The Sun.
London, England, 1822-04-22 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, APRIL 20.
THE JOHN BULL NEWSPAPER.

'WAITHMAN V. WEAVER, SHACKELL, ANV ARROWSMITH
[Farther Particulars.]
This case came on to be tried at half-past nine o'clock on Sa-
turday morning, before which time every part of the Court was
crowded to excess. Messrs. Sc ARLETT, GURNEY, and CA mp-
BE LL, appeared as Counsel for the plaintiff.; and Mr. Ser-
geant VAUGHAN, Mr. PULLER, and Mr. CHITTY, for the
defendants. Mr. IVaithman sat during the trial among the
Counsel without the Bar. Eight. special jurors answered to,
their names, of whom one was excused by consent, and five
common jurymen were sworn, on a tales being prayed for the
plaintiff: . .

Mr. CasIPBELL stated that this action was brought by Ro-
bert Waithman, Esq. to recover damages for two libels, pub-
lished by the defendants, in a newspaper called The John Bull,
imputing to him that he had received stolen goods, and com-
mitted perjury. The defendants had pleaded that they were
" not guilty."
Mr. SCARLETT then proceeded to address the Jury. The
plaintiff; Mr. Alderman Waithman, was, he said, too well
known among them to require that he should, in that place,
say any thing respecting his public or private character. The
part which the plaintiff had taken in politics had necessarily
exposed him to the' violent animosities of his opponents, and
to free remarks on his conduct, of which, while they were con-
fined to his public life, he had no reason to complain. A lia-
bility to this species of observation was the price paid for ce-
lebrity, especially in a country divided into parties like this
but such political hostility implied nothing base, nothing dis-
honourable, nothing ungenerous, nothing whica ought even
to disturb individual friendship. But the attack for which
Mr. Waithman now sought redress was not directed
against his public character, but against his honour as a
man, and his integrity as a tradesman. It had been his
good fortune, in a long life of blameless industry, to
acquire a numerous class of friends, many of whom dif-
fered from him in political opinion,. but who yet were ever
ready to bear testimony to his private virtues. The de-
fendants on the record also were not unknown to fame. It
would be mere affectation in him (Mr. Scarlett) to pretend not
to know that they enjoyed high eminence among those conduc-
tors of the press who regarded a traffic in libel as a source of
honourable gain. Unhappily there was something in our na-
ture, apparently in its original cast, which even the best of men
could not entirely subdue, disposing us to be gratified with an
expOsure of the vices or follies of others; and thus, if a
Newspaper be established on the principle of sparing none
—of respecting no religious, no moral, no political feel-
ing—of attacking, right and left, the private characters of all
men without remorse, it would meet with considerable success.
The defendants boasted that they had succeeded so well in this
infamous traffic, as to be able to pay any damages which the
Jury might assess. Mr. Waithman came before them only as
a private individual, as a tradesman who had for many years
sustained an unblemished character, to know what compensa-
tion he should receive for the slanders of men to whom he had
given no offence, who were excited by no provocation, but who
had said that the appearance of any man in support of a public
cause gave them a right to destroy his means of honest liveli-
hood, and to inflict the keenest agony on his mind. This was
the morality of which they made open profession. Formerly
the game of politics was regarded as a game of honour, into
which it was thought base to introduce the private failings of
an antagonist, and far more to invent them ; but now all sense
of delicacy and justice was to be taken from it, and it was to
give scope for every slander which malice could devise. If
this became the general morality of the press, it must soon be
destroyed, for its social relations could not long co-exist with
its envenomed contests. The defendants thought fit to imagine,
that Mr. Waithman, who then held the office of Sheriff of
London, intended to offer himself as a candidate for the mayor-
alty—a design of which he was wholly unconscious, but which
they thought sufficient to authorize any slander which might
prevent his success. Was this to be palliated by the heats of
political strife ? He (Mr. Scarlett) knew not how other men
might feel, but he would take the liberty to express his own
belief, that they who would thus employ the press, ought not
to be estimated differently from the bravos who lent out their
arms to assassinate, in the dark, those whom their paymasters
marked out for their vengeance. He had read of such mon-
strous societies in other countries, though there were none in
our own. In that celebrated novel " Don Quixote," two young
men, earlyproficients in fraud, were represented as discovering.,
with astonishment, a society at Seville, organized on the most
regular system, with its president, officers, and books of ac-
count, for gratifying the animosity of all who chose to deal with
them, having a graduated scale of charge for every species of
personal injury ; as, for example, so much for cutting off a nose,
so much for a given number of kicks, so much for so many stabs
of a poinard, so that each man might indulge his peculiar
fancy. All the accounts were fairly balanced once a week with
the customers, who, of course, concealed their names, and who
yet had full opportunity of ascertaining that they were honestly
dealt with, that the contract was fulfilled—that the blow, the
thrust, the wound bargained for, had been justly inflicted.—
Could such an association exist here, and the names of its
meml?ers fae known, how would society rise to put down so

