Star. — London, England, 1821-02-09 00:00:00

/*" -e" . 47. ;0 .,.., • b ~,, ( )s, 1 e ‘tt. •--,kx* No „„_ ~y~=,r pi tr rja:; , 10.597. CONTRACT FOR GREY KERSEY AND BLANKETS. Ceninsissariat Department, 21easury Chambers, 714 February, 18E1. QITCHE Persons as are desirous of contracting with Lithe Agent for Commissariat Supplies to supply GREY /EASEY and BLANKETS, may receive Particulars of the its at this Office between the hours of Eleven and Five, f a /Aver their Tenders, sealed up, and directed to the Agent g e c om missariat Supplies, marking thereon " Tender for o ke." on or before SATURDAY, the 17th instant, b i as & will be received after Twelve o'Clock on that day; ar y Proposal he noticed unless made on or annexed to to deted Particular , and the p rices Inserted in words at len g th ; I ; o ggigasi Letter be subjoined to such Proposal, signed by two rem , o f known property engaging to become bound with the piny mo wing, in the sum expressed in the Particulars for the diegerfarman:e of the Contract. X21,n00 SOLD IN SHARES. OWIFT and Co. Sold in Shares No. 46, Class B, 0 3 prise of 9.15000, drawn the 23d of Last Month, at their .ay Fortunate ()Sees, 11, POVLTRY ; I 31, AUX:SATZ 12, CHA SING-CROSS ; STILIZT ; Where 'rickets and Shares are now on Sale for the present Lot tery, wilich cnatains EDN SIX PESDAY rizes of .e 21,00 0, and begins en W NEXT, When THREE Prizes of £2,000 are sure to he drawn. The yolk may have the Chance of that Day's Drawing at a very as ALL the Tickets and Shares will be taken back, ivhc:trr drawn or undrasen, if presented fur that purpos: Ist fare the '.::;t1 of February ; and nearly all the purchase-money will be roamed, as may be seen by the Schemes delivered gratis at WI PT and Co.'s Offices. FYTON, Stock-broker, No. '2, Cornhill , and Lom ./ hard-street.—NEW.and ADVANTAGEOUS 310 D E of A DVENTURE!—The Chance of all the Capitals to be drawn on I'a:et:tine's 1) y, the 14th instant, for a trifle; and the certainty of Three Prizes of X 2,000 Consols in the First Pre Minutes!!! EYTON has the pleasure of announcing to the Public a no eti mode of adventure, possessing great and singular Advan tages far all Persons who purchase before Valentine's Day, the 14th February. Vihtther their Tickets or Shares are drawn Fluit., cc small Prizes, or remain in the Wheel, they Will re ceive bark the Pcrchase-money for the same, with the follow ing trifling Deductions, provided they are returned on or before Friday, the 2.74 February. A TICK ET may have all back except Int. , . A II A LF may have all back except I lb. A QUARTER may have ail back except 7s. An EIGHTH may have a!I back except 4s. A SIXTEENTH may have all back except 2s. Giving every Adventurer the Chance of all the Capitals and edur Prizes that may be drawn that day, for as many Shillings n it has heretofore cost Pounds! The Scheme is immensely rich, and sontains, in Money and easels Si: Prizes of £21,000, besides other Capitals, and not Two Blanks to a Priz e ! All Business in the Public Funds transacted with fidelity and dispatch. PORTUGAL. We have received Oporto Papers to the 27th ult. They contain further particulars of the damage done by the late flood in the Douro, which, however, was not accompanied by an earthquake as stated in some of our former accounts.—Among the vessels which were in imminent peril we find the English brigantine, the Fair Ifibemia, which being ready to sail for London, with a cargo of wine, was forced from her moorings and driven on shore. Four men unfortur.ately lost their lives. The Matilda, another fine vessel, laden with wine, and bound for Dublin or Greenock, was also carried away by the impetuosity of the current, and Branded. The Hanoverian schooner, Anna Margaritta, with a ergo of sugar, bound for Genoa, was forced over the bar with nt a single band on board, and run aground three leagues from I , Oporto. Four Portuguese yachts upset in the river, and sunk. A Spanish vessel shared a similar fate, as did a number of small craft of retry description. The damage sustained by the vessels which withstood the force of the torrent, in their Lulls, masts, and rigging, is enormous. The waters rose to an ffnprecedented Wight, and boats plied in the streets of the City. Several houses were swept away, and many suffered much injury. At Villa it soya, a great part of the wine magazines were destroyed, but tie extent of the loss had not been ascertained. Accounts from ruins ports along the hanks of the Douro, mention the great loss of lives and property, in consequence of the rapid and ex traordinary inundation. The following is an extract of a letter from Trini dad, dated 10th December All trade with the Spanish Main is totally destroyed ; and such is the want of mules here, that they are now selling at from £BO to £lOO currency a-head : while Negroes can now be purcha a sed here as low as when our African trade W. 15 in its greatest activity ; we import, how ever, from the other Islands, only a sufficient number to supply the was t e o f death, as there is no encou ragement to extend cultivation here ; and, as things go on, one-third of the sugar estates of this island must soon be sacrificed. Our Governor is to leave us in the spring." A person Las been arrested at Amsterdam, charged with having put into circulation forged debentures of HOPE and Co. for the Spanish Loan. This dis covery had caused the debentures for 25 florins to fall to 18k. The forged paper is supposed to amount to between 200 and 300 florins. COMMON COUNClL—Yesterday a Common Council was held at Guildhall, which was very fully attended. On a lteport from the Committee of General Fur-, poses for a donation of 1051. to the City of London Auxiliary Bible Society, a discussion ensued, and an Amendment was moved for, subscribing 2101. in lieu, which was lost on a division by a majority of ix.