The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-21 00:00:00

Dec. 1824, as a punishment, sentenced to save in
his Majesty's navy for five years. I was first sent to
the Ramilies in the Downs; then to - the Prince.
Regent, the Parthian, the Victory, the Ferret
brig, the his, the Aurora, the Barham, and the
Espiegle, in succession; and I have in all those
ships been detained against my will. It was not
that I originally entered the service as a volunteer,
but that the law condemned me to five years' servi-
tude as a punishment for the above delinquency, and
when in either of the above ships, not in actual ser-
vice, I have been, as all persons are in my unfortu-
nate situation, constantly kept in close confinement
as a prisoner, and in the respective ships'
books I have not been borne as an en-
tered seaman, but as a smuggler; and except
when on active service treated as under imprisonment.
In all other cases of imprisonment, and in that of
transportation, the period of the limitation of the
restraint is the punishment for the offence cop-
mitted; and when that punishment is undergone,
by the period being elapsed or the King's pardon
being obtained, the offence is fully atoned for, and
law satisfied ; and the instant it so expires, the
offender is entitled to his liberty, and becomes again
a free man as he was before his conviction. Thus
was it with me : the instant the five years of my
captivity and imprisonment had elapsed, my punish-
ment expired, and I was entitled to my discharge.
I ceased then to be a seaman in his Majesty's ser-
vice, and, I respectfully submit to the Court, ought
to be set at liberty at the first opportunity of the
ship's arriving at an English port, and in the
meanwhile that I became as a supernumerary, and
had I resorted to my remedy as a subject of the
realm, I was entitled to a writ of Habeas Corpus on
the ship's arrival at Plymouth, which was on the
23d of December, and any judge of the land must
have instantly discharged me. From the letter of
Commander Elliett, it is evident that as soon as my
term of servitude was expired, I conducted myself
with strict propriety. Nothing en earth could be
more natural than that I should be then anxious
to regain my long-lost liberty as soon as I
was entitled to be restored to it ; and Commander
Elliott says, that on the 23d of Decwillaer, the ship
being at sea, I reported, on the quarter-deck, that my
five years' service had expired, and which by refe-
rence to my ticket, proved to be the case; and on
his expressing his opinion that my discharge could
not be granted until the ship was paid off, and that
he thought it was unnecessary for me to apply for
it, I answered him that I would; and in this I submit
there could be no disrespect. I trust I have de-
monstrated that as a British subject I was entitled to
my liberty, and that therefor. by wrong I was de-
tained. However this may be, it happened that 1
presently afterwards became an invalid, and was on
the sick list, and when two days only before the ship
was paid off, I was ordered into the boat by Lieut.
White, I answered to the call made to me, feeling
my weakness, " I cannot," and repeated it. Now,
Sir, I protest I never meant to say " I would not."
I was ill, and, as just observed, feeling my own weak-
ness and indisposition, I merely said that 44 I could
tior," and it was unaccompanied with the least con-
tumely or disrespect towards Lieut. White. That
gentleman is certainly mistaken in his recollection of
what did pass. The marine, John Jones, called to
confirm his testimony, proved to you that he only
heard me say " I could not go ;" and I shall call
another witness to confirm that fact, so that I shall
establish by two witnesses, that the words I used
were not " I will not go," but these, " I cannot
go ;" and they were only induced by the weak state
I was in.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Meetings are becoming frequent throughout
the country, and they all seem to turn on the
uneasiness occasioned by some severe distress
affecting one or more orders of the community ;
but there is none in which we do not find the
la-
borious classes dwelt upou as a matter rn,st
peculiar and unexampled sufferings of the
deeply to be deplored, and received by the
hearers as a fact open to denial. There is, in
truth, no public interest whatever, nor any ques-
tion of enlarged state policy, with which the
causes and consequences of' the working man's
wretched condition are not closely mixed up, or
indeed, we may say, incorporated. Whole vo-
lumes of laws have been made by Parliament for
the protection of the rich against the poor man's
assumed hostility, and others for the accommo-
dation of the opulent, at the poor man's expense.
