The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-10 00:00:00

THE ARREST OF O'BRIEN.

This day Entine, the guard of the Limerick and Thurles
train, received 5001., the Government reward offered for the
'arrest of Mr. W. S. O'Brien. He has resigned his situation
on the Great Southern and Western Railway, and is about to
leave for England, his native country.
STATE TRIALS—TRUE BILLS AGAINST C. G.

DUFFY.
DU ALIN COMMISSION COURT, AUG. E.

The Commission was opened to-day by the Right Hon
Chief Baron Pig-ot, and the Hon. Baron Pennefather. The
streets in the vicinity of the court were occupied by strong
bodies of policemen, but there was a total absence of excite-
ment both within and without the court. The Crown Ceun-
sel in attendance on ordinary occasions, Messrs. Plunkett,
Q.C., Baldwin, Q.C., and Smyly, were present, but the At-
torney-General was not in attendance. The Crown So-
licitor, Mr. Keminis, however, was in his place, and held in
his hand a large roll of parchment, containing the indict-
ment against Mr. Duffy. It was sent up to the city grand
Jury.
Mr. Butt, Q.C., and Sir Colman O'Loghlen appeared fur
Mr. Duffy.
The grand juries haying been sworn,
The CHIEF Banox, in addressing the city grand jury,
said—Gentlemen, if I had to call your attention only to the
class of offences appearing upon the calendar at the ordi-
nary sittings of the court, I should have to occupy but
very little of your time; but I find by the calendar that
you are likely to be called upon to consider charges fot
offences which, I am happy to think, are but rarely pre-
sented to the tribunals of this country, and of such a cha-
racter as, I believe, in the existing generation, few have had
an opportunity of seeing presented to the public tribunals.
The particulars of the charges which you will be called upon
to consider I have not the means of knowing; but I think it
probable that your attention will be called to the considera-
tion of offences charged as having been committed in viola-
tion of an Act of Parliament which has recently passed the
Legislature of this kingdom. I think it right to state to you
what the law was upon the subject with which this Act of
Parliament dealt at the time of its enactment, as well as what
the law now is under its provisions. Gentlemen, the crime
of high treason is ascertained and defined by an Act of Par-
liament passed in the 25th year of the reign of Edward 111.
laefine, as treason certain offences against the person
0? the sovereign and against the persons of the
Minissers of State; and certain offences in reference to
the family of the reigning Sovereign. There are only
two portions of the law to which it is necessary for me
to call your attention, and they are comprised in a few
brief words of that Act of Parliament, and by these portions
of the law it is declared that when a man cloth compass or
imagine the death of our Lord the King or of his Queen, or
their eldest son and heir, or if a man do levy war against the
Lord the King in his realm, every one of those acts is an act
of high treason. For the protection of the accused, the same
Act of Parliament enacted that, in order to establish the
guilt of designing the death of the Monarch, or of levying
war against him, it was necessary to prove that guilt by
some act or deed of the party charged with its commission.
So, gentlemen, the law stood until the 36th of Geo. III.;
and by an Act of Parliament passed in that year it was
enacted that it any person or persons whatever, within the
realm or without, shall compass, imagine, devise, or intend
the death or destruction, or any bodily harm, tending to the
death or destruction of the King, or the constraint of his
person, Sec., such person shall be guilty of high treason.
