ALT. 32.] LORD ROSSLYN. 495 



" The business of the Cockpit will remain, but 

 that may depend upon the war. There are, however, 

 causes enough to last through some years of peace 

 perhaps as many as we can reasonably hope to see in 

 our time. 



" The circuit you will retain, and if you get to the 

 head of it rapidly, which, if I am rightly informed, 

 you may expect, the situation of Solicitor-General 

 opens to you easily, and with few competitors. It 

 would be too long to enter into all the calculations 

 and possibilities of legal promotion within a given 

 time if your friends are in power ; but it is obvious 

 enough that being once Solicitor-General, all the rest 

 is smooth and easy. 



" With respect to the King's Bench, I know not 

 how far Parliament will interfere it did not with 

 Dunning;* but I have generally observed that those 

 who took great leads in Parliament, have for the 

 most part attached themselves to Chancery, and there 

 certainly it did not much impede the business of 

 Thurlow, or my uncle Chancellor Loughborough ; but, 

 on the other hand, the profits were less considerable 

 than of those who worked hard in the King's Bench. 

 You will go into Parliament with advantages that no 

 modern lawyer has tried; with a fund of political and 



* John Dunning, a celebrated lawyer, born at Ashburton, Oct. 18, 

 1731; Solicitor-General, 1767 ; member for Calne, 1768; April 8, 

 1782, created Baron Ashburton, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 

 caster, by Lord Shelburne; died, August 18, 1783. He had married 

 Elizabeth, sister of Sir Francis Baring, Bart., whose son Alexander, in 

 consequence of this connection, took the title of Ashburton in April 

 1835, Dunning' s peerage being then extinct. 



