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CAM famous are Lord Bacon; Charles Yorke, the brilliant and unfortunate son of Lord Hardwicke; Charles Pratt, the third son of Sir John Pratt, chief-justice of the king's bench, and the subject of our present notice. He was descended from a respectable Devonshire family, who had their seat at Careswell Priory, near Collumpton; but his father was the first of the name who attained any high distinction. Charles Pratt was born in 1714—the closing year of Queen Anne's reign—shortly before his father's elevation to the bench. Accustomed in childhood to associate dignity and honour with the profession of the law, he early evinced a desire to enter on that line of life in which his own fame was destined to eclipse that of the chief-justice. In the tenth year of his age his father's death left him without the benefit of much wise counsel and experience, but with a demand on his self-reliance, and an additional stimulus to independent action. Pratt was sent to Eton in 1726, where he studied for five years. He read with successful diligence, and was a general favourite with his schoolmates; among these he had the fortune to make the acquaintance of several with historic names, as Lyttleton, Walpole, Cornwallis, and Pitt (afterwards Lord Chatham), whose friendship, now in the spring, by and by blossomed and bore substantial fruit. He was called to the bar at Trinity term, 1738. No one ever entered on a professional life with fairer prospects of success. On the western circuit, the fame of his father was still fresh in the memories of counsel and attorney. He was connected either by blood or friendship with some of the most talented and influential gentlemen in England. But so little did these adventitious favours of fortune contribute to success, that for fourteen years Pratt rode from Hampshire to Cornwall, with no loftier occupation than to mend pens and to show his wig. Like Lord Eldon he was on the point of retiring in disgust and disappointment. According to the etiquette of the bar, no counsel can leave his circuit without giving intimation of his purpose to the leader. With a deep sense of humiliation, he summoned courage to inform Mr. Henley (afterwards Lord Northington) of his intention to relinquish law and apply for orders. He admitted that the case was discouraging, yet not desperate. Some of the greatest lawyers, with talents long uncredited, had risen to the most honoured offices in the state. Opportunity was everything. Let him try one circuit more, and stake his future upon this last cast. Riding on this forlorn-hope-circuit Pratt met with decided success. Was it a generous contrivance—or was it chance that brought him an important brief under the leader of the circuit? Pressure of business, we are told by some—an attack of gout, by others—compelled Mr. Henley to remain out of court when the trial came on for hearing; so the lead was unexpectedly cast upon the junior counsel. He opened the case with method and clearness , made a spirited reply, and obtained a verdict. Pratt had none of the brilliancy of his rival Yorke, nor was he in the highest sense an orator. In his greatest efforts—including his last memorable speech—he never had command of that rich imagery and passionate eloquence which characterize Erskine and Brougham; but his sound legal knowledge, familiarity with the details of business, quiet sustained dignity, and convincing address, gave sufficient assurance to the attorneys of his worth and ability, and the road to distinction now lay open before him. His first great triumph was in a libel case, King v. Owen (Howell's State Trials, vol. xviii., p. 120-23), in which Sir Dudley Ryder, then attorney-general, led the prosecution. In this remarkable trial, he enunciated, even against the authority of the bench, those opinions regarding the judicial rights of juries, which were eventually adopted by the legislature, and became the rule of law on that important question. In 1755 he put on his silk gown, and went over to the court of chancery. Two years after, when his schoolfellow, the "great commoner," ascended to power, he was elevated over his rival Yorke to the office of attorney-general. He had already been eight years in parliament as representative of the close borough of Downton; but although afterwards one of the most distinguished speakers in the upper house, he only once spoke in the house of commons, on the occasion of the habeas corpus bill of 1758. It was about this time, though not far from fifty, that he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Nicholas Jeffreys, Esq., Brecknock Priory, a lady dowered with a large fortune and many virtues. On the death of Chief-justice Willes, there was a general change of titles in the law. The attorney-general, on the 23d January, 1762, received his