Acadiensis/Volume 1/Number 2/Honorable Judge Robie
Honorable Judge Robie.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
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HE late Judge Simon Bradstreet Robie entered public life in Nova Scotia towards the close of the last year in the eighteenth century. A brief account of his career, taken from the records of the intervening period, and heard from the tongues of the most aged of his contemporaries, nearly all of whom are now dead, may not prove altogether uninteresting to the readers of "Acadiensis."
While gathering material for this paper I was assured by one of the oldest of my informants, that:
"A memoir of Judge Robie would have little interest, except so far as it may hold up to public view the gentlemanly bearing and high character of those men who usually held office in the country and adorned the legal profession in former days, in sad contrast to the present state of things."
But this was before the founding of the excellent law school in connection with Dalhousie college, which bids fair to restore to the bar that class of advocates, of which Judge Robie was the type. Forty-five years ago, the twentieth day of May next, the Morning Chronicle stated editorially, that—"Few of our citizens yet survive, who ever heard Simon Bradstreet Robie, in his best days, make a speech. That he could make good ones all his co-temporaries acknowledged. Bold, yet exact—declamatory when the occasion warranted, but chaste withal, with a strong fibre of sound law and common sense running through his arguments. Mr. Robie was a successful lawyer, and the acknowledged leader of the lower house for many years. He beat Ritchie in a contest for the speakership in the session of 1817; and Archibald, until Mr. Robie's elevation to the council left the course open, did not aspire to rivalship, but treated him with marked deference and respect."
To-day the editor of the same paper might ask, "Who can tell anything about this provincial statesman and lawyer?" For, strange to say, the latest historian of Nova Scotia[1] gives no account whatever of the man, who, for eleven years was solicitor general, for seven years speaker of the house of assembly, for ten years master of the rolls, for twenty-four years member of the executive and legislative council, and for eleven years president of both, after their reconstruction and division into two bodies; and whose honored name is so mingled with the public events of Nova Scotia, that it cannot but be handed down to posterity by documents in our colonial archives, when the memory of living men can no longer recall it.
Mr. Bobie was born at Marble Head, Massachusetts, while that state was yet a colony, in the year 1770, and was son of Thomas Robie, who left Boston as a loyalist early in the revolutionary war, and settled in Halifax, N. S., where he carried on business as a hardware merchant for several years. He was called after Simon Bradstreet, a distant relative, and native of Lincolnshire, England, brought up in the family of the Earl of Lincoln. Simon Bradstreet studied for a year at Cambridge, and soon after became steward to the Countess of Warwick, and married a daughter of Mr. Dudley, his former tutor. In March 1630, he was chosen an assistant of the colony about to be established at the Massachusetts Bay, and arrived at Salem in the summer of the same year. He was at the first court, which was held at Charlestown, August 23rd. He was afterward secretary and agent of Massachusetts, and commissioner of the United colonies. He was sent with Mr. Norton, 1662, to congratulate King Charles on his restoration, and as agent of the colony to promote its interests. From 1673 to 1679, he was deputy governor. In this year, he succeeded Mr. Leverett as governor, and remained in office till May 1686, when the charter was dissolved, and Joseph Dudley commenced his administration as president of New England. In May 1689, after the imprisonment of Andros, he was replaced in the office of governor, which station he held till the arrival of Sir Wm. Phipps, in May 1692, with a charter, which deprived the people of the right of electing their chief magistrate. He died 1697 aged 94 years.
Simon Bradstreet Robie passed his boyhood days in Halifax, where, after acquiring the best education the city could then impart, he studied law in the office of his brother-in-law, Jonathan Sterns. This gentleman, unlike the elder Robie, was among the most unflinching loyalists, and was one of the eighteen country gentlemen who venttured to sign the address to General Gage. He was driven from his residence in Massachusetts before leaving the state. Born in Massachusetts, he graduated at the University of Harvard in the year 1770. Having removed with the British army to Nova Scotia, in 1778, he opened a law office in Halifax, which county returned him a member to the Assembly in 1793. He was appointed solicitor-general of the province in 1794, and held these positions till his death, 23rd of May, 1798. The late William Sterns, of Liverpool, also a lawyer, and a former owner of Fort Belcher farm, in Colchester county, was his son.
