The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-12 00:00:00

GREAT BRITAIN ANI) THE

UNITED STATES.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS.
(From the islet!) York Express of the 19th ult.)
" The Report in the House of the Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations is one of the trashiest
official farrago of words we ever read—so trashy even,
that it would hardly pass muster for an editorial article
in the loudest demand for, and absence of, all other
copy. It has in it neither dignity nor a good construc-
tion of the English language, and were it the work
of a college Sophomore, it would be discreditable to the
writer. There is an air of smartness in it, very peculiar
to the Honourable Member for South Carolina, but
very disreputable to the Hon. Chairman of a Com-
mittee of the House of Representatives, so that it is
in many respects as improper and as mean a public
document as ever emanated from any tentli-rate public
functionary. It comes nearly up to the blustering
bravado of Governor Fairfield, the hero of the cam-
paign of the Madawaska, though the logic in it is not
half so meritorious as that of the Maine Commander-
in- Chief.
" The reasoning of Mr. Pickens upon the case of
the steam-boat Caroline, and M'Leod, will pass for
what it is worth, though he has very poorly argued here
upon the claims of nations to violate each other's terri-
tory, and made but a miserable case for his country-
men, when he might have made a good one ; but we
pass from all this to comment upon the style, tone,
and manner of the Report, which is a disgrace to the
House of Representatives for even sanctioning its pub-
lication. _ _

" In the opening of the Report, Mr. Pickens speaks
of an insinuation' of the British Minister, which might
well be ' retorted,' and then goes on sneeringly, in a
grave official report, to speak of Great Britain 'in the
plenitude of its power,' casting the aegis of British
jurisdiction over American soil,'—following on with the
idea the t ' the British Minister is pleased to call the
Caroline a piratical steam-boat,' to conclude with the
remark, that the loose epithets of any one, no matter
how high in plaee, cannot make that piiaey which the
law of nations does not recognise as such.' We are
then told in a subsequent paragraph what is disgraceful
to us if true, and which, therefore, a Committee on
Foreign Relations should not publish to the world, that
—' There is an assumption in most of our intercourse
with Great Britain revolting to the pride and spirit of
independence in a free people' (a flourish of rhetoric
this, sadly out of place) whereupon we are urged
further on, not in words though, but in the tone
of the style, and the rhetorical sputter of the
sentences to be mighty smart in showing off our
pluck—at lea,t so to swagger as to seem
to be born insensible to fear.' Further on, we are
toll, the demand for M'Leod is ' preposterous in the
extreme,' as if this were fit diplomatic language, and
not disgraceful to the parties employing it ; when Mr.
Pickens, in the progress of his logic, concludes with
the remark, that in this case, the demand for libera-
tion has been made by the accredited agent of a great
Power, and under circumstances of peculiar aggrava.
tion and excitement.'

