MONCREIFF,
SIR JAMES WELLWOOD, Bart., of Tullibole.—This eminent judge, one of those
distinguished ornaments of the Scottish bar and bench for which the present
century has been so remarkable, but who have successively disappeared, and
left a void which will not easily be filled, was the second son of the Rev.
Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood, one of the ministers of St. Cuthberts,
Edinburgh. His mother was Susan Robertson, eldest daughter of James
Robertson Barclay, of Keavil, in Fifeshire. He was born in the second-charge
manse of St. Cuthberts, Edinburgh, on the 13th of September, 1776. As he was
one of a family of five sons and two daughters, and as the hereditary estate
of the ancient family of the Moncreiffs had lapsed into the possession of a
younger branch nearly two centuries previous, James, the subject of the
present memoir, was destined to a life of active industry, for which purpose
his education was commenced at the high school of Edinburgh, and afterwards
continued at the university of Glasgow. At the latter institution he was so
fortunate as to obtain one of its exhibitions to Baliol College, Oxford—an
appointment which secured to him for ten years a complete course of literary
and professional training at the same seminary which has produced, for many
generations, the master-spirits and leading intellects of Europe. Sir James,
however, found that, even in Oxford, the attainment of this high distinction
depended more upon a diligent course of self-training than the parental care
of his new alma mater, whose monastic institutes, worn out with old
age, could no longer be screwed up to the full coercive pitch. That happy
reformation had not yet commenced under which Oxford has assumed a new life,
and commenced a fresh history, that promises to be more glorious than its
old. In spite, however, of the prevalent looseness which at that time
characterized the discipline of these colleges, and the facility with which
their pains and penalties could be eluded or confronted, he became an
accomplished scholar, and was enabled to prepare for active exercise those
high intellectual qualities for which he was so distinguished in the course
of his future career.
As Mr. Moncreiff had selected
the law for his profession, and the Scottish bar for his place of
occupation, his studies at Oxford had been chiefly directed to this effect;
and on the 26th of January, 1799, he was admitted a member of the faculty of
advocates at Edinburgh. At first, his progress as a barrister was slow, and
his prospect of advancement unpromising; but for this, the solid,
substantial character of his mind, which required longer time for full
development, was a sufficient excuse. A profound, reflective lawyer, seldom
starts into full maturity at the age of twenty-three, or even gives large
promise of his future excellence. But a still greater obstacle to early
success might be found in Mr. Moncreiff’s politics, which were by some years
in advance of the period; they were those uncompromising, independent
principles which he had learned, from the example of his venerated father,
to cherish and avow, in spite of Tory ascendency and government patronage;
and in this way Mr. Moncreiff, instead of having the tide at its height to
bear him onward, was obliged to confront it in its rise, and when it was set
full against his progress. Like his illustrious contemporary, Jeffrey, he
adopted the losing side in politics when there was least hope of its
obtaining the ascendency. [His early adoption and avowal of Whig politics,
is thus commemorated in Cockburn’s "Life of Lord Jeffrey":--"The public
meeting in 1795, for attending which Henry Erskine was turned out of the
deanship, was held in the Circus, which their inexperience at that time of
such assemblages had made them neglect to take any means to light, and
Erskine was obliged to begin his speech in the dark. A lad, however,
struggled through the crowd with a dirty tallow candle in his hand, which he
held up during the rest of the address, before the orator’s face. Many
shouts honoured the unknown torch-bearer. This lad was James Moncreiff, then
about sixteen."] But both were finally no losers by their disinterestedness.
In the meantime, Mr. Moncreiff held onward perseveringly in his course, and
the first distinguished token of his growing success occurred on the 7th of
February, 1807, when he was appointed sheriff of the united counties of
Clackmannan and Kinross. This fortunate rise, by which his income was
doubled, and a fresh starting-point attained, occurred during the
short-lived administration of Lord Grenville. In the following year (1808)
he married Ann, daughter of Captain George Robertson, of the royal navy.
The career of an advocate at
the bar is not an eventful one: it is simply a history of pleadings and
their results, with which none but the parties concerned can be expected to
feel any interest. On this account it is enough to state that every year
increased Mr. Moncreiff’s professional reputation; and at a period when the
most illustrious of our Scottish pleaders were at the full height of their
fame (Jeffrey, Cranstoun, Cockburn, Clerk), he held a rank inferior to none.
