The National Register. — London, England, 1821-09-16 00:00:00

202 ON THE LATE INQUESTS. The Coroner's Inquest on Richard Honey has (Iciiverea its vcrdici—the proceedings which led to the inquisition, as well as the oceut:ences during its continuance, arc now fa:- subjects of consideration, and may be animadverted upon without a possiboity of gi% jig a bias where the dec;sion ought to be without prejudice or prcposession.—Wc shell there f 're proceed with a brief re% iow—first, of the con duct of Govetnment i , l order'ig the procession to tike the route that was directed;—secondly, of the opposition to that route on the pert of the people ; thirdly, of the violence on the ye-t of the Horse Guards—and fourthly—of the transactionsunder the Coroner's Inquisition. FIRST—Of the conduct of Go-eruntent in or derenz the Procession to take the rode that was directed.—lt was well known that nn inonense numb,sr of persons of respectability, resitling and :mannd the metropolis, were anrions to pay the last respect to the memory of their lentented Queen, by accAnpanying her remr'is on the road. A meeting of the Co.,amation of London had been held, in which it was resolved that the Ci‘ic Body (certainly the first in importance, wealth, and i-cor- Illation in the world) should form an escort cri;onneur to the melancholy procession, from Temple-80 , - to the opposite confines of the City—and yet Ministers in total contempt of these wishes and resolutions— wantonly to oppose the wishes of the people—di rected that the funeral should be skulked to the coast, by a road peculiar only for its circuity and privacy. The ministerial papers, in justification of the arrangement, and in their attachment to ribts say " The Queen was the wife of the King, and every husband has a right to ret;a late the funeral of his wife,"—the soph;stif of the proposition needs not to be pointed out. The King, as a King, can do no wrong—his Nliristers, as his advisers, are accountable for all h is et rorr —The King, as a wan, had no claim to any right over his wife, living or dead—he had acted least of any thing as a husband—he had in obedience to bay„ inclinations" d' iven her from his bosom and her homt—he had torn from her her only daughter, end prevented evei y intercourse with her—he had more than tacitly approvNl the conduct of those who had calumniated and falsely accused her, and he had enlivened with the sunshine of his peculiar favour only those who continued to persecute }ter; and these vet/ men presumed to secure, in the last instance, their cha racter for consistency at the price of illegality, by opposing the intentions and wishes of the people and of her executors, regularly appointed by her last will —a will made in the moment of sorrow, desertion, pain,and tribulation—a will sanctified by her Cl"is tiah forgiveness of all her enemies, even the very persons of whom she so truly and so emphatically thalami, "And now at last they have destroyed me." Si CONDLV—(f the opposition to the - intended route op, the part of the People—rat populi o est vox Dei— the people generally judge correctly—the people Inew that the i'ttcnded route was unjustifiable on every ground of propriety, and the people (wile the principle of resistance to power "' improperly ex 2reised, is recognized by the Revolution, which placed the present family on the Th.one), not de serve praise for the;” successful exertion to prevent the contemplated outrage. T om p L y—Qf the violence Horse Guards.. —The verdict of one Jury has declared this violence to be NI UR DElt ; the verdict of the other has softened it down to M ANSLAUG time; and by the evidence of the soldier, themselves, a more unnecessary sam;fice of human life has seldom been recorded. One Life Guartisimm say:, " We told the people to get out of the way : they would not obey us, pnd we were forced to cut away at them." We should be very glad to find out by what tov they were justified in thus " cutting away." The Constitution, at the very worst of periods—at those t;mes the most no torious for the attempts at inroad un the Fberties of the people- 7 has ken most jealous of the intro- THE NATIONAL REGISTER duction of the military, even under the guidance and in assistance of the Cis lc power; but the principle which in the present day it is sought to establish, would go the length of rendering unnecessary the intervention of that power, would legelize the butchm f ad b9fnitum of the English populace the moment that they neglected obedience to the man date of, perhaps, a drunken Life Guardsman, who, without waiting even for the order of his officer, would thereupon begin to gratify his belt alt inclina tion by "cutting away."—The officer who shot Honey (be he who he may) is menirestly ashamed of his brutality; or els: —instead of the whole of the regiment being mustered to render more difficult the task of identification; instead of the paintings and the attempts at disguise which have been sworn to ; instead of the bully "igs towr-ds the witnesses, end the assaults upon the jui f .nen, which were committed by order of en officer at Knightsbridge barracks; instead of um; impediment being throa in the way to prevent a iliscovery of the miscreant— he would have come boldly forwr^d and avowed the act : but wanton cruelty and base cowardice ere often the occupants of the same breast, and eve.' endeavour at concen'ment is a concession of his i.l famy. FounTittv—Of the tran.tctions under the Coro ners' Inquiaitions.