TO MY LADY PACKINGTON, IN ANSWER OF A MESSAGE BY HER Madam, SENT.1 You shall with right good will be made acquainted with anything which concerneth your daughters, if you bear a mind of love and concord: otherwise you must be content to be a stranger unto us. For I may not be so unwise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your daughters and their husbands, having seen so much misery of that kind in yourself. And above all things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say you will receive my wife if she be cast off. For it is much more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to make an end of those follies. And you shall at this time pardon me this one fault of writing to you. For I mean to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you ought. So wishing you better than it seemeth you will draw upon yourself, I rest, Yours, etc. 7. Parliament did not meet again in 1608, having been further prorogued upon apprehension or pretence of the "sickness" then prevalent in London; and Bacon's principal public services were performed in the Courts and belong to the professional department. Of these the most considerable was his argument in the case of the Postnati, delivered before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges, assembled in the Exchequer Chamber. It was a great case, and arose in this way. The proceedings in the last session had left the question of Naturalisation not only unsettled, but subject to a grave doubt in point of law: the Judges having, as advisers of the Upper House, given opinion that the Postnati were already ipso jure naturalised; while the Lower House had resolved that they were not, and declined to naturalise them by Statute, until other measures had been passed which must necessarily have taken a long time. This doubt affected the rights of all persons born in Scotland within the five years last past, and to be born hereafter; and as neither an extra-judicial declaration of the Judges nor a mere resolution of the 1 Remains, p. 78. 2 See Proclamations, 30th Sept. 1607; 10th Jan. 1607-8; 4th Sept. 1608. House of Commons was competent to settle it, it was a matter of great importance to obtain an authoritative and conclusive decision. To procure this, a grant of lands in England was made to an infant born in Scotland since the King's accession, of which a disseisin having been effected, an action of common law was brought by his guardians to recover possession, together with a suit in Chancery for the discovery of evidence. The decision in both cases turned upon the question whether he were an alien or no; and in both, after hearing, was "adjourned into the Exchequer Chamber, to be argued openly there; first by the Counsel learned of either party, and then by all the Judges of England." Bacon's argument, probably the greatest of his forensic speeches, certainly the most interesting to non-professional readers, appears to have been delivered some time before Easter Term (which began on the 13th of April) 1608; and will be found among the Professional Works.2 The result was a judgment in favour of the plaintiff, delivered by the Lord Chancellor and twelve of the Judges,-two only dissenting; a judgment very satisfactory to those who thought with Bacon that there could be no secure union between the two countries without naturalisation, and that the sooner it took place the better; for it settled that part of the question which was most important. The remaining marks of separation might retard the union between the English and Scotch of that generation, but in the next generation they would have disappeared altogether. With those who wanted. no such union and apprehended evil to England from this communication of privileges, the decision was of course unpopular; for it imposed upon their children the very state of things which they had refused for themselves, and from which they would have saved their posterity if they could. That this unpopularity was so great and so general as to make it from that time "useless to call upon Parliament to consider any measure connected with the union," is an imputation upon the patriotism of the Commons of those days which I hope is unjust. But even if the result of the proceeding did involve so grave an inconvenience, it is difficult to see how the Government could have avoided it. To say that a doubtful question of law, involving the private rights of innumerable persons, ought not to have been referred to the highest legal tribunal in the land, is to say that the forms of judicial procedure ought to have been regarded as useless, and the Judges as incompetent for their function. And as it was never suspected that any undue influence was used to limit the freedom of the defence, or to bias the decision, it is 3 Gardiner, i. 323. 1 Coke's Reports. 2 Vol. VII. p. 641. TO MY LADY PACKINGTON, IN ANSWER OF A MESSAGE BY HER SENT.1 Madam, You shall with right good will be made acquainted with anything which concerneth your daughters, if you bear a mind of love and concord: otherwise you must be content to be a stranger unto us. For I may not be so unwise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your daughters and their husbands, having seen so much misery of that kind in yourself. And above all things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say you will receive my wife if she be cast off. For it is much more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to make an end of those follies. And you shall at this time pardon me this one fault of writing to you. For I mean to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you ought. So wishing you better than it seemeth you will draw upon yourself, I rest, Yours, etc. 7. Parliament did not meet again in 1608, having been further prorogued upon apprehension or pretence of the "sickness" then prevalent in London ;2 and Bacon's principal public services were performed in the Courts and belong to the professional department. Of these the most considerable was his argument in the case of the Postnati, delivered before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges, assembled in the Exchequer Chamber. It was a great case, and arose in this way. The proceedings in the last session had left the question of Naturalisation not only unsettled, but subject to a grave doubt in point of law: the Judges having, as advisers of the Upper House, given opinion that the Postnati were already ipso jure naturalised; while the Lower House had resolved that they were not, and declined to naturalise them by Statute, until other measures had been passed which must necessarily have taken a long time. This doubt affected the rights of all persons born in Scotland within the five years last past, and to be born hereafter; and as neither an extra-judicial declaration of the Judges nor a mere resolution of the 1 Remains, p. 78. 