The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane - Earl of Dundonald Thomas Barnes Cochrane (guided reading books TXT) 📗

on for the third reading on the 3rd of July, and would have been passed through the House of Commons by the Speaker's casting vote but for Lord Cochrane's sudden appearance. His vote secured a majority against it, and thereby it was finally overthrown. Great, on the morrow, were the rejoicings of his supporters. "What a triumph," it was said in a friendly newspaper, "is this to innocence! After being sentenced to the scandalous and disgraceful punishment of the pillory, after being confined in a loathsome dungeon, fined 1000_l._ in money to the king, disgracefully removed from that service in which he had attained such high honours and rendered to his country such essential service, his escutcheon kicked out of Westminster Abbey, his order of knighthood taken from him; in short, after having every possible indignity which the most malignant imagination could invent heaped upon him in every way, his single vote, on the very first day of his returning to his parliamentary duties, has been the means of obtaining a signal victory over those under whose persecution he had been so long suffering."

The one victory upon which Lord Cochrane set his heart, however—the reversal of the unjust sentence passed upon him, and the consequent restoration of the honours and offices that were now doubly dear to him—he was not able to obtain. On the 6th of July, just before the prorogation of Parliament, he gave notice that, early in the next session, he should move for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the conduct of Lord Ellenborough and others towards him during the Stock Exchange trial. In arranging for this new effort at self-justification, he was partly occupied during the ensuing autumn and winter, and the question was brought prominently before the House of Commons in the spring of 1816; only to issue, however, in further injustice and disappointment.

His purpose from the first was, of course, virtually the impeachment of Lord Ellenborough; and that object was yet more apparent from the altered shape which the question assumed when introduced in the new session. During the recess, Lord Cochrane, with the help of advisers, some of whom were more zealous than wise, William Cobbett being the chief, had prepared an elaborate series of "charges of partiality, misrepresentation, injustice, and oppression against the Lord Chief Justice;" and these were formally introduced to the House of Commons on the 5th of March. "When I recollect," said Lord Cochrane on that occasion, "the imputations cast upon my character, and circulated industriously previous to any legal proceedings, the conduct pursued at my trial, the verdict obtained, the ineffectual endeavours; to procure a revision of my case in the Court of King's Bench, and the infamous sentence there pronounced, together with my expulsion from this House without being suffered to expose its injustice—when I call to mind my dismissal from a service in which I have spent the fairest portion of my life, at least without reproach, and my illegal and unmerited deprivation of the order of the Bath—it is impossible to speak without emotion. I have but one course now left to pursue, namely, to show that the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, on which he directed the jury to decide, was not only unsupported by, but was in direct contradiction to, the evidence on which it professed to be founded. This is the best course to pursue both in justice to the learned judge and to myself. Either I am unfit to sit in this House, or the judge has no right to his place on the bench. I have courted investigation in every shape; and I trust that the learned lord will not shrink from it or suffer his friends on the opposite side to evade the consideration of these charges by 'the previous question.'"

Lord Cochrane thereupon tendered to the House thirteen charges against Lord Ellenborough, in which every point of importance in the Stock Exchange trial was minutely detailed and discussed; and these charges being read, therein occupying nearly three hours, were ordered to be printed. A fourteenth charge, bearing upon Lord Ellenborough's conduct subsequent to the trial, was introduced on the 29th of March; but this, as it included aspersions upon the character of another judge, Sir Simon Le Blanc, was objected to and withdrawn. There was further discussion on the subject on the 1st and the 29th of April; but not much was done until the 30th of April.

On that evening, Lord Cochrane formally moved that his charges against Lord Ellenborough should be referred to a Committee of the whole House, and that evidence in support of them should be heard at the bar. A lengthy discussion then ensued, the most notable speeches being made by the Solicitor-General, Sir Francis Burdett, and the Attorney-General.

The Solicitor-General of course opposed the motion. "As the House, on the one hand," he said, "should jealously watch over the conduct of judges, so, on the other, it should protect them when deserving of protection, not only as a debt of justice due to the judges, but as a debt due to justice herself, in order that the public confidence in the purity of the administration of our laws may not be disappointed, and that the course of that administration may continue the admiration of the world; for, unless the judges are protected in the exercise of their functions, the public opinion of the excellence of our laws will be inevitably weakened,—and to weaken public opinion is to weaken justice herself."

That sort of argument, too frivolous and faulty, it might be supposed, to influence any one, had weight with the House of Commons to which it was addressed; and the Solicitor-General adduced much more of it. To him the spotless character of Lord Ellenborough appeared to be an ample defence against Lord Cochrane's charges. "Never," he said, with a truthfulness that posterity can appreciate, "never was there an individual at the bar or on the bench less liable to the imputation of corrupt motives; never was there one more remarkable for independence—I will say, sturdy independence—of character, than the noble and learned lord. For twelve years he has presided on the bench with unsullied honour, displaying a perfect knowledge of the law; evincing as much legal knowledge as was ever amassed by any individual; and now, in the latter part of his life, when he has arrived at the highest dignity to which a man can arrive, by a promotion well-earned at the bar, and doubly well-earned at the bench, we are told that he has sacrificed all his honours by acting from corrupt motives!"

