The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-22 00:00:00

I your hands, and though I have not troubled you by
having the whole Report read, yet you must consider it
as read. I might have troubled you by causing the
officer of the Court to read from beginning to end the
whole of these five columns and a half, in one portion
of which, the middle of the third column, is found this
objectionable passage ; not, as I have already shown,
printed in any particular way, not marked in italics,
or in larger characters, or distinguished from
the rest in the slightest degree ; and not charge-
able as a misrepresentation of what had taken
place, or as not giving insertion to the answer
of Mr. Richards. Notwithstanding these circumstances,
Mr. Richards has thought proper, or his attorney, to
commence two actions. Now, gentlemen, I should like
to know what possible advantage is to be gained by Mr.
Richards by instituting these proceedings against Mr.
Young, the proprietor of The Sun newspaper. Mr.
Richards was present at that meeting ; he probably
knew most of the persons there present ; he had the
means in his power of proving the language used by Mr.
Liggins, and which language would most unquestionably
be slanderous, and on which he would be entitled to
maintain an action. If his object, therefore, had been
the vindication of his character, he would have had no-
thing to do but to proceed against Mr. Liggins. Mr.
Liggins might then have put any justification on the re-
cord, and the real parties in dispute would have been at
issue with each other. Mr. Richards might have justi-
fied his character by falsifying the declaration, or Mr.
Liggins might have been able to satisfy the Jury that
he was correct in the statement he had made. What
possible object then could there be in commencing this
action against Mr. Young but to harrass and oppress
him, and to put costs into the pocket of Mr. Lowless
the attorney ? My Learned Friend says the letter written
by Mr. Lowless to Mr. Young was not answered. Why
should it? What was that letter? A letter informing
Mr. Young that it had been determined upon to com-
mence proceedings against him, and requesting to
know the name of his attorney, that the writ
might be sent to him. That is the whole let-
ter ; a word and a blow. It is not, gentlemen, a letter
written to invite any compromise or arrangement. It
does not say, we shall be obliged to institute proceed.
ings against you, unless you make a suitable apology,
or do certain things satisfactory to Mr. Richards ; but
we are instructed to commence an action against you,
and we wish to know the name of your solicitor, in
order that we may send the process to, him. The ac-
tion had been resolved upon, and was not to be pre-
vented by anything Mr. Young might be able to do.
Was he then to call on them, that they might serve
him with the writ, or to assist them otherwise in bring-
ing their action ? He could not. It is difficult to know
what answer could be given. Well, a writ is issued
out, and then Mr. Young goes, and what does he do
Gentlemen, I ask you, and I am entitled to your fa-
vourable answer—what more could Mr. Young do
than he offered to di) for the vindication of Mr.
Richards's character ? Gentlemen, he went for the pur-
pose of making every reparation in his power, but what
did they ask him to do ? To assist them in proving
their case against the Directors, and then the action
should be discontinued against him. Gentlemen,
you may take it for granted that the application
made to send a reporter was an application
made by Mr. Liggins, the Chairman of the
Company. What possible object, then, can be gained
by Mr. Richards, by bringing this action ? He knew
that the Chairman authorised the reporter, and there-
fore that it was an authorised report. An action has
been already commenced against Mr. Liggins. All in-
formation fixes Mr. Liggins with the slander. He is
not prevented from commencing proceedings against
Mr. Liggins for want of proof, with which Mr. Young
could furnish him, because he has the means in his
power of proving the slander, and of establishing his
case against him. Now, what does Mr. Young offer
to do ? Mr. Young does not offer to do that which is
impossible or unnecessary. Mr. Young did not say, I
will give you the name of Mr. Liggins, which would
have been a mockery, because they have his name al-
ready, but Mr. Young said this, " I will publish any-
thing you think proper." Mr. Richards might, if he
had pleased, have insisted that Mr. Young should have
inserted an apology in his newspaper for the report,
and no doubt Mr. Young would' have done so. He
would have expressed his sorrow, as he does upon this
occasion, that the report had found its way int') the
eclumns of his newspaper. It has, I can assure you,
gentlemen, been a subject of great(T uneasiness, and
anxiety, and expense to him. Mr. Young does not
know whether the report is true or not,
and he gave a carte blanche to the opposite
party to insert any thing they thought proper, and they
might have had, if they !leased, a complete vindica-
tion of the character of Mr. Richards as far as the
editor of this newspaper was concerned. Gentlemen,
hear this in mind, I beg of you, that there is a
great difference between the action between Mr.
Liggins and the plaintiff and that between Mr. Young
and the plaintiff. Mr. Liggins stands in a very differ-
ent situation to Mr. Young ; the latter is a stranger to
all the parties ; he bed no to gratify ; he has
expressed his sorrow for what has been done, but this
don't seem to satisfy the parties, and they are deter-
mined to go on against Mr. Young, and then it is made
a charge against that gentleman that he has put in a
plea justifying the libel in the terms in which it ap-
peared in his newspaper. Now that plea, but for my
Learned Friend the Attorney-General, would have
been utterly unknown to you, Gentlemen, or to any
person in Court ; but my Learned Friend thinks it
proper to drag it before you, in order to show you
what his instructions were. Now, he intended to
have met it by proving as true the stigmatising of this
Company, a Company which, I firmly believe, has the
most beneficial objects in view. Mr. Young, finding
that he was the party to be assailed, had
no doubt, the assertion having been made at
a public meeting, that it was true, and such being
his opinion he thought it right, and those who
advised Mr Young, that it was proper to place the plea
upon the record. I am here expressing those senti-
ments which Mr. Young has invariably felt on this sub-
ject. Mr. Young knows nothing of Mr. Richards, and
he therefore can bear him no Mr. Young will
have had to bear the whole penalty of his misfortune in
inserting this report, for he has had to bear all the costs
of this unnecessary proceeding. Oa the part of Mr.
Young, I have nothing more to do than to explain the
circumstances under which this publication was inserted
in order to satisfy you, Gentlemen, that there was no
intentional malignity on his part, or any desire to injure
Mr. Richards. The whole was done for the purpose of
giving information to the public. Mr. Young, I think,
' has a right to complain of being ill-treated, for even to
the last—even at this the twelfth hour—when your
verdict must be pronounced against him, be is ready to
give every reparation to Mr. Richards ; he had never
any des'ire to injure that gentleman ; his only desire
was to keep up the respectability of his own paper, and
he does submit to you through me that Mr. Richards
has an ample opportunity of vindicating his character in
his action against Mr. Liggins, because in that action
lie will be entitled to show his connection with the
Company, and to establish his position, if it be
a true one, that this is a bubble Company, and not as
I maintain a fair and honest Company established for a
most beneficial and legitimate object. It does appear
to me that Mr. Richards is acting, to say the least of
it, a most vindictive part, when he proceeds against the
proprietor of a newspaper who could have no wish to
uphold a fraud, when he has the means, through another
action which he has brought, of preserving himself
from the imputations which he says have been cast upon
him. Under these circumstances, Ido trust, when you
recollect the consequences it must entail of heavy costs
on Mr. Young, and when they might have stopped at
an earlier period—namely, when the writ issued, I do
trust that you will not sanction such proceedings, by
any thing more than nominal damages. I must again
say, that there has been no attempt to impeach the
character of Mr. Richards, and as Mr. Richards
might have got all he wished to get, if he is a reasona-
ble man, as I suppose he is, at small expense, it does
appear to me, that you will beat discharge your duties
by doing for Mr. Richards that which he ought to have
done for himself originally—namely, putting a stop to
these proceedings against Mr. Young, by giving Mr.
Richards only a small measure of damages.
Lord DENMAN shortly summed up, and

