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MODERN STATE TRIALS.*

Tins is one of those books which it puzzles a reviewer to deal with. It contains a number of trials connected with state offences, or which, on one account or other, occupied a large share of public attention at the time of their occurrence. It is not very easy to give a definition of the word state trials; at least the editors of the collections published under that name have included in their books numerous cases unconnected with political offences; we might find among them judicial investigations of private murders, of violence to females, of witchcraft, of perjury, brought together on no very intelligible principle. There seems no reason why the Recorder of Macclesfield should not follow the example set him by Emlyn and Hargrave; and he has accordingly not hesitated to introduce in the same volume, which contains the trials of Frost and O'Brien for high treason, and of O'Connell for conspiracy, reports of proceedings against Lord Cardigan for a duel, and Lord Stirling for forgery. We quarrel not with the title of the book, as it might not be easy to suggest one with any nearer approach to accuracy. Indeed, there seems little object in affecting any precision in such a matter; and Mr. Townsend ought, perhaps, to have been satisfied to give his book some such title as "Criminal Trials." The trials, of which reports are given in these volumes, are those of Frost, Oxford, and O'Brien, for high treason; of O'Connell for conspiracy; of Hunter and others for murder and conspiracy; of Stuart, Courvoisier, and MNaughten for murder; of Lord Cardigan for shooting in a duel; of Alexander Alexander, titular Earl of Stirling, for forgery; of Lord Cochrane for conspiracy; of Wakefield for conspiracy and abduction; of Williams for a libel on the Durham clergy; of Pinney, mayor of Bristol, for neglect of duty; and of Moxon for blasphemy; fifteen trials in all, every

one of which has some such peculiar feature of interest as well deserves preservation. "In making a selection," Mr. Townsend says, he "has endeavoured to preserve a faithful, but abridged report of such legal proceedings as would be most likely to command the attention of all members of the community, and to be read by them with pleasure and profit." The difficulty, however, of such a work is not the selection of the particular trials, but, as some process of abridg ment is necessary, to determine on what principle that abridgment is to be made. The topics of most interest to a professional student are not those which engage public attention most. And again, those which engage public attention most at the time of the occurrence, are often those which have little bearing on the real question of the guilt or innocence of the party. Frost's trial, for instance, was of more value in a professional man's estimate, for the questions connected with the Crown's right of challenge, and the grounds on which it was argued, and the decision of the judges upon the time at which it was necessary to furnish the prisoner with a list of the witnesses, than for any of the after incidents of the trial. Yet these afterincidents are presented in full detail, especially when any personal repartee occurs between counsel. The play of words, uttered and forgotten, and deserving of nothing but instant oblivion, is thus sought to be given permanence and importance, while all that requires more severe attention of mind is passed over, as not of a sufficiently popular character. We fear that Mr. Townsend has attempted things incompatible-a book useful, really useful to the student, and a book pleasant to glance over, the ornament for a few days or weeks of the drawing room or library-table, till some newer book occupy its place. In one respect, however, the book asserts a claim to high

* "Modern State Trials." By William C. Townsend, Esq., M.A. Q.C., Recorder of Macclesfield. London: Longman, Brown, Greene, and Longmans. 1850.

consideration; and this gives it a great and enduring value:

"In the extracts here given from some of the most celebrated speeches of modern days, the editor has also had the great advantage of the last corrections of the speakers themselves, and has thus been enabled to preserve the ipsissima verba, by which minds were captivated and verdicts won; those treasures of oratory which would have gladdened the old age of Erskine, could he have seen how his talisman had been passed from hand to hand, and the mantle of his inspiration caught. The vivid appeals of Whiteside, the magnificent defence of Cockburn, the persuasive imagery of Talfourd, will exist as Kтýμaтa és aici, trophies of forensic eloquence, beacon lights it may be, in the midst of that prosaic mistiness which has begun to creep around our courts. age which abjures imagination, few figures are now prized save those of the countinghouse!"

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That the reports of their speeches should be revised by eminent men is, no doubt, most desirable. Still we think that, even after this, it would be well that some process of mere abridg ment should be adopted-nothing introduced by the editor-nothing of substance, or even of vivid or peculiar turns of language omitted. There is, necessarily perhaps, in all spoken language, and particularly in the language of the Bar, as distinguished from that of Parliament and places of public business, an amplitude and redundancy of phrase that could be trimmed away with great advantage — words that we have no doubt were uttered, but which, with the unnumbered specimens we have of forensic oratory, might be safely left to the imagination as the common property of all the learned brethren of the mystery, and, in some day, from which, however, we are probably some half-century distant, to be numbered as among the pomps and vanities which are altogether to be eschewed.

