SIR,--I shall esteem it a great favor if you will allow the accompanying
documents to appear in the "Times." Its universal circulation affords me
an opportunity of annihilating a calumny recently revived, which has for
nine years harassed my friends far more than myself.
I am, &c.,
CHARLES PHILLIPS.
39 Gordon Square.
INNER TEMPLE, Nov. 14, 1849.
MY DEAR PHILLIPS,--It was with pain that I heard yesterday of an
accusation having been revived against you in the "Examiner" newspaper,
respecting alleged dishonorable and most unconscientious conduct on your
part, when defending Courvoisier against the charge of having murdered
Lord William Russell. Considering that you fill a responsible judicial
office, and have to leave behind you a name unsullied by any blot or
stain, I think you ought to lose no time in offering, as I believe you
can truly do, a public and peremptory contradiction to the allegations
in question. The mere circumstances of your having been twice promoted
to judicial office by two lord chancellors, Lord Lyndhurst and Lord
Brougham, since the circulation of the reports to which I am alluding,
and after those reports had been called to the attention of at least one
of those noble and learned lords, is sufficient evidence of the
groundlessness of such reports.
Some time ago I was dining with Lord Denman, when I mentioned to him the
report in question. His lordship immediately stated that he had inquired
into the matter, and found the charge to be utterly unfounded; that he
had spoken on the subject to Mr. Baron Parke, who had sat on the Bench
beside Chief Justice Tindal, who tried Courvoisier, and that Baron Parke
told him he had, for reasons of his own, most carefully watched every
word that you uttered, and assured Lord Denman that your address was
perfectly unexceptionable, and that you made no such statements as were
subsequently attributed to you.
Lord Denman told me that I was at liberty to mention this fact to any
one; and expressed in noble and generous terms his concern at the
existence of such serious and unfounded imputations upon your character
and honor.
Both Lord Denman and Baron Parke are men of as nice a sense of honor and
as high a degree of consciousness as it is possible to conceive; and I
think the testimony of two such distinguished judges ought to be
publicly known, to extinguish every kind of suspicion on the subject.
I write this letter to you spontaneously, and, hoping that you will
forgive the earnestness with which I entreat you to act upon my
suggestion, believe me ever yours sincerely,
SAMUEL WARREN.
MR. COMMISSIONER PHILLIPS.