Amongst these notorious personages, notice must be taken of Sir Fletcher Norton. He had been purchased for this business (for even his attachment to Lord Mansfield and the Court were not sufficient to secure his zeal, though the cause was so bad) by the place of Chief Justice in eyre and a pension of 3000_l._ a-year. It was stipulated that Norton should quit the law, and be chief manager in the House of Commons: but no sooner was the bargain struck and the pension secured, than Norton, not caring to give up 7000_l._ a-year, which he got by his profession, pleaded that he could not _in honour_ abandon his clients. His next _point of honour_ was trying to prove by construction that Wilkes had been condemned of more than he had been condemned. Another acquisition to the Court was Sir Laurence Dundas, the rich commissary, a friend of Grenville, and now seduced from him by Rigby, another late friend of Grenville. Dundas commanded the votes of nine members. He demanded a peerage for himself, having acquired above eight hundred thousand pounds in less than four years of the late war--so far fairly that he had executed the commission on cheaper terms than anyone else had offered. He was, besides, nobly generous; yet it would have been gross indeed to have raised him to the peerage on no other foundation than the money he had gained from the public. It was known too, that Prince Ferdinand had been on the point of hanging him on part of his contract not being furnished so soon as he had engaged it should be.[187]
Carteret Webbe’s counsel was then heard in his defence, and to move compassion, pleaded before his face that he was decayed both in eyesight and understanding. Wilkes’s counsel replied. Dr. Blackstone[188] then moved a long, obscure question, setting forth that Wilkes’s complaint against Lord Mansfield was frivolous and trifling; and as the Courts below had pronounced that alteration of writs was not unusual, the charge was scandalous, as tending to calumniate the Chief Justice, and lessen the respect of the people for the law and the judges. He was seconded by a young Mr. Payne,[189] who spoke for the first time with much applause, though his language was wonderfully verbose. He was connected with Lord Mansfield, and as his speech was interlarded with law anecdotes, the person in whose behalf it was uttered was supposed to have assisted in the composition. Payne was a good figure and possessed himself well, having been accustomed to act plays in a private set; but his usual dialect being as turgid as Othello’s when he recounts his conquest of Desdemona, he became the jest of his companions and the surfeit of the House of Commons. Serjeant Glynn showed the injustice of the motion, for as it was clear and allowed that the writ had been altered, had not the prisoner a right to plead that alteration in his own defence? Norton and the Crown lawyers were warm on the other side; on which Barré called them the heavy artillery of the Court; or rather, said he, they resemble the elephants in Eastern armies, which fall back upon and put their own troops in confusion. The Ministers maintained their point till very late at night, though the House gave many signs of disgust at the violence of their proceedings. At last George Grenville, with attention to Lord Mansfield, and yet disapproving the question, wished some middle and temperate method could be hit upon. The House loudly agreed with him, but Lord North and Norton stuck firm, and the latter declared he would divide the House, though he should be alone. The Ministerial party then cried out as loudly on that side; till Conway rose, and taking notice that a minute before everybody had roared for moderation, and now were again for violence, proposed that, instead of harsh words, they should correct the motion, and say, that the alteration of writs not being unprecedented, the charge against Lord Mansfield should be declared groundless. Grenville approved this, and even Norton, and that amendment was accepted without a division. Thurlow then, at past one in the morning, moved that Wilkes had not made out his charge against Webbe, (though a letter had been produced from him to Curry and three other printers, bidding them take care to be uniform in their evidence, and though Curry had been subsisted at the expense of the Government,) and that the charge was frivolous and groundless. If these last words, he said, were disputed, the debate must be adjourned to another day. The Opposition, weakly or fatigued, objected only to the latter words, and offered to acquiesce in the former part of the vote, if the censure was promised to be omitted; with which Thurlow complied, and then carried the rest of his motion.[190]