The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-13 00:00:00

CATHOLICS OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

Mr. InJAIE said that he had now a petition to present to
the House, the importance of which was such, that he required
the most extended limits of the rule which had been just laid
down by the Speaker. It was a petition from the Catholics
of the Colony of Newfoundland, and was signed by 3,217
persons, including several Members of the domestic Legisla-
ture. The petition stated what he could not believe to exist
in any Colony belonging to Great Britain, namely, that the
Catholic population were in a state of the greatest oppression
—that they were deprived of all share in the Civil appointments
of the Colony; and that every sort of indignity was heaped upon
them by the judicial authorities. After detailing their sufferings,
the petitioners proceeded to state that they threw themselves
on the protection of this Honourable House, and prayed that
the right of free and unrestricted worship might be secured to
them. He thought he could not do justice to the petitioners
without having it printed, and brought, at Some period when
Ika. Members were in possession of its contents, fully before
the House. He should not be doing his duty if he did not
now more that the petition be printed with the Votes.
Mr. O'CONNELL begged to say one word iu support of
the petition. He had the most authenticinformation from
faith-worthy persons that' the allegations contained in it were
strictly true. The Chief Justice of that island had placed
himself at the head of an exceedingly bitter and malignant
persecution of the Roman Catholic inhabitants.
Mr. HUME gave notice that he should bring the sul.ject
before the House immediately after the holidays.
Mr. WAKLEY had a petition to present from a person
named Thomas Green, of New North-road in the county
of Middlesex, to which, in the absence of the Honourable
Member for Bridport, he was anxious to call the atten-
tion of the House. The petitioner had last Session pre-
senid i praying to be heard before the Deptford
a
Committee. The prayer of his petition
teDdov a
e petition, Railwayition,
was granted—he had attended before the Committee, and
proved his allegations. After his evidence had been tendered

he had recAred an order from the chairman of the Committee
for his expenses, but he was told that be would not be paid
until he had received an order from that House. Now it was
well known that no petition praying for money could be pre-
sented without the consent of the Crown ; and he was placed
in that predicament, that he was to ask the consent of a party
to present the petition who had already refused payment.
The SPEAKER said the case just stated by the Hon.
Member was by no means an uncommon one, but where the
petition was for compensation the rule was the same, whether
the sum was a large or a small one.
Mr. WAKLE Y said as one of the Lords of the Treasury
was now present, he might perhaps give his opinion upon the
I matter.

Mr. R. STEUART believed the petition had been already
referred to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Hon. Member
for Portsmouth. In the present case the petitioner, he un-
derstood, lived in London, and the invariable rule was, that
persons living in London, and who came voluntarily before
the Committee to give evidence, should not be allowed their
expences.
Mr. WAK LE Y then gave notice that he should present
the petition to-morrow.
CRIMINAL LAW—SCOTLAND.
Mr. HARVEY said whatever might be the rule of the
House, he was sure of an attentive hearing when he had to
present a petition in which the fate of five individuals was
concerned—whether they should remain in confinement or
whether they should be liberated—the parties were demanding
either instant trial or liberation. The petition he had to pre-
sent was from Glasgow, and was signed by twenty thousand
of the inhabitants of that city and its neighbourhood, and
complained of the arbitrary and oppressive conduct of the
law officers of the Crown, relative to the case of five per-
sons who were under confinement upon a charge of murder.
In the statement he was about to make, he begged leave to
state that he expressed no opinion of his own as to the
guilt or innocence of the parties—he would state the facts as
they were laid before him. It appeared that eighteen per-
sons, who were engaged in linen-weaving, were apprehended,
and charged with conspiring together for the purpose
of raising wages—with administering illegal oaths ;
and they were also charged as being implicated in a murder
which took place in that city. Five of those persons were
committed for trial, and they had been imprisoned since June ;
on the 24th October they had received notice of anindictment,
which ran over forty-nine folio pages, and spreading over a
large portion of time. Though they were poor men they
were obliged to take out a copy. The names of the witnesses
to the number of ninety were indorsed on the back of it; and
they at the same time received notice of trial for November 10.
Having no funds of their own, and but few friends, they made
an appeal to their own order, the working classes. That class
did not immediately respond to the call, but referred it to a
Committee of their own body, who came to the resolution to
call upon all the working classes of that country ; and
such was the interest taken upon the subject by all
classes, that, much to their credit, a sum of 5001.
was remitted to Edinburgh.--( Cheers.) That money
was barely sufficient to pay the expenses of obtaining
advice, and paying the necessary fees to Counsel. In addition
to the necessary inquiry relative to what the 90 witnesses
would have to say, the parties had to take over to Edinburgh
no less than 50 witnesses in their exculpation. —( Cheers. )
On the 10th of November the trial was fixed to take place,
but before that day arrived the petitioners received an intima-
tion from the prosecutor that it would be adjourned till th
4th of December; this adjournment exhausted all the funds of
the petitioners, and they were obliged to make another appeal
to their fellow men among the working classess. They were
prepared for trial on the 4th of December, but shortly before
that day arrived they received an intimation from the Law
Officers of the Crown, that the individuals would not be tried
on that day, but that another indictment had been prepared
against th.n which wou!d be tried on the 3d of January
next. Such was the case of those, individuals, who had
been incarcerated in a dungeon since the period to which
he had adverted. They had been brought to the bar
vice, and now their trial had been deferred for the third time.

