The Sun.
London, England, 1823-07-12 00:00:00

OXFORD ASSIZES.

•
---i
Hu eI.PCX.• The former de-
Thursday morning t iese Assizes commenced before Mr.
Justice. PARK and Mr. Baron
livered the following address to the Grand Jury :
" Gentleinen of the Grand .Jury--It is now a considerable
time since I had the honour of attending as Judge of Assize in
this County. I understand that the Calendar is heavier than
has been the case for several previous Assizes. It certainly
is not so heavy as many I have witnessed in this place; but
notwithstanding it is heayy in number, I congratulate you that
it is light in crime ; and certainly this Calendar, and the depo.
sitioes which I have read through, do not present any case of
extreme magnitude for your consideration ; and I should think
it all idle waste of time to attempt to ',rive you any in.
structions upon them, because, if any difficulty occurs in
,the course of your proceedirgs, you know I shall be
Nippy other, you any information -on the nobsUct.—Gen.
'denten, is one thing which I have oubt has
diminished the number of prisoners in other counties, as well
as the _weight of crimes, that is, the introduction of the Tread
Mill. In all cases of imprisonment there was till very lately a
great defect; and thereeetillOtbea greater evil than for men to
rive in idleness; , , . and the continentent of persons in that state is
only calculated... to ve. theta an opportunity off hatching fresh
crime* ; but 1 do r myself that the e eetiye mode of
punishment -to whil allude has been, and will continue to
be, productive of the most beneficial effects. I 'understand.
,that, You:: have net yet adopted it in this County.. I have ,
read a great deal that has been said by it. most respect.
able person (alluding to Sir James Mackintosh's speeches
in Parliament) agatnit that mode of punlehment, in which,
as far as my observation has gone, • and on. examination
of the documents iient round by the Honourable Baronet,
I think the objections generally made to it are completely
unfounded. Anti though it seemed an irksomepunialiment,
yet it does net produce dangerous effects to the health of
those employed; and I think that when a man is in prison he
should not be nving, -hi greater luxury than those he pos in.
ured ; but that ' e should be employed every moment of
ids time during the penalty of his crime, though every ord.
cle ,should be awarded to him that is . necessary for his food
and' ele"liness--There are two new. Acts of Parliament,
which I have Only just received, to which the Royal Assent
was given only a .few days ago. There have been other
Acto'. passes, making alterations -in the Criminal Code....'
certainty diminishing punishment; and -I should have thought
it my duty, as many of you are Magistrates, to have gone
through the various ACM; hit .1 observe that none of the,
offences in this calendar come within the meaning of those Sta.
tutu, fir all crimes committed previously to the naming of the
Act ao not come within its operation. There is one Act which
has made a most immaterial alteration in tilY -situation, and that
of my Ilrother Judges, which I think will be attended with very
beneficial consequences, viz,._gleing the Judges the.power not
to pass sentence of Death where they do Ilai mean t() al.th4 ere.
cution tabe done on the criminal; but they are empowrled to
enter the sentence en the record. All capital convicts who re-
ceive the sentence of Death in future will be left for execution.
With these observations I dismiss you to your duties."
[No Trial of any-particular interest took place.]

FOR THE SUN.

TO THEI POLITICAL ECONOMISTS.