Little can be told about young Robie as a student-at-law. The late Hon. H. H. Cogswell, in conversing with an old friend about the accumulation of money by the old members of the profession, related an anecdote deserving a passing notice. Mr. Cogswell said that when he was a student in the office of the old attorney-general, Richard John Uniacke, he, Robie, Norman Uniacke, the late Andrew Wallace (Mrs. Martin Wilkins' father) and a few other law students, were discussing their future prospects, and speculating how they would live if they possessed £20,000, a sum, in those days, considered an immense fortune. Robie, after others had stated their desires, said, "If I should ever acquire £20,000, I will retire from all work, build a house in Truro, and live there on the interest of my money." Truro was ever a popular locality with him. Cogswell, on being asked his opinion (then only seventeen years of age) replied: "I think I would do just as all of you would do, notwithstanding all you have said, that is to say, I would try to increase my £20,000 to £40,000." Cogswell died worth over £140,000, and Robie, £60,000, but, unfortunately for Truro, built his house in Halifax. That he seduously applied himself to a study of the legal profession in its various branches, and was careful to acquire a thorough knowledge of the routine duties in the office of his brother-in-law, and availed himself of every opportunity to watch the practice in the courts cannot be doubted ; and there is every reason to believe that the good use he made of his time during those early years contributed in no small degree to the great success that attended his long and useful career at the bar, in the legislature, and on the bench of the rolls court.
On the eleventh day of October, 1799, Governor Sir John Wentworth dissolved the seventh general assembly of the province. Writs were issued for a new election returnable the twenty-third day of December. Truro then had the honor of being the first constituency to return to parliament Simon Bradstreet Robie, a rising Halifax barrister of twenty-nine summers, who afterwards held several of the highest offices in the land with great credit to himself and complete satisfaction to the country. Mr. Robie took his seat 28th February, 1800, on the opening of the first session of the eighth general assembly. Those were the halcyon days of the old council of twelve, who did business with closed doors and with whom his excellency was more in accord than with the majority in the assembly. The opposition was then led by that somewhat celebrated lawyer and orator, William Cottnam Tonge, whose speech at the bar of the house, 3rd April, 1790, in defence of his father's (Colonel Tonge) right to fees as naval officer, has been cited as the precursor of Nova Scotian eloquence. As a member of the house, in his endeavors to effect changes in the modes of administering the public affairs of the province, he made himself most obnoxious to the Governor but became very popular with the people. In 1799, the county of Halifax returned him at the head of the poll by a very handsome majority, at which election he was also returned by the town of Newport. It was at this time that the popular feeling, attributed to his eloquent efforts to break in upon stereotyped forms of government and old established usages in the colony, made itself felt, by returning along with him for the county of Halifax (then including Pictou and Colchester) Edward Mortimer, of Pictou, and James Fulton, of Londonderry, in place of Wallace, Stewart and Hartshorne, who, in the former house, were three of the governor and council's most faithful supporters. The animosity of Sir John Wentworth to that clever and popular leader increased to such a degree, that on his second election as speaker by the house, Sir John refused to approve of their choice, and in so doing, exercised a branch of his Majesty's prerogative, having only one instance, and that at a remote period, in the history of Great Britain, and without precedent in Nova Scotia.
The English precedent relates to the case of Speaker Sir Edward Seymour in the reign of Charles the second. "In the new Parliament of 1678-9, Seymour was returned for Devonshire; and was again unanimously elected Speaker; but he was now somewhat estranged from the court, especially from Dauby, and was no longer acceptable to the King. On submitting himself to the chancellor for the royal approval, he was informed that the King thought fit to reserve Seymour for other services, and to ease him of this. Sachverell and Powle strongly opposed the power of the crown to reject the choice of the commons. To allay the excitement, the King on the thirteenth of March prorogued the house for two days, at the end of which a compromise was effected and Sergeant Gregory appointed."[2]
Some idea of the kind of stuff Mr. Robie was made of, and the calibre of the man, may be formed from the fact that upon his entering parliament he acted under Mr. Tonge's lead, and advocated with much ability many of the measures that displeased Governor Wentworth, who took special delight in censuring whatever Tonge originated. Subsequent events proved that Tonge, Robie, and their followers, not only held advanced views upon public affairs, but were actuated by loyal and patriotic motives in their endeavours to have the province governed more in accordance with an enlightened public opinion and the growing spirit of the age, and that they did no more than enter the wedge, which, when driven home by others, years after wards, opened the council doors, gave the people responsible government, and many other wholesome reforms the country was not quite ready for in their day.