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Mr. Townsend marks emphatically the favourable contrast between the state trials of our days and all that have preceded them :

"The humanising influence of a century's civilisation has not been poured in vain upon our courts, every part of which, whether we regard the judges, counsel, or jurors, seems radiant with justice in mercy.

"We are wiser than our forefathers, for we are more humane, and the judgments of the Bench command universal assent, since

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who can doubt its anxiety to be just? In comparison with the calm intelligence and serene urbanity of C. J. Tindal, even the demeanour of Holt, with his sharp Sirrah' to the prisoner, and 'Look ye, sirs,' to counsel, looks harsh and austerc. The technicalities and bald language of Sir Bartholomew Shower appear still more unfavourable to those who have read the legal arguments and impassioned addresses of Sir F. Pollock and Sir Fitzroy Kelly. There occurs now no unseemly wrangling with the Bar, no caustic and misplaced reviling of a prisoner—such an incident would be deemed too strange for fiction-no hard words or hanging,' the last only on occasions of rare necessity, for there is no judge like Page. Whether in reference to the profound ability of the venerable magistrates who presidedone is still happily preserved to grace and dignify and inform the profession-or to the acuteness and eloquence of the counsel who prosecuted and defended-to the clear arrangement of proofs-to the arguments on points of law, or to the equable attention of the jury, who, in their anxiety for the truth, never betrayed, during an investigation of eight days, impatience or weariness; the lawyer, who rejoices in the honour of the gown, may point with proud satisfaction to the trial of John Frost under the special commission at Monmouth, which distinguished the close of 1839 and the first week of 1840. Rarely has there occurred a more grave case for solemn judicial inquiry. It scarcely seemed credible, at a time of profound peace, when work was abundant, and wages high, and provisions plentiful, that thousands of workmen, chiefly miners, should have been assembled on the hills above Newport on a Sunday night in November, according to previous concert, many of them armed with guns and pikes, to make a midnight attack on a peaceable town. It sounded more like a romance than a chapter of domestic history; and resembled rather the irruption of Indian savages upon the wigwams of some unoffending settlers, than the assemblage of fellow-countrymen. for the tempestuousness of the night, which delayed the meeting of the three separate bands, commanded by Frost, Zachariah Williams, and Jones the watchmaker of Pontypool, who had undertaken to collect 10,000 men, the inhabitants of Newport would have been surprised in their sleep, and been exposed to the fury and excesses of an undisciplined multitude. The largest portion of these lawless marauders, under the guidance of Frost, arrived in the suburbs between eight and nine on Monday morning, Nov. 4, 5,000 in number, and attacked the little inn, in which a small detachment of the Queen's troops, under Lieutenant Grey, thirty in all, were drawn up. Taught by the disasters of Bristol, the troops entered into no parleying, no waving of caps, no shaking of hands with the mob. Thrusts

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with pikes and firing on the one side, volleys of fire-arms at the word of command on the other, brought the conflict between lawful authority and rabble rule to a crisis at once. In ten minutes all was over. By the discipline of a mere handful of soldiers, judiciously posted and well commanded, the blind fury of thousands of brave men was forthwith subdued, and they fled in a wild panic. But the punishment of these giddy rioters was severe. Not less than thirty are computed to have perished. Many of the slain were carried off, and twelve bodies were left at the threshold of the inn. Slain for what object? The poor, ignorant, misguided working-classes could not themselves tell. They had been marched, without any definite design, to gratify the turbulent fancies and factious vanity of Frost and his brother Chartists, to show their physical strength, and commence a rebellion for that highsounding term the Charter, of the precise meaning of which they had no clear conception. Some vague, dim notion of improving their state, coercing property, and getting money without work, and the reliance upon en pty promises at trades-unions and lodge-meetings, in the absence of real grievances, seem to have urged them on."

The hopelessness of this insurrection formed the chief topic of defence with Frost's counsel. They argued, from the seeming impossibility of success, that it was impossible the attempt should have been contemplated; and efforts were made to break down the testimony in detail. To resist the evidence by which notorious facts were proved, can seldom be successful with the plain-minded intelligence of a jury; a more plausible alternative was relied on, when counsel struggled to exhibit, supposing the facts proved, that Frost's object in appearing in arms was not to seize the town of Newport, making this the beginning of a general rebellion, which would be high treason, but, by the display of physical force, to effect the amelioration of the condition of the Chartist prisoners in Monmouth gaol, which would be but a misdemeanor. Chief Justice Tindal, stating to the jury the distinction on which the case turned, cautiously avoided intimating to them any expression of his opinion whether the insurrection contemplated objects of a general or a particular nature. So

studiously did the presiding judge avoid giving the slightest aid to the jury in that which was their peculiar province and duty, that an unfounded impression was created that he was dissatisfied with the verdict :

