Page:Chronicle of the law officers of Ireland.djvu/320

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LEGAL HISTORY OF IRELAND.
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Irish mountain, and exhibits a permanent record of their crimes. The other Judges were either continued and promoted by Charles, or permitted to enjoy the fruits of treason in private life.

Cromwell's administration suppressed the rank of Sergeant in Ireland. King*s Sergeant bore too emphatical a reference to an abdicated title for innovators or regicides to uphold it as a part of the legal system; no such officer appears during the usurpation, though engrafted on the Irish constitution from our earliest records. The Attorney-Generalship was vacant, and an amnesty granted to Shapcott, the Solicitor-General.

At the Restoration, Mountrath, Orrery, and Sir Maurice Eustace were the Lords Justices, and Ormond finally appointed Lord Lieutenant. The law servants of the crown in England did honour to the discernment, and reflect lasting credit on the great Earl of Clarendon.

Bridgeman, Hale, Palmer, and Finch were men calculated to dispense the English law with integrity and enlightened skill; nor was the interest of Ireland unattended to in a similar arrangement; Sir Maurice Eustace, a man of respectable family, unblemished reputation, and extensive connexions, was appointed Chancellor.

Sir James Barry, a Baron of the Exchequer, an experienced judge and able statesman, was appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and created a peer by the title of Lord Santry.

Sir John Temple, the Cromwellian Master of the Rolls, was continued in his office. I willingly believe that Temple rendered essential aid to the Restoration, and merited amnesty, but not confidence.

Justice Donnellan was created Chief Justice of the Common Pleas: Bysse, Recorder of Dublin, Chief Baron, a man useful to every party which employed him, and by no means scrupu-lous in his conduct. He obtained in the late troubles a part of Preston's Inn, near Cork Hill, whereon he built a residence, known by the name of the Chief Baron's House, until subsequent city improvements caused its demolition.

The law servants of the crown were all Irishmen, as were a