On the bench, it is not to be denied that Lord Ellenborough occasionally suffered the strength of his political feelings to break forth, and to influence the tone and temper of his observations. That he ever, upon any one occasion, knowingly deviated one hair's breadth from justice in the discharge of his office, is wholly untrue. The case which gave rise to the greatest comment, and even led to a senseless show of impeachment, was Lord Cochrane's; but I have the best reason to know that all who assisted at this trial were in truth convinced of the purity with which the judicial duties were discharged, and the equality with which justice was administered. Lord Ellenborough was not of those judges who, in directing the jury, merely read over their notes and let them guess at the opinions they have formed; leaving them without any help or recommendation to form their own judgments. Upon each case that came before him he had an opinion; and while he left the decision with the jury, he intimated how he thought himself. This manner of performing the office of judge is now generally followed and most commonly approved. It was the course taken by this great judge in trying Lord Cochrane and his alleged associates; but, if any of those who attacked him for it had been present at the trial of the case which stood immediately before it or after it in the paper, he would have found Lord Ellenborough trying

that case in the self-same way—it being an action upon a bill of exchange or for goods sold and delivered.

I must, however, be here distinctly understood to deny the accuracy of the opinion which Lord Ellenborough appears to have formed in this case, and deeply to lament the verdict of guilty which the jury returned, after three hours' consulting and hesitation. If Lord Cochrane was at all aware of his uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone's, proceedings, it was the whole extent of his privity to the fact. Having been one of the counsel engaged in the cause, I can speak with some confidence respecting it, and I take upon me to assert that Lord Cochrane's conviction was mainly owing to the extreme repugnance which he felt to giving up his uncle, or taking those precautions for his own safety which would have operated against that near relation. Even when he, the real criminal, had confessed his guilt by taking to flight, and the other defendants were brought up for judgment, we, the counsel, could not persuade Lord Cochrane to shake himself loose from the contamination by abandoning him.

As regarded the Lord Chief Justice's conduct at the trial, none of us entertained any doubt that he had acted impartially, according to his conscience, and had tried it as he would have tried any other cause in which neither political nor personal feelings could have interfered. Our only complaint

was his Lordship's refusal to adjourn after the prosecutor's case closed, and his requiring us to enter upon our defence at so late an hour, past nine o'clock, that the adjournment took place at midnight, and before we called our witnesses. Of course I speak of the trial at Guildhall only. Lord Ellenborough was equally to blame with his brethren in the Court of King's Bench for that most cruel and unjustifiable sentence, which at once secured Lord Cochrane's re-election for Westminster when the Commons expelled him upon his conviction, and abolished for ever the punishment of the pillory, in all but one excepted case, perjury, in which also it has practically ceased to defile and disgrace our criminal jurisprudence."To cage a person of quality, or to set him in the pillory, upon account of any crime whatever (said Adam Smith, half a century before this case occurred), is a brutality of which no European government except that of Russia is capable."(Mor. Sent., p. 11, § 3.)

In 1833, the government of which I was a member restored this great warrior to his rank of admiral in our navy. The country, therefore, in the event of hostilities, would now have the inestimable benefit of his services, whom none perhaps ever equalled in heroic courage, and whose fertility of resources, military as well as naval, place him high among the very first of com

manders. That his honours of knighthood so gloriously won should still be withholden is a stain not upon him, but upon the councils of his country; and after his restoration to the service, it is as inconsistent and incomprehensible as cruel and unjust.

For a specimen of Ellenboroughs partiality as a budge Lee trial of Hilliam Hone for libel in Heights Pictorial Nectory of England..

The allusions to Lord Cochrane (now Lord Dundonald) seemsto be

very

Correct, at least, they comicide with Statements which have received sup port from Newspaper & then

of every

shade of opcion of were it not

From the dilitory conduct of the present ut (Whip, Ld In Russell) could be government (Whigreceive substantiated by a repetitant Lord Cochrane's many heroic actions & important services both naval & Military in the Freuch War to this comitry meist ever rank in heroism with Nelson tin

nation.

generalermochip with Wellington

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE BUSHE.

ALTHOUGH I had not the advantage of knowing this eminent person in his judicial capacity, yet I had the great pleasure of his acquaintance, and I also upon one remarkable occasion saw him examined as a witness upon matter partly of fact and partly of opinion; it was before the Irish committee of 1839. The testimony of a judge thus given bears a close resemblance to the opinion which he delivers in Court and the directions which he gives to a jury. Acting in both capacities under the obligation of his oath, and in pursuit of nothing but the truth, it becomes him to pronounce, with most scrupulous fairness, the opinions which he states, to relate with the utmost precision the facts which he knows, and to weigh nicely every word which he uses in conveying his statement. No one who heard the very remarkable examination of Chief Justice Bushe could avoid forming the most exalted estimate of his judicial talents. Many of the questions to which he necessarily addressed himself were involved in party