TH HAM. A.D. 1810 TO 1820. ET. 39 TO 41. HE reputation he has acquired by his defence of the Nottinghamshire insurgents, and a just confidence in his own abilities, led Denman, at the general election of 1818, to aspire to a seat in the House of Commons. After a previous unsuccessful attempt at Nottingham, he was returned with Mr. Calcraft for the close borough of Wareham, in Dorsetshire, by the joint influence and at the joint expense of the Duke of Devonshire and the Marquis of Lansdowne, two great Whig potentates, who were desirous of securing so able and efficient a recruit for the ranks of the Liberal party. The following passage from a letter written by Denman soon after his election, to his brother-in-law, the Rev. R. W. Vevers, then on a visit to Lord Chesterfield at Bradby Hall,' will show clearly enough his political position as a nominee of the two Whig leaders: "I agree with you in thinking that an exposure of Sir Francis Burdett's conduct and principles [Burdett was then the leader of the ultra-Liberals] might be useful to the good cause of Whiggism; but I am quite convinced by my own experience at Nottingham that, on that subject above all others, whenever passion is excited, there is but an end to reason. Sir Francis Burdett's popularity is personal in a remarkable degree. A Whig 1 Vevers married a sister (illegitimate) of the sixth Lord Chesterfield-long Master of the Buckhounds-who afterwards gave him the living of Cubley, near Ashdowne, in Derbyshire. gish attack on him would have more effect in making the Whigs suspected than in undeceiving a single partisan. I flatter myself that the party is gaining the best possible strength-the influence of public opinion; but this can only be secured by a greater deference to the principles of Reform and Retrenchment than perhaps any party, as such, would yet be willing to pay. The more I see of the men I am associated with, the better I like them, and the more I am satisfied that these men are patriotic and generous, with as little alloy of selfishness as can be consistently with the currency of the metal. Among the real leaders I do not think there is one whose ambitious sentiments are not closely connected with the wish and intention to serve the public in the best possible manner." Denman first took his seat as member for Wareham on January 14, 1819. The death of Horner, in 1817, and still more that of Romilly in November, 1818, had somewhat enfeebled the Whig opposition, which was now nominally led by Tierney, supported by Macintosh, but which really owed the greater portion of its influence with the country to the energy and genius of Henry Brougham. There was a favorable opening for a young politician of high ability, and a good deal was expected of the new member for Wareham. It cannot be concealed that Denman's earlier career in the House of Commons, though useful, manly, honorable and dignified, did not quite equal in brilliancy the anticipations of the chiefs of his party, or the high-raised hopes of his friends. A main reason for this no doubt was that Parliamentary distinction was never his primary object, and accordingly never called forth the full exercise of all his powers. In a letter written to his mother, who, on the occasion of his first attempt at Nottingham, had expressed some alarm at the probable effects on his professional practice of a premature entrance into the House, he explained his views on the subject, with his usual sincerity and distinctness. "Do not," he writes, "suffer any one to suppose that I am sacrificing my profession to politics; my family being always my first object, my profession is and always will be my second.": This partly, no doubt, accounts for the facts of his want of preeminent success in the House of Commons, but it does not, perhaps, entirely account for it. It may be doubted whether, even if he had devoted himself more exclusively to politics, his success would have been of the highest order. He wanted some of the qualifications, natural or acquired, for a House of Commons leader. He had not the indomitable energy, the active combativeness, the restless and unsleeping vigilance, the vast and varied information, which made of Henry Brougham in his prime a Parliamentary power of the first magnitude. The judgment seat and the House of Lords were the proper fields of distinction for Denman. In the House of Lords especially, his high character, his unswerving consistency, and his dignified eloquence ultimately won for him a position which formed a marked contrast to that occupied by his old friend-the brilliant and versatile ex-chancellor during the long twilight of his political decline. But though Denman's career in the House of Commons was neither so brilliant nor so successful as his reputation before he entered it had led many to expect, yet it is only when tried by the very highest standard that it can be pronounced to have fallen short of the mark. His general views on all the leading questions of the day were enlightened; his attachment to constitutional liberty was ardent; his sense of public duty was high and pure; his courage in supporting the truth and the right was firm and unflinching. He never lost an opportunity of promoting the amendment of the law, or of mitigating