The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-29 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

HOME CIRCUIT—MAIDSTONE, July 23.
(Before Mr Justice W11:0s.)
CONSPIRING TO SCUTTLE ♦ SHIP.
Heinrich Kohn, 34, carpenter, was charged with misde-
meanour, in having unlawfully conspired with other per•
sons wilfully to cast away and destroy a certain foreign
verse], called the Alma, with intent to defraud the under-
writers of policies of insurance upon that vessel to a large

amount.
The prisoner is a German, and in the first instance he
expressed a desire to be tried by a jury partly composed of
foreigners. This morning, however, he said he had no wish
that this should be carried out, and elected to he tried by
an English jury. The English evidence was explained to
him through an interpreter, as was also that of several of
the witnesses who were foreigners, and this greatly ex-
tended the length of the trial, which would have been much
more protracted if the learned judge had not apparently
been perfectly conversant with the German language, and
the suggestions he made to the interpreter tended greatly
to elucidate the inquiry, and to place all the facts before the
jury.
Sergeant Ballantine was specially instructed, with Mr
F. H. Lewis, to conduct the prosecution; Mr Warton was
counsel for the defendant.
Sergeant Ballantine, in openininthe case for the prosecu-
tion, said that it had been instituted by the direction of the
authorities of Lloyd's, who, having regard to the enormous
amount of money that was invested in marine insurances,
had felt it their duty to take care than, it should be known
that in any case where there was reason to believe that a
trend of the grave nature imputed to the defendant had
been committed, they were determined that a full inquiry
should take place, and nothing should be neglected to en-
aeavour to bring home guilt to the offender, and render him
amenable to justice. The substantial offence imputed to the
defendant was that he had been concerned with other per-
sons on board in wilfully destroying a vessel called the Alma,
upon which policies of insurance amounting on the whole,
he believed, to nearly £30,000 had been effected, and
that the owner, the captain, and some of the officers on
beard the vessel were concerned in that act. In consequence,
however, of the Alma being a foreign vessel, and the pri-
soner and the other persons on beard being foreigners, they
were not amenable to the more serious charge under the law
of this country, and the principal point in the case he said
he believed would be whether the prisoner had committed
an offence against the law of England by conspiring with
the other parties, while the vessel was lying at Ramsgate,
and before she sailed upon the voyage which ended in her
destruction to commit the offence which undoubtedly was
afterwards completed. The learned sergeant then proceeded
to narrate the material facts of the case, which in reality
lay in a very narrow compass, and which will be fresh in
the recollection of the public, as they were given very fully
upon the occasion of the examination of the defendant at
he Mansion-house. It appeared that the Alma was a
Prussian vessel, belonging to Memel, and that she sailed
troth Antwerp in the month of March last, and put in at
ttamsgate, where she took in a fresh cargo for the port to
which she belonged, and it was part of the case for the pro-
secution that before she sailed it seemed to have been a
foregone conclusion on the part of the captain, the mate,
the prisoner, who was the ship's carpenter, and other mem-
bers of the crew, that she would never arrive at her destina-
tion, and that, acting upon this impression, they made free
with the champagne that was on board,and also distributed
cloth that was a portion of the cargo to the prisoner and
some of the other men, who were the crew on board. The
Alma sailed from Ramsgate about the 11th April, and from
that day until the 18th, when s'ae went down, it appeared
that there was very fine weather, and that nothing oc-
curred that was at all likely, under ordinary circumstances,
to have caused such a catastrophe. On that day, however,
a Luanda ship called the Helena, on her voyage home from
Porto Rico, saw signals of distress flying from a vessel
which turned out to be the Alma, and she hove to, and
rho vessels neared each other, and the captain of the
Alma called out that they were in distress, that the vessel
was sinking, and he wished to know whether the captain of
the Helena would take hint and his crew on board. He
was told that he would, and two boats laden with luggage
And men then left the Alma and proceeded to the Helena;
end they continued to go backwards and forwards between
the two vessels for three or four hours, and at the expire-
don of that time the whole of the men of the Alma, and
the luggage they chose to bring with them, were taken
on board the Helena, and in about 2d minutes afterwards
he Alma sunk with the whole of her cargo. The weather
at this time was, according to the evidence, beautifully calm,
and the fact of a vessel going down under such circum •
stances appeared to have at once created a suspicion that
there had been something wrong in the transaction, and
on the arrival of the Helena in England inf rmation was
given to the authorities, by whom the present charge was
eventually preferred against the prisoner. The matter was
in the first instance investigated at the Mansioa-house, but
owing to the legal difficulties above referred to that pre-
sented themselves, it was found that the more serious
charge could not be substantiated in this country, and that
the conspiracy, if any existed, took place at Ramsgate,
and the present indictment was therefore remitted to be
disposed of at the present assizes for the county of Bent.
