contrary better, for I should have a more extensive knowledge of the world and my connections consequently much increased. In my opinion harm cannot well be done, as the £110 certain will cover rent and other incident expenses.1 He asked his brother to lend him £40 or £50 to cover initial costs if he approved the plan. In the meantime, William remained with Ellison and Nares, and went on doing small legal jobs of his own as opportunity offered. In December, however, he wrote to say that he was giving up his connection with Batey, saying that he would prefer to remain where he was 'than rise to fall'. He did not approve of Batey's behaviour, but thought he could leave him without losing his good offices. At present I am totally undetermined (until I hear from you) what course I must steer. I could 'tis true get a situation tomorrow in an attorney's office, but really I don't think of again assuming that capacity, clerks here not being looked upon as somewhat inferior, but abject slaves. You may perhaps think I should remain here and try for myself by not having full employment it would give scope to idleness, but I may with confidence assert (and without being accused of vanity) that the tenour of my conduct since I came here has been a continued attention to business and study carefully avoiding everything that might lead on to excess or excite my passions to debauchery and intemperance, which I trust I shall have resolution enough and gratitude enough to continue.2 On 30 December he assured Joseph that there had been no formal agreement with Batey, and added: 'rather than be a common hack clerk here, I would prefer trying my fortune in another country: not that I dislike work, but I cannot submit to the treatment." In January he was still undecided as to his course, and did not know whether to take out his practising certificate or not. Sometime in May he seems to have decided to set up as an attorney on his own account in London, for he wrote to his brother: I should like to be down at Carlisle Assizes but my prospect seems a little clouded at present, however, I shall with calmness relinquish the idea if business requires my presence here. We are full of electioneering here my little brass plate has attracted the notice of the canvassers, there has been a set here this morning soliciting my vote and interest for Curtis.4 1 Hodgson MSS. File H, bdle 16; 2 October 1795. 2 Ibid. 13 December 1795. • Ibid. n.d. (sometime in May). 3 Ibid. 30 December 1795. But his business cannot have been very pressing, and he seems to have spent the summer at Carlisle. He was back in London at the end of October, and early in November he wrote: My situation at present no doubt is awkward but what can I do? I must rub on until I get to my Chambers which are at No 9, Clement's Inn; but I expect to be there in the course of 10 days. You must send all my papers and books of every description-indeed I expected they would have been off before now. The desk and bed send by sea immediately putting into the desk and drawers such books as you think I shall least want, and put the other up in a box and send by the coach. I am in great want of them.1 On the following day he wrote again: If I was only settled in Chambers2 I think I shall do very well; attention and industry must bring a man through, and though when in the country I was threatened with a relapse of youthful inclinations I hope it is now removed, and sobriety and steadiness filled the chasm which I trust will remain prominent features in your very affectionate brother. 3 He asked Joseph to send at once certain books which he wanted urgently-Sellon and Impey's Practice, the Modern Pleader, Chancery Practice, Cook's Bankruptcy Laws, ‘and as many more as will cost no more than 3s.',a and asked him to recommend him as agent to the local attorneys and to John Robinson. By the end of the year William's business was still not enough to take up all his time, and he wrote to his brother suggesting a scheme for helping him in his banking business, which he thought would bring in about £100 a year. All bills sent here by you [he wrote] if dishonoured are returned through the Bank with about 4% charged thereon, of which you have not one farthing but all the risk. Now if I could raise as a standing stock about £200 and give Smith, Payne and Smith notice that all dishonoured bills bearing your endorsation would be paid by me for your honour it would have a two-fold good attending it, viz. the principal one of pocketing the regular and fair charges and then the bill will reach you two days sooner than usual.5 1 Hodgson MSS. File H, bdle 16; 7 November 1796. 2 The rent of his chambers was £15 per annum. 3 Ibid. 8 November 1796. 4 Ibid. 11 November 1796. 5 Ibid. 26 December 1796. Smith, Payne and Smith were the London agents of the Paisley Bank. He recommended the plan strongly to Joseph, and said it would be worth while even if it meant borrowing money to supply himself with the necessary capital. Only a few other letters from William survive. They show him trying still more ways of making money. In 1797 he was selling hams which had been sent to him from Carlisle. The trade was good in July, but flat in September and October. On 24 October he wrote: The sale for hams is slow, but I keep rubbing on-all the bacon is gone except two hlds[?]