Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (baptised 21 March 1714 – 18 April 1794), Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was a leading proponent of civil liberties in eighteenth century England.

Early life

Born in Kensington in 1714, he was a descendant of an old Devon family of high standing, the third son of Sir John Pratt, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the reign of George I. Charles's mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Rev. Hugh Lewis of Trefeglwys, and the aunt of landscape painter Richard Wilson. He received his early education at Eton, where he became acquainted with William Pitt, and Kings College, Cambridge. He had already developed an interest in constitutional law and civil liberties. In 1734 he became a fellow of his college, and in the following year obtained his degree of BA. Having adopted his father's profession, he had entered the Middle Temple in 1728, and ten years later he was called to the bar.

Early years at the bar

He practised at first in the courts of common law, travelling also the western circuit. For some years his practice was so limited, and he became so much discouraged that he seriously thought of turning his back on the law and entering the church. He listened, however, to the advice of his friend Sir Robert Henley, a brother barrister, and persevered, working on and waiting for success. Reputedly, once instructed as Henley's junior, Henley feigned illness so that Pratt could lead and earn the credit.

He was further aided by an advantageous marriage on 5 October 1749 to Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Jeffreys of the Priory, Brecknock, by whom he had a son John Jeffreys, his successor in title and estates, and four daughters, of whom the eldest, Frances, married Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry on 7 June 1775.

The first case which brought him prominently into notice and gave him assurance of ultimate success was the government prosecution, in 1752, of a bookseller, William Owen. Owen had published a book The Case of Alexander Murray, Esq; in an Appeal to the people of Great Britain which the House of Commons had, by resolution of the House, condemned as "an impudent, malicious, scandalous and seditious libel". The author had left the country so the weight of the government's censure fell on Owen. Pratt appeared in Owen's defence and his novel argument was that it was not the sole role of the jury to determine the fact of publication but that it was further their right to assess the intent of a libel. In his summing up, the judge, Lord Chief Justice Sir William Lee directed the jury to find Owen guilty as publication was proved and the intent of the contents was a question of law for the judge, not a question of fact for the jury. The jury disagreed and acquitted Owen. Pratt was appointed King's Counsel in 1755.

Political career

Since their youthful meeting at Eton, Pitt had continued to consult Pratt on legal and constitutional matters and Pratt became involved in the group that met at the Leicester House home of George Prince of Wales and who were opposed to the government of Prime Minister the Duke of Newcastle. In 1756, Newcastle offered Pratt a judgeship but Pratt preferred to take the role of Attorney General to the Prince of Wales.

In July 1757, Pitt formed a coalition government with Newcastle and insisted on Pratt's appointment as Attorney-General. Pratt was preferred over Solicitor General Charles Yorke. Yorke was the son of Lord Hardwick, a political ally of Newcastle who, as Lord Chancellor had obstructed Pratt's career in favour of his own son. Though this led to an uncomfortable relationship between the two law officers of the Crown, it led to the landmark Pratt-Yorke opinion of 24 December 1757 whereby the pair distinguished overseas territories acquired by conquest from those acquired by private treaty. They asserted that, while the Crown of Great Britain enjoyed sovereignty over both, only the property of the former was vested in the Crown. Though the original opinion related to the British East India Company, it came to be applied elsewhere in the developing British Empire.

The same year he entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for the borough of Downton in Wiltshire. He sat in Parliament for four years, but did not distinguish himself as a debater. He introduced the Habeas corpus Amendment Bill of 1758, which was intended to extend the writ of Habeas corpus from criminal law to civil and political cases. Despite Pitt's support, the Bill fell in the House of Lords. At the same time, his professional practice increased, particularly his Chancery practice which made him financially secure and enabled him to purchase the Camden Place estate in Kent.

