Samuel Romilly

In the legal vacation of 1781, Romilly made a tour in France and Switzerland. He had the family connection with Geneva, through John Roget, now his brother-in-law. Roget, who died in 1783, moved back there for his health, and Romilly brought out the young Peter Mark Roget to be reunited with his parents. In Geneva Romilly also met Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont.[9][10][11] Staying for a period with David Chauvet, one of the progressive group of local politicians, Romilly met also the like-minded Etienne Clavière, Jacques-Antoine Douveray and Etienne Reybaz.[12]

A friend from the Paris leg of this visit was Marguerite Madeleine Delessert (1767–1839), later Madame Gautier. She had had Rousseau as a family friend, her mother being Madeleine Catherine Boy de La Tour who married Etienne Delessert (1735–1816). She became the wife of the Genevan banker Jean-Antoine Gautier (1756–1800), who moved to Paris.[13][14][15][16] Romilly stayed at the Delessert home in Passy.[17]

In 1783, immediately after being called to the bar, Romilly made a second tour. This time he was accompanied in France by John Baynes, and met Benjamin Franklin at Passy, to whom Baynes had an introduction from John Jebb. In Lausanne he met the Abbé Raynal.[18][19]

In the meantime, the failed Geneva Revolution of 1782 had occurred. Romilly was introduced in 1784 to Honoré Mirabeau, by the Genevan writer François d'Ivernois, as his Memoirs state; Halevy says it was through Thomas Brand Hollis. D'Ivernois and Dumont formed part of the group of the revolution's leaders who by then were exiles in London.[20][21][22] Mirabeau saw him daily for a long time.[4]

The Marquess of Lansdowne, to 1784 William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and Prime Minister in 1782–3, invited Romilly to Bowood House, around 1784–5. He had heard Romilly's name from Mirabeau, had read the pamphlet A Fragment on the Constitutional Power and Duty of Juries upon Trials for Libels by Romilly, and was interested in Dumont.[23]

In what has been called the Bowood circle, Jeremy Bentham, with whom Romilly was acquainted, became a friend, and he had much to do with Benjamin Vaughan, another friend.[24]

In 1789 Romilly visited Paris, and studied the course of the French Revolution there, also visiting the dungeon at Vincennes where Mirabeau had been confined.[4][25] When Mirabeau became a political leader, it was to Romilly that he applied for an account of the procedure used in the House of Commons of Great Britain.[4] He left France with less optimism about the politics of the Revolution.[26]

Romilly's abilities were recognized by the Whig party. The Marquess of Lansdowne offered him in 1792 the parliamentary seat of Calne, which Romilly turned down.[1] In July 1793 he defended Birmingham booksellers who had sold Tom Paine's works, despite thinking Paine was lacking in arguments;[27] and in August of that year attended the sedition trial of Thomas Muir, which he regarded as shocking.[28][29]

By the end of 1793 Romilly had concluded that French revolutionary politics amounted to "barbarism".[30] He explained in 1794 to his correspondent Madame Gautier that "public events" had brought about his change of views.[31] In August 1797 he secured the acquittal of the radical John Binns.[32]

During the Peace of Amiens, Romilly was in Paris. He visited the Palais Bourbon, where the Legislative Assembly met, with Bentham.[33]

Romilly was a vocal opponent of the slave trade. His interest came early in life, by the time of his meeting in 1783 with the Abbé Raynal, whose Histoire des deux Indes he had read.[18] He gave his support to William Wilberforce's abolition campaign.

During the parliamentary debate on the Slave Trade Bill, Romilly paid tribute to Wilberforce, saying that his leadership had "preserved so many millions of his fellow creatures."[34] As he concluded his remarks, Romilly was greeted with a standing ovation by other Members of Parliament, a reaction that very rarely occurred in the House of Commons. Wilberforce himself sat with his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face.[35]

Romilly worked to reform the criminal law, under the influence of what is now called Classical criminology. He spent a dozen years of his life on the passage through Parliament of legislative reforms.[36] He argued against the attitudes to punishments of Martin Madan and William Paley.[37] The so-called Bloody Code of justice was, in his view, something that required reform, while, as he stated in his Memoirs, one effect of the French Revolution was to lessen the chances of Parliament passing the necessary legislation. The tide of opinion, however, was beginning to turn.[38]

In 1808, Romilly managed to repeal the Elizabethan statute which made it a capital offence to steal from the person. Successful prosecutions of pickpockets then rose. Charles Williams-Wynn, on the other hand, saw Romilly's background in equity law, and discrete bills, as inadequate.[1]

In 1809, three bills for repealing draconian statutes were thrown out by the House of Lords under the influence of Lord Ellenborough. Romilly saw further bills rejected; but in March 1812 he had repealed a statute of Elizabeth I making it a capital offence for a soldier or a mariner to beg without a pass from a magistrate or his commanding officer.[39]

In 1813 John William Ward found the approach too "philosophical".[1] Romilly failed to pass a law which would have abolished corruption of blood for all crimes, but in the following year he tried again and succeeded (except for treason and murder).[5] Also in 1814 he succeeded in abolishing hanging, drawing and quartering.[37]

Seeing a connection, Romilly also advocated prison reform in 1811. Here, however, reform in the direction proposed by Jeremy Bentham was thwarted.[40]