—if the hams had been small the difficulty of effecting sales would have been trifling, but on the contrary they are in general great ugly ill-shaped Scotch dogs weighing 50-70 lbs each.1 These letters end in 1797. Although they suggest that William's position was still far from secure, and no doubt leave much unsaid about the ways in which he obtained a living, it comes as something of a surprise to find that he is one of the attorneys most savagely attacked by Robert Holloway in his Strictures on the Characters of the most prominent practising Attornies, published between 1805 and 1811. Mr William Hodgson [wrote Holloway] is a man in whom virtue, modesty, humanity, chaste practice, and amiable endowments are unquestionable; in him nature seems to have erected one of her proudest banners on which is emblazoned all the virtues we meet with in the heathen mythology-all the piety we are taught in the Apocrypha, and the morality bequeathed to the roll of attorneys by the Settlers at Botany Bay!...It is said charity covers a multitude of transgressions:whether this gentleman's transgressions have any covering at all we know not; but in mercy to decency, it is time they had. He goes on to accuse him of brow-beating a debtor who was desperately ill, and of writing to him in terms 'such as might naturally have been expected from a baptised wolf. “Is it to me that you come for mercy? Thrust your hand in the fire and pray flames not to burn you!" the The attack continues in the most violent language, and concludes: We do not impeach his abilities as an attorney, or his want of assiduity for the interest of his client; and if a little swearing should be necessary, it is no more than what Edw. Barnet,2 or any other conscientious attorney 1 Hodgson MSS. William Hodgson's Letter Book, 24 October 1797. is ever ready to do for the benefit of his client, and we dare say Mr Hodgson never swore anything extra-judicial, or neglected to make his own affidavit an article in his bill of costs;--we shall only say, we were very lately requested to draw an indictment arising out of a squabble about this gentleman's veracity, which we declined, and we trust our reasons for declining it were such, as will do honour to our liberality, even towards an enemy.-To conclude, we wish Mr Hodgson and men like him to bear in mind, that the most feeble insect that is wantonly trod upon today, may gain strength again tomorrow to sting its oppressor to the heart. N.B. We understand he has lately taken a partner, and a wife; we sincerely hope the breed at Carlisle, and the practice in Clement's Inn, will both improve.1 William survived this blistering attack, and enjoyed long years of prosperity at Carlisle. He became clerk of the peace for Cumberland, an office which was held by his family throughout the nineteenth century. He became a justice of the peace, deputy-lieutenant of the county, and was five times mayor of Carlisle. He died in 1850 at the age of 77 in circumstances very different from those which had surrounded him in his early years as an attorney in London. 1 Holloway, op. cit. pp. 277 et seqq. CHAPTER X THE ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY In his play Pasquin, first performed in 1736, Fielding wrote: Religion, law, and physic, were designed By Heaven the greatest blessing on mankind; These general goods to each a private trade, With each they rob, with each they fill their purses, This was typical of the general belief in the earlier part of the eighteenth century that professional men were merely parasites. They were not engaged in productive labour; they made their living out of other people's misfortunes. The doctors and the lawyers especially, and among them, the apothecaries and attorneys more particularly, were subjected to the almost universal abuse of the satirists and commentators of the time, in plays, pamphlets, and novels. They were quacks and pettifoggers; they exploited the mysteries of their craft for their own ends. What they did for their clients had largely to be left to their own judgment, and this judgment was assumed to be exercised primarily in their own favour. They were expected to be hypocritical, selfish, and cunning, and were liberally abused for doing what was expected of them. It certainly gave a man no special prestige to be an attorney: rather was it a social handicap he had to overcome. Tom Clarke, in Smollett's novel Sir Launcelot Greaves, 'never owned himself an attorney without blushing'. This does not mean that men of gentle birth are never found as attorneys in this period; Thomas Fane, a Bristol attorney, succeeded to the Earldom of Westmorland. Nor does it mean that a man never achieved gentility by means of the profession. On the contrary, it provided a social stepping stone for a good many people of humble birth. But the profession was merely a stepping stone to gentility in these early stages, and men who had exploited the undoubted possibilities of gain presented by the profession were not usually content to remain attorneys, nor to found merely |