The evidence that was adduced extended to considerable
length. One of the witnesses, whose testimony was very
material, was Donald M`Gaechy, a very intelligent seaman,
who was mate of the Helena, and he proved that on the 18th
April, when that vessel was about 75 miles west of the
Scidy Islands, on her voyage to England, signals of dis-
tress were observed in a vessel ahead, which turned out to
be the Alma, and the Helena was hove to, and boats put off
from the former vessel, and the prisoner, the captain, and
all the rest of the crew of the Alma were received on
board the Helena. He said that at this time the weather
was so calm that an open boat might safely have got to
land, and that there had been no storm or bad weather, or
in fact anything to account for the Alma being in a sinking
state, and that he suspected at the time that she had received
some foul play, and he made an observation to that effect to
the prisoner. The witness detailed the various conversations
that took place between him and the prisoner upon the sub-
ject, the effect of which appeared to be that the latter ad-
mitted that the Alma was involved, or that she was in some
money difficulty, and that it was resolved on this account
,hat she should be destroyed. The prisoner was repre-
sented to have also said that the plan was concocted at
Ramsgate, and that while they were in port they had, by
the orders of the captain and the mate, removed a portion
of the inner planking of the vessel in the hold, so that the
outer skin, as it is termed in nautical phraseology, might be
more easily got at ; and that she sailed in this condition,
and after they had been a few days at sea, upon sighting the
lielenie, it was resolved to carry the project of sinking the
vessel into final execution, According to the statement of
the prisoner, when about two miles from the Helena he and
the mate went down into the hold with a candle, and he
bored several holes in the outer planking of the vessel with
an augur, plugs being provided in order that the water might
not be let in too fast. He was also represented to have
stated that the water did not gain upon them, and the plugs,
were made use of for that purpose, and when they had got
all they wanted out of the Alma the plugs were finally re-
moved, and she then speedily filled and sank.
These were the main facts relied upon for the prosecu-
tion, but evidence was also adduced to show that while the
vessel was at Ramsgate, the prisoner, the captain, the
mate, and others, openly talked of intending to destroy the
vessel, and that a suggestion was made that as
she was to go down she might as well do so
on the bar of Ramsgate harbour, but that the
captain observed that that would be too near the shore,
and that it would be better to get out to sea a few miles
firet. Evidence was also given that while in Ramsgate
harbour the captain and the crew made free with a quantity
of champagne that was on board as part of the cargo, the
former statiag that it was better to drink it end enjoy them-
selves than that it should be swallowed up by the sea.
Mr Warton made a very earnest appeal to the jury on
behalf of tho defendant, and ho particularly commented
upon the fact of his being a foreigner and most imperfectly
acquainted with the English language, and he therefore
argued that it would be unjust to place too mush reliance
upon the evidence relating to the statements he was repre-
sented to have made on the cliff/rent witnesses relating to
the alleged offence. On this ground and the subordinate
position of the prisoner on board the ship, which, he said,
of course compelled him to a certain extent to obey the
orders that were given to him, he contended that the charge
of conspiracy h-id not been established.
Mr Justice Willes, in summing up the case, said that the
inquiry was undoubtedly one of considerable importance,
and it was most essential that frauds of the description sug-
gested should undergo full inquiry, and that parties proved
to have committed them should ieceive punishment, as a
warning to others not to be guilty of similar offences. He
then proceeded to explain how it happened that the prisoner
could not be tried for the actual offence of scuttling the
ship, end sai-1 that the only qmetien for the consideration