—The Court agreed to petition Parliament for Power to raise a sum of money to repair Blackfriars Bridge......A Bill for altering the present Law relative to Non-freemen WAS read, and ordered to be printed. LOTTERY TICKETS for 18s.—It is calculated that the sa!e of whole ickets in the present Lottery will exceed that of Shares; nor is this matter of surprize, when it is seen that Adventurers may take their chance of the produce of a whole Ticket for the very trifling sum of Dtzltteen Shillings, for the next day of drawing, Cle 14th instant, on which day Three Capitals of 02,000 ate sure to be drawn in the first Fire Minutes, independent of the chance of the other t reat Capitals, at the head of w hi c h stan d Si x G ran d 1117 t5 of CA ,COO. Anxious to meet the wish of all Bisii has divided a number. of Whole Tickets lot those who may wish to speculate upon a smaller sc 4 le, width may now he had at either 4, Cornhill, or 9. Ch: ting-Ct oss, where those who purchase Six teenths, may have the chance of the Prizes to be ( Lawn on %%dentine's Day for Two Shillings. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1821. LAW INTELLIGENCE. COURT OF KING'S BENCH, FEBRUARY 8. [The business of this day was fully given in the latter part of our impression yesterday. We repeat it for the information of those of our Readers who received their Papers early]. THE KING V. SIR - FRANCIS BURDETT. The Court having disposed of some other cases --(sec STAR of yesterday)—the ATTORNEY-GEvs- RAL moved for the judgment of the Court upon Sir FRANCIS BURDETT. The worthy Baronet had just entered the Court accompanied by Mr. Ilonnotysz, M.P. Mr. Fvscuz PALMER, M.P. Mr. BICKERSTETH, Sir ROBERT Hz- RON, and several other friends. Mr. SCARLETT put in two Affidavits; the first from Sir Francis Burka, which set forth, that he had beer. a Member of the Imperial Parliament for twenty-four years, and had uniformly been an advo- Lcate for a legal and Constitutional Reform, which he openly avowed, and felt and believed to be essential to the stability of the Throne, the vigour of the Govern ment, and the contentment and happiness of the People. That his invariable object had always been to effect that Reform by such means as would prevent the in terposition of popular excess of any kind. He had always conceived that the right of Petition was a right sacredly recognized by the Constitution, and in the exercise of which the People had a right to pro tection, and not molestation. The Affidavit further stated, that the Honourable Baronet, when he heard of the fatal affair at Manchester, felt it to be a daring military outrage, directly attacking the right of Pe tition, and one which urged him to call upon his constituents to come forward and protest against such an outrage. Mr. James llarmer's affidavit stated, that he had searched the files of all the public Newspapers, and the first statement that he had found of any appro bation expressed by his Majesty's Government of the proceedings at Manchester, was published in the Star and Courier Newspapers, on the 25th of August, 1819, in the shape of a letter from Viscount Sidmouth to the Earl of Derby. Mr. SCA RLETT, in a voice almost inaudible from excess of emotion, addressed the Bench, in mitigation of punishment, to the following effect:—" My Lords, if it could in any case be permitted to an Advocate in Court to intrude upon that Court the expression of his private feelings, I should say, and say most sincerely, that I could wish my duty to Sir Francis Burdett had ceased before the present day. I have hitherto laboured hard—l confess with hopes that have not been realized—in behalf of my'client; in so labouring I meant to do no more than was my duty ; but, if an address in mitigation ef punishment be a task of difficulty to every advocate, what must not be my feelings in the present case, when I look at the individual who stands before t he Court, and think of the occasion upon which he is placed there? My Lords, I am not ashamed to avow that I take in that individual a deep personal interest ; it is not be. cause our political sentiments may have occasionally differed, that my warm sense of his personal worth, of his high importance, and value to his country, in the least degree can stand diminished. While I am sure there ts not an enemy of that individual—if ever be had an enemy—who will charge him with want of moral good faith, of nice honour, or of incor ruptible integrity ; equally may I assert that no friend, by political