Lord Chancellor, Earl of Clare

Chapter XLV.

Life of Lord Chancellor Earl of Clare, from his birth to his taking his seat in Parliament.

We now reach the most remarkable man who has yet held the Great Seal of Ireland, John Fitz Gibbon, Earl of Clare. Though a native of the soil he evinced no amor patriae, and sought his own aggrandisement at the expense of his country. His career displays dauntless courage, the highest intellect, the utmost selfishness, and unrestrained arrogance. While strongly condemning the result of his career, it is impossible not to admire the might of his abilities, and the range of his talents.

The atrocities of the penal code made the people of Ireland objects of sympathy in every Catholic country in Europe. The penal laws, which, as far as legislation could effect, debased the intellect by forbidding education to the Irish Catholics, caused Irish colleges to be endowed and established for their special use on the Continent, and that comprehensive and liberal education which the Parliaments of Britain and Ireland prohibited under severe penalties, was generously afforded to the exiles of Erin in more tolerant lands. By the waters of Tiber, in the City of the Seven Hills - Eternal Rome - the Irish college was thronged with students. In Paris, in St. Omer’s, in Louvain, and in Liége, in Salamanca, and in other well-known seats of learning, familiar as household words in the homes of the persecuted Irish - the sons of Erin drank deep of the well of knowledge. Here they acquired the learning necessary for the service of the altar or the practice of medicine, and returned to Ireland clergymen or doctors, ready and willing to save body and soul. Many of the wealthier Irish Catholics endowed these colleges, and thereby obtained what were termed’ bourses,’ which gave them a claim upon these institutions.

Among the Irish Catholics who obtained the benefit of the instruction and support afforded by the Irish College in Paris, were the sons of a farmer in the county of Limerick, named Fitz Gibbon. One of his sons entered the Church, and was ordained a priest. When the Reverend Mr. Fitz Gibbon returned to the humble paternal roof in his native land, he induced his younger brother John to avail himself of the excellent education to be had in Paris; and he readily consented. Thus, in the year 1724, at the age of sixteen, John Fitz Gibbon was sent to pursue his studies at the Irish College in Paris. As usual for new-comers, he was allowed the first day to take a view of the city. John Fitz Gibbon on this occasion was accompanied by a student as a companion and care-taker, afterwards one of the most eminent physicians in Limerick - Dr. Ankettle. The youths having traversed the metropolis in every direction, stopped at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in the vicinity of the college; when exhausted with fatigue they sought repose on the benches of the choir, and fell so soundly asleep that they noticed not the closing of the church doors, while they were equally unobserved. It was past midnight when they awoke, and, finding them-selves thus immured, they groped about in the dark until they happened to reach the bell-chains, which they vigorously pulled, to the surprise and affright not only of the sexton but of the city at large, having made the great chimes - even the fearful Tocsin - resound, and spread alarm over the city. They were finally liberated, though not without a sharp reprimand, followed by the severer and more impressive reproof of the President of the College. Often in after life, when these gentlemen had attained a distinguished rank in their respective professions, was this youthful adventure the subject of their conversation and not unpleasing reminiscence. [Essays of an Octogenarian, vol. ii. p. 39.] ‘Both,’ adds my venerable friend, James Roche of Cork, , were the particular friends of my father; and my grandfather had been the first client who paid Fitz Gibbon a fee, which was the origin of a long subsisting family intercourse. His professional gains exceeded one hundred thousand pounds; a very large sum for that period, and principally acquired as a consulting lawyer; for he had no pretensions to forensic eloquence, like Anthony Malone, Hussey Burgh, and others, his contemporaries. [My venerable friend was in error here, Hussey Burgh was not a contemporary of John Fitz Gibbon, Sen.] His law reports are interesting even to the general reader, from the incidental family anecdotes which they reveal. I have already mentioned in my life of Lord Chancellor Wyndham, how the publication of these Reports nearly prevented Mr. Fitz Gibbon’s call to the Bar.

