taken from that person might have been for the purpose of midnight marauding, to be turned adrift into the country, after its services were not required; but, under the Whiteboy Act, this was a capital offence. The learned Baron then recapitulated the evidence, and commented on the expressions made use of by the prisoner, such as "running for his life," &c. If prisoner had been decoyed into crime, and afterwards repented it, he should have gone before a magistrate, and confessed it on his oath. One fact, however, was certain; the prisoner was found on the mare in the most suspicious circumstances, and the Jury owed it as a duty to themselves and their country, to find the prisoner guilty, if they, in their consciences, thought the facts mentioned in the indictment were borne out by the evidence. The Jury found a verdict of Guilty on the first indictment, (that for carrying away the horse belonging to Walsh)-Not Guilty on the other indictment. The conviction under the first, however, subjects the prisoner to the penalty of death. VARIOUS. Daniel Martin, indicted under the Whiteboy Act, for appearing in arms, demanding arms, &c.-Found Guilty. Thomas Henchy, for beating with a stick, and mortally wounding James Buckley-Not Guilty. Martin Grady and John Grady, for feloniously taking a sword from Edward Morgan, and using menaces to induce Morgan to deliver said sword. Guilty. Francis Shaughnessy, for assaulting Edward Sandwith, and robbing him of a gun, within the liberties of the city of Limerick.-Guilty. James Walsh, for disturbing divine service in the Catholic chapel belong ing to Mr Cleery. Delayed till other accomplices can be brought forward. A weapon of a frightful nature had been found in the house of one of the persons accused. John Ward, Patrick Lee, Morgan Craven, and eight others, were found guilty of a riot, and assaulting a witness for giving evidence at the last assizes.-Sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. ADJOURNMENT. On the 21st of December, the Solicitor-General prayed their Lordships to adjourn the Commission for the county of Limerick to Saturday, January 12. "That period would not interfere with Term, or any other public concern; but even so, all other considerations should be put aside. Government were determined upon keeping a permanent Court of Justice until the peace of the county should be restored. As fast as crimes shall be committed, an active police will apprehend the offenders, who shall be brought without delay to the Bar of Justice. They may go on and commit more murders they may annihilate the present ministers of the law, and magistrate after magistrate, but others will be got to supply their place in succession. The laws will neither slumber nor rest till all shall be made complete. No man who commits a crime shall wait till next assizes for. trial. On the 12th of January, if fresh crimes shall be committed, fresh trials shall be ready for the perpetrators. The Commission is framed for that purpose. If the proceedings under it are not found adequate, then other measures will be resorted to for restoring tranquillity and character to the county. "He had come only a few days since to the county; he found it disgraced by the acts of a lawless banditti; but if it has been sunk in character by the guilty, it has been raised by all those who assisted in the administration of the law; by the neighbouring gentry. He never, in his visits through the country, met more exemplary conduct than the gentlemen of the county ma. nifested on this occasion; they came from their homes in the midst of fire and sword, to that jury-box, which was to be found full of the first gentlemen in the county, who had not allowed themselves to be kept back by pleasure or sport. That duty those gentlemen discharged with temperance and without intimidation, and he could not but admire the acquittals, and the distinctions they made in the different cases which had come before them. Every one who saw their conduct, must feel happy to live under and enjoy the benefits resulting from the constitution. Every gentle man connected with this county deserved the greatest thanks. He did. not feel it necessary to advert to the excellent conduct of the police, which was manifest to every person; neither was it agreeable to him to speak of any gentleman in his presence-but he felt it to be his duty to return thanks to one magistrate particularly, (he alluded to Mr Vokes,) who had distinguished himself in aiding the justice of the country. "There was another topic he would advert to, which must afford great satisfaction to those who were around him, namely, that the unhappy men who had left this world, and fell victims to the offended laws of their country, manifested at the last hour, a contrite and devout deportment, and made a penitent confession of their guilt. He could not expect a better temper than that which has resulted already from this Commission; and he should say, that great praise was due to the respectable clergymen who attended these unhappy men, in discharge of their sacred functions, for the excellent frame of mind which they had brought them to at their last hour. When all these things were taken into consideration, he felt there was no reason to despair of good effects for the restoration of the peace and tranquillity of the country. It was impossible at the beginning of this week to form an opinion of what might be the result. Certainly there was an evident change for the better; but if, unfortunately, these crimes should again recur, or an attempt should be made to put down the law, they must either do so, or the law must put them down. Fortnight after fortnight