CAMDEN, CHARLES PRATT, EARL OF, was a younger son of Sir John Pratt, who was successively a puisne judge of the court of King's Bench and chief justice of that court, in the reign of George I. He was descended from a family of consideration in Devonshire, of which county Chief Justice Pratt, his father, was a native. Charles Pratt was born in the year 1714. He went at an early age to Eton, where he formed with William Pitt a warm friendship which lasted through life. In 1731, having obtained the election to King's College, Cambridge, he removed to the university. He became a fellow, according to the usual routine, in 1734 ; in the summer of 1738 he was called to the bar, and in the following year took his Master's degree. He made his first entrance into the profession in the courts of common law, and travelled the western circuit for several years with little or no practice. Conceiving his prospects of success in the profession of the law to be hopeless, he at one time resolved to abandon it and seek his fortune in the church. Henley, afterwards Lord Chancellor Northington, who was at that time in considerable practice on the western circuit, is said to have dissuaded him from the execu tion of this purpose, and to have induced him to continue in his course until his torn for business and advancement should arrive. He had the good sense to follow this judicious advice, and shortly afterwards his business began to increase. His practice as a junior however appears never to have been considerable. His name appears occasionally in the reports of cases of parochial settlement from the western circuit. In 1752 he was employed as junior counsel in defence of Owen, the bookseller, who had been prosecuted by the attorney-general for publishing a libel upon the House of Commons (Howell's 'State Trials,' voL p. 1203), and his earnestness and eloquence were believed to have mainly contributed to obtain a favourable verdict for his client. From this time his success was assured. In the following year he appeared as counsel for the prisoner in the trial of Timothy Murphy for forging a will, a case which excited much attention at the time (Howell's 'State Trials,' vol. xix., p. 693). Still previously to his appointment as attorney-general, he had much less general practice in the courts of Westminster Hall than several advocates whom at a subsequent period of his life ho left far behind him in professional advancement. In the course of the change of administration which took place in June 1757, Sir Robert Henley, the early friend and adviser of Pratt, was promoted from the office of attorney-general to that of lord keeper; and upon occasion of this vacancy, his friend Pitt, who placed great confidence in him, insisted upon his being made attorney-general ; and he was immediately after wards returned to parliament as representative of the now abolished borough of Downton, in Wiltshire. During the four years that he
continued to be a member of the House of Commons he did not take any very active or distinguished part in the debates.
His professional business while he was attorney-general became very extensive, particularly in the court of chancery. His official conduct as attorney-general appears to have been uniformly judicious and moderate. The only ex-officio information for libel filed by him was instituted against Dr. Shebbeare for his 'Letter to the People of England ; ' of which Horne Tooke says (Howell's 'State Trials,' vol. xx., p. 708), "that if ever there was an infamous libel against government surely it was that." The death of Chief Justice Willes, at the close of 1761, caused a vacancy on the bench of the common pleas; and this being one of those judicial offices of which by long usage the attorney-general for the time being is considered to have the refusal, it was accordingly offered to Pratt, and accepted by him. Soon after his elevation to the bench the great question respecting the legality of general warrants was raised, by the proceedings of govern ment with relation to the celebrated John Wilkes. Lord Chief Justice Pratt expressed his opinion against the asserted power of the secretary of state to authorise arrests, or the seizure of papers upon general warrants, with a greater degree of warmth than was usual, or perhaps justifiable, in pronouncing a mere judicial decision; but his energy on this occasion was entirely in accordance with the prevailing feeling of the times, and produced for him a larger share of popular favour than had been possessed by any judge in England since the revolution. Addresses of thanks were voted to him by many of the principal towns, and several public bodies presented him with the freedom of their respective corporations. The city of London, in particular, placed his portrait in Guildhall, with an inscription in honour of the "maintainer of English constitutional liberty." When the Rockingham administration came into power, in the summer of 1765, Lord Chief Justice Pratt was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Camden, of Camden-place, in the county of Kent. He did not however by any means become an adherent of that ministry ; on the contrary, he made a vigorous opposition to their measures declaratory of the right of Great Britain to impose laws upon the American colonies In all cases whatsoever. When Lord Rocking ham's ephemeral administration broke up in July 1766, Lord Northing ton, being removed from the court of chancery, became president of the council; and upon tho occurrence of this vacancy, the seals were given to Lord Camden.