Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/58

, the pair were married, according to the rite of the church of England, by John Buchanan, a clergyman of the episcopal church of Scotland, who had a cure of souls at Haddington. They at once recrossed the border, and were soon forgiven by their parents, who joined in settling 3,000l. upon them. The marriage was re-solemnised in St. Nicholas's Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on 19 Jan. 1773. On the 28th of the same month Scott was admitted a member of the Middle Temple, where he was called to the bar on 9 Feb. 1776, elected a bencher on 20 June 1783, and treasurer in 1797. While eating his dinners he lived at New Inn Hall, Oxford, where as deputy to the Vinerian professor, Sir Robert Chambers, he made 60l. a year by lecturing on law, while ignorant of the rudiments of the science. He removed to London in 1775, and, after a brief residence in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, took a little house in Carey Street, which he soon exchanged for a residence in Powis Place. Later on he removed to Bedford Square, and finally to Hamilton Place.

Scott's maxim was that a lawyer should live like a hermit and work like a horse. He therefore withdrew from general society, and devoted his days and nights to professional study with such assiduity as for a time seriously to impair his health. The eminent conveyancer [q. v.] received him as a pupil without fee, and to the perfect mastery of the technicalities of real-property law which he thus acquired he added a profound study of common law and equity. His means were improved on his father's death by a legacy of 1,000l., and in 1781 by another 1,000l. added to the settlement moneys by his father-in-law, through whose interest he obtained the general retainer of the corporation of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of which on 13 Oct. 1774 he had received the freedom as a hoastman's son. He supported the candidature of his friend Andrew Robinson Bowes [see ] for the representation of the borough in February 1777, and represented him before the House of Commons on the petitions read on 25 April following and 18 Feb. 1782. The interest of another friend, [q. v.], procured him a brief on the Clitheroe election petition, read on 13 March 1781. At Westminster he at first attended the court of king's bench, but, thinking Lord Mansfield had a preference for Christ Church men, he soon crossed over to the other side of the hall. Before Thurlow he argued, on 6 Feb. 1779, a point of some difficulty on the construction of a will (, p. 31), and on 4 March 1780 established the reputation of a sound equity lawyer by his successful argument in Ackroyd v. Smithson (ib. p. 503) on appeal from the rolls court. On 31 May 1781 he appeared, with Kenyon, before the House of Lords in support of the Duke of Northumberland's claim to the office of lord great chamberlain.

On 9 May 1782 he appeared before the House of Commons for Peter Perring, of the Madras council, on the commitment of the bill to restrain him and Sir [q. v.] from leaving the country. On 4 June 1783 he took silk, having first, with characteristic independence, vindicated his right to precedence before Erskine and Arthur Pigot, whose patents had been made out before his. Thurlow now procured his return to parliament (16 June), as an independent king's friend, for Lord Weymouth's borough of Weobley, Herefordshire, which he represented until the general election of May 1796, when he was returned for Boroughbridge, Yorkshire. His maiden speech, on the first reading of Fox's India Bill on 20 Nov. 1783, was laboured and ineffective, and a later effort on the third reading (8 Dec.), in which he attempted brilliance and achieved pomposity, excited the amazement of the house and the cruel mockery of Sheridan. A beginning could hardly have been less promising, but his able, independent speech in condemnation of the Westminster scrutiny was heard with respect on 9 March 1785; and, having thus shown Pitt the value of his support, he atoned for his temporary revolt by his defence of the commercial treaty with France on 21 Feb. 1787. He had long been high in favour with Thurlow, from whose brother, the bishop [q. v.], he obtained in this year (1 March) the post of chancellor of the county palatine of Durham.

During the discussion of the charges against Sir [q. v.], 7–11 Feb. 1788, Scott exerted himself to secure Impey a fair trial according to form of law. On 5 March following he made an ingenious defence of the government measure charging the East India Company with the cost of the transport of troops to the East. On 27 June 1788 he was made solicitor-general, and, somewhat it would seem against his will, knighted. In the following winter he ably defended the government scheme for providing for the regency by means of a bill passed by fictitious commission under the great seal—a solution of an unprecedented constitutional problem ridiculed by Burke and the wits of the ‘Rolliad’ as legal metaphysics, but which was probably the best that could be devised. He also drafted the bill introduced in the fol-