The Jury after a short consultation, returned a ver-
dict for the plaintiff—Damages 501.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HO USE.

THE INDEPENDENT AND WEST MIDDLESEX LIFE
AND FIRE ASSURANCE COMPANY.--Sit P. LAURIE sat
on Saturday in the Justice-room, and stated that the
cases of distress, arising from the fraud of the " West
Middlesex Company," crowded in upon him daily. Ho
had not, he said, heard of the report given from a
country paper, stating that the Marquis of Wellesley
had purchased an annuity of the Company for 30,000/.,
voted to him by the East India Company. He was
happy to state, from what Mr. Farquhar had mentioned
to him about the principal annuitants, tha the Mar-
quis of Wellesley bad not placed a farthing in the hands
of the schemers. Indeed, he did not know how any
one who thought for a moment of the nature of the
terms on which the Association professed to grant an-
nuities could be prevailed upon to give credit to its
solvency, Sir Peter Laurie then mentioned that the
Lord Mayor had recieved the following melancholy
epistle from a poor invalid in Ireland :
" 32, Lower Ormond-quay, Dublin,
Feb. 12, 1841.
My Lord,—Events occasionally occur in society
which compel the most timid persons to appear before
the public ; if not to defend themselves against unjust
imputations, at least to claim their sympathy for un-
foreseen misfortunes. This latter is unfortunately my
pi esent fate. An all-wise Providence has been pleased,
now upwards of five years, to visit me with a disease
called chronic gastritis, or chronic inflammation 'of the
stomach, which is one of the most distressing to which
humanity is heir. This unhappy malady is supposed to
be occasioned in part by the translation of rheumatic
inflammation to that vital organ. This rheumatic affec-