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1822.

atrocious a combination, and every man in the rank of a gen,.
tleman shun every one of its associates with horror ! Yet was
there not some parallel in our own time to guilt like this ? Sup-
pose three or four individuals to associate—to open an office to
receive information from all nameless slanderers, and to dole
it out for the purposes of political vengeance—though they stab-
bed only the character and tortured only the heart, would not
their offence be of a similar colouring ? But, unhappily, there
was something in man's nature, gratified by the exhibition,
which screened these dastardly offenders, and swelled their
gains ; for the defendants boasted, that from 8,000 to 11,000
copies of their paper weekly circulated among men of all parties
in the State. He would now inform them how he should bring
home the charge of publication to .the defendants. In 1820,
when the paper was projected, they all made affidavit at the
Stamp-office that MT aver was its printer, and the other two its
sole proprietors; and that it would be printed in Dyer's Build-
ings, Holborn. This last assertion was a falsehood, for it ne-
ver was printed in Dyer's Buildings, but in Johnson's-court,
Fleet.:street. In February, 1821, the papet having acquired a
disgraceful celebrity, and the parties becoming conscious of
their danger, Weaver, a mere journeyriiiin till then; ventured
to make affidavit that he was not only printer, but publisher
and sole proprietor of the John Bull. Notwithstanding this
affidavit, he would show, beyond all doubt, that Shackell and
Arrowsmith retained an interest in the work—that they took an
active part in all its concerns, paid the workmen, rented the
hOuse, were combined in all its operation's, and that one of them
Made a declaration, that his own share in the profits was 201.
a week. He came now to lay the particular libels before them.
In the paper of Sunday, the 9th, and Monday, the 10th Sep-
tember, 1821, the author thought fit to suppose a meeting of
the Common Council assembled to investigate the clainis of
Mr. Waithman to the Mayoralty, and that he was first exa-
mined by his friends, and then cross-examined by others. The
whole assumed a ludicrous form ; but they would not suffer
this to divert them from the malice beneath; they would en-
tertain no better opinion of the assassin, who can smile as he
plunges the dagger into the heart of his victim,—who can ridi-
cule the agonies he inflicts, and invite admiration to the air of
grace and felicity with which he pursues his murderous trade.
Mr. Waithman had selected such passages only of this pretend-
ed dialogue as assailed his character as a man ; for lie would be
the last person in the world to complain of the coarsest attacks
made on his political career. They would perceive that, in
such a libel, each of the contributors had his allotted part ; one
furnished the raw materials, the second dressed it up in a light
and attractive form ; and the three defendants then were ready
to introduce it to the world. The examination began thus :
" You are Sheriff of Middlesex, Mr. Waithman ?—I am.
" And an Alderman ?—I am.

" And a linen-draper ?—Yes.
" You wish to be Lord Mayor next year ?—That is my pre-
sent intention.

" You were once in Parliament, I believe ?—I was.
" How comes it you are not in Parliament now ? I really
cannot say.

" On What are your pretensions to Mayoralty founded ?
On my general conduct as a man and a tradesman ; my prin-
ciples as a son, a husband, and a friend ; my love of liberty,
the purity of election, Magna Charta, and the Trial by Jury;
my constant attention to the duties of my present office, my zeal
for the rights of the people, my abhorrence of despotism, my
hatred of military Government, all the acts of my political life,
and, above all, my esteem for injured innocence.
" Have you any other qualifications !—Some few more which
I could not recapitulate without appearing vain.
" Has any gentleman a wish to ask Mr. Waithman any
questions ?—Several.
" The members of the meeting proceeded to cross-examine
the candidate.

" You said you were a linen-draper, I believe ?—Yes, I
think I did ; in fact I did say so.
" A wholesale merchant, I conclude ?—No, not exactly ; a
retail dealer.

