He had by now acquired a considerable practice in the courts -at sessions, at assizes, and in the Court of Chancery. His early labours had not met with the success due to them, perhaps on account of a certain strain of constitutional nervousness in his nature, and too great diffidence of his own powers. He was now in a position to "settle down," did he but wish it. In a letter to Madame G. (October 14, 1794), he observed, in reply to inquiries: "I am still unmarried, and, I think, likely to remain so." But on January 3, 1798, he married Anne, daughter of Francis Garbett of Knill Court, Herefordshire. He had met her at the house of Lord Lansdowne. (He was thus more fortunate than Bentham had been in his proposal to Miss Caroline Fox, whom he had met under the same roof.) Accordingly he was obliged to reassure Madame G., to whom he wrote, February 19, 1798: "I remember telling you some time ago that I was unmarried, and likely to remain so; but I did not at that time know that such a woman, as I have now the supreme happiness of having for my wife, existed.” 2 The marriage was indeed a supremely happy one. Writing in his journal in 1813, he says: "For the last fifteen years my happiness has been the constant study of the most excellent of wives; a woman in whom a strong understanding, the noblest and most elevated sentiments, and the most courageous virtue, are united to the warmest affection, and to the utmost delicacy of mind and tenderness of heart; and all these intellectual perfections are graced and adorned by the most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld." It was a beautiful union to which Romilly -a man of modest, restrained utterance could never refer without expressing feelings of delight, nay, ecstasy. It was, alas! but too perfect. Did he not, after his wife's death, find it impossible to survive her? In November 1800 Romilly took silk, and two years later became one of the leaders of the Chancery bar. In 1805 he was appointed Chancellor of the County Palatine of Durham, an office that he held for ten years and resigned chiefly because of the small amount of business, due to the fact that the Chancellor could not enforce the process of the court outside the county. His simplicity, his aversion from all superficial ceremonial and dislike of "mimic grandeur" are shown in his account of his first visit to Durham. He speaks of the numerous attendants * Ibid., p. 66. • Ibid., p. 41. 1 Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 44. at the castle, the bows and compliments, the frequently repeated "my lord" and "your honour." "So sudden a transformation into a great man, and the lord of an old feudal palace, reminded one of Sancho's government of Barataria; and still more of Sly, the drunken cobbler of Shakespeare. But to me all this ceremonial was not more ridiculous than it was irksome." 1 He had more than one offer of a seat in the House of Commons. His consistent refusals indicate a spirit of independence and scrupulous honour. In reference to an offer made to him (1805) by the Prince of Wales, he remarks: "I persuaded myself that... it was impossible that the little talents which I possessed could ever be exerted with any advantage to the public, or any credit to myself, unless I came into parliament quite independent, and answerable for my conduct to God and to my country alone. . . I formed to myself an unalterable resolution never, unless I held a public office, to come into parliament but by a popular election, or by paying the common price for my seat." 2 Accordingly, he expressed his gratitude and respectfully declined the offer, adding that he would seize the first opportunity to procure a seat, if his royal highness thought he could be useful to the public. As to buying a seat, he goes on to observe: "Certainly it would be better that burgage-tenure boroughs should not exist, or that, existing, the owners of them should never make the high privilege of nominating representatives of the Commons of England in Parliament a subject of pecuniary traffic, but should, in the exercise of it, select only men of an independent spirit, whose talents and integrity pointed them out as most worthy of such a trust. But while things remain as we now unfortunately find them, as long as burgage-tenure representatives are only of two descriptions, they who buy their seats and they who discharge the most sacred of trusts at the pleasure, and almost as the servants, of another, surely there can be no doubt in which class a man would choose to enrol himself. . . ." He says there may be circumstances in which a man may justifiably accept a seat from an owner, just as there are exceptions to all rules; but in his own case his mind was made up. "It was a rule, too, laid down for myself alone, and founded upon circumstances peculiar to myself, upon my station in life, my family, my particular profession, upon my own peculiar character, upon my past life, and the future expectations of me which I knew 1 Memoirs, vol. ii, pp. 113, 114. Ibid., pp. 120, 121. • Ibid., p. 122. my friends had formed, and which I had been accustomed to form myself." 1 However, his conspicuous ability could not but be recognised by the whig party to which he had attached himself; and so on February 12, 1806, though he had not yet sat in the House of Commons, he was sworn in as solicitor-general to the Grenville administration of "All the Talents," and knighted in accordance with a custom that had been in existence some twenty years. Piggott was the new attorney-general. "Never," he says, "was any city trader, who carried up a loyal address to His Majesty, more anxious to obtain, than we were to escape, this honour." 