its provision with a constitutional government—the whole question being whether the letters patent were valid or not. The jury having returned a special verdict, the question of law was thrice argued before Mansfield, who, on 28 Nov. 1774, decided it in the negative, on the ground that the sovereign cannot by his prerogative so legislate for conquered countries as to contravene the fundamental principles of the constitution. The second case was that of Fabrigas v. Mostyn, an action for false imprisonment by a native of Minorca against the late governor of that island, removed by writ of error from the common pleas, where the plaintiff had obtained a verdict, to the king's bench. The question raised by the writ of error was whether an English court had jurisdiction to try an action founded on a wrong done in Minorca, where English law had not been introduced. After hearing the case twice argued, Mansfield, by means of a legal fiction by which Minorca was considered 'the parish of St. Mary-le-Bow, in the ward of Cheap,' affirmed the jurisdiction and the judgment of the court below (27 Jan. 1775).
The long vacation of 1774 was spent by Mansfield at Paris as the guest of his nephew, Lord Stormont, British ambassador at the French court. He travelled incognito, and was thought to be charged with a secret mission (Walpole, George III, i. 394). In regard to American affairs Mansfield was credited with being the author of the Quebec bill of 1776. He strongly supported the prohibitory bill of the same year, and throughout the subsequent history of the struggle never wavered in his firm adhesion to the policy of coercion. Though not in Lord North's cabinet, it is probable that he was in the confidence of ministers, and privy to most of their measures (ib. ii. 196).
On 31 Oct. 1776 he was advanced to an earldom, by the title of Earl of Mansfield in the county of Nottingham, with remainder, in default of male issue, to Louisa, viscountess Stormont, and her heirs by his brother Viscount Stormont in tail male. The peculiar limitation of the remainder was made in consequence of the mistaken idea then prevalent, that a Scottish peer could not take an English peerage otherwise than by inheritance. When the contrary was decided, a new patent was issued, 1 Aug. 1792, by which Mansfield was created Earl of Mansfield of Saen Wood in the county of Middlesex, with remainder, in default of male issue, to his brother Viscount Stormont. His nephew David Murray [q. v.] accordingly succeeded him as second earl.
On occasion of Lord Chatham's final scene in the House of Lords, on 7 April 1778, Mansfield disgraced himself by exhibiting an ostentatious indifference ; nor did he attend the great patriot's funeral, or pay his tribute of respect to his memory in the debate on the bill for pensioning his posterity. On 25 Nov. 1779 he proposed a coalition of all parties for the purpose of grappling with the now desperate situation of American affairs. His advice was rejected, and he took little further part in politics. The Roman Catholic Eelief Bill of 1778 was, however, known to have had his approval, and on the outbreak of the Gordon riots (2 June 1780) he experienced the vengeance of the mob. His carriage windows were broken, and he was hustled as he passed to the House of Lords, of which he was then speaker pro tempore, and on the night of 7 June his house in Bloomsbury Square was sacked and burned. With Lady Mansfield he made his escape by a back door shortly before the mob effected an entrance. His books, manuscripts, pictures, and furniture were entirely destroyed or dispersed. Apparently stunned by the blow, he took no part in quelling the riot, and was not even consulted as to the lawfulness of firing on the mob, though he afterwards justified the ministers in the House of Lords. Cowper lamented in some pretty verses the loss of his library and manuscripts.
In presiding at the subsequent trial of Lord George Gordon, Mansfield exhibited as much judicial impartiality as if he had himself sustained no injury by the riots. As speaker of the House of Lords while the great seal was in commission (February to December 1783) he presided during the animated debates on the Receipt Tax and Fox's India Bill. He closed his political career by a speech on a corrupt practices bill on 23 March 1784.
Ill-health, which visits to Tunbridge Wells failed to restore, compelled Mansfield to resign office on 4 June 1788. He retired to his house, Caen Wood, Highgate, and devoted his declining days to horticulture, the study of the classics, society, and religious meditation. Still interested in public affairs, he lived to see the outbreak of the French revolution, of which he took from the first a very gloomy view. He died peacefully of old age on 20 March 1793. He was buried on the 28th in the North Cross, Westminster Abbey, in accordance with a desire expressed in his will that his bones might rest near the place of his early education. The funeral by his express direction was private. His monument by Flaxman, on the west side of the north transept, was placed there in 1801. His