[In a blank page prefixed to Fitz Gibbon’s Reports, Sir James Burrow wrote, [Vide Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxx. P. 672.] ‘This volume of Reports was published the very next Term after it concludes, viz., in Michaelmas Term, 5 Geo. II., and was then produced in Court, when it was treated with the utmost contempt both by the Bench and Bar. The author of it was an Irish student, who was called to the Bar in either Trinity or Michaelmas Term, 5 Geo. II., and the current report was, that the scheme of publishing this book was to satisfy Walthoe, the bookseller, either for chamber rent or money advanced towards the charges of the author’s call to the Bar. Lord Raymond spoke of it at the sittings a few days after, with a great deal of resentment, and threatened that he would take care to see Walthoe punished for the publication of it. But nothing came of it; Mr. Fitz Gibbon went to Ireland immediately on being called. I think Lord Raymond called this performance a libel upon the Bar and the Bench, and said, that it made the Judges, and particularly himself, to talk nonsense by wholesale: ‘But I have examined all the King’s Bench Oases in it very carefully, and have compared them with my own notes, and find him to have made the Judges talk almost verbatim what I took down myself from their own mouths. There are, indeed, errors in it, but upon the whole, the cases seem to be clearly stated, the arguments of different Counsel, at different times, clearly, forcibly and yet briefly represented, and the sense of the Court truly delivered. In short, there does not appear any want of accuracy, perspicuity, or judgment.’

The learned commentator intended to mention a ease, but does not give either name or page, which he states is ‘extremely well and clearly reported, though argued by two gentlemen who are more remarkable for the knowledge they are masters of than for a facility of conveying it to their auditors, as no one can have omitted to observe, who has ever attempted to take notes of their arguments.’

He strongly disapproved of the production. ‘However, after all, nothing certainly can excuse such a hasty unlicensed publication of the performances of a private note-taker without authority or revisal.’]

The English Judges most probably made such representations to the Irish Benchers as induced several to consider Mr. Fitz Gibbon an objectionable person to be admitted to the Irish Bar; and had not the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Wyndham, and Lord Chief Justice Reynolds, warmly interested themselves in his behalf, John Fitz Gibbon would have had no opportunity of realising the fortune he amassed by his great professional skill. He quickly got into great practice, especially in advising, and what is called chamber business - but went the Munster circuit. Beside his town house, he had a country residence near Donnybrook, a village near Dublin, formerly celebrated for its annual fair-now suppressed.

Many stories are afloat respecting the avarice and thrift with which the elder Fitz Gibbon amassed his great wealth. He invested portion of his professional gains in land, for he became owner of Mount Shannon, County Limerick. [Burke’s Peerage. Title, Earl of Clare.] ‘Old Fitz Gibbon,’ says Sir Jonah Barrington, [Personal Sketches, vol. iii. p. 309, in note.] ‘loved to make money, and in his day it was not the habit for lawyers to spend it. They used to tell a story of him respecting a client who brought his own brief and fee, that he might personally apologise for the smallness of the latter. Fitz Gibbon, on receiving the fee, looked rather discontented.’

‘“I assure you, Counsellor,” said the client (mournfully), “I am ashamed of its smallness; but in fact it is all I have in the world.”

‘“Oh! then,” said Fitz Gibbon, “you can do no more; as it is all you have in the world, why I must take it.”’

It was at the country house near Donnybrook, in the year 1749, John Fitz Gibbon was born. There was an elder son named Ion, who did not reach manhood. As indications of temper as well as talent in the child presage the man, I may introduce here an anecdote recorded in the work already quoted, ‘Essays of an Octogenarian,’ illustrative of the disposition of the imperious Lord Chancellor. Having incurred his father’s displeasure for some schoolboy fault, Fitz Gibbon senior sent his elder son to command young John’s attendance. The message was authoritative:-

‘“Your father orders you to go to him; you must come instantly.”

‘“Orders - must!” repeated the boy of thirteen. “Such language suits me not, nor will I stir an inch. Decretum Est!” and proudly stamping his foot on the ground remained stationary.

‘The messenger reported the reply. The old gentleman laughed heartily at this presumptuous burst of haughtiness, and, in a formal note, jocosely requested the honour of an interview with Mr. John Fitz Gibbon, junior, when, after a few words of paternal admonition, no further notice was taken of the matter, and, in Parliamentary phrase, the subject dropped.’ [Essays of an Octogenarian, vol. ii. p. 36.]

