 165 et seq.) He evinced the same enlightened spirit in the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans. The defendant, a protestant dissenter, had been fined by the corporation of London, under one of their by-laws, for refusing to serve the office of sheriff, to which he had been elected, though ineligible by reason of not having taken the communion according to the rites of the church of England within a year before the election. He refused to pay the fine, and after prolonged litigation the case came before the House of Lords on writ of error from the court of delegates, and their unanimous judgment in favour of the defendant was delivered by Mansfield, in a speech of classic eloquence, on 4 Feb. 1767 (, Letters to the Hon. Mr. Justice Blackstone, App. ii.) At a somewhat later date Mansfield made a precedent of far reaching consequence by suffering a member of the Society of Friends to give evidence on affirmation in lieu of oath (, Reports, i. 382). Mansfield increased his unpopularity by his conduct in the case of Wilkes. A technical flaw in the informations filed in respect of the publication of No. 45 of the 'North Briton' and the 'Essay on Woman ' he allowed to be amended during Wilkes's absence abroad. Wilkes accordingly, on his return to England after his outlawry, denounced Mansfield as a subverter of the laws, and took proceedings in the king's bench to reverse the outlawry. The case thus came before Mans-