The Express.
London, England, 1852-05-12 00:00:00

A BRITISH SUBJECT SENTENCED TO
DEATH IN ROME

[A brief statement of the following intell , received
by submarine telegraph from Paris, ap in a portion
of yesterday's isapreesioo] :

ROME, MAT 4.
The inquisitorial criminal tribunal of the Sacred
Consulta, by which so many iniquities have been
lately committed in the way of unjust sentences and
unproportionate severities towards political offenders,
Inmost added to the list of its amenities by secretly
condemning to death a British subject, named Edward
Murray, the son of a meritorious British officer,
to whose one I have already frequently referred.
The charges brought against him are of a nature to
warrant entirely such a sentence were they fully
substantiated, but the nature of the proofs, and the
mode in which the trial (a process of three years'
duration) has been conducted, are so profoundly
buried In the mysterious gloom of the consults
tribunal, and the facilities of defence granted
to prisoners in civilised countries have been
so entirely denied in the present instance,
that it is really impossible to get at the
truth, and all that I. known is that Murray,
together with eight other persons, has been
condemned to death. That assassination, the crime
of all others the most detestable in the eyes of an
Englishman, should go unpunished, can certainly be
the wish of no honest man ; but at the same time no
one can approve of sending a criminal to his
last account without allowing him a fair
chance of saving his life by disproving the
evidence brought against him, and so exculpating
himself in the eyes of his judges. It is to this effect,
that the determination of the British government has
been made known by Lord Malmesbury, and another
note has been sent by Mr. Freeborn to the Cardinal
Secretary of State this morning, expressing his
anxious expectation of a reply to his pre-
vious communication of the 26th, and his
earnest request that his eminence will use
;lard offices to obtain a mitigation of the
ty, by eneyeising the sovereign clemency of the
Supreme Pontiff. In furtherance of this object, a
petition has been drawn up and signed by the British
imitate and residents at present in Rome, who,
although the major port of them have already left
the city, are still sufficiently numerous to demonstrate
the interest inspired by the fate of their countryman.
The object of this petition, besides the humane one
of saving Marrero life, is to delay the execution of
the minnows until the irregularity of his trial may be
proved. The amnesty granted by the Pope, after his
return from Gaeta, prevented Murray from being I
considered as • political offender, therefore,
as • criminal offender, he ought to have
been tried by the ordinLey criminal tribunal of
Ancona, with a right ct appeal to the superior
tribunal there, and a right of final appeal to that of
the Consults of Rome, bidden other advantages, each
as that of choosing his own advocate. Instead of
this, he has been tried by the Consults at once, with
no right of appeal to any other tribunal, no public
hearing, no knowledge of; the witnesses against him,
no liberty of diesehm his own advocate, and no right
to concert a plan of istme with the one allotted to
him by the t, who, by the laws of the I
Consults tn is sworn to reveal to his
client nothing respecting the witnesses against
him. From the secret depositions of these
witnesses, awarding to the Consults procedure, and
from the answers al the prisoner himself in his primp
interrogatories, a summary, termed a ristrstto, is
drawn up by the ladies processante, or examining
functionary, and presented to the j_udges, who
usually decide according to its tenor. It is evident
that upon the construction of this risirstio the life of
a prisoner may frequently depend ; but it is by no
means consistent with British ideas of justice that a
prisoner should be condemned through the ser-
vility with which • government officer obeys the
hints of his superiors, exaggerating or suppressing
the evidence as the ease may be, and giving exactly
the tone required to his summary of the case. If I
am not misinformed the papal authorities themselves
are aware that the mode in which this trial has been
conducted will not bear looking into, nor
have I any idea that the sentence will ul-
timately be carried into effect. The princi-
pal charge brought against Murray is that,
during his service as officer of the police in
Ancona, he associated with known assassins, and that

a Count Severino and soother Papal partisan, who
had been imprisoned by the republicans, were
stabbed at night, whilst walking arm-in-arm with
I him away from die prison, he having had orders from
the governor to release them from confinement, and
convey them safely out of the city. That he should
be an accomplice in the murder because the victims
were stabbed whilst under his protection, is rather a
non sequitur; but, however the case may be, it seems
reasonable to insist on a fair and regular trial, with-
out resorting to such secret and exceptional tribunals
as the mis-named Sacred Consults, nor can Mr. Free-
born be sufficiently praised for the zeal and energy
which he has displayed in endeavouring to achieve
this object.
Their Imperial Highnesses, the Grand Dukes
Nicholas and Michel of Russia, arrived here at about
1 eight o'clock on the evening of Sunday, the 2nd inst.,
being a day sooner than they were at first expected.
The news of their intended arrival being divulged in
the morning, au immense crowd turned out to see
them in the afternoon, and their highnesses would
no doubt have been much fluttered by the
concourse of people assembled in tho Piazza
del Populo, bud they arrived in reasonable
time, but, as they did nut enter the gate
until after dark, most of the spectators had
got tired, and returned home. The princes were
accompanied by the Russian minister, M. de Doe-
tenier, Generals Philosophoff and Kerff, Colonel
Xraskanutski, Princes Gagarine, and 'l'roubetskoi,
and Count Sehovaloff. Their escort from the Pupal
frontier to Humane, two poets from Home, consisted
of Homan gendarmes, and front there to the Hotel
des Isles Broanniques it was furnished by,Freach dra-
goons, the French army having in all things the prece-
dence over that of his holiness. Yesterday morning
Gen.Gemenu,thc diplomatic corps, and grand officials,
were recived by the Princes, who afterwards re-
paired to the Vatican in full uniform, to pay their
respects to the Pope, and spent the afternoon in
visiting some of the principal monuments of anti-
quity, the Commendatore Visconti being deputed to
act as cicerone, in which quality he had die honour
to officiate for their father, the Emperor, when he
visited Home during the reign of l'ope Gregory XVI.
The Homan Five per Cent. Console feel the in-
fluence of the high prices of stock at Paris, and are
still on the rise, the last quotation being 951. Ex-
change OR London, 493. It is expected that the
hum= princes will make some considerable pur-
chases in Rome, as the banker Torlonia has received
instructions to place ample funds at their disposition.

Our Roman correspondent has frequently reported
the circumstances of Mr. Murray's case. No later
than the 30th ult. he wrote the following :
" Mr. Murray, the son of a meritorious British
officer, himself a husband and a father,
has now been in a horrible prison for nearly
three years, debarred from consulting with a legal
adviser, and prevented from receiving the visits of
his mother, his wife, his child, or his friends, save
through the bars of his prison, and in presence of
two sbirri, all communication going on in the Italian
language. AU the legal proceedings have been
hitherto conducted in a secret chamber by the crimi-
nal fudges and their underlings, the prisoner is not
allowed to examine the witnesses against him, nor
even to be confronted with them, or to know who
they are. He is permitted to have no advocate save
the one appointed by the criminal tribunal itself, and
even with him he is prohibited from having such
conferences as are necessary to concert the plan of
his defence."