By that Act the compassing to levy war, or force the
Monarch by restraint to change his measures, becomes an
act of high treason. The same Act requires that the in-
tention on which the Act of Parliament fastens the guilt
shall be testified by some open act or deed, or by
the publication of some printed or written document.
Another Act of Parliament (the 57th George III.) was
subsequently passed with
_reference to this subject; and in
the month of April last, the Legislature, taking into consi-
deration the entire state of:the law, passed the Act to which
I am about to call your attention, and in reference to which
particularly your duties upon the charges 1 have already al-
luded to are to arise. Ido not think it necessary to direct
your attention particularly to anything else in this Act of
Parliament, save those portions of its provisions by which a
guilty intention shall be shown, by publishing any printing
or writing, or by any overt act or deed. As far as I can
judge, you will be called upon to consider the nature and
importance of certain publicatious, which are alleged to be
published and printed by or under the authority.or direc-
tion, or with the privity of some of the parties accused.
Possibly—but of this I know nothing—you may be called
upon to consider some other open acts or deeds confirmatory
of the charge by which the guilty intention is sought to be
fastened upon the party. Should any such publication be
presented for your consideration, you are bound, of course,
to look with careful scrutiny into every part of it, and upon
the whole to consider whether there is any indication of the
intention with which the accused is charged. If you should
not think the publication bears the character imputed to it
by the Crown, it will be, of course, your duty to ignore the
bill —as, under the circumstances, it would be the duty of a
petty jury to acquit the accused; but if you think it does
bear the character imputed to it, you will of course be
bound, in the conscientious and firm discharge of your
duty, to find the bills of indictment, and send the case
for trial before a jury. If, for instance, it should appear to
your satisfaction that, by any publication or overt act, it
is clearly manifested that the party intended to deprive
her Majesty of the imperial crown, by establishing an-
other Government instead of the Government of the
Queen; for instance, by establishing what is called a
Provisional Government, the existence of which must,
of necessity, supersede her authority; or by establishing
a different form of government, the existence of which,
by the destruction of the monarchy, must ne-
cessarily cause the deposition of the Queen from
the imperial crown of this United Kingdom ; and if you are
satisfied that such is the object of any publication presented
before you, you, of course, will have no doubt that it con-
stitutes a crime within the terms of this Act. With re-
spect to the charge of levying war against the Sovereign,
I cannot better announce to you what the law is, than by
referring you to the opinion on the subject of Lord Ten-
terden, formerly Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench
in England. Yroin that opinion it would appear that
it was not necessary, in order to constitute the
offence of levying war, that parties should be drilled, or
that a military force should be drawn up in battle array
with all the circumstance and pomp of war. It is through
small beginnings, with a force only partially organized at.
first, but strengthened by degrees by the combination of
forces, and possibly by successes, that rebellion can at-
tain the height by which it may cast nations into convul-
sion ; and therefore it is the object of the law to
prevent such acts by denouncing punishment Aiaiust th°3°