" What, am I to understand that you are the retail linen-
draper who sells contraband goods in Fleet-street ?--I am the
Robert Waithman who sells shawls and Bandanas.

" You buy them too, I believe, sometimes ?—lf I did not,
I could not sell them.

" lam not quite so sure of that, Sir. (A laugh). Pray, do
you recollect two shawls which were sold by Messrs. John
Cooper and Co., of Bond-street, for 95 guineas, to a man, for
which he gave a draft that was not paid ; and do you recollect
buying the shawls of this strange man the same evening, and
paying him the next morning 50 guineas for them ; and do you
not recollect that the matter was referred to arbitration, and that
you were obliged to give the shawls back to Messrs. Cooper
and Co. ?—I do not recollect any thing about it ; when did it
take place ?
• " Don't you remember, in the year 1808 P—l cannot charge
my memory with any thing so far back."
With this vague answer was the matter left until the next
week, when the mock-examination was continued, and the sub-
ject of the shaws thus resumed. Mr. Waithman is supposed to
be called in, and asked,
" Have you any observation to make on your last examina-
tion ?—I would merely say that I do recollect the circum-
stances about Cooper's shawls, and that I saw the propriety of
returning them, after the decision of Messrs. Moorhall and
Kesteven.

" You saw the propriety of returning them ?—I
" But you withheld them, I believe 2—l did as long as I
could, because the decision of the arbitrators was not written
on stamped paper, as the act directs.
" And you think there was nothing extraordinary in purchas-
ing two shawls for 50 guineas, at night, of a stranger?—No-
thing ?—I am by no means particular in such cases.
" Did you know the shawls were worth more than 50 guineas
when you bought them ?—I am not likely to have given more
than they were worth.
" Had you ever seen the shawls before ?—I cannot say.
" Did you know that they were bought at Cooper's ?—How
should I ?
" Had you not sold one of them to Cooper a short time befoTe
for 391.?—Why yes, I believe I did ; but I did not recollect it
at the time.

" Did not your young man in the shop say, This is one of
Cooper's shawls' looking at one of those brought you for sale ?
—He might. Irather think he did.

" A nd-as you did not pay the man who brought them to you
that night, did you send no message to Messrs. Cooper upon
the subject ?—I did not.

" Did you know the person who brought the shawls for sale?
—I was quite convinced he was a respectable person, which
quieted my apprehensions.
" Oh ! you had some apprehensions ?—Why, if I had ap-
prehended the person _
" You would have done your duty, Mr. Sheriff: Do you
know who the person was ?—I think I have-heard.
" 'Was it not Roberts, who has since been tried at the Old
Bailey, and who escaped from Cold Bath-fields House of Cor-
rection ?—lt might have been • but I trust this Committee will
not suspect that I was personally acquainted with him at the
time."

Could any one doubt that the object of this was to represent
that Mr. Waithman had bought shawls at a price far below
their value from a notorious swindler, which he had especial
reason to know could not have come into his hands by honest
means, and under circumstances which would have justified the
detention of the seller ? The plaintiff felt his honour deeply
affected by the charge ; he called for inquiry ; he gave oppor-
tunity to his slanderers to prove the veracity of their assertions;
and what did they then do ? They shrunk back from an inves-
tigation of the truth of the libel, and merely denied that they
had published it. 'Was this a situation fitting for an English
subject--the master of a family—after forty years of honour-
able exertion ! Was he to be circumstantially charged with
receiving stolen goods, and then when he challenged inquiry, to
find his libellers shrinking back and saying merely that they
did not publish this : if they did, it was done without malice,
and no damage had been sustained from a calumny which his
family must feel to the latest moment of their lives. It was the
greatest favour the defendants could have done him—the only
reparation in their power—to justify and enable him to prove
in the face of day that the calumnies were as false as they
were foul. Were a man tamely to submit to such an imputa-
tion, even though he held no conspicuous situation, could he
expect any person of honour to associate with one branded
thus with fraud and felony ? But this was not all. The libel
went on to make a distinct charge of perjury. Mr. Waithman
was asked whether he did not return his income at 601. while
carrying on his present trade, which he was represented as ad-
mitting amidst the laughter of the spectators. H e was then ask-
ed, " Did you not make that return on oath ?" and represented
as replying in the affirmative.
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE here observed, that this could
not be true, as the first return never was made on oath.
Mr. SCARLETT assented ; and proceeded to read and com-
ment on the libel, which distinctly imputed to Mr. Waithman