When young Fitz Gibbon was of age to go to school he was sent to Mr. Ball’s, in Great Ship Street, Dublin. He quickly distinguished himself in the acquisition of knowledge, and was considered a good scholar. He knew science and classics well, but he discovered no traits of genius or of taste. [Memoirs of H. Grattan, vol. i. p. 42.] Here he prepared himself well for his university career, which was highly successful. Among his contemporaries were Foster - afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Oriel; Day - afterwards a Judge - Grattan and Boyd. Grattan and Fitz Gibbon reaped the highest honours of the University of Dublin. He obtained his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1762, and that of LL.D. honoris causa in 1765. [Dublin University Catalogue, p. I9[j.] He also took a degree at Oxford. The success of the elder Fitz Gibbon naturally caused his son to study for the Bar. He was a hard-working student, and his time, while at the Temple, was not lost or misapplied. His father’s diligence spurred him to exertion, and he came to the Irish bar a well-read and accomplished lawyer. Having kept the probationary terms, Mr. Fitz Gibbon was called to the Irish bar on June 19, the first day of Trinity Term, 1772. He was then in his twenty-third year, so he may be said to have started young. Sir Jonah Barrington insinuates that, as a junior at the bar, Fitz Gibbon was idle and dissipated, negligent of business, and, in fact, careless about his profession; but two reasons detract from the credibility to to be attached to this statement. One is the slight reliance to be placed on the testimony of the witness when giving evidence against the Earl of Clare. Barrington regarded his Lordship as his personal and political foe, and, for the former, we shall find later on, Sir Jonah had very sufficient cause. The next reason is still stronger in favour of the Chancellor. In an able sketch of the Earl of Clare, contained in the ‘Dublin University Magazine ’ for the year 1847, I find a very important extract from the Chancellor’s fee book, which, better than any other document, records how he progressed at the bar. This, I think, most clearly shows Sir Jonah must have been mistaken when he mentioned Fitz Gibbon as negligent and idle while a junior at the bar.

The following marks the growth of his practice from the very outset of his professional career. I copy the entries:-

‘I was admitted to the bar on the 19th of June, being the first day of Trinity Term, 1772.

‘December 22nd, 1783, I was sworn Attorney-General. To that day I received at the bar 8,973l. 6s. 3d.

Fees £ s. d.

1772 343 7 0

1773 414 3 5

1774 585 17 8

1775 619 17 8

1776 1,066 19 2

1777 1,633 16 0

1778 1,126 17 9*

Carry forward 5,790 17 1

• This term (Hilary 1778) I was prevented from attending the Courts after the second week by my attendance on the College petition.

  £ s. d.

Brought forward 5,790 17 1

1779 672 17 9*

1780 892 8 0

1781 759 9 9

1782, 1783 859 5 5**

1784 4,625 17 9

1785 5,722 15 8

1786 6,702 19 3

1787 7,510 11 3

1788 7,890 0 0

1798, Hilary and Easter 4.395 6 6

  £45,912 8 8

• N.B. This year I was prevented appearing in the Courts during the whole of the Easter Term.

** N.B. This year (1783) I did not attend the Courts after the first week in Easter Term, nor during the whole of Trinity Term. To this I add the sum which I received March 1783, and begin a new account from the time I was appointed Attorney-General.

  £ s. d.

Easter Term, 1783 55 14 9

Hilary Term, 1783 344 18 8

Michaelmas Term, 1782 231 6 9

Eleventh year 632 0 2

Michaelmas Term, 1783 227 5 3

  859 5 5

‘From the 19th June, 1772, to June, 1789, I received at the bar 45,912l. 8s. 8d. Of this, 36,939l. 3s. 11d. was received by me in the last five years and a half.

‘1788. N.B. - In this year the Court of Chancery was shut from the first day of Michaelmas Term till the 14th or 15th of December; and for the very few days on which the Chancellor or the Commissioners sat, little or no business was done. In this year but one long cause was heard in the Court of Chancery, which was heard by Lord Chief Justice Carleton; [Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.] and not one long cause was heard in the Exchequer in Michaelmas Term; and one decree to account, and only one long cause in Trinity Term.’

