1827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



307 



torely, which gave occasion to a great 

 deal of coarse witticism among 1 the rib- 

 bald scribblers of the day, and subjected 

 him to a retort in court, where he told a 

 woman, who had been a little pert, that 

 she was " quick in her answers" " quick 

 as I am (says she) I am not so quick as 

 ycur lady, Sir George." 



By this advance to the recordership, he 

 became more conspicuous in the courts, 

 and seized upon every opportunity of dis- 

 tinction especially in shewing his zeal 

 and devotion for the government. He was 

 engaged on the side of the crown, in the 

 popish trials, in the case of Coleman of 

 Green, Berry, and Hill, for the murder of 

 Sir Edmund Godfrey of Langhorn and 

 the Jesuits; but in the midst of great 

 virulence of speech and violence of man- 

 ner not, to be sure, exceeding that of the 

 bench, and this is alleged as an excuse by 

 his biographer heshewed himselfanxious 

 for the preservation of the legal system of 

 evidence, and steadily resisted the admis- 

 sion of hear-say witnesses. 



In the prosecutions for libel, he was 

 equally zealous with the well-known Chief 

 Justice Scroggs ; and particularly when 

 Carr was convicted, amidst the hisses of 

 the crowd, of publishing the " weekly 

 packet of advice from Rome," and Scroggs, 

 annoyed by this expression of the public 

 feeling, exclaimed to the jury " You have 

 done like honest men," the recorder echoed 

 with great vivacity "They have done 

 like honest men." 



Honours now dropped thick upon him. 

 In 1680 he was " called" serjeant, and ap- 

 pointed a Welsh judge; and quickly after- 

 wards contrived to oust the chief justice 

 of Wales, and take his place. Within a 

 few months he was made king's serjeant, 

 and the following year a baronet, and 

 solicitor general to the Duke of York. 

 This last appointment brought him near the 

 person of the duke, and was the source of 

 his future distinctions. He left no stone 

 unturned to serve his new patron, who 

 was himself glad enough of any sturdy 

 supporter. The exclusionists were in full 

 activity, and gave Jeffreys ample oppor- 

 tunity of shewing his zeal. Through the 

 successive prorogations of parliament he 

 was among the most conspicuous of the 

 anti-petitioners in opposition to those 

 who petitioned for the assembling of par- 

 liament who went by the name of ab- 

 horrers. But soon the necessities of the 

 crown brought the parliament together 

 again, and no time was lost by the popu- 

 lar party of turning upon the abhorrers, 

 among the most active of whom was the 

 recorder. An address to the crown for 

 his dismissal was voted; he himself was 

 brought to the house, and reprimanded on 

 his knees ; and being frightened from all 

 propriety, he -craven-like resigned the 

 recordership, and was laughed at for his 

 paius by the king, in whose eyes he lost 



credit, as a man not parliament-proof; and 

 was burnt in effigy along with the devil 

 and the pope, by the populace of the city, 

 with whom his judicial intemperance had 

 made him no favourite. 



Thus driven backward some steps in his 

 career, he made attempts to rejoin his old 

 party ; but they suspected him and repelled 

 his overtures : and no resource was left 

 him but sticking steadily by the crown, 

 and making up for lost time by more ac- 

 tivity. Though fallen, he fell upon his 

 legs; he was still not without influence; 

 he lost nothing for want of looking after 

 it; and was soon, though to the sacrifice 

 of some portion of his practice, made 

 chairman of Hickes's Hall. Here he 

 quickly again distinguished himself, and 

 took his revenge on the Presbyterians 

 whom on another occasion he said he could 

 smell forty miles off by absolutely ex- 

 cluding them from juries. He was sup- 

 ported by the judges in this exclusion. 

 Luckily for him, he got employed in Fitz- 

 harris's case, where he roared lustily 

 against the unfortunate and indiscreet 

 spy; and again, successively in the trials 

 of Plunket, the titular archbishop, and 

 College, he was still rougher, meeting 

 occasionally himself with rubs and rebuffs 

 from judge, counsel, and witnesses, but 

 parrying all with no ordinary dexte- 

 rity ; and finally fought himself up once 

 more into the favourable notice of the 

 court. 



Jeffreys had had his revenge upon the 

 dissenters ; and an opportunity was soou 

 flung in his way of wreaking it upon the 

 city. The city had opposed the court in 

 the matter of sheriffs, and some rioting 

 had ensued. In the trial of the old sheriffs, 

 Pilkington and Shute, with the rioters, 

 Jeffrey's opinion was appealed to, as a 

 man who knew the city, and the abilities 

 of the parties to pay fines ; and he did 

 not forget to lay them heavily on his 

 enemies. But his great triumph was 

 in the quo warranto cause, by which the 

 city was called upon, in consequence of 

 its resistance to the wishes of the court, 

 to prove the validity of the charter and 

 lost it undoubtedly on the suggestion of 

 Jeffreys. 



One of the last causes, in which he was 

 engaged as a pleader, was Lord William 

 Russel's, in which he forgot his old rules 

 of evidence, for which he had once so 

 laudably stickled, and was ready enough 

 to support the doctrine of hear-say evi- 

 dence of the most doubtful kind. In Sep- 

 tember 1783, he was made chief justice, 

 on the death of Sanders, and a privy coun- 

 sellor. In this elevated station, he pre- 

 sided at the trial of Algernon Sidney. The 

 new judge's wrong, in this case, was not 

 as the prisoner charged in refusing to 

 hear his defence, but in listening to inad- 

 missible evidence, and mischarging the 

 jury; and on these grounds it was the 

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