that, after making this statement on oath, he was surcharged
8001. per annum : that he never appealed ; but that he only
paid the tax when compelled by process of law. There were
many other questions and answers referring to subjects long
ago satisfactorily explained to the world, but they were framed
with so much ingenuity as not to forma. afe round of action.
On these two distinct imputations of receiving stolen goods
and of perjury, the plaintiff now sought compensation at their
hands. He appealed with confidence to a British Jury, who
would take nothing into consideration, but that one of them-
selves had been thus slanderell—that the circulation of the libel
bad been most extensive—and that his public character (not
otherwise of importance to-day) sent the wound deeper into his
vitals. Had it been alleged of A, B, or C— of sonde indivi-
dual whose name was unknown beyond his own social circle—
however painful the effect, it would be temporary, for the world
would not know ivho was intended, and his friends would be sa-
tisfied with a private explanation, which would easily be given.
But when the calumny was directed against an individual of
hotoriety in the world—against a magistrate high in office,
whose name was familiar to multitudes who where strangers to
his person, the evil was incalculably greater. Under these cir-
cumstances, he appealed to their justice—to nothing else would
he appeal—for damages as exemplary as ever were given in a
case of libeL What would the feelings of one of themselves
be, if, after 40 years of honourable toil, he had obtained a situa-
tion entitling him to become a candidate for civil distinctions—
if he had uplifted his own name by his exertions in the eyes of
his fellow-citizens—to find it made a mark for an attack of this
kind, and his distinction employed to spread more widely a
charge that he was a receiver of stolen goods, and stained with
perjury and fraud ? With what feelings could he go back to
his dwelling and look in the faces of his wife and children, con-
scious that he was branded as a perjurer and a felon, by a ca-
lumny extensive as the press ? What words could describe
his feelings, if he should know, that, having sons grown up to
manhood, they would be unable to go into any town in the
kingdom, without seeing this imputation on their father, when
no means of vindication were at hand ? This was not an ima-
ginary case ; one of the plaintiff's sons had actually gone
into a public room at a watering-place, where he found
this atrocious newspaper on the table, the theme of dis-
cussion, and retreated with bitterness and shame. Hap-
pily there was in this country a tribunal by which appro-
priate redress might be awarded for every degree of injury—
happily,"indeed, he might well say—for without this there would
be found some injuries which infirmity could never sustain.—
That Being who made us reasonable, made us also resentful ;
and how could a man thus calumniated, or his family, bear
such a stigma unredressed—must they not wipe it out with
blood ? In other countries, where no such tribunal existed,
men thus sought their revenge ; and if here, Juries should be
found averse to give ample damages for the deepest injuries, to
what a condition would this Empire be reduced, under the con-
trol of passion instead of law ? If the appeal were not to our
equals, to men of the same habits, station, and sympathies, but
to the will of a suspected judge, we should soon be brought to
that wild and fierce state of nature, in which every man would,
be the judge and the avenger of his own wrongs. "I trust,"
exclaimed Mr. Scarlett, " that your verdict this day will be a
salutary lesson ; that it will administer full consolation to the
plaintiff; that it will sustain the majesty of the laws, and • im-
press on the heart of every British subject that he will find from
the hands of a Jury that ample redress which he may not seek
with his own. Whoever is the author of these elaborate calum-
nies—whether his Vile instruments will ever disclose his name,
I know not ; but you will teach them, that if they lend them.
selves to this abominable traffic, they must bear all its conse-
quences ; you will feel that no compassion is due to those who
thus, in cold blood, assist in the circulation of libels for gain ;
nay, that they are baser and more wretched even than theauthors,
as the assassin who hires outhis arm for half-a-crown hasless ex-
cuse than his employer, who may have some human passion to ex-
cite him. I know my Learned Friend can have no evidence to offer,
I have therefore fully addressed you now ; and I sit down leav-
ing the case with confidence in your hands, only admonishing
the defendants, that if they dare again ,to publish falsehoods
against the plaintiff, he will again meet them in this Court as
often as they assail him, before juries ready to follow that ex-
„ample which you are about to set them."
Mr. Charles Crepley produced three affidavits from the
Stamp-office ; one dated Dec. 15,1820, made by all the defend.
ants, and alleging that Weaver was printer, and the others pro-
Drietors of the John Bull, which they intended to print at
yer's-buildings ; one dated February 10, 1821, by Weaver
only, deposing that he was printer, publisher, and sole proprie-
tor ; and one dated Feb. 24, also by Weaver, repeating the
same statement; and adding that the paper would in future be
printed in Johnson's-court.
The witness, in answer to a question of Mr. Sergeant
VauonArr, stated that when there was a change of proprietor-
ship, it was not necessary for the former prorrietors to join in
the new affidavit, and that there was no other affidavit by
Shackell or Arrowsmith than that of Dec. 15, 1820 ; on which
Mr. SCARLETT said, " Oh, I'll concede to my Learned
Friend that his clients would have made any affidavit which was
necessary on the occasion."

