Camden

Camden, CHARLES PRATT, EARL OF, a younger son of Sir John Pratt, who was Chief-justice of the Court of King's Bench in the reign of George I., was born in 1713. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was called to the bar in 1738, but not until 1752, when he defended a bookseller successfully against a government prosecution for libel on the House of Commons, did his prospects appear very promising. He was appointed Attorney-general in 1757, and Chief-justice of the Common Pleas in 1762. Judge in the trial of Wilkes, he declared his opinion emphatically that the action of government in this case, by general warrants, was altogether illegal—an opinion which, chiming in with public sentiment at the time, made him the most popular of judges. In 1765 he was created Baron Camden by the Rockingham administration, to whose ill-advised American policy, and to that of their successors, as well as to their treatment of Wilkes, he, notwithstanding, offered constant opposition. He was made Lord Chancellor in 1766, but his consistent principles on these two subjects led to his resignation in 1770. His judicial career ended here; henceforth he was entirely a political character. He filled the office of President of the Council in the second Rockingham cabinet in 1782, and also, under Pitt, from the following year until his death, April 18, 1794. He was created Earl Camden and Viscount Bayham in 1786.