" The most absurd and out-of-place part of the Re-
port, however, is, the dissertation of the Honourable
Gentleman, political and geographical, upon the power
of Great Britain, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Ame-
rica ; as if, when his Committee was charged with two
specific cases, that of the Caroline' and of
he had a right to print a treatise upon Gibraltar,'
Malta,' the lonian Islands,' St. Jean d'Acre,' St.
Helena," Halifax," Bermuda,' China,' Trinidad,'
and the Caribbean Sete—with `steam power' to boot,
and seine additional grave disse►tations, to wit, that
a. arice and ambition are the ruling passions of mo-
dern times, and it is its vain to shut our eyes to the
state of things around us.' [lndeed !—important, too,
it is so new I]
" It is in vain to shut our eye!, though, to the fact,
that 'Mr. Pickens is a very great swaggerer in words,
and has made a Report in Congress disreputable in logic,
disreputable in tone, expression, mid character, and in
the worst .d taste. What does the man mean ? If there
assumption' in oar intercourse with Great Britain
revOltiog to the pride and spirit of independence in a
free people, it was the duty of this great swaggerer to
end his Report with a resolution for the declaration of
war, or for direct taxes forthwith, and an appropriation
of a hundred millions of dollars to prepare. If Great
Britain's `accredited agent' makes demands of us pre-
posterous in the extreme, and under circumstances of
peculiar aggravation,' why not forthwill recommend a
conscription of one hundred thousand men, a fortified
garrison of ten thousand for Detroit, another of twenty
thousand for Buffalo, and so on, with twenty millions
of dollars for steam-ships to defend Om coast ? If Great
Britain demands what is revolting to our spirit and pride
as a free people, preposterously, and in the extreme, aggra-
vating us ton, the remedy at least is preparation for
war, for which this Boanerges of South Carolina makes
not the least preparation.
" The object of the South Carolina swaggerer is pal-
pable, however, in all this utterance of words. Mr.
Granger, i❑ the course of the debate, beat what he well
called `the bag of wind,' and Mr. Adams let it out of
the bags. Mr. Pickens was making a party Report, he
told us, and it came from the Committee by a party
vote. ' A defeated enemy in war was abandoning a
tenement, and setting fire to it upon their retreat.'
Now that Mr. Pickens's party had lost the control of
the Government, if words would set it on fire in new
hands, he meant to leave enough to burn it up. To a
bankrupt treasury lie wished to add the bequest of a
war. To foreign affairs, now already complicated enough
by the want of management, he wished to add more of
complication. The train might not reach—the fire
might not catch well. Mr. Pickens would prepare it
all, apply the torches, and run to South Carolina ; the
last we should probably ever hear of him in case of war
though born insensible to fear.'"
CASE OF THE AMISTAD. -•-• The following cor-
respondence between the British Minister and the Se-
cretary of State has been communicated by the Pre-
sident to Congress :

" MR. FOX TO MR. 2ORSYTH.

Washington, Jan. 20, 1840.
Sir—l am instructed to represent to you that the at-
tention of her Majesty's Government has been seriously
directed to the case of certain African negrocs, found on
board the Spanish ship Amistad, the same persons whose
case had been brought before the Courts of law of the
United States, and for whom a powerful and humane in-
terest appears to be felt in this country as well as in Eng-
land.

" It is known to her Majesty's Government that those ne-
groes were imported into Cuba direct from the coast of
Africa, in a Portuguese slave-vessel, called the Tecora, in
the summer of 1839, and that shortly after their arrival, they
were purchased as slaves at the Havannah by two Spaniards
of the names of Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez. Ruis and
Montez then placed the negroes on board the Arnistad, in-
tending to convey them to another port in Cuba. It ap-
pears that during the voyage, the negroes, with a view of
recovering their liberty, seized possession of the vessel, put
the master to death, and ordered the remaining whites to
navigate the vessel to the coast of Africa. The whites,
however, directed their course towards North America, un-
til they were fallen in with by the United States brig of
war Washington, when the Amiatad was finally brought
into the port of New London, in Connecticut. The pro-
ceedings which have taken place subsequently to the ar-
rival of the negroes in the United States are sufficiently
well known to you.
" Now her Majesty's Government have to observe that,
since the year 1820, it has become unlawful, according to
the law of Spain, to import negroes from Africa as slaves
into the Spanish dominions, and that, as the negroes here
referred to had been newly imported from Africa into
Cuba, and could not by law be imported as slaves, they
must, in the eye of the law, be considered as free persons.
" And Great Britain is also bound to remember that the
law of Spain, which finally prohibited the slave trade
throughout the Spanish dominions from the date of the
30th of May, 1820 (the provisions of which law arc con-
tained in the King of Spain's Royal Cedula of the 19th of
December, 1817), was passed in compliance with a treaty
obligation to that effect, by which the Crown of Spain had
bound itself to the Crown of Great Britain, and for which
a valuable compensation in return was given by Great
Britain to Spain, as may be seen by reference to the se-
cond, third, and fourth articles of a public treaty con-
cluded between Great Britain:and Spain on the 23d of Sep.
tember, 1817.
" Her Majesty's Government, therefore, are moved by
special and peculiar reasons to take an interest in the fate
of these unfortunate Africans, who are known to have
been illegally and feloniously reduced to slavery by sub-
jects of Spain.
"It is next to be observed that Great Britain and the
United States have mutually engaged themselves to each
other by the tenth article of the Treaty of Ghent, to use
their best endeavours for the entire abolition of the African
slave trade ; and there can be no doubt of the firm inten-
tion of both parties religiously to fulfil the terms of their
engagement.
" Now the unfortunate Africans, whose case is the sub-
ject of the present representation, have bP©n thrown by
accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities
of the United States ; and it may probably depend upon
the action of the United States Government, whether those
persons shall recover the freedom to which they are en-
titled,
knownwhetherl
atwhs and
eysh
contracts
r ats reducedpubtioi apvaesrsyetdi:l vio
pro-
hibitinglation
th continuance of the At% ican slave trade by Spa-
nish subjects.
elrtnnisienutndaenrxiothuesslye
hope
ao
Government that
Presidenth er Majesty'so f
tie
United States will find himself empowered to take such
measures in behalf of the aforesaid Africans, as shall secure
to them the possession of their liberty, to which, without
doubt, they are by law entitled.
" I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the as-
surances of my distinguished consider."
Li ()IT. S. FOX."
" •Die Hon. John Forsyth," sas, Sac.