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"This trial (says Mr. Townsend) also must have furnished an excellent text, on which to strengthen their minds and soften their hearts. It was a noble spectacle to witness the calm, grave stillness which pervaded the Court, its gentle patience and dignified repose, in striking contrast to the fierce passions that raged without the walls. tachments of troops were then scouring the hills, as a fresh rising of the masses had been apprehended; yet day by day the steadfast course of justice pursued its even path with all the appearance and reality of perfect unruffled security. The master-spirit, who had caused such irreparable mischief, stood at the bar for his deliverance, and knew that he should not suffer from the general excitement. His crime was rather softened than exaggerated in the temperate speeches of counsel for the prosecution, and he met with a courteous forbearance from the Court, which he could not himself have shown. A stranger would not have surmised his guilt from the manner in which his name was mentioned, and the courtesy with which he was addressed. Monsieur Cottu alone, who had studied our criminal proceedings, might have guessed the grave nature of the accusation from this very absence of reproach and contumely. But the full, disimpassioned, and impartial consideration given to his case, the complete conviction impressed into the minds of all that justice had been done in mercy, wrought a salutary and perceptible effect on the lower orders. The most unruly bowed their heads in subjection to the supremacy of the law, so well vindicated to their understandings and commended to their feelings, and that portion of the kingdom has since been at peace."

The trial of Oxford for shooting at the Queen is well given. The defence relied on was insanity; and there can be little doubt that Oxford was scarcely of sufficiently sound mind to distinguish between right and wrong. The evidence for the Crown, also, failed to establish the fact charged in the indictment, that the pistol which he fired at the Queen was loaded with ball; and his counsel contended that the special verdict which the jury gave "We find the prisoner, Edward Oxford, guilty of discharging the contents of two pistols; but whether they were loaded with ball has not been satisfactorily proved to us, he being of unsound mind at the time"-was equivalent to an acquittal; they certainly did not amount to a conviction. But this verdict was not received; and after some consultation, a verdict of "not guilty, on the ground of insanity," was the form finally adopted.

This case was the occasion of favourably introducing to the public Mr. Sidney Taylor, who conducted the defence, and who had some few years before succeeded, in the Roscommon Peerage case, in establishing a claim to the title against what at first seemed insuperable difficulties. Mr. Taylor had, for many years, written with great earnestness and power against the severity of the criminal law of England; and the changes to a milder system were, in a great degree, attributable to the influence on public opinion which his writings had. The medical evidence in Oxford's case, on which the defence mainly rested, is given here at length, and is well worth preserving as certainly this and M'Naughten's case carried the defence, on the ground of insanity, farther than any previous judicial investigation had warranted; and for a while the public mind was possessed with apprehensions for the consequences of any extension of irresponsibility, which have proved to have been groundless. With respect to the person of the Queen, it is strange that a love of notoriety seems, after Oxford's case, to have led to attempts by some halfwitted persons against her life. There does not seem to have been any connexion with political objects, or any object at all, but the strange passion for notoriety. About two years after Oxford's trial, John Francis, a youth of nineteen, fired at the Queen on Constitution-hill. As in the former case, no bullet was found; but evidence of the sharp whizzing report with which the discharge was accompanied, satisfied the jury that the weapon was loaded with some destructive substance. In respect to the Queen's own anxiety on the subject, his life was spared, and the sentence commuted to transportation for life :

LL Scarcely had the reprieve been granted, when a deformed stripling, William Bean, crooked in mind as in body, only seventeen, again presented his pistol at her Majesty, when going to the Chapel Royal. It was only loaded with powder and wadding, for he had sufficient cunning not to put his life in peril. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for the misdemeanor, and Lord Abinger shrewdly remarked that whipping at the cart's tail should be the fitting sentence in future.

"The nuisance had become a national disgrace, and intolerable; some shameful

punishment, suited to the character and condition of such intrusive poltroons, was required; and Sir Robert Peel proposed a measure better adapted to the offence than the high-sounding, but ineffectual charge of high treason, or attempt at treason. Under his auspicies was passed the salutary statute, 5 & 6 Vict., c. 51, intituled, 'An Act for the further Security and Protection of Her Majesty's person,' and enacting, in the most comprehensive terms, that 'whosoever shall point any description of fire-arms at the Queen, whether the same shall or shall not contain any explosive or destructive material, shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor, and liable to the same penalties as in convictions for simple larceny, and, in addition, shall be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in such manner, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding thrice.' The bill was passed with unanimous assent; and Lord John Russell remarked pointedly, that, 'as the offence to be punished was the offence of base and degraded beings, a base and degrading punishment was most fitly applied to it.'"

