Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 25 - William Saurin
Right Hon. William Saurin, born in 1758, was the second son of Rev. James Saurin, Vicar of Belfast, whose youngest son was Bishop Saurin (see chap, xxiii.). He was a pupil of Rev. Saumarez Dubourdieu of Lisburn, and from 1775 to 1778 of Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1780, and in 1790 his career of successful practice began. In 1794 (15th November) the declaration of the plaintiff was entered at the Court of Exchequer, Dublin, in the case of Curran v. Sandys. The counsel for the defendant were Mr. Waddy and Mr. Saurin, and a plea of “Not Guilty” was entered on 1st December 1794. The case came on before the Chief Baron (Yelverton) and Baron Smith on the Saturday before 16th February 1795. Mr. Saurin, as junior counsel, opened the defendant’s case. Mr. O’Regan, a cotemporary barrister, in his “Life of Curran” (page 118), pronounces a splendid eulogium on his speech:—
“On this occasion Mr. Saurin’s talents were first drawn forth. He made a statement for the defendant, at once solid, luminous, and vehement. It was on this occasion he brought out to public view the eloquence of his judgment, and he exhibited proofs of those superior powers which have ever since sustained the fame he here so justly merited. Hitherto he had been considered a lawyer learned and profound, matured by study, and little indulging in that grave humour which he so eminently possesses and so rarely indulges in. But to this occasion may be referred the first foundation of his fame and of his elevation. I owe to him and to truth to say that, when history comes to record his name, it (more just than passion) may thus describe him:—
“He was a profound lawyer — one who of his times made the nearest approaches to the character of a wise man; of pure morals, and of gentle and unassuming manners. As in architecture the grandeur of the building is found in the simplicity of the design, so in him you saw the best moral order, and saw it without effort. His repose resembled those deep and silent waters of the lake which sleep till chafed by the tempest, or, becoming swollen by the mountain torrent, rise and rush over the opposing rocks with an overwhelming roar which sounds at once solemn and sublime.”
At least Mr. Saurin earned some of the credit of the comparatively successful defence; for, although the verdict was for the plaintiff, the jury gave him only £50 damages, instead of £2000 which had been claimed.
I have not observed any other cases in which Mr. Saurin was engaged, except that on the trials for high treason arising out of the Irish Rebellion, which began on Thursday, 12th July 1798, he was one of the counsel for the Crown.
A meeting of the Irish Bar took place in the Exhibition House in William Street, Dublin, on Sunday, 9th December 1798. “Mr. Saurin opened the business, and after stating the question with his usual ability, as to the method and period of proposing it, when the country was but just delivered from a rebellion the most savage that ever scourged a country, moved, That the measure of a legislative union of this kingdom and Great Britain is an innovation which it would be highly dangerous and improper to propose at the present juncture to this country.” Mr. St. George Daly’s motion for an adjournment was rejected by 166 to 32, whereupon Mr. Saurin’s resolution was put and carried.[1] Sir Jonah Barrington said, “Mr. Saurin’s speech was vapid, and his resolution pointless; but he had great influence with the profession; he was an excellent lawyer, and an amiable, pious Christian.”
Nothing could move Mr. Saurin from his opposition to the Union of the British and Irish Parliaments; and for this reason he refused in 1798 to be Solicitor-General for Ireland.[2] It was not till 1807 that he accepted office as Attorney-General for Ireland, and a seat in the British House of Commons. He was colonel of the lawyers’ corps of volunteers. He resigned office in 1821, and retired from the bar in 1831, having refused both promotion to the Bench and a peerage. He lived to be Father of the Irish bar. The following is the substance of a sketch printed in “Public Characters” for 1799-1800 (being written by an observer of his appearances at the bar of the House of Lords in Westminster, it represents Mr Saurin in his least impassioned moods):—
Mr. Saurin is low in stature; his countenance is characteristic of French origin, it bespeaks strongly a cool and sound judgment, a sagacious understanding, and a good heart. He is said to make considerably more in his profession than any other man at the Irish bar. There appears, however, no obvious or shining excellence in his manner of discharging his forensic duties. His great merit as a bar orator consists in the ingenuity of his statements, his colouring, his selection of facts, and his judicious arrangement of matter. He possesses great legal knowledge, the result of laborious and early reading; and he is characterized by a degree of attention to business to which even a young and poor man is seldom found to submit.
Mr Saurin married in St. Anne’s, Dublin, on 21st January 1786, Dame Mary Cox, widow of Sir Richard Cox, Bart., daughter of Edward O’Brien, Esq., and sister of the second and third Marquises of Thomond. He died on 11th January 1839, in his eighty-first year, and she on 28th January 1840. Their children were three sons and a daughter; the eldest son, Admiral Edward Saurin, married on 15th July 1828, Lady Mary Ryder, second daughter of the first Earl of Harrowby, and died on 28th February 1878, leaving, with other children, a son, William Granville Saurin, Esq.
- ↑ Seward’s “Collectanea Politica,” vol. iii., p. 475.
- ↑ From the Parliamentary Return of Members of Parliament, it would appear that Mr. Saurin sat in the Irish House of Commons for only the last few months of its existence. He was not returned at the General Election of 1798, but at a bye-election we find the return of “William Saurin, Esq.,” for the borough of Blessington, “in place of Hon. Richard Annesley, who has accepted the office of Escheator of Munster.”