" MR. FORSYTH TO MR. FbX.
" DePartmczt of State,
Washing awl
F
Sir,-1 have the .honour to acknowledeb. ge thel 8
receipt
of your letter of the 20th in4which you state that
1, 41.
yosi are instructed to represent to me that the attention of
her Majesty's Government hac bc..:u seriously dircctei
to the case of the negroes of the Spanish ship Amistad,
with the anxious hone that the President of the United
States will feel himself empowered to take such measures
. ti:eir behalf as will secure to them f:e possession cf their
liberty. st
" Viewing this communication as an evidence of the be-
nevolence of her Majesty's Government, under which

spect alone it could be entertained by the Government of
the United States, I proceed, by the direction of the Pre-
sident, to make, in reply, a few observations suggested by
the topics of your letter. The narrative presented therein,
of the circumstances which brought these negroes to our
shores, is satisfactory evidence that her Majesty's Govern-
ment is aware that their introduction did not proceed from
the wishes or directions of the Government of the United
States. A formal demand having been made by the Span-
ish Minister for the delivery of the vessel and property, in-
cluding the negroes on board, the grounds upon which it is
based have become the subject of investigation before the
judicial tribunals of the country, which have not yet pro-
nounced their final decision thereupon. You must be aware,
Sir, that the Executive has neither the power nor the dispo-
sition to control the proceedings of the legal tribunals,
when acting within their appropriate jurisdiction. With re-
gard to the other considerations presented by you in behalf
of the negroes of the Amiatad, I have to remark that it is not
understood that the facts upon which they are founded are
admitted by the Minister of her Catholic Majesty; and this
Government would with great reluctance erect itself into
a tribunal to investigate such questions between two friendly
sovereigns. If, however, these facts are established, they
cannot be without their f ,rce and effect in the proper time and
place. You have doubtless observed, from the correspond-
ence published in a congressional document, that it is the
intention of the Spanish Minister to restore these negroes,
should their delivery to his Government be ordered, to the
Island of Cuba, whence the vessel in which they were
found sailed, where they will be placed under the protee•
tion of the Government of Spain. It is there that ques.
tions arising under the Spanish laws and the treaties of
Spain with Great Britain may be appropriately discussed
and decided ; and where a full opportunity will be presented
to the Government of her Majesty the Queen of Great
Britain to appeal to the treaty stipulation applicable to the
subject of your letter.
" I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the as-
surances of my distinguished consideration.

"JOHN FORSYTII.
" Henry Stephen Fox, Esq.," &e. &c. &c.

LICENSE OF COUNSEL.