Some of them, indeed, might excel him in ready or persuasive eloquence; but
this inferiority was more than counterbalanced by the depth and accuracy of
his legal knowledge, and his power of turning it to the best account. In
this way his professional character is thus summed up by one of that
illustrious confraternity who knew, and could well appreciate his
merits:—"Though a good thinker, not quick, but sound, he was a still better
arguer. His reasoning powers, especially as they were chiefly seen
concentrated on law, were of the very highest order. These, and his great
legal knowledge, made him the best working counsel in court. The intensity
of his energy arose from that of his conscientiousness. Everything was a
matter of duty with him, and therefore he gave his whole soul to it. Jeffrey
called him the whole duty of man. Simple, indifferent, and passive when
unyoked, give him anything professional or public to perform, and he fell
upon it with a fervour which made his enemies tremble, and his friends doubt
if it was the same man. One of his cures for a headache was to sit down and
clear up a deep legal question. With none, originally, of the faculties of
speaking which seem a part of some men’s nature, zeal, practice, and the
constant possession of good matter, gave him all the oratory that he
required. He could in words unravel any argument, however abstruse, or
disentangle any facts, however complicated, or impress any audience with the
simple and serious emotions with which he dealt. And for this purpose his
style, both written and spoken, was excellent—plain, clear, condensed, and
nervous." In another sketch, by a different writer, we have a view of all
these intellectual equipments in full vigorous action, at the time when
Moncreiff was in the prime of his manhood, as well as professional
reputation: "He has a countenance full of the expression of
quick-sightedness and logical power, and his voice and manner of delivering
himself are such as to add much to this, the natural language of his
countenance. He speaks in a firm, harsh tone; and his phraseology aspires to
no merit beyond that of closeness and precision. And yet, although entirely
without display of imagination, and though apparently scornful to excess of
every merely ornamental part of the rhetorical art, it is singular that Mr.
Moncreiff should be not only a fervid and animated speaker, but infinitely
more keen and fervid throughout the whole tenor of his discourse, and more
given to assist his words by violence of gesture, than any of the more
imaginative speakers whom I have already endeavoured to describe. When he
addresses a jury, he does not seem ever to think of attacking their
feelings; but he is determined and resolved that he will omit no exertion
which may enable him to get the command over their reason. He plants himself
before them in an attitude of open defiance: he takes it for granted that
they are against him, and he must and will subdue them to his power.
Wherever there is room to lay a finger, he fixes a grappling-iron, and
continues to tear and tug at everything that opposes him, so that
incredulity is glad to purchase repose by assenting to all he demands. . . .
His choleric demeanour gives a zest to the dryness of the discussions in
which he is commonly to be found engaged. His unmusical voice has so much
nerve and vigour in its discords, that after hearing it on several
occasions, I began to relish the grating effect it produces upon the
tympanum." ["Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk."]
From these two delineations,
although the latter is somewhat overcharged, a distinct idea may be formed
of James Moncreiff in his professional character and bearing. These also had
won their way to such just estimation, that on the 22d of November, 1826, he
was elected dean of faculty, although the senior, and in some respects
superior claims of Jeffrey to the office were against him. But in Jeffrey
himself, with whom he had fought many a hard legal tournament, he found that
best of all friends—a generous, openhearted antagonist--and the great critic
and eloquent barrister not only maintained Mr. Moncreiff’s claims as
superior to his own, but seconded his nomination. While he held this office,
the dean showed his upright disinterested love of justice in a case where
many in similar circumstances would have quailed. This was in reference to
the West Port murders, and the trial of their infamous perpetrators, Burke
and Hare. So deep was the popular abhorrence over the whole of England and
Scotland on the detection of this hideous system of Thuggism, and so
overwhelming was the outcry for justice—for vengeance—that it was thought no
advocate could be so hardy as to plead the cause of these assassins, who
were already tried and doomed by universal acclamation. It was then that
several leading advocates of the Scottish bar, with Mr. Moncreiff as dean,
at their head, stepped forward in defence of truth and right against the
universal cry, and while the storm was at the wildest; and through their
exertions the two malefactors obtained a fair dispassionate trial, in which
one of them was absolved, when both might otherwise have been torn to pieces
without a hearing. The exertions of the dean of faculty in this thankless
and most revolting case—his earnestness to vindicate the claims of justice,
whether to acquit or condemn, though a whole world might be arrayed against
them—and the discriminating talent with which he sifted the evidence of the
whole perplexing affair, until it stood out in all its distinct reality—were
long afterwards remembered with grateful commendation, not only by his
professional brethren, whom the example honoured and encouraged, but the
public at large, whose hasty judgments it restrained and rebuked.