The third trial in the selection is one of exceeding interest-it is that of Mr. Stuart, for killing Sir Alexander Boswell in a duel. The introductory remarks by which Mr. Townsend's abstract of this trial is prefaced, are well worth attention. The struggle between the letter of the law and the feelings of society, as existing in the minds of jurors, which prevented the letter of the law from being the rule of conduct to any one, is well exemplified by the production of many remarkable cases: 66 During the long reign of George the Third, which comprehended nearly sixty years, about 170 duels are known to have been fought, and in those between sixty and seventy persons were slain." We should think these statistics are very much under the mark. In Ireland, certainly, the numbers were vastly greater, or Sir Jonah Barrington is in error-is not that the civil word? But a more faithworthy witness, the author of "Ireland Sixty Years Ago,",satisfies us that this, for almost any one county, would be much less than the number of duels fought. In most cases there was no prosecution; and where there were verdicts of conviction, there can be little doubt that, though the verdict did not say it in words, it was in cases where the jury thought the duel was not a fair one, and that murder was actually perpetrated. Major Campbell was sentenced to death and

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this case the antagonists met in the night time, and without seconds. The words of the dying man were the chief evidence against the survivor, and he denied the fairness of the duel. Another case, worse in its characterwhere the survivor was convicted and executed-was one which was manifest assassination where the forms of duelling could scarcely be said to be observed at all. In Lord Byron's case, as we believe in all the cases tried by the House of Lords, the finding, under the most aggravated circumstances, has been manslaughter, and the punishment but nominal.

In 1794, an officer, who had been brought to a court-martial and dismissed the service, told the colonel of his late regiment that he was a coward, a ruffian, and a scoundrel. The colonel took no notice of this: on the next day he was again assailed with similar language, and a whip shaken over him. On consultation with his friends, it was deemed necessary that he should send a hostile message. They met, and he was shot dead. Baron Hotham, who tried the case, stated that the facts amounted to murder. "Such is the law of the land, which undoubtedly the prisoner has violated-though he has acted in conformity to the law of honour. His whole demeanour in the duel was that of perfect honour and perfect humanity. Such is the law, and such are the facts. If you cannot reconcile the latter to your consciences, you must return a verdict of guilty. But if the contrary, though the acquittal may tread on the rigid rules of law, yet the verdict will be lovely in the sight both of God and man."

This was

going pretty far for a judge; and we confess we think Dr. Johnson's justification of duelling, on the ground of self-defence, more tenable than this mode of stating the law to be one thing, and the extent to which juries should be governed by it a thing wholly different.

The next case Mr. Townsend gives is one of Colonel Montgomery and Captain Macnamara :

"It was a case of a foolish dispute about two dogs which accompanied the gentlemen when riding in the park: the dogs having quarrelled, Colonel Montgomery, who did not perceive that Captain Macnamara was

near, came and separated them, and said, 'Whose dog is this? I will knock him down.' On which Captain Macnamara rejoined, 'Have you the arrogance to say you will knock my dog down! you must first knock me down.' An altercation took place. Colonel Montgomery and his party rode up through Piccadilly, and Captain Macnamara following him, sent a friend immediately with a message. They met the same day, and Colonel Montgomery was shot dead on the spot.

"The defence in this case was prepared by Mr. Erskine, who appeared as his counsel, but was not allowed by law to address the jury. The defence which he prepared was one which few British juries could resist. He states, 'I am a captain of the British navy. My character you can only hear from others. But to maintain my character, I must be respected. When called upon to lead others into honourable danger, I must not be supposed to be a man who sought safety by submitting to what custom has taught others to consider as a disgrace. I am not presuming to urge anything against the laws of God or of this land. I know that, in the eye of religion and reason, obedience to the law, though against the feelings of the world, is the first duty, and ought to be the rule of action; but in putting a construction upon my motives, so as to ascertain the quality of my actions, you will make allowances for my situation. It is impossible to define in terms the proper feelings of a gentleman, but their existence has supported this happy country for many ages, and she might perish if they were lost.' The jury instantly acquitted him."

We

A similar defence was made in another case, tried by Mr. Justice Chambre, who told the jury it was in extenuation: "If you are dissatisfied with the evidence that Mr. Sparling did commit the act which deprived Mr. Grayson of his life, coolly and deliberately and if, as I heartily wish, you may be able to observe any circumstances which will warrant you so to think, you will acquit him." transcribe the charge, with Mr. Townsend's italics, who adds: "Seventy-two witnesses, the number necessary by the ecclesiastical law to convict a cardinal of the crime of incontinence, would not have sufficed to satisfy the jury after this hint, and in twenty minutes they returned with the verdict of 'not guilty.' We do not read this charge quite in the way Mr. Townsend does. It seems to us clear, that, if on the jury, Chambre would have convicted.

The cases tried by the House of Lords have uniformly resulted in a

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