An article upon the criminal procedure of the Eng.
lish and Scotch Courts, in the last number of the West-
minster Review, contains some arguments and state-
ments on'this subject which ought to be generally circu-
lated. The occasion which gave rise to it was the re-
markable speech of Mr. Charles Phillips, in defence of
Courvoisier, which shocked the public, on the supposi-
tion that the advocate had exceeded his line of duty.
The writer, however (Mr. Chadwick, we believe), pro-
poses to show that the defence came within the rule of
duty laid down by the bar of England, and points out
this and a great many other absurd practices in the
English law which impede and often defeat the ends of
justice. Among some of these are the annoyances thrown
in the way of prosecutions, the browbeating of respect-
able witnesses, the apathy, not to say acquiescence of the
Judge,when unjust imputations are made on their charac-
ters or veracity, and the absurd practice so much praised
by Judges and Magistrates, of refusing to interrogate sus-
pected persons lest they should say anything to convict
themselves. In the subjoined extract two remarkable
instances are given of the workings of the two different
systems in England and Scotland.
" The practical superiorityiof the Scotch law, though
capable of amendment, may be established by abund-
ant evidence. One result of the careful preliminary
examination is, that fewer doubtful cases are sent for
trial, and fewer persons tried escape conviction. Sus-
pected persons obtain ready discharge on accounting
for themselves, and the pursuit of criminals is better
directed. But for the power of interrogating suspected
persons, which was exercised by Captain Stewart, chief
of the police at Edinburgh, in his capacity of public
prosecutor, Burke and Flare would both have escaped,
as Gould and several murderers, of whose guilt no
rational doubt can be entertained, have escaped in
England, to the great injury of public justice. The
procedure being shorter, and private individuals being
relieved from the burthen of prosecution, parties come
forward with greater readiness, and fewer persons who
have once prosecuted will hesitate to go forward a
second time in aid of public justice ;" and it is
stated in another place that, but for the accidental
finding of the plate before the trial of Courvoisier was
concluded, the probabilities were the defence would
have prevailed and that his case would have been added
to that of the murderer Gould, as an instance of the
mischievous defect of our law in not permitting an in-
termediate verdict of not proven as in Scotland,
" allowing the party to be again tried on the discovery
of new evidence." The writer !Omura' under a mistake
in this instance. The law of Scotland, we believe, is
precisely the same :as that of England, regarding the
finality of a criminal trial. The verdict of not proven
legally acquits the prisoner, but infers that the Jury
had strong impressions of his guilt, though the evidence
would not warrant them in convicting him. It punishes
him in a moral point of view by affixing a stigma to
his character for life. With these remarks, we make
❑o apology for giving the following copious extracts
from this excellent article on a subject so important to
ev• ry civilized community :
The state of our penal procedure is such, that few
persons, of any respectability, who have once prosecuted
or giving evidence in any of our penal courts, could ever
lie induced voluntarily to prosecute or give evidence a
second time. Part, no doubt, of this reluctance is
ascribable to the trouble and loss of time imposed on
the prosecutor or witness by the mode of the procedure,
needlessly encumbered as it is with forms, which afford
no real protection to the innocent, and give only
chances of escape to the guilty; but a most serious part
of the reluctance is the dislike of persons of any sensi-
bility to expose themselves to the assaults of the pri-
soners' counsel,—to their express or implied imputa-
tions of mendacity ;—to their imperious deportment
and to their efforts to confuse witnesses,—assaults
which modesty and timidity only serve to invite, and
against which innocence or ordinary respectability af-
fords no protection. _ _ _

