The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-07 00:00:00

recommend for pardon, and he named a prisoner, Wm. Dee,
but the gaoler interfered, and poor Prendergast was con-
founded, and no wonder, my Lords, for he who had but a
moment before been invested with the prerogotive of
mercy was snddenly withdrawn from him by the fiat
and interference of the gaoler, who said the prisoner
had been punished in gaol. Prendergast searched the
Book of Punishments, but he could not there find the name
of Dee, but the consequence of the gaoler's interference
was, that the prisoner was not pardoned. An attempt bi's
been made to show that many of the prisoners who were
pardoned had again been committed to prison—his objec-
tions lay much deeper than that. Every one must know
tmheartcythoant
gwbatstnootbethe wayexercised i.n_w(hci
(which the Cheers
prerogativeln
e,
o n n oonf
fifty-seven prisoners were discharged, two of whom were
sgain committed. In Westmeath nineteen prisoners were
discharged, and six of them were subsequently committed
for other offences. Now that, my Lords, is an argument in
favour of my resolutions—for the 55 prisoners who
were discharged from Clonmell, might be very fit subjects
for the prerogative of mercy, but the six from Westmeath
dischargedoziwine without
nutahtnetsr
there
iaclsvt fulleeranongdasg7edn
certainly were not—not one of them ought to have been
business-- not more than one minute for each case.
uctShpaoesomenLeotofhord Cef the cases were of great magnitude, yet the prisonerspri-
soners tm
inquiry.
more
redischarged, t
baNnone w
in
andothu
er
were pardoned, merely because the gaoler said they
were well behaved under him. That might be a very good
reason for using them well in prison, for giving them some
orison indulgences—it was no reason for discharging them.
The fullest possible precaution ought to be used. One
should be slow to convict, and then he ought to award the
slightest possible amount of punishment. But when the
question is to reverse the operation, and remit the sen
tence, is it to be thought that then there is no need of an
inquiry, of any investigation, of any ceremony whatever—
that while the down-hill course of condemnation is gra-
dual, slow, and painful, the up-hill road of remission ought
to be rapid—that there should be no obstruction, no impe-
diment in our ascent to the smiling plains of mercy ?
Shall it be said that while the resolution to punish cannot
be too slow, the act of reprieving and pardoning cannot be
too quick ? The proposition that you should be slow to
punish, is not only consistent with the proposition that you
should be also slow to pardon, but it proves it ; because you
have n o right to punish unless of necessity, unless upon the
ground that unless you do so in the case of the existing cri-
minal, you caanot possibly prevent the commission of
future crime t One proposition follows another ; and if
you say that you may rashly, lightly, inconsiderately pardon,
you condemn yourself for punishing : because if it be
right to pardon, it must have been wrong to punish. This
is strong, clear, and irrefragible. This question induces
the most grave reflections. You cannot but think that
there is nothing more encouraging to the criminal, than
the observation that an application from a Member of Par-
liament, a magistrate, or a body of men connected by
police, or religion, or a community of feeling respecting
crime—that such an application, without any consideration
of the case, insures a favourable hearing from the Execu-
tive Government. In this manner the law loses its autho-
rity, justice is disarmed and paralyzed, the criminal ceases
to fear, and the administration of justice is no longer re-
spectable.—(Cheers.) It ceases even to be tolerable, if
mercy is dealt out without prudence, discrimination,
temperate conduct, and deliberative judgment on the
part of those who stand by the sacred models of jus-
tice.—(Loud cheers.) If I should even say that such
a mistake should not arise from any want of
consideration, but from the motives of feeling, however
amiable, while I should be disposed to view in the most
friendly manner such an error of judgment, and God
knows it is only an error of judgment I ascribe, or as
Grattan calls it, a mere incircumspection. The result of
such a mistake must be productive of the most grievous
consequences. But here we have seen appeals from the
Judges and the Jury who have tried cases—not even to the
Attorney- General —not even to the Crown Soli -
tors, but appeals to the Gaoler.—( Hear, and a laugh.)
From one of the Courts, one of the most important offices of
the law, we have seen cases referred from the Judges and
Juries to the gaolers and turnkeys sitting in appeal ; and
those officers have been asked, not under what circum.
stances judgment had been pronounced against the man,
but upon the comparatively immaterial facts of the beha-
viour of the prisoner towards the gaolers and his servants.
—( Laughter.) And here it should be remembered, that
the man who has been often in gaol is most likely to find
favour in the eye of the gaoler—( Laughter)—because it
naturally happens that he who is used to the restraints of
a prison is less likely to be impatient than he who has been
deprived of his liberty for the first time. As the wild
bird will flap his wings against the cage in which he
he is confined, the tame bird who has been born,
hatched, and bred in slavery will never flap his feathers
against the wires. So he who has been often in goal—he
who has spent a large portion of his time in the durance of
confinement—he is most likely to be the man whom the
gaoler would speak well of to the Executive Government,
as the best-behaved person, and the most deserving of
mercy.__( Hear, hear, and laughter.) But this dole of
mercy has not depended upon the decision of the Attorney-
General, sitting in appeal against the descendants of the
Lord Chief Justice, nor upon the opinion of the gaoler
heard by his turnkey, but we have seen that it has resulted
from the accidental circumstance or caprice of the Viceroy
happening to visit one goal instead of another in the course
of his tour. Surely then we have good reason to ask whether
justice, of which mercy is a portion, has been administrated
according to fixed principles and established rules, o'r ac-
cording to the caprice which may have induced the
Viceroy to extend his tour to one place instead of another
—( Hear, hear)—but those things were not only done
without reproof, but they were sanctioned and adopted by
the Government. Further, that judicious, calm, delibera-
tive body, entitled the National Representatives of Great
Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, having
heard that an inquiry was about to be instituted, and
having information promised to them, but not a little
given to them—those grave senators, without any inquiry
on their part, or any possible anticipation of the result
which an inquiry on their side or on ours might be.