patent as lord chief-justice of the common pleas. During the four years he administered justice in the common pleas, he gave three very important decisions, which made him next to the earl of Chatham the most popular man in England. In the case of Leech v. Money, the illegality of general warrants was declared. In Doe v. Kersey, he held against the judges of his court, and the unanimous decision of the king's bench, that attesting witnesses to a will must be disinterested at the time of attestation, and that it is not enough that their interest be removed before the proving of the will. The legislature afterwards confirmed his opinion. But by far the most celebrated trial over which he presided, was that of the famous or notorious John Wilkes. The secretary of state, Lord Halifax, had, in compliance with the wishes of the king, issued a sweeping warrant against the authors, printers and publishers of No. 45 of the North Briton, in accordance with which Wilkes was arrested and lodged in the Tower. A writ of habeas corpus, returnable immediately, was issued from the common pleas; and the chief-justice, after hearing the case, gave judgment against the arrest, concluding in the following words:—"We are all of opinion that a libel is not a breach of the peace; it tends to a breach of the peace, and that is the utmost. In the case of the seven bishops. Judge Powell, the only honest man of the four judges, dissented, and I am bound to be of his opinion, and to say that case is not law, but it shows the miserable condition to which the state was then reduced. Let Mr. Wilkes be discharged from his imprisonment." Close upon this came an action, on Wilkes' own part, on the ground of false imprisonment, in which the chief-justice denounced in language which has been censured as violent, the system of arrests under general warrants, and set forth his view of damages. "These are," he said, "designed not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as a punishment to the guilty, and as proof of the detestation in which the wrongful act is held by the jury." Wilkes, as was to be expected, obtained a verdict with £1000 damages. The London rabble were enraptured with the triumph of their champion; he was carried through the streets, with shouts of Wilkes and liberty, and Pratt rose to the height of his popularity. Strangers came from a distance to see, among other sights, the great chief-justice. He received the freedom of Dublin, Bristol, Bath, Exeter, and Norwich; and Sir J. Reynolds was employed to prepare a fine portrait of the assertor of liberty for the Guildhall.

In 1765 the Rockingham ministry determined to grace their advent to power, by conferring a peerage on the favourite judge of the nation, with the title of "Baron Camden of Camden Place in the county of Kent." The following year Camden received the great seal, and was installed as chancellor on the 6th November, in which office he fully sustained his high legal reputation. Though he had not the learning of Nottingham and Hardwicke, the "fathers of equity," nor the sagacity of Kenyon, Littledale, and Holroyd, yet his unruffled calmness of temper, soundness of understanding, his memory singularly powerful and retentive, the patience and impartiality with which he sifted every case, and the clearness with which he pronounced judgment, conciliated the respect and good opinion of all parties. For three years and a half he was lord chancellor, and in every instance proved himself "par negotiis."

And now we come to the only stain on Lord Camden's public character. From the majority of his colleagues in the duke of Grafton's cabinet he differed on two vital questions, and yet for two years, from 1768 to 1770, he remained a member of the administration; sanctioned with his presence proceedings which, in his judgment, tended to a breach with the colonies; yielded, without remonstrance, to measures which he felt to be unconstitutional; submitted to be overpowered on questions of law; and followed a line of acquiescence, which in the present day would be pronounced a grave political delinquency. At last, in 1770, he made a bold avowal of his opinions, and surrendered the great seal. During the remaining twenty-four years of his life, as judge of appeal, as privy councillor, as member of the opposition and the cabinet, he was of signal service to the state. Throughout the American war, he held that England was the aggressor, that the enactments of the government were oppressive, and in one memorable speech declared that, if he were an American, he "should resist to the last such manifest exertions of tyranny, violence, and injustice." As judge of appeal, Camden's opinion always had great weight. In Harrison v. Evans, where the question was—"Whether a dissenter was liable to a fine for not serving a corporation office, which he was