The following instance which came to our knowledge
may be given of the reluctance of persons to implicate
themselves in a matter which might bring them into
court as witnesses :—" As we were rowing on the
Thames, near Windsor, we saw near the banks the
body of a man floating ;" said a young gentleman, who
was one of a boating party. " Did you go near to
examine it ?"—" No, we kept off and rowed away, for
we might have committed ourselves as witnesses, and
have made ourselves liable to be examined in Court if
we had gone near it." We apprehend that there are
few persons who have been engaged in making any
legal or other investigations in which the examination
of witnesses is involved, who have not experienced the
frequency with which persons of respectable character
will evade the disclosure of facts known to be in their
possession, when it is made apparent that they may be
called upon to give their testimony upon them in a
court of justice. When an outcry, or sounds indica-
tive of violence, or distres, or suffering, is heard in the
streets, it is generally only the young, or the labouring
classes, who are seen to yield assistance ; the educated
or the sensitive ride past or hurry from the spot, for fear
of being drawn in as witnesses and forced on that re-
pulsive stage, a court of law,
Public attention is sometimes roused by the very
slight pecuniary penalties which are awarded in police
courts for even murderous assaults, and the newspapers
call down indignation against magistrates who impose
such inadequate punishments ;—yet it will in general be
foand, notwithstanding the slight pecuniary penalty
which police magistrates are able to impose, that sum-
mary conviction is the one earnestly preferred and sought
by the party injured, and the punishment is inflicted by
the magistrate in the consciousness that to send the cri-
minal to trial before a jury is to inflict another and a
severe injury on the prosecutor.
The case of Courvoisier was extraordinary in the
circumstances of the crime, whilst the procedure of its
trial only presented to the public an exhibition of the
common practice in our criminal courts, and has brought
the barristers before the public to justify the description
given of them, as " indiscriminate defenders of right
and wrong, by the indiscriminate utterance of truth or
falsehood"—as it may serve their cause. On the occa-
sion of the presentation of a petition on this subject to
the House of Lords, Lord Brougham said—
" I once before took leave to remind your Lordships,
which was unnecessary, but there are many whom it
may be needful to remind, that an advocate, by the sa.
cred duty of his connection with his client, knows in the
discharge of that office but one person in the world—
that client, and none other."

His Lordship might have been asked for a definition
of the sacred duty, and the authorities wherein that
duty is set forth. According to him, the counsel, who
has for a client a murderer or a robber, is to know that
murderer or robber, and " none other."

" To serve that client," continues his Lordship, " by
all expedient means, to protect that client at all hazards
and costs to all others " [even the party already in-
jured]—" and amongst others to himself, is the highest
and most unquestioned of his duties."
His Lordship was assuredly mistaken when he as-
serted that the duty was then unquestioned. It had
been powerfully questioned in the " Rationale of Judi-
cial Evidence ;" we hope it will he further questioned,
and that the Bar will be relieved from such a degrad-
ing duty, and elevated to a practice dictated by common
morality.

" And he must not regard the alarm, the suffering,
the torment, destruction, which he may bring upon any
others."

The Legislature will, however, be called upon to re-
gard this alarm, this suffering, this torment, indiscrimi-
nately and wantonly inflicted by aspersions oa respect-
able witnesses in our Courts of Justice :
• " Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from
those of an advocate., he must go on, reckless of the
consequences, if his fate should unhappily be to involve
his country in confusion, for his client."
We venture to doubt the legal authority of this ex-
tragant pretension, and were it fully made out in law,
we conceive that it may be peremptorily challenged as
equally pernicious to public justice and morality.
In the course of his speech on the subject of Bank-
ruptcy Courts Bill, Lord B,ougham stated, that—
" Any man who wishes to see talents beneficially ex-
ercised, would do well to go into a Court of Law,"
In the course of his description of this theatre, on

which his Lordship himself was so distinguished a per-
former, he says—
" The jury see the witness ; they have the opportu-
nity of watching his demeanour while giving his evi-
dence, and then they see him submitted to a cross-
examination ; after which comes his counsel, comforting
and restoring, as it were, the poor man, after the flagel-
lation he has undergone, and setting up the broken
credit of the witness, damaged by the cross-examination.
A.4.1.3r the cross-examination of the adverse counsel,
which has impaired the credit of the witness for a mo-
ment, then comes the skilful counsel, who restores and
comforts the poor man, and gives hin-t a better oppor-
tunity of explaining the case and setting himself right
with the Jury, until at last the conflict being over on
both sides, the evidence of the witness is fairly before
the Court."
In all the self-laudation of their own skill and of the
value of their own talents, no perception appears to
exist as to the effects which must be produced by the
indiscriminate application of such skill to respectable
as well as to untrustworthy witnesses. What person
of respectability, who is acquainted with the practice,
will voluntarily come forward in aid of public jus-
tice if he be aware that no respectability or truthful-
ness will protect him from having his " credit
broken" by false imputations ; from undergoing
the flagellations of an unscrupulous tongue? Can
it be expected of any " poor man," of retiring
habits, that he will be induced voluntarily to endure
this infliction of pain from the forensic gladiator on a
public arena, by any assurances that he will have his
" broken credit set up," and that he will be " re-
stored" and " comforted" by the skill of the counsel
on the other side?

