it, a
party man, and that it is of preeminent importance to the impartiality
of the judicial bench, and to the confidence of the people in the
purity, integrity, and freedom from political bias of their decisions,
that the judges should be exempt from all suspicion of party connection.
Lord Campbell even goes the length of saying, what was not urged on
either side of either House in these debates, that it was alleged by at
least one contemporary writer that Lord Mansfield's position in the
cabinet did perceptibly influence some of his views and measures
respecting the Press;[157] and, though in both Houses the ministry had a
majority on the question of the propriety of the appointment, he records
his own opinion[158] that "the argument was all on the losing side;" and
that Mr. Fox showed his consciousness that it was so by his "concession
that the Chief-justice should absent himself from the cabinet when the
expediency of commencing prosecutions for treason or sedition was to be
discussed." He adds, also, that "it is said that Lord Ellenborough
himself ere long changed his opinion, and, to his intimate friends,
expressed deep regret that he had ever been prevailed upon to enter the
cabinet."

But, if the composition of the cabinet of 1806 has in this respect been
generally condemned, on the other hand the annals of that ministry,
short-lived as it was, are marked by the enactment of one great measure
which has been stamped with universal approbation. It may, perhaps, be
said that the existence, promotion, discouragement, or suppression of a
branch of trade has no title to be regarded as a constitutional
question. But the course which the British Parliament, after a long
period of hesitation, has adopted respecting, not only the slave-trade,
but the employment of slave-labor in any part of the British dominions,
is so intimately connected with the great constitutional principle, that
every man, whatever be his race or nation or previous condition, whose
foot is once planted on British soil, is free from that moment, that it
cannot be accounted a digression to mention the subject here. To our
statesmen of Queen Anne's time traffic in slaves was so far from being
considered discreditable, that the ministry of that reign prided
themselves greatly on what was called the Assiento Treaty with Spain, by
which they secured for the British merchants and ship-owners the
privilege of supplying the West India Islands with several t