—On the subject of that held upon George Francis, a veiy few obset vatiors w'll suffice. Mr. Irl'ggs, who presided as Coroner, behaved like a gentleman, and the Jury very properly, from the evidence, brought in a verdict of " Wilful Murder against some Lire Guardsmen unknown," although the Chaplain of the Hospitel dared to sweer that Francis had declared to fiat that the men who shot him had orly done his duty. In this assertion the Reverend Aspirant was positively contradicted by the wife of the deceased, and no man of common sense, who reads both depositions, ‘s 11 hesitate es to which of the parties swore to a direct falsehood. We now come to the inquest upon Richrrd Honey, and here it may be well to observe, that the former inquest closed its labours in five days, while the latter, in consequence of the : - Iteiference of a Bar i:ster, was enga3ed for fourteen days. That Br • aster was Mr. Adolphus—and though, from delicacy to our readers, we have omitted nineteen-twentieths of his offensive observations, we have necessary to preserve the nai:ative retained enough to eons 'ice them that his %algarity and grossness t"sgrace the profession to which he belongs, and that the Coun sel on the Circuit he used to go consulted their comfort, credit, and respectability, when they deter mined to exclude bi'n from their society, by sending him to Covent' ' '. The irstitution of a Coroner's Jut' , appears to have been solely w:th a view to proceedings ; their verdict has little more than the effect of a t. ac bill bei ig found by a Grand July, rna what would be s: id of the introduction of a brow-beat'ng bullying fellow in a gm% a and w:g into the Grand Jury-room to wa.,) the fr'r bearing of the et:dence—to int:-r:date the w:tnesses by threats of trarsportation, or to blach , : „iard and insult the gentlemen constituting the Jt , y? Why, it would be deck-ed a woos solution of the pi:%:- leges of the Jury so assembled, and yet th's has been tolerated in the recent ;-stance of the Coroner's In quest on Richard Honey;—but to leave the loath some subject, rid to proceed with the c%:dence /„:ven, the major part we pass without animadversion, as it goes orgy to the establishment of four facts—l st. That all was quiet till the Guards began to cut at the people; idly, That nu stones were throw,' at the time the firing commenced; idly, That the decersed was an entirely inoffensive spectactor ; and 4thly, That the man who shot him, after haling coolly, wantonly, unnecessa-i'y, and deliberately saci:ficed the life of a fellow -creature, laughed in dei;cion at the gentlemen who upbraided him with his mur derous act. We pass to the evidence of the Guards themselves :..-the servant of one officer does not know whether his master has dark or light hair!—whether he is 16 or GO years of age! a trumpeter swears he was on duty at Curaberiand-gate—yet, on the fourteenth day, a respectable mar, is confronted with him, and swears he is nut the nr.in who was on duty there: but we dismiss these puny liars to come to thei- master. —Col. Cavendish is asserted not to have left the :all; on the fatal day, but subsequently, perhaps f.om fear of detection of the falsehood, Mr. Adolphus feels it prudent to correct this error, and admit it was not tt ae. The Adjutant declares that tol the men who were on duty on the 14th August (but one who was in the Hospital) were present at the inspection which took place in the Barrack-. The Surgeon honestly confesses that five men were not at the inspection who were on duty on that dis graceful day. We leave it:to those who have the highest opinion of military honour and veracity to reconcile these points. A s to the Coroner's summing up, we shall °toy say, that his eiew of the law is opposed to every other we have heard, and that ;4' the Jut; had, un der his direction, found a verdict of .IHtiliab'i Horn; ;He, they would have done an reparable ir jthy to the- country; for by such a verdict they would have established a on the port of the soh"e../, which would have been tantamount to milit- j despotism—they would have rendered use less and ur necessa , y the intee :ention of a magistrat:, and have authorized the use of the sabre and carbine whenever the People demurred to the insolent com mand of a dragoon. We thank God they have not done se —we pre gratecul to them for their ?mini. tntus verdict, and flee from every vindictive feeling in the part we have taken in this fatal atlair, we have nisv‘ish for any farther proceedings—we hope the guilty pi—ties will be under the influence of si - vere remors: —we hope they will in future pause ere they use their runs in the wanton destruction of the- ou countrymen; and moreover, we ter , vently hope that the People n: 4l not keep alive a feeling of resentment against a whole regiment, merely on account of the delinquency of a very few A private letter f;om Frankfort, in the Algeme Zeitung of the Ist rust, after observing that the ef forts of the Austtian and English ministers veil: probably prevent a war between Russia and the Porte, notwithstanding the departure of Baron Strt gonoff proceeds thus England in particular resorts to every means to secure this object; for she perceives plainly that the first gun fired by the Rus siars would be the signal of the dowatell of tl rni”ion of the Crescent on the Bosphmas. The sudden change of routs by the Duke of Wellington, who, as it is known, when on the point of proceed ing to Vienna, tut aed back to Pot 7 s, is, in some 11a. litical ci-cles, said to have had a political object. It is pretended that the cabinet of Pctcrsburgh has succeeded in obtaining the concurrence of France to a defensive alliance, having for its object to coon terba'ance the present interposition of England in favour of the Porte, and to diminish the advantages of the assistance which that Power might be disposed to give to the Ottomans. With this view, France is by the treaty pledged to send to the coast if Greece, a naval force to co-operate with the Greek fleet ;.nd such vessels as Russia may send thither, in supporting the movements of the land forces ard preventing any diversion by sea. IVellington's pre sence in Palk is supposed, (as no less confidence is placed in his diplomatic than his military talents,) to have for its object to throw obstacles in the way of thk PU'incc, and, if possible. to prevent the rati fication of the treaty. In how far the noble Duke may succeed is uncettain; but, without pretending to be able to unver the secrets of cabinets, we may venture to remark, that an approximation between France and Russia at the present suers is aot im probable, and th's opirion obtains the more weight, when it k considered that the French diplomatic agents in Turkey obseim quite on opposite conduct to the English. The circumstance also of the Rus sian merchants at Constantinople embarking their goods on board of French ships has some importance in this point of iew ." A vessel devoted to the purposes of rel;!;ious wor ship was opened last week at Bristol, under the aus pices and through the exertiorq of the conttnittce of the " Seaman's Friend Society ;" when the Rev. Roberts (Baptist minister) preached in the maiming) and the Rev. Mr. Thoip (Itidcpcnant minister, officiated in the evening, assisted by other ministers