Seymour v Butterworth
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 January 1862 |
| Date | 01 January 1862 |
| Court | Assizes |
English Reports Citation: 176 E.R. 166
Nisi Prius
[372] Middlesex Sittings, Michaelmas Term, 1862. seymour v. butterwoeth. (The plaintiff, a barrister, who, after becoming an M.P , was made Q C , and also a recorder, having been partly acquitted and partly censured by the benchers ef his Inn after an inquiry into his conduct, private as well as professional; and Laving afterwards, on a public platform, alluded to their sentence as one of acquittal; upon which they published their sentence, and he published a protest and a letter, in which he impugned their proceedings and their decision as mnjust. The defendant, in a legal review, published an article fairly setting forth these documents, with comments, and also a narrative of the plaintiff's career, mixed up with some general reflections on his character, and particular observations, suggesting that he had obtained his appointments by parliamentary influence or services. In an action for libel for the publication of this article : held-1. That the matter of those appointments was a legitimate subject of public comment. 2 That even the private conduct of the plaintiff might, as tending to show whether he was a man of honour and integrity, be also legitimate subject of such comment. 3. That, as the plaintiff had in a public speech alluded to all these matters, they were ah1 legitimate subjects for such comments as were fair, and not, in substance, going beyond the matters which were the subject of comment.) Libel. The action was against the publisher of the " Law Review " for an article therein relating to the plaintiff, a Queen's Counsel and member for Southampton. The declaration set forth the whole of the article at length ; the material passages (after stating that the plaintiff was an Irishman) ran as follows :- " But it is only just to Mr. Digby Seymour to admit that there are two kinds of Irisb-Bien, and that the cordiality extended to the one is by no means secure to the other. There is the Irish gentleman, generous, accomplished and urbane-perhaps the highest type of the genus gentleman to be found in the United Kingdom. There is also the Irish blackguard-swaggering, foul-mouthed and shameless ; the most insolent of upstarts, the most unblushing of swindlers ; never destitute of a quarrel, never at a loss for a lie. For, as the Irish gentleman is of rare quality, so the Irish blackguard is consummate in his growth. Ireland has adorned our Parliament with splepdid orators and consummate statesmen, and has afflicted it also with a breed of bawling demagogues and venal fools : has supplied to the bar of England some of its brightest ornaments and some of its blackest sheep ; bestowing on the former a learning and eloquence which Englishmen are proud to admire, and enriching the latter with a power of impudence and a fertility in fraud which defy all description, as (ta the uninitiated intellect) they pass all knowledge. Should one of this latter flock find his way to an English circuit, it could hardly be considered a matter for legitimate surprise if he should become an object of suspicion and dislike, and ' Me mger est' be the motto coupled with his name. But ******** We jaever were able to discover that Mr. Digby Seymour, during his first sojourn in the House of Commons, added in any appreciable degree either to the usefulness or the bulliancy of that assembly ; we are not aware that any measure was secured by Ms exertions, or any principle elucidated by his oratory, or any party at all benefited by hia adherence, save in the matter of his vote [373] For this last he was rewarded (a) Lawrence moved, H. T., but took nothing. 3T. &F.174. SEYMOUR V. BUTTERWORTH 167 with the reeoidership of Newcastle (a), to the just dissatisfaction of the bar, who thought that better men had been passed over for an unworthy political motive It may, perhaps, be surmised that the appointment was dictated by a more intimate knowledge of the mood of the electors of Sunderland than the general public possessed ; for on vacating his seat, as he was compelled by law to do on acceptance of the office, and offering himself for re-election, Mr. Digby Seymour was defeated, and ousted for the time from political life. The worst evil attending a weak government is the necessity under which it labours to catch every possible vote in any quarter, and its besetting sin is an improper distribution of patronage. * * * * It probably became necessary to secure every doubtful adherent, and this consideration may palHate, but cannot excuse, the promotion of Mr. Digby Seymour to the rank of Queen's Counsel. Even at the time of the appointment rumours were afloat in the profession that his conduct must form the subject of investigation by the benchers o| the Middle Temple ; and we have heard that Lord Campbell, shortly before his dtath, expressed his deep regret that he had been ever led by political pressure to promise a silk gown to the member for Southampton If this be so, it furnishes a curious commentary on one portion of Mr. Seymour's speech at Southampton, in which he quotes the patronage of Lord Campbell as a proof of the purity of his professional career. It is an extraordinary, and we believe an unprecedented fact, that a banister should be arraigned before the benchers of his Inn for improper conduct, at the very time when the Crown has been induced to raise him to the superior rank of the profession. Yet this, we understand from his own lips, was the case with Mr Digby Seymour ; and the language employed by the benchers in their judgment forbids us to hope that the inquiry before them was either unjust or uncalled for * * * For, inasmuch as Mr. Digby Seymour is in possession of the whole evidence, and could give us the benefit of a total disclosure of all the circumstances of his trial, thereby putting himself right with the public-if the facts admit of his doing so ; and as, notwithstanding occasional promises of such a disclosure, he remains silent, the only reasonable conclusion at which we can arrive is, that he does not consider the publication of the whole truth likely to improve his position. * * * * All we can do under these circumstances is to place before our readers at one view the various documents that have been made public on the matter. * * * * We will only premise, in doing so, that whatever publicity the scandal may now have attained is owing to Mr. Digby Seymour himself, as the benchers had maintained ah abso-[374]-lute silence up to the time when his speech to his constituents^ on the 4th of February last, was reported in the " Times " newspaper. [All those passages in the speech which referred to the judgment of the benchers were then set out in the article.] [The effect of the speech was to denounce the benchers, and declare that they had pronounced a virtual acquittal; and also to ascribe the censures upon the writer to jealousy of him as an Irishman. It...
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