that grave and venerable body representing Great Britain
wholecsme t e
Churchsos tif
oo vote,
oouoft
net
Scotlandet,
acquittal
nf
adwnthdhica
approval.
hti
ps wapdireltoahevrpoaglulyencerned, and in the other of which, the
.t
any pretension to prophesy, anticipating the best possible
ethisrdcoi
t
psibaAseneos
unaudd
ctl body did,
trt
andy
ng, nr
ndodt bohelui
ernnr ace c Ireland—dida Parliamenta
sn merg: a jtaohwretwoovt
consisting a s se assembled—( I a d
chiefly_ (L a uo gf lit
theer —r e
pt hr
ea
.t
interested—happily those cases were not taken from this
House into the other now coequal body of the Legislature.
But they might in the other House anticipate our decision
in those cases, or in the case of Lady Hewley, with quite
as much propriety as the other. They might with quite
one case
a justice s t ice as
s much
in the other.haveant Notwithstandingicipatedourdecis,ionin
with-
out inquiry, and in necessary ignorance of the subject—
without witnesses being examined, or documents being pro-
duced—the House of Commons passed a vote of general
approbation of the whole system. But this is not all. The
Government sanctioned and adopted it. Parliament was
dissolved on the 17th of July, 1837 ; on the 18th of July a
letter, was delivered, signed by the Secretary of State and the
the Lord Lieutenant,which message might as well have been
delivered by word of mouth—( Laughter)—for the Lord
Lieutenant was in London at that time. There was a
drawing room on the 21st, and his Excellency did not
return to Dublin till the 24th. The letter was posted up
(littera scripts ntanent) in various parts of Ireland. It
stated that her Majesty was entirely gratified by his Excel-
lency's administration, and she hoped his conduct would be
guided by the same principles. There is another circum-
stance—Chief Justice Doherty is stiil leading the King's
Commission in Ireland. There is a black mark on him
which must be whitewashed off. Further, the Lord Lieu-
tenant said he would proceed in the steps of his predecessor
—(Hear, hear,)—and then we shall have a recurrence of
the case of Gahan, Gall, and King. Upon these grounds I
have thought it my indispensable duty to address your Lord-
ships in order that you might be enabled to remedy the mis-
chief of which I have complained—believing as I do that the
most important of all the functions of the Government is that
which is involved in the administration of justice—( Hear,
bear)—deeming as I do that if you do not take steps
promptly to express your opinion, we shall again and again
see instances of this kind from the Executive Governmentof
Ireland—instances which would make Mercy and Justice
change opposite places, and make Mercy blind while
Justice must weep.—( Cheers.) If there be any one
amongst you, who thinks it signifies riothing that wit-
nesses should not come forward to give evidence accord-
ing to their recognisances, and should, in default, suffer
a few days, and the murderer go free—then your Lordships
will vote against my first resolution. If there be any
amongst you who think that it is not right to exercise that
important element of the Constitution to set jurors aside,
lest jurors may have to judge their perhaps brother offenders,
and that instructions may be so vague, as to be acted upon
differenitly in each circuit, then you will vote against my
second and third resolutions. Then, again, your Lord-
ships will vote against the fourth, if you think that
the Judge ought not to be consulted in the application
of mercy to the prisoners whom he has tried.
All of you who would stigmatise and degrade him
will negative this proposition. But I have no fear of sue
a consummation. I have too high an opinion of the wis-
dom and integrity of your Lordships' House. Whoever
has practised in our Courts, or presided on our Benches,
or observed our judicial proceedings, he must think that
of all the branches of our Constitution the administration
of justice is the most important. This great power of the
administration of justice is the clamp which binds toge-
ther the diversified orders of society, which connects the
discordant materials of the, pyramid from the
narrowest and most exalted down to the lowest
and widest. As long as this great power circumscribes
our social system, I disregard all the perils that may assail
the Constitution. Give the Crown all the tyrannous de-
vices you may:imagine, let the House of Commons be ob-
sequious, the House of Lords be weak, and the Court be
corrupt—still, I--fearless of the safety of the liberties of the
people—will appeal from the Queen at Westminster to the
Queen's Courts at Westminster, knowing, that in the
Courts of Justice I shall find the imperishable palladium of
the Constitution.—( Cheers. ) Parliament may vacillate, the
House of Commons may alternate in small majorities, one
day one way, the other slay the other—let our mixed me.-
nnarchy become the most aristocratic, still, I shall fly to
the Judges for refuge,
who will protect the sub-
ject and the Crown against all dangers,—(Cheers).
Or if the danger should come (which I don't think we
shall live to see)—if the danger should come from the
fierce democracy, if the pressure should be from the lower
region, if the outrages of the multitude should break in
upon and threaten to demolish the walls of the Constitution,
then I oppose as an t
impregnable bulwark the judicial sys-
tem, against which, as arms a rock, I know that all the
surges of popular fury will dash,i and will dash in vain.—
( Hear, hear.) my Lords, it s to the administration of
justice, in which this House in an eminent and special
manner is interested, by the Constitution of the country—
it is to the administration of justice that I make my
appeal in all difficulties, in all perils of the country,
and as often as you perceive any attempt made on that
hitherto impregnable bulwark—and the more cautiously
and slowly and gradually the attempt may be made, and
the less there is any design of that kind, of which in this