As Attorney-General, Pratt prosecuted Florence Hensey, an Irishman who had spied for France, and John Shebbeare (1709-1788), a violent party writer of the day. Shebbeare had published a libel against the government contained in his Letters to the People of England, which were published in the years 1756-1758. As evidence of Pratt's moderation in a period of passionate party warfare and frequent state trials, it is notable that this was the only official prosecution for libel that he started and that he maintained his earlier insistence that the decision lay with the jury. He led for the Crown in the prosecution of Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers for the murder of a servant, a case that shocked European society.

Wilkes and Entick

Pratt lost his patron when Pitt left office iin October 1761 but in January 1762, he resigned from the Commons, was raised to the bench as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, received the customary knighthood and was sworn into the Privy Council.

The Common Pleas was not an obvious forum for a jurist with constitutional interest, dealing as it did principally with disputes between private parties. However, on 30 April 1763, Member of Parliament John Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant for alleged seditious libel in issue No.45 of The North Briton. Pratt freed Wilkes holding that parliamentary privilege gave him immunity from arrest on such a charge. The decision earned Pratt some favour with the radical faction in London and seems to have spurred him, over the summer of that year to encourage juries to award disproportionate and excessive damages to printers unlawfully arrested over the same matter. Wilkes was awarded £1,000 (£127,000 at 2003 prices) and Pratt condemned the use of general warrants for entry and search. Pratt pronounced with decisive and almost passionate energy against their legality, thus giving voice to the strong feeling of the nation and winning for himself an extraordinary degree of popularity as one of the maintainers of English civil liberties. Honours fell thick upon him in the form of addresses from the City of London and many large towns, and of presentations of freedom from various corporate bodies.

In 1762, the home of John Entick had been raided by officers of the Crown, searching for evidence of sedition. In the case of Entick v. Carrington (1765), Pratt held that the raids were unlawful as they were without authority in statute or in common law.

The American Stamp Act crisis

On 17 July 1765 Pratt was created Baron Camden, of Camden Place, in the county of Kent, becoming a member of the House of Lords. Prime Minister Lord Rockingham had unsuccessfully made this, and other appointments, to curry favour with Pitt but Camden was not over-earger to get involved in the crisis surrounding the Stamp Act 1765. Camden did attend the Common on 14 January 1766 and his subsequent speeches on the matter in the Lords are so similar to Pitt's that he had clearly adopted the party line. He was one of only five Lords who voted against a resolution of the House insisting on parliament's right to tax colonies overseas. Camden insisted that taxation was predicated on consent and that consent needed representation. However, when he came to support the government over the Act's repeal, he rather inconvinvingly purported to base his opinion on the actual hardship caused by the Act rather than its constitutional basis.

Lord Chancellor

In May 1766, Pitt again became prime minister and advanced Camden from the court of common pleas to take his seat as Lord Chancellor on July 30. Camden managed to negotiate an additional allowance of £1500 and a position for his son John. Camden carried out the role in an efficient manner, without any great legal innovation. He presided over the court of chancery from which only one of his decisions was overturned on appeal. He also presided over the judicial functions of the House of Lords where in 1767 he approved Lord Mansfield's ruling that the City of London could not fine dissenters who refused so serve the corporation. Dissenters were in any case prohibited from serving under the Corporation Act 1661. In 1768 in the House of Lords he again sat in a case involving John Wilkes, this time rejecting his appeal and finding that his consecutive, rather than concurrent sentences were lawful. He gave a controversial judgment in the Douglas Peerage case.

"A forty days tyranny"

However, Camden the politician was less of a champion of civil rights than Pratt the judge. The poor harvest of 1766 led to fears of high corn prices and starvation but parliament was prorogued and could not renew the export ban that expired on 26 August. Pitt, with Camden's support, called the Privy Council to issue a royal proclamation on 26 September to prohibit corn exports until parliament met. However, despite Camden's record on civil liberties, this proclamation was unlawful, contrary to art.2 of the Bill of Rights 1689 and both houses of parliament ultimately accused Pitt and Camden of tyranny. Camden pleaded necessity, a justification he had rejected in the Wilkes and Carrington trials, and styled it "a forty days tyranny". Ultimately the government was forced to suppress the parliamentary attacks by an act indemnifying those involved from legal action.