It was not necessary for him to go into the circumstances of
the case—he was willing to concede that these parties had
been guilty of the most serious offences, but he would ask
the House, whether, being so, they were to be made the
sport and prey of an oppressive law ?—( Hear, hear, hear.)
What these parties wished was- a prompt and costless trial ;

and he asked the Lord- advocate in wha't way were the parties
stripped as they were from the beginning of the means of labour,
their resources, which with difficulty was raised from a poverty-
sr: icken people, alre idy consumed by costly law—on the slat
of J inuary, with a formidable array of Scotch Advocates, who
If not headed by the Lord- Advocate himself, would be abun-
dantly numerous to overwhelm these poor persons? He asked
the Noble Lord-Advocate to state to the House and the
country in what way these men were to have a fair trial. On
tic 16th of November they had been provided with able advo-
cates. No doubt the high honour of the Scotch Bar would
furnish advocates, who would stand forth with an equal zeal as if
they had been I,a,d ; yet how were 50 witnesses to be taken
from Glasgow to Edinburgh, just 40 miles, when these indi.
viduals were not able to earn 10s, a-week, and were destitute
of the necessaries of life ? He (Mr. Harvey) would give no
opinion on the charge itself, nor make any statement calcu-
lated to excite the commiseration of the House, but he would
call on the House practically to show that no man was to be
deemed guilty until he was pronounced so by the law of his
country ; and what he asked was, that inasmuch as innocence
was to be presumed, that these parties should forthwith be
discharged from prison, or that their trial might be accelerated,
and that they should not be deprived of the means of a fair
and honest trial. The Hon. Gentleman then presented a pe-
tition from the Burgh of Kilmarnock, to the same effect.
The LORD ADVOCATE could have no difficulty in an-
swering any part of the statement that had been made by the
Hon. Member for Southwark—a statement somewhat similar
to that which had been made a short time ago by another Hon.
Member in that House, and he trusted the answer he then gave
was perfectly satisfactory. There was no one part of the
statement made by the Hon. Member for Southwark, that did
not admit of a most complete answer. The charge against
these individuals was one cf the most serious natnre ;
it was a charge of assassination, the result of a conspi-
racy carried on by an Association which had existed for a
great number of years, and which had been guilty of similar
offences before. The Association was carried on by means sf
secret oaths and intimidation, which made it hardly possible
to obtain evidence in consequence of the threats held out.
It was, therefore, a charge of the most serious nature that
had ever been brought against any individual, and one which
a public prosecutor ought to proceed against by every means
in his power, certainly without unnecessary expense, or ex-
posing the parties to unnecessary hardship, but to give them
that advantage which parties on trial were entitled to.
He was persuaded that they were furnished fifteen days before
the day appointed for their trial with a copy of the indict-
ments, and the names of the witnesses and jurors, with
every particular of the case for the prosecution at all
necessary to enable them fully to prepare their
defence—and all that information was furnished to them with-
out any expense on their part. The Hon. Member for
Southwark had stated that this was a hardship, in as much as
they would have to examine all those witnesses, and go into
all those particulars; but he the (Lord Advocate) would
ask, was it not, on the contrary, a very great advantage to the
accused, that they were put in possession of all that informa-
tion ?—( Hear, hear.) They had also fifteen days' notice of
trial ; and the law required that they should not be brought to
trial within that time of notice, duly served. If it were the case
as in England, that they could be brought to trial on half an
hour's notice, it would be considered a very great hardship in
Scotland. He (the Lord Advocate) should be disposed to
abridge the time of notice, but he was met,
whenever he proposed it, with a statement
that it would give the public prosecutor an undue
advantage, and enable him to pounce upon an un-
