the public expense; or a vindictive political partisan, and otherwise undistinguished, we might have found some excuse for the uncompromising course adopted. But the reverse of all that was the fact. He was confessedly a generous and high-minded competitor in the great game of politics; incapable of pecuniary meanness impoverished rather than enriched by his connexion with the state, and the consequent expense in which it involved him; and above all, he was, by the admission even of his enemies, a most meritorious public servant, who, during a long and laborious official career, had conferred great and lasting benefits on his country. On this last point we can have no better testimony than that of Mr Whitbread himself, who, on this very trial, was constrained, in common justice, to admit, "that, during the time lord Melville was treasurer of the navy, several most beneficial regulations took place in his office, and several acts were passed for the protection and defence of those who were before unprotected and defenceless. The widows and orphans of those gallant sons of the empire, who were fighting the battles of their country, were the objects of his peculiar care, and a number of lives were preserved by his prudent and generous interposition. However detectable the crime may be, it had been a common practice to forge the wills of those who fell in the defence of the state, and this atrocious conduct, and its pernicious consequences, have been, in a great degree, prevented by the salutary plans recommended by the defendant; for which he deserves the thanks of the British people." Mr Whitbread might easily have extended his eulogy to the defendant's public conduct us president of the board of control, as home secretary, as secretary of state for the war department, and finally to his patriotic exertions for the improvement of his native country of Scotland.
Yet such was the man, who, after having been held up to popular execration, in vague and declamatory speeches in parliament, was brought to his trial labouring not only under the odium and prejudice thus excited, but actually punished before trial ; for it never can be forgotten, that his accusers, before attempting to prove the charges, in the proof of which they ultimately failed, and even before putting him on his trial, had declared him incapable of public trust, and had succeeded in getting his name crazed from the list of the privy council. In such circumstances of degradation and obloquy, with his cause to a certain extent prejudged, and almost overwhelmed by the weight and influence of his adversaries, his acquittal was indeed the triumph of justice, and a memorable encomium on the impartiality of the august tribunal before which the trial proceeded. Nor is it necessary for lord Melville's vindication from the graver charges to deny that he was guilty of a certain degree of negligence. Undoubtedly, amidst his multifarious public avocations, he was not so vigilant in scrutinizing Mr Trotter's money transactions, as in strictness he ought to have been. But such oversights are comparatively venial, and, in this instance, they were natural; for, even before lord Melville became treasurer of the navy, Mr Trotter was in a confidential public office. He afterwards rose by his own merits to a place of higher trust, and throughout, nothing had occurred to excite suspicion. Indeed, it is not the least remarkable feature of this prosecution, that it was never attempted to be shown, that the public had lost one farthing by the supposed delinquencies of lord Melville, or even by the admitted irregularities of Mr Trotter. To assert, however, that the investigation originated merely in factious or party motives, would be going beyond the truth; but perhaps it may be now said without offence, that the many disclamations of personal hostility, and the anxious professions of disinterested zeal for the public service, which the accusers were in the daily habit of repeating during the whole progress of the discussion, were found to be necessary, in order to counteract the