this Commission would be held-troops after troops should be poured in amongst them, if necessary, to crush their evil proceedings, and to enforce the execution of justice. He trusted in God that the misfortunes of this week would be impressed upon the minds of the lower orders; and he hoped and trusted that it would be communicated to them by those who were conversant in their language, and that they would impress upon their minds what they had heard and what they had seen. He would address himself to the young about him, and ask them what was the progress made by the banditti within. the last fifteen years? Did they not by their conduct act in open defiance to their own experience? Let them but ask their fathers and grandfathers what was the result in their days of these illegal associations. First, the appearance of the Whiteboys in the year 1776-after them, another banditti called the Rightboys-there was the Peep-o'-day-boys-the Shanavests and Caravats. He would pass over the great insurrection of 1798, that of the rebellion, and speak only of the banditti; and let any one tell him did they ever end their mad career but at that bar, to terminate their existence at an ignominious gallows? Ask the history of the country and it will tell you that such only was the result, and such only can be the result as long as those violations of the law are continued." the House of Commons, is grounded upon a long settled persuasion that such reform is necessary to give stability to the throne, vigour to the government, and content and happiness to the people; and that he has always been an advocate for Reform, because, in his judgment, it is calculated to produce those effects. And this deponent JUDGMENT ON SIR FRANCIS BUR- further saith, that as all the different DETT. Court of King's Bench, Feb. 8. The Attorney-General moved for judgment on Sir Francis Burdett, found guilty of libel at Leicester assizes in March last. (See Annual Register for 1820. Appendix, p. 167.) The Honourable defendant, accompanied by Lord Nugent, Mr Hobhouse, Mr Jones Burdett, and Mr Fyshe Palmer, entered the Court. Sir Robert Wilson, with several Members of Parliament, sat in the Students' box. Mr Scarlett rose, and handed in the following affidavit, which was read by one of the officers on the Crown side: "Francis Burdett, of St James'splace, Westminster, in the County of Middlesex, Bart. saith, that he hath been a Member of the Commons' House of Parliament for 24 years, or thereabouts, and that for nearly 14 years last past he has been one of the representatives for the city of Westminster; and this deponent saith, that he has always been impressed with great reverence and regard for the principles of the Constitution, and attachment to the laws of his country. That his political sentiments have never been disguised, but have been openly avowed by him in Parliament and elsewhere; that his earnest desire to promote, by all constitutional means, a reform in newspapers he had read, and all the different accounts he had received of the meeting at Manchester, however they varied in reporting the motives and objects of the persons assembled there, did all concur in stating the fact, that no violence nor any disorderly conduct had been committed by the people, and that no attempt had been made on the part of the civil power either to apprehend the speakers, or to disperse the crowd; but that an armed body of yeomanry, without any previous notice, had rode in amongst an unresisting multitude of men, women, and children, and committed the acts stated in the said newspapers; he (this deponent) had no doubt in his own mind that such statement was true. And this deponent saith, that he has always been, and still is of opinion, that it is highly unconstitutional to employ military force to disperse an unarmed multitude, and that it behoves every Englishman to reprobate such a practice when resorted to. And this deponent further saith, that he has also ever conceived, and still does conceive, that it is the undoubted right of the people of this country to petition the Throne, or either House of Parliament, for a redress of public grievances, and that the exercise of such right is well calculated to preserve the general tranquillity of the country, and the attachment of the people to the government. And this deponent also saith, that he has ever been, and still is, of opinion, that in' cases where great public injury is done, and great provocation is thereby given to numerous bodies of unprotected persons, the immediate and zealous interposition of those whose circumstances make it probable that they may be able to obtain consolation and legal redress for the sufferers, is the most effectual way of preventing those evils to society, which such injury and provocation have a direct tendency to produce. And this deponent saith, that he considered the occurrence alluded to in his Address to the Electors of Westminster, which is now in question, as one which required the exercise of the right of petitioning, and which, for the protection of the sufferers, and the preservation of the public peace, eminently demanded the interposition of the gentlemen of England. And this deponent saith, that the said occurrence at Manchester had, as this deponent verily believes, excited general terror and alarm throughout the country: and this deponent considered, that unless the right of meeting for the purpose of petitioning was immediately exercised, such terror and alarm would prevent the future exercise thereof on very important occasions; and under the circumstances, and for the reasons aforesaid, this deponent thought it his duty to express