prepared individual.—( Hear, hear.) This was constantly
the argument put forward in favour of the law in its
present state, which gave the accused the full space of
fifteen days to examine every particular brought against
them. In this case the prosecution was brought against
persons who had the same advantages as those charged
with high treason, and they were accused of conspiracy and
combination attended with the assassination of an individual.
Now, in such a case it was clearly the duty of the public pro-
secutor to make the evidence as full as he could. But on the
very day fixed for the trial of those persons, he (the Lord
Advocate) was informed of further evidence which he caused
immediately to be inquired into, with a view that if it was
important, he should raise another indictment for the purpose
of opening the case to the examination of the additional wit-
nesses. This was necessary, because, according to the law of
Scotland, no witness could be examined whose name and de-
scription was not set forth on the summons. It was necessary,
therefore, to issue a new summons for the purpose of raising the
further charge which he was bound to raise against those indi-
viduals. He certainly regretted that they should be longer kept
back from trial, or subjected to any unnecessary hardship.
Indeed there could not be imagined any motive why he
should wish to subject them to hardship or inconvenience.—
( Hear, hear.) It was said also that they had a large array of
Counsel against them ; but it was also the fact that they had a
large array of Counsel for them ; and if they had not, the
Court in Scotland would assign Counsel to them, and any
Counsel which they chose to name would be assigned to them.
—( Hear.) Nor did he ever know an instance in which Coun-
sel so assigned had refused his assistance. He himself had never
done so during the whole time he had practised at the Scotch
bar, nor did he think that any Counsel of character would so
refuse.—( Hear.) Besides, in Scotland, the accused had the
advantage of Counsel to argue the ease on every point, and,
moreover, they had the last werd.—( Cheers from Mr. O'Con-
nell.) It was clear, then, that the accused in the case re-
ferred to in the petition would have every advantage of which
their position admitted. But in the case of conspiracy it was
necessary to take peculiar care.—( Hear.)
Mr. PR ING LE said that according to the forms of the
law of Scotland there was no ease for the interference of this
House in this instance. The Learned Lord had called
attention to the fact that this was a most important case
—that it was one of a widely extended conspiracy to as-
sassinate, and therefore that it was necessary to act with
more than usual circumspection. By the Act of the year
1701—for protecting the liberties of the people of Scotland—
similar to the English Habeas Corpus Act, a period is
fixed after which the public prosecutor can not persist
in the charge, nor bring any charge of the same kind
against the same person ; if it had been proved in
this case, that, this period having elapsed, the Lord Advocate
was attempting to go beyond the law ; or, if it were proved
that the public prosecutor was acting vexatiously, there might
have been ground for the interference of the House. But of
neither the one nor the other was there any evidence in this
case ?—(
Mr. HARVEY said that the Lord Advocate had satisfac-
rily explained to the House the cause of the first postpone..

rnent, bit LA stated t-ltct ;ite. su',,scqueit
postponement to thu 3d of January.
The LORD ADVOCATE said that a postponement to
the 3d of January was unavoid;ible, in consequence of fresh
information which had been received, it being necessary to
prepare new criminal letters.
Mr. O'CONNELL said that there was one subject
which he could not help adverting to, which arose cut
of the present discussion. He was of opinion that
some measure should be passed to put down and crush
the entire subject of combination. No combination of trades-
men should be permitted, unless their meetings were con-
vened by public notice, and were presided over by a public
officer.—( Hear, hear.)
The petition was ordered to lie on the table.
POOR-LAWS (IRELAND).
Mr. O'CONNELL then gave notice that on the motion
for going into Committee on the Irish Poor-law Bill (if the
measure was persevered in during the present session), he
should move as an amendment that it be committed that day
six months.