He read in the chambers of Francis Buller (afterwards Mr Justice Buller) and George (afterwards Baron) Wood, and was called to the bar on the 3rd of July 1778. His success was immediate and brilliant. An accident was the means of giving him his first case, _Rex_ v. _Baillie_, in which he appeared for Captain Thomas Baillie, the lieutenant-governor of Greenwich hospital, who had published a pamphlet animadverting in severe terms upon the abuses which Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the admiralty, had introduced into the management of the hospital, and against whom a rule had been obtained from the court of king's bench to show cause why a criminal information for libel should not be filed. Erskine was the junior of five counsel; and it was his good fortune that the prolixity of his leaders consumed the whole of the first day, thereby giving the advantage of starting afresh next morning. He made use of this opportunity to deliver a speech of wonderful eloquence, skill and courage, which captivated both the audience and the court. The rule was discharged, and Erskine's fortune was made. He received, it is said, thirty retainers before he left the court. In 1781 he delivered another remarkable speech, in defence of Lord George Gordon--a speech which gave the death-blow to the doctrine of constructive treason. In 1783, when the Coalition ministry came into power, he was returned to parliament as member for Portsmouth. His first speech in the House of Commons was a failure; and he never in parliamentary debate possessed anything like the influence he had at the bar. He lost his seat at the dissolution in the following year, and remained out of parliament until 1790, when he was again returned for Portsmouth. But his success at the bar continued unimpaired. In 1783 he received a patent of precedence. His first special retainer was in defence of Dr W.D. Shipley, dean of St Asaph, who was tried in 1784 at Shrewsbury for seditious libel--a defence to which was due the passing of the Libel Act 1792, laying down the principle that it is for the jury, and not for the judge to decide the question whether or no a publication is a libel. In 1789 he was counsel for John Stockdale, a bookseller, who was charged with seditious libel in publishing a pamphlet in favour of Warren Hastings, whose trial was then proceeding; and his speech on this occasion, probably his greatest effort, is a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury. Three years afterwards he brought down the opposition alike of friends and foes by defending Thomas Paine, author of _The Rights of Man_--holding that an advocate has no right, by refusing a brief, to convert himself into a judge. As a consequence he lost the office of attorney-general to the prince of Wales, to which he had been appointed in 1786; the prince, however, subsequently made amends by making him his chancellor. Among Erskine's later speeches may be mentioned those for