Volume 1

Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart].

  • Andrew Stuart
Date:
[1773]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield. From Andrew Stuart, esq. [On the Douglas Peerage Cause.] / [Andrew Stuart]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/208 (page 38)
    [ 3S ] , If the ftate of my health and fpirits had not prevented me, your Lordfhip would not fo long have been detained in expectation of what was fo juftly due to you—Nor fhall it be from an unknow n hand that the payment of this debt proceeds.—From the rirlt moment of my thinking at all of this meafure, I was refolved that your Lordfhip, when the addrefs was made, fhould know with certainty from what quarter it came.—I cannot approve of anonymous addreffes in matters of this fort.—Whenever a man is fo circumftanced that he finds himfelf in honour or in duty bound to make a perfonal attack or perfonal defence, it feems to me mean-fpirited and improper to abflain from putting his name to an attack or defence of this interefting nature. It is not for me, nor is it my objeCl:, to arraign in general the judgment of that auguft aflembly, which re- verfed the folemn judgment of the court of judicature un¬ der whofe confideration the merits of this caufe had for a long time depended. Thofe noble Lords who affented to the opinion deliver¬ ed by your Lordfhip upon the whole merits of the queftion, and who filently concurred in the judgment of reverfal, adfed, no doubt, from conviClion, and upon the bell principles ; though their reafons were not expreffed in public, it muff be prefumed, that they had reafons which to them appeared ftrong and convincing. No man can be more remote than I am from either fup- pofmg or infinuating any thing contrary to this juft pre- fumption. It is not fo much the judgment itfelf, nor the filent concurrence or undeclared reafons for that judg¬ ment, that I mean to attack, as the public and oftenfible reafons, produced by your Lordfhip, in fupport of the opinion you gave for the reverfal of the original fentence. In