Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/487

 

  was born on 1st September 1757; he was called to the Bar on the last day of Easter term, 1783. His father (see chapter xxi.) died on 29th August 1784, in his seventy-third year. It was not till 3d January 1798 that Samuel Romilly married. His public life began in February and March 1806, when he was made Solicitor-General, knighted, and brought into the House of Commons. He ceased to be a law-officer of the Crown on the change of Administration in 1807, but his Parliamentary career ended only with his life, his last triumph being his election for Westminster at the top of the poll, without any appearance or canvass on his part. He did not long survive the lamented Princess Charlotte. Immediately after her death he thus expressed himself in a letter to Dr. Samuel Parr, dated November 18, 1817:—

“The death of the poor princess is indeed a great public calamity. With her are extinguished all hopes of a Whig administration being ever again formed in this country, or at least within any time that those who are now mixing in the affairs of the world can suppose that they will live to see. . . . .That this great change in the prospect to the succession to the throne will have a considerable influence on the Opposition — that it will thin their ranks and weaken their efforts, I am afraid, must be expected. I need not assure you that upon me it will not have the slightest effect. As a desire of being in office has (I can with perfect truth declare) never been among the motives which have governed my public conduct, I can only see in the present state of public affairs stronger grounds than I ever felt before for persevering in that course which I have hitherto pursued.”

He procured the enacting of the first reforms of the severity of our criminal laws. In the life of one of the private promoters of this just and merciful object, we are reminded of the state of the case in its unreformed abomination:— “There were between one and two hundred offences punishable with death, and the unfortunate victims of inherited misery and vice were strung up like dogs by the dozen at a time.” It is added, “The efforts which were made by Sir Samuel Romilly, about the year 1810, to procure the removal of the death-penalty from one or two very minor offences, such as stealing from bleach-grounds, although partially successful, were attended by vigorous and powerful opposition in Parliament, and were apathetically regarded by the public.” Sir Samuel published a pamphlet explanatory of his measures, which was favourably reviewed in the Quarterly Review two years afterwards. The reviewer (Rev. John Davison, B.D.) believed that the learned author “will not consent to abandon, on the first failure, this attempt to humanise the laws of his country.” 