The Game Laws, worthy of the spirit of Draco,
may be cited as an instance of the former branch
of English legislation ; and of the latter, the
numberless Enclosure Bills, which are, one and
all, direct robberies of the peasant, tending at
once to demoralize and to starve him, by strip-
ping his home of its most innocent occupations,
and of its cheapest comforts. Even that hu-
mane and liberal code which was at first designed
and has always professed to have the poor man's
welfare for its great, or perhaps exclusive object,
has, through an unfortunate concurrence of ac-
cidents or blunders, accumulating large discre-
tionary prerogatives in mean and worthless
hands, degenerated from a relief to the deserving
pauper, into a fetter that curbs and galls him,—
confounding the alms bestowed on poverty with
the wages of active but half-remunerated industry,
and corrupting, by an habitual consciousness of
degradation, the whole character of the British
peasant. 'We rejoice to see that there are some
gentlemen left who sympathize with the poor
man's grievances, and defend his cause by their
moral authority, even where their power as Ma-
gistrates may be insufficient. Mr. Dundas,
Member for Berkshire, at. a recent Quarter
Sessions, the proceedings of which we have ex-
tracted from one of the country papers, expressed
himself in terms equally honourable to his good
sense and humanity, on the state to which the
poor of his county and neighbourhood had been
reduced. Two shillings and eightpence given
by Overseers to maintain a human being for seven
days, in the winter season, and with the gallon
loaf bread at ls. 6d. ! Is this the mercy
of the Poor Laws of Great Britain ? Weil
may the Honourable Chairman affirm that such
mercy is an incentive to crime. We believe that
wages are too low, because in certain parts of
England there is a surplus of labour in the
market ; but it would be infinitely better to CM-
ploy few labourers at fair and decent wages, than
a great number on a pittance which disables
them from supporting themselves, or doing ser-
vice to their employer. We should, as country
gentlemen, prefer seeing 10 men working at the
rate of ls. Bd., or 2s. per day, and two others
left to be employed by the parish, or even sup-
ported by it gratuitously, than the whole 12 less
than half-fed, and doing less than half work,
with a wife and family of four or five children,
trusting at the present price of bread to a stipend
reduced by eager competition within the famine
limit. Even where the farmers are overloaded
with rent, it is their obvious interest to pay
liberal wages, employing a smaller proportion of
hands, than to take as many as offer, and have
the work of each sluggishly and imperfectly exe-
cuted. The political effect of this would lie a
much increased Cacility of determining what was
the true state of the agricultural population, be-
cause the numbers actually thrown upon the
overseers of the poor for subsistence would be
far more easily returned (and the inference
thence drawn would be more unanswerable) than
the degree of privation endured by badly-paid
and worn-out labourers could be calculated, or
the reasonings founded on such indefinite data
recognized by sceptical minds. There has been
a meeting, we perceive, in Bury St. Edmund's.
of which the only interesting particular which
has reached us is the perusal by the Chairman
of a letter from General Sir James Affleck,
stating indisposition as the reason which COM,
pelled him to be absent, and likewise his mot:ives
for dissenting from the purpose of the meeting,
which appears to have been a petition against
the Malt and Beer Duties. The worthy Baro-
net avows his belief that the repeal of the Malt-
duty is impossible, and encourages ?Ministers to
the other
, , f inre e the
trade nation,
in
corn"—to wit, the freedom established say so without hesitation. Sir James goes
refur-
ther, and with great naivete declares that the
farming
a nd
everymustb interest,
berutted
until
by the
present Corn Law !—shall be repealed, and the
warehousing system got rid of. This of course
is a free country, in which a man may say what he
likes ; but we suppose that in gthe Corn
Law a law of free trade, Sir James means to be
ironical.—Times.