the severity of our then sanguinary criminal code; the abolition of death punishment in cases of forgery was mainly his work; he was forward and fearless in denouncing all instances of jobbery and corruption in high places; every species of oppression at home and abroad, especially the crowning iniquity of the African Slave Trade, ever found in him an active and unsparing foe. In a paper which he has left behind him relating to the events of 1820, and the immediately subsequent yearsa paper from which copious extracts will be made in the following pages-he has thus placed on record his own estimate of his Parliamentary career from 1819 to 1826. They are the words of one not given to self-praise, nor too easily satisfied with his own performances. "I fairly own," he writes in 1828, "that I look back on my Parliamentary career with no small satisfaction. I have never wished to recall a sentiment I uttered, or to change a vote I gave. I did my best for the interests of freedom, justice, and truth in every part of the world. For every species of reform, Parliamentary, legal, and economical, I constantly lifted up my voice; to every corruption and abuse I declared the enmity I felt. In all debates on the question of slavery I took that side which must mitigate its horrors and ultimately accomplish its abolition. With a strong sense of the just deference due to the party, I sometimes differed from them, especially on Irish questions and the necessity at particular periods for what, by a strange perversion of language, are called strong measures--rashness, violence, the substitution of arbitrary power for law being, in my opinion, at once proofs of weakness and acts of weakness. My constituents and I were strictly united in general opinion, but I offended many among them by constantly supporting the principles of Free Trade, in spite of their partiality for restrictions of sundry kinds. Though my language was sometimes reckoned too strong, and my course too indiscriminating, I have reason to think that on the whole credit was given me for honesty of intention; and in the House of Commons I had the good fortune to make many friendships of the highest value." In the first session of 1819 he was not an infrequent speaker. His contributions to the progress of Law Reform, though neither comprehensive nor important, were all in the right direction. On the 4th of February he supported a motion of Michael Angelo Taylor for giving the benefit of a general gaol delivery and commission of assize and nisi prius to Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, and Newcastle-on-Tyne;' on the 10th of the same month he spoke in favor of the Attorney-General, Sir Samuel Shepherd's, Bill for abolishing the antiquated abuses of appeals of murder, and wager of battle on writs of right; and on the 28th of 2 1 Hansard, Parl. Deb. vol. xxxix. pp. 294, 295. April he himself brought in a bill for facilitating the despatch of business in the Court of King's Bench by allowing one of the judges to sit in Term for hearing causes, while the rest were sitting in Banco; by enabling sentence to be passed in many cases at the assizes, instead of, as hitherto, in Term; and by allowing the Court to sit on the 30th of January, the "martydom" of Charles the First notwithstanding.' On the 25th of February, 1819, he spoke at some length, and with considerable force, against the resolution introduced by Lord Castlereagh, to pay 10,000l. a year out of the Civil List to the Duke of York to meet the expenses incurred by him as custodian of His Majesty's person. On this occasion he declaimed against the hardship and injustice of calling upon the people, at a time when they were overwhelmed with the difficulties brought upon them by the late war, "to submit to an increase of their burdens for the purpose of inducing a son to perform the most sacred of all duties to an aged parent. While Parliament [he reminded the House] was discussing grants of thousands to royal dukes, the questions out of doors were,How many more paupers must be consigned to our work-houses?' 'How much more of misery and crime must exist?' 'In what degree must we add to the contamination of our crowded gaols?'"2 On the 3d of June he made a spirited speech in support of Sir Robert Wilson, who had moved the rejection of the Foreign Enlistment Act, introduced by the Attorney-General, the real object of which was to prevent British subjects from assisting the Spanish colonies of South America in their struggle for independence. 1 Hansard, Parl. Deb. vol. xxxix. p. 1481. He 2 Hansard, Parl. Deb. vol. xxxix. pp. 667 to 776. It was on this occasion that Scarlett made a famous speech, "one of the ablest," says Brougham, "that any professional man ever made "- -a great success, but fated to be almost his last ("Memoirs," vol. iii.p. 471 in Appendix). "He sate down amid loud and general cheers” (Hansard, Parl. Deb. vol. xxxix. PP. 599 to 605). 3 It was in the course of this debate, but on an earlier night, May 19, that Mackintosh made one of the ablest of his speeches in Parliament (see "Lord Dalling's Historical Characters: Mackintosh," part ii. sec. v.). It is very imperfectly reported in Hansard. Denman's speech is in Hand sard, Parl. Deb. vol. xl. pp. 876 to 884. |