In the general election of 7th August, 1806, Mr. Robie was returned one of the members for Halifax county, which he represented in the assembly till April 2nd, 1824, when he was appointed a member of the old council of twelve, which then exercised executive as well as legislative functions. Before that time, and after December, 1808, when Tonge followed the fortunes of Sir George Prevost in the West Indies, where he became secretary of Demarara, and resided to the close of life, Mr. Robie, on account of his liberal views, well known legal ability, powers of eloquence and subtle reasoning, became the acknowledged leader of the popular branch of the legislature. The house frequently put him on committees to prepare replies to the governor's speeches, and in 1807 made him chairman of a committee to present an address and one hundred guineas, to buy a piece of plate or a sword, to the honorable vice admiral George Cranfield Berkeley, commander of the fleet. On the 8th of January, 1808, he voted for Tonge's resolution against the governor's message to increase the treasurer's salary. In 1815 he was appointed solicitor general, vice James Stewart, made judge of the supreme court. In 1817, speaker of the house, after a contest with Thomas Ritchie, upon speaker Lewis Morris Wilkin's elevation to the bench of supreme court, on the demise of Judge Foster Hutchinson. Mr. Robie was afterwards chosen speaker, unanimously, 11th February, 1819; also of the next general assembly that met 12th November, 1820, and continued first commoner till his appointment to the council, and remained solicitor general till his elevation to the bench of the rolls court. Why he was not made one of the pioneer King's counsel in Nova Scotia, 21st May, 1817, when that honor was conferred upon William Henry Otis Haliburton, and Samuel George William Archibald, is one of the unexplained mysteries of Lord Dalhousie's administration.
On the 2nd April, 1820, Speaker Robie, at the head of the house, presented an address to Lord Dalhousie, requesting his acceptance of their vote of £1000, for a "Star and Sword," which the earl accepted, "as a magnificent testimonial of their regard," but ten days after the house rose recalled his acceptance in a letter to the speaker.
On the 2nd April, 1822, the university of Glasgow conferred the degree of doctor of civil law upon Mr. Robie.
While in the house Mr. Robie took a correct view of every great question before the country, and proved himself the possessor of the soundest opinions, and a man of no ordinary ability. The resolution under which Lawrence Kavanagh, the first Roman Catholic member, was allowed to take his seat for Cape Breton, 3rd April, 1823, without taking the oaths against popery and transubstantiation, was suggested to the house by him while speaker, and he supported it in an able argument. When we consider that it was five years later that Daniel O'Connell, "the liberator of his country," was first elected a member of the "commons house of parliament for the county of Clare," and was not permitted to take his seat unless he took those ancient oaths, which he refused to do, and did not gain admission to parliament, till a year afterwards, upon his re-election for Clare, after the "Bill of Emancipation" had been fought fiercely through both houses, by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, who saw that the hour had arrived in the history of Great Britain, when either their prejudices or their power must be surrendered, we can form a very good idea of the grandeur of Mr. Robie's conduct, in dealing with the great question in our legislature. It was this circumstance that lead Daniel O'Connell to make the acquaintance of Joseph Howe at a social gathering in England, crossing the floor of the room where they met, introducing himself, and giving Mr. Howe a hearty shake of the hand, at the same time expressing his great gratification in forming the acquaintance of a public man from the British colony that was first to settle the important question of "Catholic emancipation."
Although a great adherent of the Church of England, and a warm friend of King's college, in 1818 Mr. Robie spoke in favor of aid to the trustees of Pictou academy, towards the erection of their building, in a clear and argumentative address, and took a sound view of the question at the commencement of a controversy that long continued to agitate the legislative body of Nova Scotia.