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417 



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he was called to the bar, and joined the Western circuit in 

 the ensuing spring. 



Thurlow immediately applied himself to the practice of 

 his profession with great assiduity ; and although he 

 brought with him an indifferent character from the uni- 

 versity, he attained unusually early to reputation and em- 

 ployment both in Westminster Hall and on the circuit. 

 His name appears frequently in the Law Reports soon after 

 he was called to the bar ; and his success in the profession 

 he had chosen was clearly ascertained in less than seven 

 years from the commencement of his practice. In 1761 

 he obtained the rank of king's counsel ; and it may per- 

 haps be inferred from an anecdote which is related by his 

 early friend and associate Cowper, in one of his letters 

 (Cowper's Works, vol. v., p. 254, Southey's edit.), and 

 which refers to this period, that Thurlow had then acquired 

 a degree of reputation which suggested the prediction that 

 he would eventually rise to the highest office in his profes- 

 sion. A more convincing proof of his position in the law 

 is however recorded in the Reports, from which it appears 

 that immediately after his appointment as king's counsel 

 his practice in the courts rapidly increased, and, during ten 

 years preceding his appointment as solicitor-general, was 

 exceeded only by that of Sir Fletcher Norton, and one or 

 two others of the most eminent advocates of his time. To 

 have succeeded so early and to so great an extent, without 

 adventitious aid from influence or connection, and in com- 

 petition with advocates of unquestioned ability and learn- 

 ing, is a substantial argument of professional merit. His 

 employment in preparing and arranging the documentary 

 evidence for the trial of the appeal in the House of Lords 

 against the decision of the Court of Session in the Great 

 Douglas Cause fwhich, according to professional tradition, 

 resulted from mere accident) may have had the effect of 

 bringing his talents, industry, and legal acquirements under 

 the immediate notice of persons of power and influence, 

 and of thus opening the way to his subsequent elevation. 



In the new parliament called in 1768 he was returned 

 as member for the borough of Tamworth, and became a 

 constant and useful supporter of Lord North's administra- 

 tion. Upon Dunning's resignation of the office of solicitor- 

 general in March, 1770, and Blackstone's refusal to accept 

 it (' Lite of Sir William Blackstone,' prefixed to Blackstone's 

 yi''7/ort),Thurlow received the appointment, and in January, 

 1771, he succeeded Sir William De Grey as attorney-gene- 

 ral. Soon after his introduction to office, he attracted the 

 particular notice of George III. by the zeal and energy 

 displayed by him in supporting the policy of Lord North's 

 government respecting America, and in which the king is 

 known to have taken the warmest interest. Thurlow's 

 strenuous and steady support of the minister in the great 

 parliamentary contest which ensued respecting that policy, 

 procured for him a degree of confidence and even of per- 

 sonal regard on the part of the king, which continued un- 

 abated for upwards of twenty years, and had unquestion- 

 ably great influence in \\tf remarkable vicissitudes of party 

 which occurred in that period. 



In the summer of 1778 lord chancellor Bathurst resigned 

 his office ; and on the 2nd of June in that year Thurlow 

 was appointed his successor, and raised to the peerage 

 with the title of Baron Thurlow of Ashfield in the county 

 of Suffolk. Four years afterwards, in March, 1782, when 

 Lord North was removed from power, and the ephemeral 

 Rockingham administration was formed, Thurlow remained 

 in possession of the great seal by the express command of 

 the king, and in spite of Mr. Fox's opposition to his con- 

 tinuance in office ; thus furnishing an instance without a 

 parallel in the history of English party, of a lord chan- 

 cellor retaining office under an administration to all the 

 leading features of whose policy he was resolutely op- 

 posed. Nor was he content in this inconsistent association 

 to differ from his colleagues in opinion only ; on the con- 

 trary, he took no pains to conceal his hostility to their 

 principles, and even opposed in the House of Lords with 

 all his characteristic energy the measures which they 

 ui.animously supported. Thus, after the bill for prevent- 

 ing government contractors from sitting in the House of 

 Commons had been introduced into the House of Lords, 

 where it was supported by Lord Shelburne and all the 

 ministers in that house, the lord chancellor left the wool- 

 sack, and himself moved that ' the bill be not committed,' 

 denouncing the measure as ' an attempt to deceive and 

 betray the people,' and designating it ' a jumble of con- 

 P. C.. No. 1540. 



tradictions.' (Hansard's Parl. Hist., vol. xxii.,"pp. 135G- 

 1379.) The inconvenience produced by this embarrassing 

 disunion of councils was deeply felt, and was one of the 

 principal reasons for Mr. Fox's retirement from administra- 

 tion on the death of the marquis of Rockingham ; and 

 when the administration was dissolved in February, 1783, 

 upon the coalition formed between Lord North and Mr. 