Every British Seaman ought most highly to ap,
predate the advantages you have taken so much
trouble to confer on them, for surely never were
greater proofs of a spontaneous and liberal feel-
ing given towards any deserving set of men than
you have given towards them. This certainly
shews your universal benevolence to all mankind.
When at a time that your native shipping pnd
seamen are in the most depressed state, your un-
bounded goodness and liberal feelings have made
the most strenuous efforts to put those men, who
fought in defence of the Country (many of whom
have bled in the cause), and those of Foreign
Countries who fought to conquer it, on the same
footing by an equal scale of duties, under the
fallacious reciprocity of the new school ; thus
are they placed in direct competition with the
most miserable of all Foreign States, with every
disadvantage of capital and taxation against the
British, which must have the salutary effect of
grinding down their capital to the lowest compe-
titor, and of keeping them struggling with poverty
for the remainder of their lives.
This is a most admirable method to break and
curb proud spirits, such as they possessed, and it
is hoped will most effectually prevent them from
again domineering over the ocean, as bkey have
been accustomed to do, and will likewise have
the good effect of teaching them one of those
promised steps towards the true principles of
Political Economy (which other classes, in due
time, are to be blessed with, if they will bear it,
viz. equalization, reciprocity, alias beggary), as
this system will soon leave them little to pur-
chase with, they will then by compulsion be very
economical.
If you had allowed the continuance of the laws
to protect them, they would still have continued
very saucy fellows, which must have been very
humiliating to the feelings of all those countries
which so long suffered from their unbounded ar-
dour ; they most unmercifully took, sunk, burnt,
and destroyed according to their orders; this was
in the old School termed bravery, in the new it
is hereafter to go by the name of barbarism.
But the very liberal principles you have so
wisely recommended will employ and encourage
foreign seamen, and bring about a reciprocity
ready either for offensive or defensive measures,
as those countries may need,and this arising from
the reciprocity of their extending commerce, so
that the British seamen,. when reduced in num-
bers, and kept poor, will he more sober and more
obedient.
Indeed there are so many good points in those
sublime theories, that it is astonishing that Don
Quixote, Catterfelto, or some such exalted ge-
nius, never before found out this great state-
secret," that to make a nation great and powerful,
was to reduce the means by which that greatness
had been acquired ! This secret, most high and
mighty Political Economists, was left for your
capacious heads to discover ; in this we see the
great cause there is for the triumph of this new
era—for how silly must have been our Cromwell,
Clarendon, Temples, Chatham, Liverpool, and
Pitt, when
,eatending our r ayide iiidhafs cramped our exportsoolishly employing our
to conquer islands and thecol mostnies strenuous nuous
therebyeffoerxt
own
in foreign bottoms, and operated so much to our
disadvantage, That Oliver Cromwell, every one
knows, was a usurper of power, and a very spite-
ful fellow, and prevented the harmless Dutch
from carrying on the commerce of this Country

in their ships, and thereby prevented them from
pocketing our freights ; the means he took to
prevent this was by enacting that invidious, un-
gracious, and unwise maritime law, which your
more comprehensive minds have laboured so hard
to abrogate,—this ambitious man loved power,
and having once obtained it, studied how to
maintain and render insulated England inde-
pendent of and formidable to other states.
But your philanthropic minds, soar so much
above him and all those who followed bins in

this invidious and ambitious mode of rearing ma-
ritime strength, by means of maritime commerce
(even up to the time of the first Earl of Liver-
pool was this barbarous practice followed, which
has been the cause of many wars to secure that

foolish thing called a pre-eminence on the ocean),
that by the act of reciprocity each nation will now
share in the benefits which, happily for the uni-
verse, you are supposed to have founded in the
true principles of free trade—a secret which will
for ever prevent wars, and by which all maritime
commercial dealings in future must be regulated;
this secret no►►e of the old plain men had found
out, -not being then blessed with the magic
of the illuminato, nor the wisdom of political
economy.

Wu liope that you are confident in your own
minds that you have found out this great State
Secret; therefore the Nation confidently relies on
your wisdom; it is pretty evident that you never
have as yet explained what the practical bearings
of your sublime conceptions will be when fully

in operation ; they remain as yet altogether in-
comprehensible to us poor weak mortals. But
the practical effects perhaps should be kept from
the knowledge of ignorant impatient practitioners,
as it is an understood principle with political
economists that those men who learn a profession
know the least of it.

Taking this rule, why should you explain
the leading secrets of your. brains to this im-
patience ?—for should you only say a few words,
some practical fellow might not be satisfied with
your sublime ideas—therefore you had much
better take Justice Solemn for your guide, and
say nothing, for if (there is mach virtue in if)
your sublime ideas should fail, after you have
destroyed your Marine Materiel, as was the case
with that great man Napoleon Buoniaparte (who
said, that between the sublime and the ridicu-
lous there was only one step), still you will
have the satisfaction of having destroyed au old
code of laws, which, according to your own shew.
ing, was deservedly held in veneration by every
British subject that code which made England
the wealthiest Nation, and the greatest Maritime
Power in the world; therefore the people must
have been satiated with luxuries and 1111 other
good things, before a change could be introduced,