2 See Proclamations, 30th Sept. 1607; 10th Jan. 1607-8; 4th Sept. 1608. House of Commons was competent to settle it, it was a matter of great importance to obtain an authoritative and conclusive decision. To procure this, a grant of lands in England was made to an infant born in Scotland since the King's accession, of which a disseisin having been effected, an action of common law was brought by his guardians to recover possession, together with a suit in Chancery for the discovery of evidence. The decision in both cases turned upon the question whether he were an alien or no; and in both, after hearing, was "adjourned into the Exchequer Chamber, to be argued openly there; first by the Counsel learned of either party, and then by all the Judges of England." Bacon's argument, probably the greatest of his forensic speeches, certainly the most interesting to non-professional readers, appears to have been delivered some time before Easter Term (which began on the 13th of April) 1608; and will be found among the Professional Works.2 The result was a judgment in favour of the plaintiff, delivered by the Lord Chancellor and twelve of the Judges,-two only dissenting; a judgment very satisfactory to those who thought with Bacon that there could be no secure union between the two countries without naturalisation, and that the sooner it took place the better; for it settled that part of the question which was most important. The remaining marks of separation might retard the union between the English and Scotch of that generation, but in the next generation they would have disappeared altogether. With those who wanted no such union and apprehended evil to England from this communication of privileges, the decision was of course unpopular; for it imposed upon their children the very state of things which they had refused for themselves, and from which they would have saved their posterity if they could. That this unpopularity was so great and so general as to make it from that time "useless to call upon Parliament to consider any measure connected with the union," is an imputation upon the patriotism of the Commons of those days which I hope is unjust. But even if the result of the proceeding did involve so grave an inconvenience, it is difficult to see how the Government could have avoided it. To say that a doubtful question of law, involving the private rights of innumerable persons, ought not to have been referred to the highest legal tribunal in the land, is to say that the forms of judicial procedure ought to have been regarded as useless, and the Judges as incompetent for their function. And as it was never suspected that any undue influence was used to limit the freedom of the defence, or to bias the decision, it is 3 Gardiner, i. 323. 1 Coke's Reports. 2 Vol. VII. p. 641. strange that in these times, when nobody wishes the decision reversed or regrets the effects of it, any doubt should be felt as to the propriety of the proceeding through which it was obtained. "Never any case," says Coke," was adjudged in the Exchequer Chamber with greater concordance and less variety of opinion. . . . Et sic determinata et terminata est ista quæstio." 8. There is another writing of Bacon's which appears to have been composed about this time, and (though its form and the use to which he turned it afterwards caused it to be classed among the literary works) might perhaps with as much propriety have been placed here; for there can be little doubt that it was closely connected with the business of this particular time, and meant to bear upon the solution of the most important state-problem with which the statesmen of the time had to deal. The day had come when the ordinary revenues of the Crown were no longer adequate to the ordinary requirements of government. And the day was fast coming when it would not be possible any longer to disguise that fact. Now if the King could not carry on the government constitutionally without help from the House of Commons which the House might constitutionally refuse, it followed that the House of Commons had potentially a veto upon all the proceedings of the Government. If this be done (they might say), or if that be not done, we shall stop the supplies. The transfer of so great a power to new hands, coming suddenly, and coming (as it probably would) with a struggle, was a revolution which could not be anticipated without serious apprehension: for in a constitution like the English there was no knowing how much disturbance it would cause. The best chance of averting or postponing the discovery would be to engage the country in some action which would carry the sympathies of the people with it. Now the pacific character of James's government was probably up to this time the most unpopular thing about it; and though the time was happily past when "To win our ancient right in France again, Or die a soldier as he lived a King," could be approved by sane men as a fit object of royal ambition, yet there were many questions still alive-questions concerning religion, trade, colonization, etc.,-in which the English people would have been proud to see their Government asserting a foremost position 1 Rich. III. act iii. sc. 1. |