 Fox, Lord Thurlow was compelled to retire from office, 

 notwithstanding the exertions of the king to retain him. 

 But though no longer chancellor, he still continued to be 

 one of those who were described by Junius as ' the king's 

 friends,' and was supposed to have been his secret and 

 confidential adviser during the short reign of the Coalition 

 ministry. Upon the dissolution of that ministry at the 

 end of the same year in which it was formed, the great seal 

 was restored to Lord Thurlow by Mr. Pitt, who then be- 

 came prime minister. He continued to hold the office of 

 lord chancellor for nine years after his reappointment ; 

 and until the occurrence of the king's madness in 1788, 

 appeared to act cordially with the rest of the cabinet ; but 

 when that event rendered a change of councils by means 

 of a regency probable, he was suspected, with good reason, 

 of some intriguing communications with the Prince of 

 Wales and the" Whigs (Moore,'s Life of Sheridan, vol. ii., 

 chap, xiii.), and was always subsequently regarded with 

 distrust by Mr. Pitt and his colleagues. On the other 

 hand, Lord Thurlow took no pains to conceal his dislike of 

 Mr. Pitt ; and that minister felt himself so embarrassed by 

 the chancellor's personal hostility to him, that in 1789 he 

 complained to the king, who immediately wrote to Thur- 

 low upon the subject, and obtained from him a satisfactory 

 answer. His angry feeling however still continued, until 

 at length, in 1792, probably relying upon his personal in- 

 fluence with the king, he ventured to adopt a similar 

 course to that which he had followed in very different cir- 

 cumstances under the Rockingham administration, and 

 actually opposed several measures brought into parliament 

 by the government. In particular he violently opposed 

 Mr. Pitt's favourite scheme for continuing the Sinking 

 Fund, and voted against it in the House of Lords, though 

 he had never expressed his dissent 1'rom the measure in 

 the cabinet. This kind of opposition, though submitted to 

 from necessity by a weak government like that of the 

 marquis of Rockingham, could not be endured by so pow- 

 erful a minister as Mr. Pitt ; and on the next day he in- 

 formed the king that either the lord chancellor or himself 

 must retire from the administration. The king, without 

 any struggle or even apparent reluctance, at once con- 

 sented to the removal of Lord Thurlow, who was ac- 

 quainted by command of his majesty that he must resign 

 the great seal upon the prorogation of parliament. Lord 

 Thurlow is said to have been deeply mortified by this 

 conduct on the part of the king ; and he is related to have 

 declared in conversation that 'no man had a right to treat 

 another as the king had treated him.' Subsequently to 

 his notice of dismissal, and before he quitted office, his ill 

 humour was displayed by his opposition to another mea- 

 sure prepared and supported by Mr;- Pitt, the object of 

 which was the encouragement of the growth of timber in 

 the New Forest. On this occasion he reflected severely 

 upon those who had advised the king upon this measure, 

 and went so far as to say that his majesty had been im- 

 posed upon. (Tomline's Life of Pitt, vol. iii., p. 398-9.) 

 One of his latest acts as lord chancellor was to sign a pro- 

 test in the House of Lords against Mr. Fox's Libel Act. 

 The opportunity of his retirement from office was taken to 

 grant him a new patent, by which he was created Baron 

 Thurlow, of Thurlow, in the county of Suffolk, with re- 

 mainder, failing his male issue, to his three nephews, one 

 of whom afterwards succeeded to the title under this 

 limitation. 



After his retirement from office in 1792, Lord Thurlow 

 ceased to take any leading part in politics, and having 

 little personal influence with any party, became insignifi- 

 cant as a public character. He occasionally spoke in the 

 House of Lords on the subjects of interest which were dis- 

 cussed at the period of the French revolution ; and it is 

 worthy of remark that he frequently opposed the measures 

 adopted by the Tory government at that time for the sup- 

 pression of popular disturbances. Instances of this occur 

 with respect to the Treasonable Practices Bill and the 

 Seditious Meetings Bill, in 1795 ; and a comparison of the 

 sentiments expressed by him on these occasions, with his 



VOL. XXIV. 3 H 