Sir Francis Burdett replied effectively to the speeches of the Solicitor-General and others who sided with him, and nobly defended his friend. He showed that the proposal to refuse investigation of this case because it might weaken the cause of justice, by making the conduct of the administrators of justice contemptible, was worse than frivolous. "Such language," he averred, "would operate against the investigation of any charges whatever against any judge; would indeed form a barrier against the exercise of the best privilege of this House—the privilege of inquiring into the conduct of courts of justice. It would serve equally well to shelter even those judges who have been dragged from the bench for their misconduct." He then reviewed the incidents of the Stock Exchange trial, and urged that Lord Cochrane had good reason for bringing forward his charges. "The question for the House to consider is, 'Do these charges, if admitted, contain criminal matter for the consideration of the House?' I conceive that they do. No doubt the judges who condemned Russell and Sidney were, at the time, spoken of as men of high character, who could not be supposed to suffer any base motives to influence their conduct. Such arguments as those ought to be banished from this House. It is our duty to look, with constitutional suspicion on jealousy, on the proceedings of the judges; and, when a grave charge is solemnly brought forward, justice to the country, as well as to the judge, demands an inquiry into it."

That, however, was refused. After a long speech from the Attorney-General, and an eloquent reply by Lord Cochrane, the House divided on the motion. Eighty-nine members voted against it. Its only supporters were Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane himself. Not only did the House refuse to listen to the allegations against Lord Ellenborough; in the excess of its devotion to such law and such order as the Government of the day appointed, it even resolved that all the entries in its record of proceedings which referred to this subject should be expunged from the journals. Lord Cochrane made no resistance to this further insult thrown upon him. "It gives me great satisfaction," he said, in the brief and dignified speech with which he closed the discussion, "to think that the vote which has been come to has been come to without any of my charges having been disproved. Whatever may be done with them now, they will find their way to posterity, and posterity will form a different judgment concerning them than that which has been adopted by this House. So long as I have a seat in this House, however, I will continue to bring them forward, year by year and time after time, until I am allowed the opportunity of establishing the truth of my allegations."

Other occupations prevented the full realization of that purpose. But to the end of his life Lord Cochrane used every occasion of asserting his innocence and courting a full investigation of all the incidents on which his assertion was based. Posterity, as he truly prophesied, has learnt to endorse his judgment; and therefore, in the ensuing pages, it will not be necessary to adduce from his letters and actions more than occasional illustrations of the temper which animated him throughout with reference to this heaviest of all his heavy troubles.

By these troubles, however, even in the time of their greatest pressure, he was not overcome; and in the midst of them he found time and heart for active labour in the good work of various sorts that was always dear to him. He used the advantages of his liberty in striving to perfect the invention of improved street lamps and lighting material that had occupied him while in prison, and to procure their general adoption. His place in Parliament, moreover, all through the session of 1816, was employed not only in seeking justice for himself, but also in furthering every project advanced for benefiting the community and checking the pernicious action of the Government. A zealous, honest Whig before, he was now as zealous and as honest as ever in all his political conduct. And his devotion to the best interests of the people was yet more apparent in his unflagging labours, out of Parliament, for the public good. His great abilities, rendered all the more prominent by the cruel persecution to which he had been and still was subjected, made him a leading champion of the people during the turmoil to which misgovernment at home, and the distracted state of foreign politics, gave a special stimulus in 1816.

A long list might be made of the great meetings which he attended, and took part in, both among his own constituents of Westminster and elsewhere, for the consideration of popular grievances and their remedies. One such meeting, attended by Henry Brougham and Sir Francis Burdett among others, was held in Palace Yard, Westminster, on the 1st of March, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament against the renewal of the property-tax and the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace. Lord Cochrane, the hero of the day, on account of "the spirit of opposition which he had shown to the infringement of the constitution and the grievances of the people," won for himself new favour by the boldness with which he denounced the policy of the Government, which, boasting that it was ruining the French nation, was at the same time bringing misery also upon Englishmen by the excessive taxation and the reckless extravagance to which it resorted.

A smaller, but much more momentous meeting assembled at the City of London Tavern on the 29th of July, under the auspices of the Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor. Instigated in a spirit of praiseworthy charity by many of the most influential persons of the day, it was used by Lord Cochrane for the enforcement of the views as to public right and public duty, and the mutual relations of the rich and the poor, which were forced upon him by his recent troubles, and the relations in which he was at this time placed with some over-zealous champions of popular reform, and some unreasonable exponents of popular grievances. That his conduct on this occasion was extravagant and even factious, he afterwards heartily regretted. Yet as a memorable illustration of the power and earnestness with which he fought