who compass 'or intend them. You will consideF whether
the party charged before you inculcated such proceedings, or
advised such movements, or whether there is disclosed in the
publication an intention to effect such a state of things as
would amount to an insurrection of persons applying them-
selves by force to compel the Queen by constraint to alter her
measures. Such an insurrection, although not conducted at
first with all the circumstance and parade of military array.
would amount as much to the levying of war as if the parties
were embattled in military array against the forces of the
Sovereign. lam informed that some charges are to be pre-
ferred against certain persons for the publication of seditious
libels, and after what I have already said with respect to the
offences provided against by the Crown and Government
Security Act, it is not necessary for me to enter into an ex-
planation of the law of sedition. The charges to which I re-
fer are likely to apply to publications only, and every man is
entitled, byl written publications, as well as by oral dis-
course, to bring others to agree in the opinions which he maw
conscientiously entertain, and, upon public matters, the ex-
pressions lie uses are not to be too nicely weighed, particu-
larly if thus he appeals to reason, or endeavours to effect by
persuasion and argument the establishment of his views. '
But a publication, the direct tendency of which is to excite
disaffection and resistance to the laws and to the lawful
authority of the Sovereign who reigns over this empire—a
resistance to those who are interested in the protection of
lawful order—a publication having a tendency to a violation
of law, and a resistance to lawful authority, and which might
induce others by force of arms to effect that resistance—is
unquestionably a seditious libel, and might amount to the
grievous crime of high treason, to which I have already re-
ferred. It is unnecessary for me to say more on this ques-
tion at present, but should yot at a later stage of your pro-
ceedings require any information from the Court on this, or
any other subject, both myself and my learned brother will
he ready to afford it to you. There is another subject, with
respect to the nature of the business you will have to dis-
charge, to which I think it necessary to direct your attention.
Early in the present session of Parliament an Act for the
Prevention of Crime and Outrage in Ireland was passed, by
which the Lord-Lieutenant was empowered to issue pro-
clamations against disturbed districts, and to call upon all
persons not lawfully authorised to keep arms in their pos•
session to surrender same to the proper authorities authorised
to receive them, under certain penalties. Some indictments
may be sent up to you under the provisions of that Act
within the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin, the Lord-
Lieutenant having found it necessary to proclaim both the
county and the city, and some persons stand charged with
having retained arms in their possession after having been
called upon to give them up.—(Here the Learned Chief
Baron read extracts from the Act for the Prevention of
Crime and Outrage in Ireland, and commented upon and
explained its provisions as lie proceeded, and continued)—l
do not feel that I would be fully discharging my duty if I did
not call the attention of yourselves and of all others to the
obligation which devolves on every loyal subject, and to
which every loyal subject is summoned by an Act to which I
shall call your attention. By a very recent statute, passed
upon the 25th of July, in the present year, it is recited
that, " as a treasonable and rebellious spirit now unfor-
tunately exists," most extensive power is given to the
Executive and Lord-Lieutenant to arrest each persons
as may reasonably be considered guilty of being en-
gaged in such traitorous and treasonable designs as
are alluded to by the Act. That is a power conferred on
the Government for the safety and security of the whole
community. It is a power conferred on the Government for
the safety, not only of those who would most sutler from a
public convulsion, by becoming the objects of assaults, which
would necessarily arise under such circumstances as this
statute points to, but, I think I may also say, for the pre-
servation of those unfortunate individuals themselves who
may be misled, if early efforts are not made to resist the
progress of such designs. I think I may call your attention,
and the attention of others to the duty which devolves on
every man, to disclose and make known to those in autho-
rity the existence of any such designs which may, by chance
or otherwise, come to his knowledge. It is right to remind
those who have taken the oath of allegiance, that by the
express terms of that obligation, they are bound thus—" I
will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to
her Majesty or her advisers all treasonable and traitorous
conspiracies which shall be formed against her or them."
The discharge of that obligation, Gentlemen, will be but the
discharge of a duty due to every member of a society that is
threatened by the progress of any such designs ; and I
trust that no one who has reflected either on the obligations
which society imposes, or on the express obligation of that
oath, will hesitate at once, should the fact come to his
knowledge, to disclose the existence of any such designs, as
those to which I have alluded. Gentlemen, I trust, by the
uniform application of the laws, administered in that mercy
which is only part of justice—by the cooperation of all
members of the community, who love and value social
order—by the co-operation of all classes of society, not
merely those possessed of wealth and occupying rank and
station, who would inevitably be the first to suffer in a
popular convulsion, but by the co-operation of the middle
classes of society, who depend for all on the maintenance
of tranquillity, and by those who in their different walks of
life cannot sustain the position they hold in society
without the maintenance of that tranquillity and peace
by which all the intercourse of society is sustained
—without which trade must perish—without which
the fruits of agriculture cannot be held or sold in se-
curity—without which it is, in truth, impossible that they
can maintain themselves in the position they ought to be
ambitious to enjoy. I trust, Gentlemen, by the co-opera-
tion of all classes, we may be saved, from those mischiefs
which appear to be apprehended by the statute which I have
just read to you. That such may speedily be the result, I
do most earnestly hope. It
.needs the co-operation of all,
and I trust it will have the co-operation of all, to secure
that result.

The jury retired.
Joseph Martin, who was charged with carrying a banner
at the Confederate meeting at Donnybrook, and stood out on
bail to stand his trial at this commission, did not appear when
called on, and it was ordered that his recognizances should
be estreated, and that a Bench warrant should issue for his
apprehension.
At half-past three o'clock the jury returned into Court.