once retorted in ‘A Second Letter.’ 7. ‘A Vindication of the Right of Protestant Churches to require the Clergy to subscribe to an established Confession of Faith and Doctrines, in a Charge delivered at a Visitation in July 1766,’ Cambridge [1766], 8vo. ‘An Examination’ of this charge ‘by a Clergyman of the Church of England’ [Benjamin Dawson] reached a fifth edition in 1767. 8. ‘A Second Vindication of the Right of Protestant Churches,’ &c., Cambridge, 1766, 8vo. This was also answered anonymously by Dawson. 9. ‘A Defence of a Charge concerning Subscriptions, in a Letter to [F. Blackburne] the Author of the Confessional,’ Cambridge, 1767, 8vo. This caused further controversy.
[Addit. MS. 5879, f. 52; Brydges's Restituta, iii. 224, iv. 230, 233, 401; Butterworth's Law Cat. p. 178; Mrs. Catherine Cockburn's Works, ii. 326, and Life prefixed, p. xlv; Cooke's Preacher's Assistant, ii. 291; Gent. Mag. 1771, p. 475, 1780, p. 226, 1798, ii. 913; Georgian Era, i. 503; Hutton's Philosophical and Mathematical Dict. ii. 344; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 643, 656; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 196–8, 705, vi. 361; Account of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding (1784), pp. xxxiv, xxxv.]
RUTHERFURD, ANDREW, Lord Rutherfurd (1791–1854), Scottish judge, born on 13 Dec. 1791, was educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh. Through ‘his mother Mrs. Janet Bervie he was descended from the old Scottish house of Rutherfurd, and he and the other members of his family assumed this patronymic’ (Rogers, Monuments and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland, 1871, i. 131). Rutherfurd passed advocate on 27 June 1812, and rapidly acquired a great junior practice. On 6 June 1833 he was appointed a member of the commission of inquiry into the state of the laws and judicatories of Scotland (see Parl. Papers, 1834 xxvi., 1835 xxxv., 1838 xxix., 1840 xx.). He was described by Cockburn in November 1834 as ‘beyond all comparison the most eminent person now in the profession’ (Journal, 1874, i. 77). He succeeded John Cunninghame as solicitor-general for Scotland in Lord Melbourne's second administration on 18 July 1837 (London Gazette, 1837, ii. 1833). He was promoted to the post of lord advocate in the room of Sir John Archibald Murray on 20 April 1839 (ib. 1839, i. 857), and in the same month was elected to the House of Commons as member for Leith Burghs, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the judicial bench. He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons during a debate on Scottish business on 3 July 1839 (Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. xlviii. 1158, 1168–70). On 7 Feb. 1840 he made an able reply to Sir Edward Sugden during the adjourned debate on the question of privilege arising out of the case of Stockdale v. Hansard (ib. 3rd ser. lii. 25–33). During this session he conducted the bill for the amendment of the Scottish law of evidence (3 & 4 Vict. cap. 59) through the House of Commons. He resigned office with the rest of his colleagues on the accession of Sir Robert Peel to power in September 1841. Cockburn, in a review of Rutherfurd's official career, records, under 27 Sept. of this year: ‘Rutherfurd has made an excellent Lord Advocate, but far less a speaker than in other respects. The whole business part of his office has been done admirably, but he has scarcely fulfilled the expectations which his reputation had excited as a parliamentary debater or manager. … Yet the House of Commons contains few more able or eloquent men’ (Journal, i. 307). In March 1843 he urged in vain the expediency of considering the petition of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, and warned the house that unless the petition was granted ‘a schism would almost inevitably be created in Scotland which would never be cured’ (Parl. Hist. 3rd ser. lxvii. 394–411). On 31 July 1843 he opposed the second reading of Sir James Graham's Scotch Benefices Bill, the only effect of which he declared ‘would be to deprive the Church of any small claim it might have on the affections of the people’ (ib. 3rd ser. lxxi. 32–44). In the following session he supported Fox-Maule's bill for the abolition of tests in Scottish universities (ib. 3rd ser. lxxiv. 480–6). He was chosen lord rector of Glasgow University on 15 Nov. 1844 by a majority of three nations, his opponent being Lord Eglinton. He was installed on 10 Jan. 1845, when he ‘made a judicious and pleasant address, in his style of pure and elevated thought and finished expression’ (Journal of Henry Cockburn, ii. 98). On 16 April 1845 he spoke in favour of the Maynooth grant, though ‘he knew that he was delivering an opinion against the sentiments of many of his constituents’ (Parl. Debates[, 3rd ser. lxxix. 831–3). On the 1st of the following month he brought in a bill for regulating admission to the secular chairs of the Scottish universities (ib. 3rd ser. lxxx. 11–16). So good was his speech on this occasion that ‘it had the rare effect of changing the previously announced resolution of government to refuse the leave’ (Cockburn, Journal, ii. 111). The bill was, however, subsequently defeated on the se-
