to state, that the tone of his attack had greatly facilitated the object which he had in view. With one exception, to which he should hereafter have occasion to recur—namely, the plan of the honourable and learned member for separating the legal and political character of the chancellor— there was scarcely any topic in his speech to which he should object; indeed, no speech, that was necessarily of an accusatory kind, could have been more successful in leading to the issue to which the House seemed inclined to come, than the speech which the honourable and learned member had that evening delivered. He was himself sure, that even those who had come prepared to attack the Lord Chancellor with all the artillery of eloquence, would be rejoiced to find that at present it was unnecessary. Every man, who was really anxious to shorten the delay, and to simplify the practice, of the Court of Chancery, would feel satisfied in gaining his object, without assailing the character of the judge who presided in it; and would see, that to pursue his object further at present would be inconsistent with the conduct of a public spirited man, and would savour too strongly of individual persecution. The House would on that account be more and more satisfied, on reflection, with its decision of the present evening; and would even now feel no slight pleasure in recollecting, that the character of the individual who had so long filled the high office of Lord Chancellor, would stand as unimpeached and unblemished at the close of his long and valuable career, as it had done at its commencement: and that, whatever might be the result of the inquiry, no matter whether Lord Eldon was to be the last Chancellor of England who was to unite in his own person all the different functions which now belonged to that high office, or whether any means should be devised of collecting them into one effective whole, and bestowing them on a single individual-a consummation which he would much

rather witness, than a separation of them held by different officers he would stand before posterity with unsullied fame, and with the enviable reputation of having discharged his arduous duties in such a manner, as to entitle him to the applause and admiration of all his contemporaries. He could not quit this subject without again remarking, that there was one point in the speech of the honourable and learned member for Lincoln, from which he differed most widely. He could never wish to see the legal and political character of the Lord Chancellor of England made distinct and separate considering, as he did, that in the appointment to that high office, one of the proudest distinctions of the British monarchy had long existed. On a former occasion, when the creation of an auxiliary tribunal to the Court of Chancery was under discussion in that House, from which he acknowledged that he had predicted that much evil and inconvenience would ensue, but regarding which he could not say whether his predictions had or had not been verified, from want of information on the subject-on a former occasion, he asserted, that he had declared his opinions to be inimical to the separation of the two characters of the Lord Chancellor. He thought that it was one of the noblest and most valuable prerogatives of the crown of England, that it could take from the walks of Westminster Hall the meanest individual-and when he used the word meanest, he used it not with reference to talents and intellectual endowments, but to birth and original station in society and place him at once in the head and front of the peerage of England; and he never wished to see the day when the crown was deprived of that beautiful prerogative, which, though it formed the very essence of the monarchy, was, at the same time, the surest support and bulwark of the democratic part of our Constitution. It was not, therefore, for the sake of Lord Eldon, much and highly as he

respected that venerable nobleman, that he objected to the separation of the legal political functions of the Chancellor ; but it was with a view of preserving to the monarchy one of its most ancient and invaluable prerogatives of keeping open the passage from the court of pie poudre to the woolsack, and of leaving to the gentlemen of the bar the opportunity of giving to the crown their best services, and to the crown the opportunity of finding for them an adequate and suitable reward. For his own part, he could not see any objection to the union of the two characters in the same individual, especially as they were far, very far from being inconsistent with each other. When the advocates for their separation told him that they saw a great objection to the making a political character a judge, he was inclined to ask them, what the situation of the country would be, supposing that there were placed at the head of the hereditary magistracy of the land, an individual unacquainted with its laws and institutions. Would not such an occurrence lower the respect in which they were now universally held throughout the country? And, if it did lower the standard of the magistracy and the dignity of the peerage, would it not be inflicting a severe and permanent injury on the Constitution, instead of correcting one that was comparatively trivial and temporary? It had not occurred twice in the history of our country, that the cold impartiality of the judge had given way to the warmth of his political passions; and if, in the long night of ignorance in which so much of our annals were involved, not more than two instances of this judicial profligacy could be discovered, he thought that he was not too bold in saying, that at an era so intelligent as the present, such instances were not likely to occur again. To avoid, however, a contingency which he contended was remote and improbable, it was now proposed to convert the Lord Chancellor into a mere lawyer; to destroy all the

ancient grandeur and dignity of his office; and to degrade, as much as possible, the race of men from which it had hitherto been usual to select that ancient and distinguished officer. To such a proposition, he had formerly felt, and he still continued to feel, the strongest aversion. Differing, therefore, as he did, upon this important point, from the honourable and learned member for Lincoln, he could not consent to allow the commission to direct its inquiries to the propriety of separating the legal and the judicial functions of the Lord Chancellor. As he agreed in almost every other point with the honourable and learned member for Lincoln, he had thought it necessary to speak rather more fully on the only point upon which he differed from him. As to the object of the commission, the honourable and learned member and himself fully concurred. It was to shorten the delays, simplify the proceedings, and diminish the expence of the Court of Chancery. The right honourable gentleman then concluded, amidst general cheering, by again rejoicing that the personal character of Lord Eldon, of which he spoke in terms of the highest eulogy, had been treated with the respect due to it by every member who had taken a part in the debate.

The motion was withdrawn.

COMPLAINT AGAINST THE LORD CHANCELLOR (ELDON).

MARCH 8th, 1824.

MR. ABERCROMBY this day complained of an unwarrantable attack made on the freedom of debate by the Lord High Chancellor of England. The gravamen of the complaint was, that the Lord Chancellor had applied the term "utter falsehood," to a statement which Mr. Abercromby

was erroneously represented, in one of the public newspapers (The Morning Herald), to have made respecting certain practices in the Court of Chancery.

MR. SECRETARY CANNING said:-Sir, there is no man who heard the honourable and learned gentleman's speech-no member of the profession to which he belongs-no one of the friends by whom he is surrounded, who is ready to make more allowance than I am for the feelings which he has evinced, or to render a more sincere tribute of praise for the moderation and propriety with which he has expressed them. He has displayed an anxiety that is highly creditable, to free himself from an imputation which, as far as my testimony goes, he is not subject to; for, without being enough of a professional man to be aware thoroughly of the importance of the distinction between what the honourable and learned gentleman stated the other night, and what he elsewhere was understood to have stated, I can most unequivocally declare that, in his argument that night, the impression on my mind was that he did not go out of his way for the purpose of throwing imputations on the Lord Chancellor, or of making what has happened in the Court of Chancery matter of individual blame, and not the result of a faulty system. Such, Sir, was the impression on my mind; and if my testimony had been required, I should have been as ready to state