The success of Murray in the House of Commons justified the reputation which the new Solicitor-General had already attained at the bar.  His first speech, as member for Boroughbridge, fixed his position.  He maintained it for fourteen years, when he quitted the lower house upon his elevation to the bench.  When Murray accepted office under the Pelhams, another much more ardent and unscrupulous politician already in the House of Commons was writhing under the vexation of neglect.  The Solicitor-General had met the ambitious youth before, and the recollection of their last parting was hardly likely to insure a cordial or a friendly recognition.  Murray’s first task in Parliament was to defend the employment of Hanoverian troops, 16,000 of whom had recently been taken into British pay.  Pitt, at the head of the “Boys,” as Walpole called the burning patriots whose services he had himself respectfully declined, and hounded on by the Jacobites and Tories, denounced the steps as “illegal, unconstitutional, a sacrifice of British to electoral interests, and a prelude to the introduction of despotism into this country.”  Pitt was created to denounce, Murray to defend.  Overwhelming as the torrent of declamation and invective might be which Pitt knew so well how and when to pour forth, the barrier set up against it by the calm dignity, the perfect reasoning, the marvelous self-government, the exquisite tones, and conciliatory manner of Murray, was more than sufficient to protect him against submersion.  A division taking place upon the Hanoverian question, Government found themselves in a large majority.  Murray was pronounced to be a match for his rival, and George II. became suddenly as attached to the one as he had long hated and feared the other.

On the 3d of March, 1754, Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister, died, and, had Murray’s ambition soared in that direction, he might at once have stepped into the vacant office.  He had long been the prop of the Ministry in the House of Commons, and was by far the most sagacious member of the Government.  Throughout his Parliamentary career, what has happily been called his “clear, placid, mellow splendor” had suffered no tarnish, and had not been obscured by a single cloud.  Always ready, well informed, lucid in argument, and convincing in manner, he had virtually assumed the leadership in the House of Commons, and his elevation would in no way have altered the aspect or proceedings of that assembly.  The nation respected him, and the monarch regarded him with more than common favor.  Murray, however, coveted not the prize.  Mr. Macaulay, referring to this period in one of his masterly essays, attributes the conduct of the Solicitor-General to moral infirmity.  “The object of Murray’s wishes,” he says, “was the judicial bench.  The situation of Chief Justice might not be so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury, but it was dignified, it was quiet, it was secure; and therefore it was the favorite situation of Murray.”  Lord Campbell