controversy, bas ever been alienated from him : he stands before your Lordships, as to all -the virtues of private life, not only free from exception, but the object of esteem and of admiration. My Lords, when I look at the public character, which, for twenty-five years, the defendant has held in the eye of his country ; when I look at his course of con duct, sometimes perhaps displeasing to party preju dice, but always open, candid, and avowed; when I look at his high birth, his splendid fortune, his dis tinguished talents, his finished education ; w hen: I see him first in the ranks of the first gentlemen in Eng land, discharging the duties cast upon him by his eminent station—discharging them in a manner which must make the history of his life a part, and not a trifling part, of the history of his country ; when I advert to those facts, I do advert to them in the perfect confidence that impartial history, in time to come, will review any judgment of his motives and of his conduct, which may hastily be uttered at the present day—uttered, perhaps, under the bias of party prejudice, er founded in feelings of political' animosity ; and I do persuade myself that your Lordships have never been called upon for a penal judgment against an individual more illustrious or more dear to his fellow-subjects. Sir Francis Bur dett, upon his oath, has stated to. the Court his at tachment (an attachment which he has ever professed) to the laws and to the Constitution ; and by placing me in my present situation, a situation of difficulty, but a situation which I could not refuse, he has pre chided himself from the possibility of uttering one word—for in a personal address words of hasty feel ing sometimes may occur—he has provided against the risk of uttering one word in breach of that re spect which he knows to be due from every good citizen to the tribunals of his country : by placing me, my Lords, in my present situation —me, an in dividual bound by duty, by interest, and by habit, to support the dignity of law and of authority—the de fendant inculcates reverence for thelaws, and enforces his principle not only by precept but by example.— My Lords, it is impossible to say that the Honourable Gentleman whom I here represent has ever stood in opposition to those laws. The ardent wish of his heart has been that his countrymen should be governed by the law, and that they should not be governed by the sword ; his constant cry has been,' Defend your laws, and with your laws your rights; those laws and rights, my Lords, which arc our sole defence against the ap proach of that military despotism which has been predicted—and may HEAVER avert the prediction from being fulfilled!--which has been predicted as the enthanasia of the British Constitution. Passing. my Lords, from one part of the country to another, Sir Francis Burdett was met by reports of terror and of alarm, and by statements in the Newspapers, such• as—and to the end of my life, I will maintain it— such as the being who did not feel must be either more or less than man ; such as your Lordships, who, though, you are Judges, must, by the law of nature, still continue to be men, would, I am sure, have felt; such as could not fail to produce in the heart and mind of every Englishman, disgust and horror, not I unmixed with indignation. Sir Francis Burdett, in the expression of his sentiments upon the matter of those dreadful statements, upon a subject which he took to be of even vital moment to his country, has been betrayed into the employment of certain un guarded terms ; and therefore it is that he now awaits the judgment of this Court. I do not stand here, my Lords, to justify those terms ; I do not stand here to defend them • but I am bound to say, that there is nothing in them derogatory to the Gentleman who stands before you. II my client, submitting with revereacer to the judgment of the Court upon the quality and character of his expressions, makes against its sentence no complaint, still he thinks himself jus tified in appealing to your Lordships, as men, and as Gentlemen, whether the motives to which he has this day sworn before the Court—an oath which no one I am sure will think of disputing—whether there is anything in the spirit of those motives which an ho nest man and an Englishman need hesitate to avow ? For me, whatever may be my private feelings as to thii proceeding ; however, as against the defendant, I may personally lament it; whatever may be my opinion as to the justice, the expediency, or the po licy, under all the circumstances, of bringing Sir Francis Burdett up for judgment, and re-exciting and re-animating that public feeling, perhaps not yet en tirely subsided ; whatever, my Lords, I may, indivi dually, think of the present measure, the Learned Attorney-General is at least entitled to this concession at my hands—l believe he is doing that which he be lieves to be his duty. It remains, my Lords, for you to discharge your duty—a duty which invests you with a discretion as important as ever was commit ted to the hands of Judges ; a duty in which it be hoves you to weigh, on the one side, what were the motives and interests of the Honourable Defendant ; on the other, what it is that public justice demands. With respect to the letter which Sir Francis Burdett has written, it should be observed that it expresses no opinion, much less calls for any approbation, of the conduct of those by whom the Meeting at Man chester was assembled ; it does not ask whether the unfortunate persons who are now suffering the sen tence of the law had or had not assembled such a Meeting as the law ought to put down ? It merely asks, whether the mode by which it was put down be such ak, without inquiry, remonstrances, or ex planation, ought to be submitted to by the Gentle men of England? The letter is a letter written by. a Member of Parliament to his constituents; its object was a Meeting to petition for redress; Meetings for such purposes will not be discountenanced by the Court ; ner will your Lordships weigh, I trust, in scales of too much nicety, the expressions which a Gentleman, under such circumstances, employs; your Lordships will impute no motives to him but such as would be natural for an Englishman to feel ; nor will you be satisfied that any other should impute such motives. The letter in question, my Lords, may, as it appears to me, be divided into two parts. The writer calls the attention of his constituents to an at tempt made to disperse, by military force, an un armed and inoffensive Meeting ; and he also makes some allusions to Parliamentary Reform. However, upon the latter subject, the opinions of Sir Francis Burdett may be opposed to those entertained by the Court, yet, when your Lordships call to mind the numerous and illustrious individuals by whom the cause of Parliamentary Reform has been advocated, then, even although you should consider Parliamen tary Reform as the most visionary, nay the most dangerous, object in the world, you will still believe that men of honour and integrity may entertain a very different feeling. With regard to the other point, the putting down, .by military force, a popu lar opinion, Sir Francis, my Lords, was not afraid in his letter to declare, that which he now, by his Advo cate, repeats ;—that military force, to support the au thority of Government, was but a frail thing to de pend upon. My Lords, Sir Francis, in support of his principle, pointed out an example in the reign of James ll.—and recent events in other countries have shewn that his principle is not founded in error. Sir Francis Burdett did think, that the employment of armed soldiers to keep the peace was an unconstitu tional and an imprudent course ; he thought that the employment of a military force must, upon every oc casion, be attended with excitement, and followed by opposition ; he thought that, in the Manchester case, it had produced effects of which, perhaps, the coun try has not yet arrived at the conclusion ; and he de clared that the Government which relied upon mili tary support, leaned upon a frail and broken reed. My Lords, Sir Francis Burdett, hearing of the trans actions of the 16th of August, thought it his duty to chew to the people of England, that they needed not to resort to brute force for the redress of their griev ance; he thought it sound policy to point out to the survivors of that unfortunate day, that violence was not necessary to procure them justice, but that men cf rank, ability, and character, would demand and obtain for them such justice from the law, He 1: ad no intention to excite tumult and sedition in his cam- try ; he could have no such intention ; and the man who could put that interpretation upon his expressions —warm as they , are—must have a mind and a feel -1 ing into which I cannot enter. Sir Francis Burdett I looked at all the circumstances, and called upon the Gentlemen of England to come forward and petition I for a redress of the intolerable grievance with which the public had been visited. Such a course has been :•deelared legal by the Bill of Rights ; it has been re cognized by the first authorities that England ever produced.; and I trust I shall never hear it assumed PRI ESE EN - PENCE. ' in a British Court of Justice, that, because a man has called upon the people to petition, he has there- fore sought to lead them into tumult and sedition.--s. My Lords,l submit that the interference of my client under the circumstances was not only justifiable, but laudable. When it was asked of the Athenian Philo sopher—what was the best form of government ? the answer was, 4 that in which every individual is ready to resent the wrong done to another, as though that wrong had been his own. In other words, my Lords, that is the best form of government in which public interest overpowers private feeling ; and that is the state of the English Government at the present moment; for not an individual, how ever obscure, can be trampled or., but some other is found coming forward to demand justice for him. Such conduct is often misunderstood; men in power too frequently mistake the only real support of Go vernment, and treat it as an enemy threatening their authority. I do not impute blame to their mistake; but they are mistaken : so long as the Gentlemen of ; England shall consider wrong to an individual as wrung to themielves, so