The practice gives pre-eminence to the unscrupulous
witnesses who can withstand such assaults. Sir Roger
North, in his " Life of Sir Dudley North," relates,
that the law of Turkey, like our absurd law of evidence
in some cases, required the testimony of two wit-
nesses in proof of each fact, and that a practice
had, in consequence arisen, and had obtained
the sanction of general opinion, of using false witness
in proof of those facts which admitted only of one wit-
ness. Sir Dudley North, while in Turkey, had nu-
merous disputes which it became necessary to settle by
" and," says his biographer—
" Our merchants found by experience, that in a direct
fact a false witness was a surer card than a true one ;
for if the judge has a mind to baffle a testimony, an
honest, harmless witness that doth not know his play
cannot so well stand his many captious questions as a
false witness used to the trade will do ; for he bath
been exercised, and is prepared for such handling, and
can claar himself', when the other will be confounded ;
therefore circumstances may be such as to make the
false one more eligible."

Maay exemplifications might be given of the " hand-
ling" which a bona fide witness will sometimes receive,
in cases where there is no opportunity of casting direct
imputations upon him. We might adduce such prac-
tices as that of the advocate turning his eyes away
from the witness-box whilst he asks the witness a ques-
tion. The simple witness, doubting whether the question
was addressed to him, or believing that it was addressed
to some one else, hesitates, or does not answer. When
the witness has evidently lost his self-possession, he
is asked, in a thundering tone, why he is so reluctant
to answer : or if that does not promise success,
he is plied with another question which leads him
away from explanation, and thus an impression is pro-
bably made on the minds of the inexperienced juryman,
that the witness had been fearful of the effect of his
answer, and had, for sinister purposes withheld it. The
following is an instance of the practice of Garrow, who,
was held up as a " masterly cross-examiner." The case
was that of a witness who was deaf, and whose deaf-
ness it was this advocate's part to make appear pre-
tended. He said to the witness, in a low tone, "So
you have the misfortune to be deaf?"—" Yes, sir."—
" You have great difficulty in hearing ?"—` Yes, sir,
very."—" And it was not till I
raised my voice thus
(lowering it still more), that you could hear what
I sai.f at a'l ?"—" No, sir." The Jury and the whole
of the auditory roared with l.iughter, and the witness
might as well have been utterly deaf and dumb too,
for the service of his testimony in the case of justice.
And yet any person of experience with individuals
hard of hearing, knows well (and no one knows
better than the counsel) that distinctness of enuacia•
tion will often, better than loudness, enable a witness
to hear or comprehend what is addressed to him. Iu
this instance the enunciation of the advocate was
painfully distinct ; and it might be that the deaf
witness saw what the cross-examiner said, rather than
heard it ; the counsel's voice looked loud, and the
witness believed it to be so.
It is not often that this noxious ingenuity, or any in-
genuity whatever, is exercised for such purposes at the
courts adverted to ; there the weapon of attack is
chiefly imperious and coarse deportment, in a word,
bullying. This is often carried to an extent which
arouses the sympathy of jurors for the witness, and ex-
cites them against the cause in behalf of which it is
used (as is well known to those who use it), but no
matter ; the ease being hopeless, it affords the appear-
ance of a defence ; and, as one of the practitioners in
the Old Bailey once alleged in a brawl with another,
gratifies the low and ignorant client and his associates.
As they went out of court they may be overheard in
the avenues using such language as this—" The jury
went against us, but how -- worked for us ! how he
did give it to that d—d witness."
. .