By the death of his revered
father, on the 7th of August, 1827, Mr. Moncreiff succeeded to the family
baronetcy, under the title of Sir James Wellwood Moncreiff of Tullibole; his
elder brother, who was king’s advocate in the Admiralty Court of Malta,
having died unmarried in 1813. In 1829 Sir James was appointed a lord of
session, in consequence of a vacancy in the bench, occasioned by the death
of Lord Alloway. This appointment was the more honourable to Sir James, that
it proceeded, not from his own party, but his political opponents. They had
no occasion to regret their choice, for as a judge he equalled, or perhaps
even surpassed the reputation he had won as a barrister. "In the civil
court," it is stated in a short notice of his life, "his
judgments were admirable for learning and sagacity; and on the bench of the
criminal court his dispassionate weighing of evidence, his sound
appreciation of the rules of law, the impressive solemnity of his charges on
great occasions, carried a conviction, and gained a confidence, which the
people of Scotland have not always yielded to their judges." Before his
elevation to the bench he had also risen to high public mark and importance,
independently of his professional displays, by his speeches at public
meetings, on affairs both political and ecclesiastical. This was especially
the case at the great meeting held in Edinburgh in favour of Catholic
Emancipation; and when Dr. Chalmers and Lord Jeffrey delivered their
eloquent and memorable speeches on that important occasion, the first
resolution had been previously moved and enforced with great power by Sir
James Moncreiff. It was, however, as a member of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland that his great talents for investigation and debate,
combined with his well-known integrity, were chiefly valued; so that, on
several important occasions, he was called to lead the deliberations of that
august body.
So close a connection with
the church, and such a hearty devotedness to its interests, which marked the
professional career of Lord Moncreiff, is not to be wondered at when we
remember his clerical descent through not less than seven generations! Like
his father, also, he adhered to that party in the church known by the title
of Evangelical, in opposition to the Moderate side, which might be called
the Toryism of the Scottish Kirk. While he held the office of a ruling
elder, his attendance at church courts was frequent and his aid effectual,
and he had the satisfaction to witness the rise, from year to year, of those
principles of religious doctrine and ecclesiastical polity with which he was
connected. At length, when his party had acquired such strength as to bring
their controversy to a decisive issue upon the great question of patronage,
he was called, in 1832, to give evidence before a select committee of the
House of Commons, which was appointed to inquire into the origin and
exercise of church patronage in Scotland. His lordship’s answers to the
searching questions which were put to him on his examination, the flood of
light which he threw upon this difficult subject, and the simple, earnest,
impressive language and manner in which his testimony was delivered, were
long afterwards remembered. For a considerable time before the Disruption he
had retired from the conflict in consequence of his judicial position; and
when at last it occurred, in 1843, his attention was too mournfully
engrossed by the death of his lady, which happened at the same period, to
allow him to join in the events of that great movement. After the
Disruption, although he ceased to be an elder, he continued to hold
church-membership in the Free Church of Scotland, with whose leading
principles his whole course of life had been identified.
On nearing the venerable age
of seventy-five, Lord Moncreiff began to yield to the decay of nature; and
for several weeks before he died, the state of his health was such, that
although the physicians held out hopes of his recovery, he felt assured that
his end was at hand—a result which he contemplated without dismay, and for
which he prepared with Christian resignation and confidence. His death
occurred at his house in Moray Place, Edinburgh, on the afternoon of March
30, 1851, and his remains were interred in the Dean Cemetery, within a few
feet of the grave of his old friend, Lord Jeffrey. His character is thus
briefly and emphatically summed up by Lord Cockburn: "I am not aware how his
moral nature could have been improved. A truer friend, a more upright judge,
or a more affectionate man, could not be."
The family of Lord Moncreiff
consists of five sons and three daughters. Of these, the eldest son, Sir
Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, is minister of the Free West church of St
Cuthberts, Edinburgh; the second, who followed his father’s profession, is
now her majesty’s Lord Advocate for Scotland. |