America

In 1767, the cabinet, of which Camden was a member, approved Charles Townshend's attempt to settle the American protest and revolt over taxation. Benjamin Franklin was reputed to have observed that it was "internal" taxes that the colonists objected to and Townshend took this to suggest that there would be little oppositing to import duties imposed at the ports. Camden's support for the tax proposals would return to embarrass him.

Pitt and his followers had, after their initial opposition, come to support the Declaratory Act of 1766 which asserted Great Britain's sovereignty over the American colonies. Further, continued unrest in America, stemming from Townshend's 1767 taxation scheme, brought a robust response from Pitt and Camden was his spokesman in the Lords. However, towards the end of 1767, Pitt fell ill and the Duke of Grafton stepped in as caretaker. Camden became indecisive in his own political role, writing to Grafton on 4 October 1768:

Pitt resigned on 14 October and Camden, who continued to sit in the cabinet as Lord Chancellor, now took up a position of uncompromising hostility to the governments of Grafton and Lord North on America and on Wilkes. Camden opposed Lord Hillsborough's confrontational approach to the Americas, favouring conciliation and working on the development on reformed tax proposals. Camden personally promised the colonies that no further taxes would be levied and voted in the cabinet minority who sought to repeal the tea duty.

John Wilkes MP

On 28 March 1768, Wilkes was surprisingly elected as member for Middlesex, much to Grafton's distaste. Grafton canvassed Camden on whether Wilkes could be removed from parliament and Camden responded that, under the parliamentary privilege of the House to regulate its own membership, Wilkes could, though lawfully elected, be lawfully expelled. However, Camden saw that this was only likely to lead to Wilkes's re-election and an escallating crisis. The cabinet decided to seek Wilkes's expulsion but Camden was not content with the policy. Whether through his own choice, or because it was demanded because of his worsening relationship with the government, Camden resigned as Lord Chancellor and as Chancery judge in late 1769.

Later years

Camden continued to sit in the Lords after leaving the post of Lord Chancellor and in 1774 rejected the concept of perpetual copyright in order not to inhibit the advancement of learning. This was a key influence on the ultimate rejection of that year's Copyright Bill.

He continued steadfastly to oppose the taxation of the American colonists, and signed, in 1778, the protest of the Lords in favour of an address to the King on the subject of the manifesto of the commissioners to America. In 1782 he was appointed Lord President of the Council under the Rockingham administration, but retired in the following year. Within a few months he was reinstated in this office under the Pitt administration, and held it till his death.

Lord Camden was a strenuous opponent of Fox's East India Bill, took an animated part in the debates on important public matters till within two years of his death, introduced in 1786 the scheme of a regency on occasion of the king's insanity, and to the last zealously defended his early views on the functions of juries, especially of their right to decide on all questions of libel. He was raised to the dignity of Earl Camden in May 1786, and was at the same time created Viscount Bayham. In 1788 he obtained an Act of Parliament granting permission to develop some fields he owned just to the north of London. This was the beginning of Camden Town.

The Earl Camden died in London on 18 April 1794. His remains were interred in Seal church in Kent.

References

Bibliography

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• [Anon.] (1911) " Charles Pratt Camden", Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Campbell, J. L. (1851a) Life of Lord Chancellor Camden from his Birth till the Death of George II, Blanchard & Lea
• — (1851b) Continuation of the Life of Lord Chancellor Camden till he became and Ex-Chancellor, Blanchard & Lea
• Eeles, H. S. (1934) Lord Chancellor Camden and his Family
• (Google Books)
• Rigg, J. M. (1896) "Pratt, Charles, First Earl Camden (1714–1794)", in S. Lee Dictionary of National Biography
• Thomas, P. D. G. (2008) " Pratt, Charles, first Earl Camden (1714–1794)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, online edn, accessed 15 February 2008

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