John Fitz Gibbon made in his first term, Trinity, 1772, 94l. 14s. 9d. - a very respectable commencement, which I suspect few who have been called in my time can boast. One very distinguished contemporary of mine, who now adorns the Bench, told me he received twenty-eight guineas his first term, which I thought was doing well, but it was nothing to the large sums he had soon to enter in his fee-book. On the last day for drawing Declarations in term, as we were both leaving the Law Library of the Four Courts, Dublin, about half-past four o’clock in the afternoon, I said: ‘I am sure you have had a busy day.’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I have been drawing Declarations since three o’clock this morning.’ He must have made fifty guineas in the progress of that day’s hard work. The first fee which a young barrister receives he regards with peculiar affection - it is an earnest of the success which he hopes to achieve. Fitz Gibbon’s first fee was not the usual guinea, but a substantial one - 5l. 13s. 9d. The case was marked ‘Farrell v. Crosbie.’ His last fee was in the cause of Redmond v. Carr, in Trinity term, 1789. It was worth receipting, 39l. 5s. 3d. [I. cannot say how the shillings and pence came to be computed, but suppose the difference between Irish and British currency occasioned it.]

In the previous year, 1788, Fitz Gibbon was Counsel in no fewer than one thousand three hundred and sixty-seven practice cases, but then he was Attorney-General, and a brief was sent him in every Crown case, when he merely decided whether or not to prosecute. The fees were not large, indeed many of them were under three guineas.

In some years the fees are thus entered in his book:-

  £ s. d.

Michaelmas, 1786 1,413 8 1

Trinity, 1786 1,637 17 2

Easter, 1786 1,390 18 6

Hilary, 1786 2,260 15 6

  £6,702 19 3*

• Dublin University Mag. vol. xxx. p. 676.

John Fitz Gibbon naturally selected the Munster Circuit as that he would travel. His father’s reputation as a careful and painstaking lawyer was of great use to him; and the large estates of his father were in the neighbourhood of Limerick, one of the Assize towns, which was not without some influence on the legal status of the heir.

The Munster Circuit has always numbered names high in the legal annals of Ireland, and at this period Barry Yelverton, [Mr. Yelverton was called to the Bar in 1764. Attorney-General in 1782, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1784, with the title of Lord Avonmore, in 1189. He died in August 1806.] John Philpot Curran, [Mr. Curran was called in 1775. Appointed Master of the Rolls in 1806. Retired from the Bench in 1813; died in 1817.] and Hugh Carleton [Mr. Carleton was a native of Cork, born in 1739, and became Solicitor-General in 1779, he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1787, and elevated to the peerage as Baron Carleton in 1789. He retired on a pension in 1802, and died in 1826.] were acknowledged leaders. Into the agreeable companionship of men of enlarged minds, cultivated tastes, and social habits, which endear to my mind the memory of the Munster bar, John Fitz Gibbon was kindly received.

Fitz Gibbon was soon a great favourite with the discriminating attorneys of the Munster Circuit. Of slender figure, not very robust health, and rather delicate features, he had the haughty air, the imperious glance, and despotic will of a Roman emperor. He was an able and ready advocate, exceedingly painstaking, always master of his case, and these qualifications ensured him abundance of briefs. The solicitors of the circuit towns - Ennis, Limerick, Tralee, and Cork - eagerly sought the rising junior, and contributed in no small degree to his rapid progress at the Bar. Unfortunately, the traditions of the circuits which I have collected do not go so far back as the last century, [‘Recollections of the Munster Bar.’ Law Magazine for the year 1868.] but I am able to state that John Fitz Gibbon was regarded from the first as one of the most promising members of the Circuit. Before he was quite four years called, his professional income exceeded a thousand a year; and when we remember that he derived an income of six thousand a year from his father, and was not incited to labour by the sharp spur of necessity, we may be sure it was not mere love of money that made Fitz Gibbon work hard. But there are other spurs beside poverty, and the adage is true, ‘A spur in the head is worth two in the heels.’ Ambition

• the thirst of great minds, the greed of power, the lust of dominion was John Fitz Gibbon’s spur; ever goading, goading, and urging him onwards and upwards, till he reached the pinnacle of his greatness. How he rose, I proceed to trace. The success of his conduct on the College Election Petition in 1778 strongly recommended him to the electors as a Member for the University, and he was placed in the distinguished position of Member of the Irish Parliament for the University of Dublin in 1780.

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