We shall recal to recollection some incidents which
occurred on the trial of Courvoisier, as illustrative
of the common style of usurpation of the functions of
the Judge by the counsel of our criminal courts. It is
to he borne in mind, that twenty-four hours before
the defence was made, Mr. Phillips, the prisoner's
counsel, had received the confession of the prisoner's
guilt. The rule which the bar has prescribed to itself
in such cases is thus stated in an article in the
Edinburgh Review, said to have been written by an
eminent counsel, No. 79, March, 1824 :
" Even in the very few instances where the accused
has entrusted his defender with a full confession of his
crime, we hold it to be clear that he may still be law-
fully defended."
That the prisoner should be defended, law-
fully defended, we do not deny ; we admit that it is
certainly a useful rule that the bar, having a privilege
of defending and accusing persons, should not be al-
lowed to refuse their services to any person who may
please to retain them. Though a counsel may pro-
perly be bound to defend an accused person, it does
not follow that he is bound to defend in soy way, to
make an immoral defence—and still less does it follow,
that when hired for defence of the accused, that he is
engaged to attack those who are not accused. We
have quoted the doctrine in its common, wide, and un-
restrained generality, to show that the rule of the bar
is with Mr. Phillips. But we are assured that Mr.
Phillips is really a man of refined perceptions, and, like
Lord Brougham in private life, a man of kindly feels
ing ; and probably being uneasy at the duty which the
rule imposed upon him, it is stated that before he made
his defence he privately communicated the fact of the
confession to the judge, and obtained his sanction to
the doctrine that he must " do his beat" for the pri-
soner. With the knowledge of the fact of the pri-
soner's guilt, the counsel assailed one of the witnesses—
Madame Piolans, the wife of the keeper of a foreign
tavern in Leicester-square, after having, without any
other ground than that there was a billiard-table in the
house, charged her with being the keeper of a gam-
bling-house.—(The writer here quotes the attack on
Madame Piolans, and the " ruffians," "gang," " blood-
hounds," " miscreants" of the police, with the remark-
able peroration of Mr. Phillips).
Whilst adverting to the rules of behaviour current
amongst the class of gentlemen, we must remark that it
is one rule to put a double restraint upon themselves
where they are protected, as in the cases of clergy-
men and old men. Those who have been present in
our common law courts, will say whether the bar does
not avail itself of its authoritative protection to cast
off all restraints against all parties. To serve the
client by " all expedient means, to protect that client
at all hazards and costs to all others," or, according
to the Noble and Learned Lord who vindicates the
practice as a duty, to disregard the " alarm, the suffer-
ing, the torment, the destruction, he may bring upon any
others, we have seep innocent and respectable females so
confused, and assailed with such imperious gestures sins%
condemnatory tones, on the assumptions (as groundless
as the assumptions in the conspicuous case of Ceurvoi_
sier) that they had committed perjury, as wouldmaae any
father or brother shudder at exposing daughter or sister
to, and in such a manner as the counsel using the " ex-
pedient means" neither coull nor would use under any
circumstances in respectable private society. The most
demoralizing effect produced by these exhibitions ap-
peers to us to be the treatment given to persons of the
labouring classes, servants, or policemen. If good con-
duct is to be promoted in them, one means of doing so
is surely to increase their estimation of the value of
character ; one means of raising their moral perceptions
is rather to assume that they are keenly alive to the
pleasures and pains of self and social estimation, than
that they are dead to them. We have frequently
witnessed such treatment of witnesses as that displayed
in the case of Courvoisier, but we never happened to
witness an attempt " to comfort" the shattered wit-
ness of that class. Though the depraved state of the
bar permits the practice of such inflictions in pubic trials,
it does not prevent the Judge from doing justice, by en-
deavouring to soothe the irritation, and at the sante
time manifesting the feelings of a gentleman.
Obtuseness of feeling, and sympathy with the prac-
tices of the bar from which they have been taken, are
the chief reasons which suggest themselves for this
otherwise unaccountable apathy of the bench on this
subject. In more than one instance the deportmr.nt
of the Judge has afforded the example of habitual im-
periousness, and justifies the suggestion. In other
cases, from what is well known of the character and
superior practice of some of the Judges when at the
bar, there can be little doubt that they have a suffi-
ciently nice perception
mi
of the feelings of bona fide wit-
nesses to enable the
, n the character of judge, to
protect such persons, yet they fail to do so. The want
of this very common benevolence is ascribable to the