573
quence by calling it or him the Harangue. 'Well,
gentlemen, what did the Harangue say next? Well,
it said this (misstating it); but here, gentlemen, the
Harangue was most plainly wrongg, and not intel-
ligibill.' "
It was either upon this judge or one of a simi-
lar character that Brougham is said to have taken
the following grotesque revenge. The circuit was
to be opened at Jedburgh, and the lord of session
repaired to it under the comfortable assurance that
Brougham was not to be there. But while the
judges and magistrates in solemn pomp were march-
ing up the long, steep, main street to the court-
house, a gig was seen at the top, and in it a man
wearing a cocked hat set on the wrong way; in
another moment man, gig, and horse came dashing
down upon the procession, upsetting every grave
functionary who was not nimble enough to skip
aside; and instantly after this strange intrusion dis-
appeared before the face under the cocked hat could
be recognized. The judges, highly indignant and
grievously overblown, were still more incensed on
reaching the court-house to find the Harangue seated
composedly in his place with his papers arranged
before him. Was he the author of the recent out-
rage? It was strongly suspected, but proof was
wanting. Another similar freak, although for a
different pupose, is reported of these early days of
Brougham. He went to the Dumfries races on
Tinwald Downs attired in a red gown, and carried
in a sedan chair—an object of wonderment and per-
plexity to the thousands who were assembled at the
race-course. This strange exhibition of the future
statesman and chancellor was in consequence of a
bet.
In 1804, and when he was only in his twenty-sixth
year, Mr. Brougham's public career had its com-
mencement in consequence of his removing to Lon-
don; a fact bitterly recorded by Cobbet, whose poli-
tical and national jealousies were equally offended
by the arrival, as "an invasion of this devoted
country." In England, through a certain Dr. Per-
cival of Manchester, he was recommended to Mr.
Wilberforce; and the latter, knowing that Mr. Pitt
was in search of an eligible person to visit the Con-
tinent and collect information in Spain and Portu-
gal, on the rising of a spirit of resistance in these
countries to the domination of Napoleon, he thought
Mr. Brougham well fitted for such a task, and ac-
cordingly recommended him to his friend the great
statesman. "If in the course of any of your calls
for proper men," he wrote, "to be employed in any
diplomatic business, you should be at a loss for one,
you perhaps could not, in the whole kingdom, find
any one, in all respects, so well qualified as Mr.
Brougham, whom I formerly mentioned to you.
He speaks French as well as English, and several
other languages. But the great thing is, that he is
a man of uncommon talents and address, and for his
age—twenty-six—knowledge also; and I told you
of his being so long the advocate for your govern-
ment in Edinburgh. [Here Mr. Wilberforce must
have been ignorant of Brougham's Whiggery and
his articles in the Edinburgh Review.] My mention-
ing him to you is entirely of my own head; of course
he knows nothing of it—indeed he is in Edinburgh
—and I only do it (most solemnly, I assure you) on
public grounds, and because I know you must often
want men for foreign services. He has, besides the
qualities I mentioned, great resolution, strength of
constitution," &c. Upon the strength of this re-
commendation Mr. Brougham was sent to the Con-
tinent about the end of the year 1805 under the guise
of an American, and was enabled to do some service
to the question by his inquiries, more especially in
Holland. His acquaintance with Mr. Wilberforce
also connected him with the subject of abolition, of
which he became one of the most energetic and
efficient advocates. In 1806 he went again to Hol-
land, but this time chiefly in reference to the slave-
trade, and on his return he assisted the then Lord
Hawick in drawing up the abolition bill of 1807.
As the Scottish bar afforded such a limited scope
for his energies, Mr. Brougham while in England
had qualified himself for the English bar. He had
already secured for himself a high professional repu-
tation by a visit from Scotland to London in 1807,
in order to plead before the House of Lords in a
case respecting the succession to the Scottish duke-
dom of Roxburgh. In 1808 he was called to the
English bar, and commenced practice in the Court
of King's Bench, and in 1809 his appearance in a
case of high political importance added greatly to
the fame he had already acquired. It was to plead
before the House of Commons the case of the mer-
chants of London, Liverpool, and Manchester, who
complained of the injury done to British merchandise
by the operation of the famous "orders in council,"
by which our statesmen sought to retaliate on
Napoleon's Berlin decree. It was much that so
young a lawyer should have been selected to plead
on such a subject, and before so august a tribunal;
but although the appeal in behalf of his clients was
unsuccessful, the ability with which it was conducted
justified their choice. He was now conspicuously
a rising man, whose services government would do
well to secure. He was accordingly returned to the
House of Commons for Camelford by the Earl of
Darlington, the patron of the borough. This en-
trance to parliament through a rotten borough might
seem at first sight inconsistent with the public career
of a patriot; but let it be remembered that it was
not in those days so odious as it afterwards became
—that it was in this way Burke, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan,
Lansdowne, Plunket, Canning, Romilly, Palmerston,
Macaulay, and many others, had been secured for the
service of their country—and that in those days a
free constituency also meant an enormously expen-
sive constituency. It was not until 1831, fully more
than twenty years afterwards, that Mr. Brougham
was returned by a popular election, which was that
for Yorkshire.
On the 5th of March, 1810, Mr. Brougham de-
livered his maiden speech in parliament. It was on
the occasion of Mr. Whitbread's motion reprobating
the conduct of the Earl of Chatham in privately
transmitting to the king his narrative of the expedi-
tion to the Scheldt. The speech disappointed Mr.
Brougham's admirers, who hoped that he would
take the house at the first onset; but it was better
as it was, for he was new to the situation, and too
cautious to commit himself, so that the speech was
just and appropriate, but nothing more. The same
cautiousness distinguished him during the session,
and it was chiefly on the slave-trade that he com-
manded the attention of the house. It was by a
great restraint upon his natural impetuosity that he
forbore to commit himself to any class of opinions,
or to the persons who held them: he was prudently
waiting his time, and surveying the field of action.
And for this, too, there was great need, as the period
was fraught with important events, under which the
whole aspect of affairs was to undergo a change.
Toryism was in the ascendency and threatening to
be permanent; the Perceval administration held the
reins of government, and was struggling against
the overwhelming power of Napoleon; while only
in Spain, where Wellington had opened his cam-