Chapter LI
The ‘Jury Court’—Chief-Commissioner Adam—His Work and Success—Friendship with Scott—Character of Adam by Scott—The Blairadam Club—Anecdotes—Death of Lord Adam.
Trial by jury in civil cases was introduced into Scotland by an enactment of the year 1815. The first case was tried on 22nd January 1816. The change thus inaugurated was considered by reformers ‘one of the most important events in the progress of our law.’ Though meeting with strong opposition, headed by the old judges, the introduction of the new system was managed successfully. It implied the arrangement of a separate court, and the appointment of a special presiding judge trained to English practice. The Lord Chief-Commissioner was the Right Hon. William Adam, of Blairadam, and he was assisted by two other judges, Lords Pitmilly and Meadowbank. Adam was then sixty-five years of age. Cockburn says that he was handicapped by extravagant expectations of what he was to do. He describes him as ‘the person who had first fought Fox, and then been his friend; who had spoken in debate with Pitt; managed the affairs of Royal Dukes; been the standing counsel of such clients as the East India Company and the Bank of England, and in great practice in Parliamentary Committees.’ His appearance was that of a farming gentleman. He had a clear distinct voice, and an admirable manner, but his great defect is said to have been ‘obscurity of judicial speech.’ Lord Glenlee, listening for a long time, without getting any definite idea, to his well-sounding sentences full of confusion, made the epigram, ‘He speaks as if he were an Act of Parliament.’
We have the testimony of Lord Cockburn to the success of his work. ‘No other man could have done his work. He had to guide a vessel over shoals and among rocks. This was his special duty, and he did it admirably. He protected his court from prejudices which, if not subdued by his patience and dexterity, would have crushed it any week. So far as we are to retain civil trial by jury in this country, we shall owe it to him personally. When in 1830 the Jury Court ceased to exist as a separate court his vocation was at an end; and he retired with the respect and the affection of the whole legal profession and of the public.’
Such was the task of the man with whom Scott was now to be connected during the rest of his life in a constant interchange of hospitality, and whom he so frequently mentions in his Journal with epithets of esteem and respect. Their acquaintance practically dated from Adam’s appointment, but soon grew into the closest friendship. The account of their connection in the Journal (January 1826) must be quoted for the vivid, almost startling light it throws on Scott’s own peculiarities.
‘I have taken kindly to him as one of the most pleasant, kind-hearted, benevolent, and pleasing men I have ever known. It is high treason among the Tories to express regard for him, or respect for the Jury Court in which he presides. I was against that experiment as much as any one. But it is an experiment, and the establishment (which the fools will not perceive) is the only thing which I see likely to give some prospects of ambition to our Bar. As for the Chief-Commissioner, I dare say he jobs, as all other people of consequence do, in elections, and so forth. But he is the personal friend of the King, and the decided enemy of whatever strikes at the constitutional rights of the monarch. Besides, I love him for the various changes which he has endured through life, and which have been so great as to make him entitled to be regarded in one point of view as the most fortunate—in the other, the most unfortunate—man in the world. He has gained and lost two fortunes by the same good luck, and the same rash confidence, which raised, and now threatens, my peculium. And his quiet, honourable, and generous submission under circumstances more painful than mine,—for the loss of world’s wealth was to him aggravated by the death of his youngest and darling son in the West Indies—furnished me at the time and now with a noble example. So the Tories and Whigs may go be d—d together, as names that have disturbed old Scotland, and torn asunder the most kindly feelings since the first day they were invented.... I cannot permit that strife to “mix its waters with my daily meal,” those waters of bitterness which poison all mutual love and confidence betwixt the well-disposed on either side.’
Adam was fond of society, in which ‘nothing could exceed his delightfulness.’ The Blairadam Club was for many years (from 1818 onwards) an institution. It was an annual gathering at midsummer of a few bosom friends, among them Scott, William Clerk, and Sir Adam Ferguson. The friends spent a day or two together, and generally made it a gay and happy occasion. ‘We hire a light coach-and-four, and scour the country in every direction in quest of objects of curiosity.’ The last meeting attended by Scott was in 1830, when he says: ‘Our meeting was cordial, but our numbers diminished. Will Clerk has a bad cold, Thomas Thomson is detained, but the Chief-Commissioner, Admiral Adam (son of the host), Sir Adam, John Thomson and I, make an excellent concert. The day was execrable (wet). But Sir Adam was in high fooling, and we had an amazing deal of laughing.’ It is pathetic, in the midst of this, to see how he fretted to be at home, in order to be at work again. In the Journal we come across some remarks or anecdotes of Adam’s, of which one or two may be given. ‘I came home with Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam. He told me a dictum of old Sir Gilbert Elliot, speaking of his uncles. “No chance of opulence,” he said, “is worth the risk of a competence.” It was not the thought of a great man, but perhaps that of a wise one.’
Again, ‘Dined with Chief-Commissioner,—Admiral Adam, W. Clerk, Thomson and I. The excellent old man was cheerful at intervals—at times sad, as was natural. A good blunder he told us, occurred in the Annandale case, which was a question partly of domicile. It was proved that leaving Lochwood, the Earl had given up his kain and carriages; this an English counsel contended was the best of all possible proofs that the noble Earl designed an absolute change of residence, since he laid aside his walking-stick and his coach.’1
Lockhart has recorded that ‘this most amiable and venerable gentleman, my dear and kind friend, died at Edinburgh, on the 17th February 1839, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. He retained his strong mental faculties in their perfect vigour to the last days of his long life, and with them all the warmth of social feelings which had endeared him to all who were so happy as to have any opportunity of knowing him.’
Notes
1 Kain in Scots Law means ‘payment in kind’: carriages, ‘services in driving with horse and cart.’