The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-08 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8, ift-!.13.

The LORD CRIES, BARON, interrupting the Learned
Counsel, said it appeared to him that there was no
case to go to the jury. It had been proved by the only
witness called, that for several years the plaintiff had
been in the habit of having his dividends paid into
Deacons to the credit of Knapp and Co., with whom
ho banked, and it must, therefore, be taken that the
party really liable to the plaintiff was the Abingdon
house.

Mr. WATSON reminded his Lordship that the de-
fendant did not advise the Abingdon house of the
,re-
ceipt of the money till after it had stopped payment,
and said he distinctly remembered that the late Lord
Chief Baron held in a similar case to this that the
plaintiff could recover.
Tho Loan CLUES' BARON said the plaintiff might have
recovered had there been but one single instance of the
transmission of money, hut hero it was proved that for
a long time the plaintiff had been in the habit of paying
his dividends into the defendants' bank, and was content
to hold Knapp and Co. liable for the due payment of the
amount. The course of business, therefore, in this case,
independently of the law bearing upon it, manifestly
showed that the plaintiff must be loviced upon in the
light of a creditor of Knapp and Co., and not of the de-
fendants.

The plaintiff was accordingly nonsuited.
Mr. WATSON intimated his intention of tendering a
bill of exceptions to his Lordship's ruling.
(Sittings in Banco.)
EHRENSPINGED. V. ANDERS.N.

Mr. Baron PARKE gave the judgment of tho Court in
this case, which arctie out of a mercantile transaction
between Cruikshank, Melville, and Co., of London, and
Campbell, Dallas and Co., of Bombay, relative to the
sale of a quantity of cotton. Some time ago the London
house made a consignment of cotton to the Bombay
house. Subsequently the defendants succeeded to the
Bombay business, and they had applied the proceeds of
the cotton to paying some bills which Cruikshank, Mel-
ville, and Co. had drawn upon the Bombay house in re-
ference to an earlier transaction. There were two
questions involved in the case; firstly, whether the form
of action for money had and received was correct; and
secondly, whether under the circumstances such an
action could be sustained. The Court did not think it
necessary to decide the first point; and with regard to
the second it was clearly of opinion that no action could
lie, and therefore a nonsuit must be entered.
Rule absolute for a nonsuit accordingly.

COURT CIRCULAR.

OSBORNE, THURSDAY.
Tier Majesty and Prince Albert walked as usual
about the grounds this morning.
The younger branches of the Royal Family took
their accustomed exercise.

The Earl de Grey arrived yesterday afternoon on a
visit to her Majesty.
The Countess of Gainsborough, Lady in Waiting
to her Majesty, leaves Osborne this afternoon.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge ar-
rived in town yesterday, from his residence at Kew,
and visited and inspected the exhibition of the Smith-
field Cattle Club.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday afternoon, at
Lansdowne House, Berkeley-square. The Ministers
present were—Lord John Russell, the Lord Chan-
cellor, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Minto,
Sir George Grey, Viscount Palmerston, Earl Grey,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Earl of Auck-
land, Sir John Hobhouse, the Right Hon. H. Labou-
chere, Lord Campbell, and the Marquis of Clanricarde.
The Council sat two hours and a half.
Mr. Higham, Secretary and Comptroller-General
to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the Na-
tional Debt, had au interview with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer yesterday, at his official residence in
Downing-street.
The Secretary at War bad an interview with Lord
John Russell on Wednesday. •
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England bad
a general meeting yesterday, at their office, in White-
hall-place.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne ar-
rived at Lansdowne House on Wednesday, from their
seat, Bowood Park, Wilts.
Earl Grey had a dinner party on Wednesday, at
his residence in Belgrave-square. The company in-
cluded Lord and Lady John Russell, the Earl of
Minto, Sir George and Lady Grey, Sir Charles and
Lady Mary Wood, and the Hon. H. Grey. The
Countess Grey had afterwards a select evening party.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