2 Having obtained a seat in parliament as member for Queenborough (March 24), he at once took the opportunity of drawing the attention of the ministers concerned to the severity of naval and military punishments. The answer he usually received in such cases was that it was dangerous, or at least inexpedient, to interfere with the customary practices. As one of the managers for the Commons on the impeachment of Lord Melville (better known as Henry Dundas) for "gross malversation and breach of duty" whilst treasurer of the navy, he summed up the evidence at the trial in Westminster Hall (May 10) in a speech whose great power, perspicuous order, and logical cogency were acknowledged by all, and were warmly spoken of by Fox. He also examined witnesses before the royal commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the Princess of Wales, and represented the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV)-who entertained a high opinion of Romilly and marked him out for the highest office-in the proceedings respecting the guardianship of Mary Seymour. In the House of Commons he supported a resolution moved by Fox against the slave trade (June 10, 1806). He pointed out that nations as well as individuals are sometimes guilty of the most immoral acts through a lack of courage to inquire into their nature and consequences; he emphasised that the African slave trade was carried on by "rapine, robbery, and murder, by encouraging and fomenting wars, by false accusations and imaginary crimes," and declared that it was "a stain upon our 1 Memoirs, vol. ii, pp. 127 seq. Ibid., p. 136. The object of this chapter is to give a brief outline of Romilly's life, and to mention as far as possible in chronological order his varied activities in parliament, and his efforts to effect legal and political reforms. His views on the criminal portion of this work will be considered in a collected form, and more fully and systematically, in the next chapter. national reputation that ought instantly to be wiped away.' These expressions gave great offence to several members. But the sensitiveness and irritability of opponents did not suppress the efforts of one so invincibly attached to what he considered his duty. " "... As I should think it criminal," he says, "to speak of such a trade otherwise than as it really is, I shall probably use the same expressions again, when I have the next occasion to speak of it." And he did so the following February, when his speech made a considerable impression on the House. On July 22, 1806, he got through a bill for the amendment of the bankruptcy laws. The great expense of Chancery proceedings, due to the exorbitant stamp duties, also engaged his attention. In October 1806 parliament dissolved; and a few days later Romilly was again returned for Queenborough. At the end of January of the following year, he moved for leave to bring in a bill to make freehold estates assets to pay simple contract debts. Lord Ellenborough, to whom Romilly sent a copy of the bill, thought the judges ought to be consulted first on such a measure; but Romilly replied that as he had already given public notice of it, he could not withdraw it, and held, moreover, that it was "a most unconstitutional doctrine that no important alteration can be made in the law, unless the judges are first consulted on it." In that case it would be constituting them "a fourth member of the legislature, who are to have something like what has been called the initiative in legislation; a power of preventing any proposed measure not only from passing into a law, but even from being debated and brought under the view of parliament; and this important power, too, exercised not ostensibly, and as public men, with all the responsibility which belongs to the discharge of any public duty, but with the indifference and carelessness which necessarily must attend such private communications." The third reading of this bill took place on March 18, 1807, when it was rejected by 69 to 47. The principal opposer was the Master of the Rolls, whose arguments were purely technical. "He said that justice was in such a case entirely out of the question; expediency was all that was to be considered. He talked too of the dangers of innovation." A month later another bill to make the freehold estates of traders liable • Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 152. 1 Speeches, vol. i, pp. 7, 8. • Ibid., p. 193. for their debts passed the third reading; whereupon Romilly comments that though the same objections applied to this as much as to the former bill, none was urged against it-"county gentlemen have no objection to tradesmen being made to pay their debts." 1 The bill, however, was lost in the Lords, by the dissolution of April 27. In the meantime (April 9) Romilly had delivered a powerful speech condemning as unconstitutional the pledge of the Duke of Portland's ministry not to advise the king to approve the policy of Catholic emancipation, which the whigs were suspected of favouring. He "felt mortified and chagrined to the utmost degree." At the general election he was returned (May 12) for Horsham. Early in June he is contemplating an amendment of the defective and oppressive law of creditor and debtor, which entails imprisonment for debt. Pending this project, he introduced a bill (July 17, 1807) to dispense with the necessity of delivering office copies of bills in equity to members of parliament who were defendants. They had been relieved of the ordinary costs of a suit, to the detriment of their opponents who, having to bear the double burden, were often unable to prosecute their suits to a hearing. He hoped, also, that when the bill got to the Lords, an amendment would be added including peers of the realm; for it seemed to him to be open to objection that a bill to deprive peers of privileges should originate in the Commons. On July 27 the bill passed the Lords without any alteration. On July 7 he supported a motion for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the number of places and pensions held by members of parliament and their wives and children; he insisted that the truth on this subject should be known, because it would help to cope with the influence of the Crown on the deliberations of parliament, and would also set right the dangerous exaggerations that were becoming every day more prevalent. Some four weeks later he spoke in favour of Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools; and replying to the arguments of opponents that political and religious errors might thereby be imparted to the lower classes, he urged that the object of the bill was not to give knowledge to the poor, but to qualify them to acquire it." After his fatiguing labours in the courts and in the House of Commons, he went to the Isle of Wight for the summer recess. Writing to Dumont he says: "I hope to enjoy, for some weeks |