long, depend upon it, the GOvernment of England is secure; but when the time shall come—if such time ever should come—when outrages like those of Manchester shall (pass un heeded by persons of rank and consideration in the country, then I shall fear that the day of liberty is closing fast upon us ; that the hour is almost come when we shall no longer rely Upon the attachment of the People;—when we must govern by the sword, and the sword alone. My Lords, the letter of Sir F. Burdett was written upon the impulse of the mo ment ; it was written at a time when he could not o by possibility , be aware th a t th e act i mpugne d h ad been ratified by Government; but I must do the Honourable Baronet the justice to say that, although he wrote in ignorance that Government had ap , proved of the Manchester transactions, yet he does not think that the approbation of Government, ex pressed as that approbation was, altered the nature of the question one jot, nor would the knowledge of that approbation, liad he possessed it, have varied in any point the form or feeling of his letter.— , Be that, however, as it may, the defendant wrote upon certain statements contained in the newspapers; from that hour to the present, no authorized publication has ever contradicted the facts asserted in those Pa pers; and therefore, although Government, no doubt, has had good reason fur knowing that the King's thanks ought to be applied in the way in which they have been applied, yet that knowledge can in no way bear upon the letter of the defendant, because that letter was written before the thanks were bestoWed, at a time that the writer was not aware that Govern ment was connected with the act, and when he did not know but that some military officer, without au thority or previous instruction, had poured in his armed men upon the defenceless and unresisting mul titude, so causing all the blood and slaughter that ensued. My Lords, I will not ascribe to the Learned Attorney-General anything like personal feeling upon this subject. Even if personal feeling did exist, I am sure that anything which Sir Francis Burdett has stated upon oath, the Learned Attorney-General will admit ; and we may therefore take the motives of my client upon his own declaration. I do not, after what has passed, presume to justify the expressiOns in the defendant's letter; but of the purity of his motives, my Lords, you cannot doubt. He wrote under the impression of the moment; he transmitted his letter to a -Gentleman in the profession of the law—. Mr. Justice BATLEY did not think that that fact ap peared upon the affidavits. Mr. Justice BRET said, that the fact of Mr. Bickersteth being in the profession of the law was stated at the trial. Mr. SCARLETT.—" My Lords, I do not mean to say that my client transmitted his letter to I:Jr. Bick ersteth for the advantage of that Gentleman's opi nion ; but certainly, in so sending it, he did leave it to the judgment of an impartial individual; whether or not he was acting in a manner consistent with his rank and character. And, for my own part, my Lords, perhaps if the letter had come to my hand's. a fortnight after its publication, I might have said, let us alter an expression or two; but if it had been pre sented to me at the time when it was written, I Hill not say that I should have weighed very nicely the words which were made tre of upon a subject so im portant. My LOrds, I have already protested against my client's being mixed up with the persons by whom. the Meeting at Manchester was called. If I were permitted to advert to that which is now matter of history, I should say that, at Westminster, those per sons were virulent opponents of the Hon. Defendant. But let the conduct of those persons have been as mis chievous as it may, still the question with Sir Francis Burdett was the same—was that employment of an armed force spoken of by Newspapers, commonly in contradiction, but concurring upon that point —was that act, such an act at. the People of England ought silently to submit to ? My Lords, the employment of that military-force, if not now sub judice, may come into that situation. My client does not mean to say that there may not have been grounds to jus- . tify the proceeding ; all he says is, what I have said before—that, up to this time, no such grounds have ever been stated. Failing those grounds, my Lords, Sir Francis Burdett cannot disavow the feelings ex pressed in his letter, nor the object %%hid] he had in view. That object was, to cause the People of Eng land to meet, .not fur the purpose of taking the re medy into their own hands—but for the purpose of requesting that inquiry and that justice w !rich should prevent aggrieved persons from resorting, in despe ration, to acts of violence—which should prevent the friends and relatives of the injured from foster ing a lasting and a deep vindictive feeling. My Lords, if the day shall ever come ihat shall see a Gentleman of England receive judgment in a Court of Justice for the prosecution of such objects, in that day will the glory of England be gone.-- Your Lordships, thank HEAVEN, arc not to punish the defendant fur the entertainment of those objects;