Mr. Hill deposed that he had been for 4 years and a half in
hhe employ of Mr. Pontifex, an attorney, occupying the ground
oor of the house, No. 9, Dyer's-buildings, Holborn, where
Mr. Weaver came to reside about Christmas, 1820, but he had
never seen or heard of any newspaper being printed or published
on the premises.
William Marsh was then examined by Mr. GURNEY. He
had only stated that he was collector of the watch-rate and
King's taxes in the parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, where
Johnson's-court is situate, when Mr. Sergeant VAUGHAN in-
terposed and suid, that to save his Learned Friends trouble, he
would admit the publication by all the defendants.
Mr. Benjamin Bensley, a printer, was then called, and de-
posed, that he worked off two numbers of the Monday edition
of the John Bull, in January, 1821, and that the paper was
then printed in Johnson's-court.
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.-1 do not see how this is ma-
terial, as the.correctness of the statement of the place of the
publication is not material to the proof which the statute has
supplied. _ -

Mr. GURNEY.—It is a part of the whole system of disguise,
my Lord.
The witness proceeded to state, that Weaver had left his ser-
vice to go into that of Shackell and Arrowsmith. He was a
reader to the paper—that is, one who corrects the proofs before
the working off' of the impression. He remembered Shackell
inquiring of him, in Jan. 1821, if he could recommend some
one else in Weaver's place, as he was not satisfied with his ser-
vices. He remembered Shackell's once telling him that the
profits of the paper were very considerable, but did not recol-
lect his saying that his own share was 201. or 301. a-week, nor
that the witness ever expressed to Shackell his own indignation
at any articles in the John Bull. The Monday edition was
about 2000, but he could not say of how many the Sunday edi-
tion consisted.

The passages charged as libellous were then read by Mr.
ABBOTT, the Counsel for the defendants waving their right to
have the whole of the articles read. A number of the paper of
August, 1821, was also put in, containing an affidavit of
"Weaver, that between 7,000 and 10,000 copies of the paper had
been sold weekly in the preceding month.
Mr. Sergeant VAUGHAN then addressed the Jury for the
defendants. In rising to comment on the merits, or as Mr.
Scarlett would say, the demerits of this notable cause, he
felt no small anxiety for its issue. The parties on the record
were well known to the public, who evidently took no small
interest in the decision. Mr. Waithman, the'plaintiff, had long
excited the attention of the world ; few persons had made more
noise in their time ; he had acquired popularity, doubtless ;
but whether of that kind which follows or which is pursued, he
(Mr. Sergeant Vaughan) would not determine. Unquestion-
ably he had a right to come before a Jury for the vindication of
his character, which was as much deserving of the protection of
law as property or life. The defendants were engaged in a task
of great delicacy,—a work of difficulty and danger ; but they
would not shrink from the responsibility to which they were
liable as the publishers of a public journal. There were other
modes in which Mr. Waithman might have proceeded to vindi-
cate his character, besides this action for damages. He might,
being then in the high office of Sheriff; have moved the Court
of King's Bench for a criminal information, in which case
he must in the first instance have purged himself by affi-
davit of all the charges implied in libel. He might also have
preferred an indictment against the defendants, and thus
have submitted himself to interrogatories in open Court re-
specting the whole of those transactions to which allusion had
been made. He had pursued neither of these couises, and, as
the defendants had put no justification on the- record, they
could not now maintain the truth of their assertions. The libel,
to which their attention would now be directed, contained three
charges against the plaintiff—that he was a dealer in contra-
band goods—that he received shawls under peculiar circum-
stances—and that he had committed perjury on his return of his