and thee it must have required a long series of
sophistries to overcome the prejudices of old
custom, and then by turning what was limited
for a national benefit into a universal one, on the
principles of a free trade, which is sure to ruin
the rich nation which grants it.
Those principles you must now maintain, whe-
ther successful or not, as long as you live—if
they ruin the country, you must boldly assert
that the new system has not had time to shew
its wonderful operation; this is sure to find cre-
dulous believers—and the execrations or bless-
ings which will follow you to the graves, will not
be heard in your coffins—liberal feelings will in
this way doom the Seamen of Great Britain to
compete with those hordes which will issue to
oppose them from the barren rocks of Norway,
Sweden, and the Baltic Sea, and their penury,
must correspond with that of their opponents.
The British Seamen are a rough race, and a
Foreign Consul will not be able to procure a vote
of thanks from them for any of those who have
rendered them this service; they still smack of
the old stock, and many of them are too far sailed
to be gulled with sophistries-64 they know
hawk from a hand saw."

They know the difference between a protec-
tion which is more necessary to them than to any
other class of men in the State ; they have con-
stituted at all times the outward bulwarks of
Empire ; while they were fighting the battles of
the country, their future welfare was bartered
away (at Ghent) for bales of cotton, and by fol-
lowing up this humiliating concession, they are
to he stripped of all protection, their prospetts
are all blasted, and their efforts rendered useless,
on a speculative chance of serving the manufac•'
turing interest. This is the liberal feeling of the
new school towards them; they are perfectly sen-
sible of the usage they have received for all their
past services; they are plain men, but will not be
caught with words in lieu of deeds; they did not
serve the country in that way ; as a proof, they
may fairly appeal to the Scotch motto, "let deeds
show,"—they are fully satisfied that the Legis-
lature must either give them that necessary pro-
tection which the maniacal delusions for free
trade have taken from them, or that the natural
bulwarks of British Liberty are in a rapid state of
decline; that the restoration, if made, will not be
given as a boon, nor craved as a boon, as most
eroneously held out; but will be as an essential and
indispensible measure for the security of the
State, and in which every man that holds liberty
dear to him, or has a stake to lose, from the King
to the Peasant, will join, with the exception of
the visionaries who are acting under a delusion
of incorrect information.

FATAL EFFECTS OF LiTOXICATION•— The
neighbourhood of Shoe-lane was on Thursday
thrown into great alarm by a person having .
broken her neck in King's Head-court. It ap-,
pears that a man and his wife, named Lewis,
have lived in King's Head-court for a series of
years, and Mrs. Lewis had an unfortunate pro-
pensity for drink. On Wednesday night she
came home about eleven o'clock in a state of in—
toxication ; a quarrel took place between her
husband and herself, but after some time the
noise ceased ; Thursday morning the landlord of
the house saw the unfortunate woman at the
bottom of the stairs. On lifting her up he per-
ceived her head droop, and discovered that her
t enrecal ary
Greatmorni
ufir tries fires
neck was broken. She soon expired.
ng
a Fs
h Flats.—. Yesterday
shoemaker's, eir es s ,be o
Holborn,e out
at
and at an eating-house in East Smithfield, but
the flames did not extend at either place.
A turkey cock found the nest of a common hen In the stack
yard, with ten eggs in it. He took possession, and sat upon
the eggs for three weeks, till they were hatched;
and
hew
bringing up the chickens with the greatest attention. is
no

COAL-MARKET, JULY 11.
Ships at Market. Ships sold Price.
119 Newcastle - - 113 -33 s Od to 44's ili
49 Sunderland - - 32 -32 s Od to 448 9d
0 Scotch Coal - - 0 - —s Od to --:-s Od

COURSE OF EXCHANGE, July 11.
imstel dam
Ditto, at Sight
Rotterdam
Antwerp l2 IQ
Hamburg!' 3B 4 2+ (is
Aitotia
Paris, 3 Day's siva- 4A 90 0 Us.
Ditto
Cotirdeaux, ditto
Fratiltforton the Alain
Nlacirill
Cadiz

36. Effective
354
354

11)lhoa
Barcelona
ieville

Gibraltar
Leghorn
Goma 434-Venicr, Ital. Liv. 48 10
Malta .15 -Naples 39
Palermo
Lisbon
Oporto
Itio.laneiro
Doblin .... 9i Curl( 9i pet Cent.