the defence in the criminal trial of the Queen v. Samuel Gray, when he was refused permission to challenge one of the jurors. A verdict of guilty was returned, but Napier sued out a writ of error to the House of Lords, on the ground that the jury had been illegally constituted, and his contention was upheld (Clarke and Finnelly, Reports, vol. ix.) In 1844 he was engaged as counsel for the crown in a second case of writ of error, following the conviction of O'Connell and others for seditious conspiracy arising out of the Clontarf meeting. A brief was sent by O'Connell; but the crown had sent theirs a few hours sooner, a fact publicly regretted by O'Connell. It was the latter who gave Napier the sobriquet of ‘Holy Joe,’ as indicating a feature of his character which specially attracted the notice of contemporaries. In November 1844 Napier received a silk gown from Sir Edward Sugden, lord chancellor of Ireland, and thenceforth there was scarcely a trial of note in which he was not retained. In 1845 one of the most important suits entrusted to him was that of Lord Dungannon v. Smith. Lord Dungannon appealed from the Irish courts to the House of Lords, and Napier's conduct of his case there drew high commendation from Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham. He was subsequently much employed in appeals before the House of Lords.
In 1847 he unsuccessfully contested the representation of his university in parliament, but in 1848 he was returned without a contest. Lord John Russell was then prime minister, and Napier sat on the opposition benches, but he at first declined to identify himself either with Peelites or protectionists. He was constant in his attendance, and spoke whenever he deemed the interests of either protestantism or his country endangered. In his maiden speech, 14 March 1848, he argued in favour of capital punishment. In a speech delivered on 17 March 1848 he opposed the extension of the income-tax to Ireland, since Ireland, he argued, was already sufficiently taxed for the purpose of swelling the revenues of the imperial exchequer. When, on 5 April 1848, the Outgoing Tenants (Ireland) Bill was discussed, he sought to prove, by a comparison between the condition of Ulster and that of the southern and disaffected districts of Ireland, that the misery of the tenant was not due to the land laws or the greed of his landlord, but to the peasant's indolence and fondness for sedition. The efforts of Lord John Russell in the cause of Jewish emancipation Napier strenuously opposed; and he disapproved of opening diplomatic relations with Rome. He attacked the withdrawal of a grant called Ministers' Money—a tax for the support of protestant clergy levied upon the Roman catholics living in certain corporate towns in the south of Ireland. He next opposed the motion, brought forward by Sir Charles Wood, to grant 50,000l. out of the imperial exchequer for the relief of certain poor-law unions in Ireland. He contended that the grant was inadequate, and that the system involved was vicious in principle. A select committee was appointed, largely owing to his action, to inquire into the state of the Irish poor law, and of this committee he was a member. Upon the issue of the report of the committee Lord John Russell introduced the Rate in Aid Bill. Napier opposed the resolution, denying the justice of making the solvent unions bear the defalcations of the insolvent, and censured the government for its persistence in temporary expedients. The speech won a high eulogy from Sir Robert Peel. In 1849 he revised and criticised the various acts to facilitate the sale of encumbered estates in Ireland. The report upon the receivers under the Irish courts of equity was prepared by him, and in the Process and Practice Act he afforded valuable assistance, which was acknowledged by Sir John Romilly [q. v.]; while he prepared and carried through the house the ecclesiastical code, a substantial boon to the Irish protestant church and clergy, which afterwards went by the name of Napier's Ecclesiastical Code. He resisted Lord John Russell's suggestion that the office of lord-lieutenant of Ireland should be abolished, and in 1850 took part in the agitation against the assumption by catholic bishops in England of the titles of their sees.
In March 1852 he was appointed Irish attorney-general in the administration of Lord Derby, and was made a privy councillor. He dedicated himself wholly to his duties, and in November 1852 was entrusted by Lord Derby with the reframing of the land laws of Ireland. His scheme consisted of four bills, a Land Improvement Bill, a Leasing Power Bill, the Tenants' Improvement Compensation Bill, and the Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Bill, which he introduced on 22 Nov. 1852, in a lucid speech, but none of his measures became law, though most of his suggestions were adopted by later administrations. Upon the defeat of the government in December Napier returned to the opposition benches, and actively aided his party. He had proceeded LL.B. and LL.D. at Dublin in 1851, and on the installation of Lord Derby as chancellor of Oxford on 7 June 1853 he was created D.C.L. there. To the question of legal education he had devoted much attention, and he carried a motion