We yesterday observed, that the permanent
commutation o Tithes was quite a distinct
question from that of the distribution of that
part of the public property now enjoyed by the
Church. It is of great importance to keep this
distinction steadily in view, because, with re-
spect to the final settlement of Tithes, there can
hardly be any difference of opinion, whereas,
much difference of opinion unquestionably exists
with regard to the mode in which the Clergy
ought to be remunerated. Our Contemporary
(the Standard) observes, that " the Act of
last Session for the east) and growth of Popery
•
is considered by many as severing the Church
from the State s and the active part taken in
forwarding that Bill by ten Prelates, to which
THE SERPENTINE.—The exhibition of skill we may add the luketvarvoms of above ten
among the skaiters on Tuesday afternoon wae, the best we I more, has, in many cases, taught men to look
have witnessed this season upon such separation the Hon. P. Byxo was among with less r:sgret than any
the performers, The light and airy waltz was admirably I one who knew the strong attachment of the
executed on ice of the finest quality. There was one us- pcuplk ttl their Church P.:mid have anticipated."
fortunate exhibitor among the "awkward squad "-,311,e l Our Contemporary is, no doubt, too well ac-
straightforward set—who, in falling, brokt thk,o4h the quainted with, the History of the Church and
ice at some distance from the glom I;.u.t was speedilyl with human nature, to be surprized that a num-
extricated by ropes and ltlder'it The contrast was great ! ber of Bishops should vote in whatever manner
between the uew ice and Ow old, the latter being covered ! they wwo told to vote by Ministers. The only
with sraw, and the former pure and transparent. Yester- thing surprising is, that any Bishops should be
day, as early as eleven o'clock, there were many px.rikons found sturdy enough
to vote against Ministers.
skaiting and sliding, but within a confined space, owing to It was reckoned a wonderful thing in the last
a heavy fall of snow during th; eecedinß uig44. At nook, I mitur--,
y when there was a great outcry against
rain came and spoile4the
the demoralizing effects of gin-shops, one or
14A ~ssss TitonEsAY.---The name of Thoresby two Bishops should have the liar iih d oo to speak
has long been familiar to tho public ear. In the anti- against a Gin Rill (a length to which the htl a
quarian literature oouutry be ranks deservedly high. y
His " Ducatus Leodiensis, or Topography of Leeds," has never gone against any other odious mi.:Asure,
always been a book prized and l opular, and there iy such as sanctioning the Slave Trade for in-
scarcely an antiquary or a distinguished Nattvallkt of his stance) ; and a very pious ant learned clergy-
time with whom he was not ititiT;;;eiy acquainted, and 'man, in hig Memoirs
tanents that our Bishops
'
among others with I'i:y.O.4,SON, GIII.SON. 'the GALES,
`II,Y E 11EARNE
, and BAK KR. DV,t
should s almost all of them be political, and
perb4s lip is best known as the possessor fjf very eater- spend so much of their time not in their own
sive and curious MuseuT 7414 ky ware deposited the dioceses, where they ought both to live and die,
rarest specimens Pi and Paillifl% The forthcoming but tile capital city and in . Parliament. It
piEq, isinA Gorrespowelice of this distinguished individual . may he worth our while to Cake 'Some no • .tree
may consequently be expected to contain a variety oa( s •
e-
original and curious notices of nearly all the lik/rar36.h little good they do there;-either to learning,
and scientific characters who flourished at the dose of tlik morality, or religion ; ttiky being too weir
17th and at the beginning of 1.4 e Wt 4 co;itujies.% known to be little better t tools of the,
,t
. /
- • 44:\
.147Z1W C")::;71.

The prisoner then called witnesses to speak to
his character and conduct, as also to corroborate
some of the statements, especially the one regarding
his answer to Lieutenant White, contained in his
defence.

The Court was then cleared for upwards of an
hour, when it was again opened, and the following
sentence read :