his opinions on the subject to his constituents, and that his object in so do. ing was not to excite unconstitutional or tumultuous conduct. And this deponent further saith, that at the time when he wrote the letter to Lord Sidmouth, avowing himself to be the author of the said Address, no statement had come to his knowledge, from authority or otherwise, to vary the facts which had been published in the newspapers, and that no such statement has yet come to this deponent's knowledge; and therefore this deponent did not, nor can he now see any reason to think, that the objects he had in view in writing the said Address, were unbecoming the character of an honest man and an Englishman." Messrs Scarlett, Denman, Phillips, Blackburne, and J. Evans, addressed the Court in mitigation of punishment. The Attorney and Solicitor-General spoke in aggravation. Mr Justice Bayley delivered the judgment of the Bench. It was his painful duty, his Lordship said, in the situation which he filled, to pass upon the defendant the collective judgment of the Court. It had happened, in the course of the proceedings in the cause, that his Lordship had differed in opinion from his learned brothers; and to that difference allusion had been made. The difference, however, had merely occurred upon a technical point whether there had or had not been against the defendant sufficient evidence of a publication in Leicestershire-and it now appeared to the learned Judge, that, even if a new trial in Leicestershire had been granted, publication in that county would easily have been proved, because he (the learned Judge) was inclined to hold that the circulation in that county of any newspaper in which the insertion of the libel had been authorized by the defendant, would amount to publication in that county. That the defendant was the author of the libel, stood admitted; and, in forming a judgment upon the character of the offence, it became material to look at the state of the public mind at the time when the libel had been published. The letter was founded-it purported upon the face of it to be founded-upon facts of which Sir F. Burdett was ignorant, except from the representations contained in certain newspapers. Those representations were certainly calculated to excite the highest degree of feeling in the public mind, because there was a very broad and strong insinuation that needless violence had been resorted to. The learned Judge could not blame any man for having his feelings roused by a perusal of the statements which those newspapers contained. It was no part of his Lordship's duty to judge whether those statements were correct or not; he had no means of judging; and it was the duty of a Court of Justice to act upon those facts, and upon those facts only, on which they were capable of forming a judicial opinion. From the nature, however, of the facts stated, in a country like England, where the poor experienced from the laws of their country the same protection as the rich, and where an outrage to the lowest individual excited the indignation of the whole community, it could not be doubted that the effect of the statements must have been to excite very considerable passion. At that time, and upon those statements, it was that the defendant's letter had appeared; and the learned Judge's objection to that letter were four in number. It was calculated to increase the excitement which already was existing; it assumed too hastily that the of a standing army in time of peace!" Petitions could only be addressed by the people to the King, the Lords, and the Commons; and the answer referred to must be taken to be an answer proceeding from powers to whom a petition could be addressed. The Court was not inattentive to the circumstance, that the libel had been written in a moment of haste. If the motive of the defendant had been a bad one, that circumstance would have formed an addition to his offence; as it was otherwise, he would derive great consolation from the knowledge of that fact; but it was the duty of the Court to look at the natural tendency of the libel; and upon that point the learned Judge had already given his opinion. The Court, taking into its consideration all the circumstances of the case, did order and adjudge-that the defendant should pay to the King a fine of 2,000l.; and that he should be imprisoned for three months, in the custody of the Marshalsea of the King's Bench. LER, &c. Court of King's Bench, May 30. facts, as stated, were correct; it had a JUDGMENt on Cartwright, Wooltendency to prejudge the public mind against persons who, if the facts alleged against them were true, would be liable to capital indictment; and it tended to excite the minds of the people against the government, as though the government had originated and directed the outrages which had taken place. It seemed impossible to the Court that any person could look at the libel in question without seeing that it was calculated to produce a strong excitement against the Government of the country; that part of it in particular which proceeded-"This, then, is the answer of the boroughmongers to the petitioning people-this is the practical proof of our standing in no need of reform-this is the blessing The Attorney-General prayed the judgment of the Court on the defendants, John Cartwright, Esq., George Edmonds, J. T. Wooller, W. G. Lewis, and Charles Madocks, convicted at last Warwick Summer Assizes, of a conspiracy to elect Sir Charles Wolseley, Bart, as legislatorial attorney in Birmingham, and to excite disaffection by seditious speeches, &c. (See Annual Register for 1820. Appendix, p. 187.) On Major Cartwright being called upon, |