Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
I have omitted one circumstance which occurred in the spring of the
year, and which I shall now briefly notice. Mr. Sergeant BEST, who was
one of the Members for Bridport, was appointed Chief Justice of Chester,
a post which he had been long seeking for in vain. His client, Colonel
Despard, had been executed for nearly fifteen years, yet Mr. Sergeant
had only been promoted to a silk gown; and in spite of every effort
to become a Judge, he had been frustrated, it is understood, by the
objections raised by the Lord Chancellor. He, therefore, procured a seat
in Parliament, and became a violent oppositionist to the Government. At
length, the Prince Regent, it is said, demanded his promotion, and he
was appointed to the Chief Justiceship of Chester, which is the stepping
stone to the Bench. He vacated his seat for Bridport, as a matter of
course; and, as it was expected he would be returned again for that
borough without any opposition, I thought it would be a good opportunity
to remind him of the fate of Despard, and of his own apostacy, in
quitting his pretended opposition as soon as he was offered a place of
profit under the Crown. Without further ceremony, therefore, I drove to
Bridport, about three days before the election commenced, and announced
my intention of opposing the election of the Welch Judge, and former
counsel for Despard. Though I was not known to a single person in
the town of Bridport, yet I was received with great kindness by a
considerable portion of the electors, and was at once promised the
support of some of the most respectable of them. The Welch Judge,
however, did not make his appearance; but in his stead came a young
'Squire Sturt, the son of BEST'S former patron. As I had avowedly
attended only for the purpose of opposing and exposing the Chief Justice
of Chester, I now, at the request of some of those whose support against
Best I chiefly relied upon, declined to offer myself in opposition to
the young 'Squire, who possessed a majority of the houses in which the
small voters lived, and whose father had always been a great favourite
in the borough. I gained great credit for the manner in which I did
this, in an address to the electors from the hustings, declaring that my
only object was to expose the delinquency of their former Member, the
new Welch Judge. The reader will observe that I had no acquaintance with
Mr. Sergeant Best, nor had even in the remotest degree ever had any
connection with him, or come in contact with him, either in the way
of his profession or otherwise. I was solely actuated by public duty,
without the slightest cause for personal dislike to the lawyer. Perhaps
those who have read what I have written since I came here, will not now
be at a loss to account for the vindictive hostility of the venerable
Judge towards me, when I was brought up for judgment, and since I have
been here. They may now account for that Judge's voting for my having
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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