TlMES—There is a fatality this year about emi-
grants and emigrant ships. We have scarcely recovered
the shock of the Ocean Monarch's loss, and now there
has come upon us another calamity more appalling, more
heartrending, more sickening than oven that. There,
indeed, wherever they turned, the wretched creatures
who embarked a few hours before from the quay of
Liverpool so full of life and hope saw before them but
an election of two modes of destruction. Fire or water
—their option must be made. It seemed impossible ,to
match the horror of such a scene. The reports spoke of
mothers who held their little children aloft from tIA
fiery storm that raged around them, until life departed,
and with it hope; and then mother and child fill to,
gother from the burning wreck into- the sweeping tidti
below. All circumstances considered, we then thought
that in our memory nothing so sorrowful had occurred)
The burning of the Ocean Monarch is, however, outdon4
now. In the cabin of the Londonderry steamer, on ON
night of Friday last, there happened a scene so fearful]
that the mind instinctively recoils from dwelling, even for,
a moment, upon human suffering in so intense and agoniz-
ing a form. If e o here repeat the details of what occurred,
it is with no wish to harrow up the public feeling, nor
even of signalizing to public indignation the persons by
whose gross indiscretion and most criminal carelessness
the tragedy was brought about. It is rather with a vice
that Government may be at length compelled by peel s
opinion to look more closely into the condition, not only
of emigrant ships, but of all vessels licensed to convey
passengers from ono port to another throughout the
United Kingdom. What security Lavo we now for the
skill and competence of the commander to whose care the'
lives of so many human beings are for a time confided?
What precaution is taken that steamers such as the Lon-
donderry should convoy no more passengers in each of
their compartments than their means of accommodation
will justify? Is a storm of such rare occurrence in the
Irish Channel, in the month of December, that the con-,
tingency of the deck passengers being compelled to
take shelter below ought not to have entered into the
calculations of the proprietors and commanders of
such vessels? These are general points, and are appli-
cable to the entire system of the coasting conveyance
of the three kingdoms. In the case of the Londonderry
we must, however, go further. It will be no answer
for Captain Johnstone to say that the steerage cabin
was but 18 feet long, 10 or 12 in width, and about 7
feet in height. We do not know yet with precision the
exact number of human beings he caused to be crammed
into this space. We are only told that 70 were found
dead when the door was opened, and air was admitted
into their prison. A storm levels all distinctions. It
matters not much whether an ante-chamber to the tomb
be a state-cabin or a fore-cabin. If the vreather were
so rough that danger really existed, was there no other
part of the vessel where a section of the emigrants
might have been sheltered until the decks were opened
to them once more? The state-cabin of the London-
derry was occupied by three persons on the fatal night
of Friday last; the steerage cabin by about 150. Why
not have let the poor creatures remain on deck? Had a
score of them been washed away, what would it,
by comparison, have signified? Of bullocks, twenty
only were killed ; of passengers, on board
the Londonderry, seventy perished, and by
a most frightful death. The Londonderry, it seems, left
Sligo about four o'clock on Friday afternoon. There
were on board her three cabin passengers, a number of
sheep and oxen, and about 150 emigrants who were to be
conveyed to Liverpool on their way to America. As the
night wore on the wind and sea rose. Most people who
have crossed the Irish Channel have seen at one time or
another the strange gaunt figures of the deck passengers
crouching about the deck wherever the) can find shelter
from the spray. This, no doubt, was the case at first on I
board the Londonderry, but as the gale freshened they
were probably found to be in the way of the working of
the ship. Captain Johnstone, in an evil moment, gave
the order that they should all be sent below. We must
hero pause for a moment, and ask how could the mind
of that man be constituted who, knowing the
number of deck passengers on board his ship,
and being necessarily acquainted with the
extent of the accommodation forward, could
issue such an order ? How can such a mandate be ex-
plained away ? It may be accounted for, but never ex-
plained. There was no intention of deliberate murder,
but there was indifference, there was incompetence, there
was brutality. The sufferings of these poor people mat-
tered but little to the crew, so they could find room to
work their ship without interruption ; so with oaths and
blows they drove below the unfortunate beings, so many of
whom were never destined to see again the light of
day. And now the story becomes unintelligible. We
cannot, on the one hand, attribute to Captain John-
stone and his crew the deliberate intention of murder,
but, on the other, is it possible to conceive
upon any known principle of human action how a com-
manding officer in such a situation could issue an order
that the only aperture by which air could enter, into
the fetid hole in which he had confined his passengers
should be hermetically sealed ? Tho companion
WAS closed, a tarpaulin was nailed over it, and further,
the entry was secured by ropes, so as to make
egress almost impossible. Captain Johnstone was afraid
of the water getting in! But did the water get in in
any quantity to endanger the safety of the vessel,
when the cabin door was at length opened? Had
the weather undergone any notable change between the
time of their imprisonment and the moment of the re-
lease of the survivors? We think not; first, because it
was not by the free act of the screw the wretched crea-
tures were at last released; and, secondly, because no
very great interval could have elapsed, or not one would
have survived to tell the tale. Be this, however, as it
may, it needs but a slight effort of imagination to con-
ceive what must have passed in the shambles of the
Londonderry from the description of the scene which
met the eye of the mate, when at last a steerage pas-
senger had forced his way out, and communicated to him
the terrible intelligence:—
" The mate instantly became alarmed, and obtaining
a lantern went down to render assistance. Such, how-
ever, was the foul state of the air in the cabin, that the
light was immeiiately extinguished. A second was ob-
tained, and it, too, was extinguished. At length, on the
tarpaulin being completely removed, and a free access of
air admitted, the reel nature of the catastrophe exhibited
itself. There lay, in heaps, the living, the dying, and
the dead, one frightful mass of mingled agony and death
—a spectacle enough to appal the stoutest heart. Men,
women, and children were huddled together, blackened
with suffocation, distorted by ',convulsions, bruised and
bleeding from the desperate struggle for existence which
preceded the moment when exhausted nature resigned
the strife. After some time the living were separated
from the dead, and it was then found that the latter
amounted to nearly one-half of the entire number."
Captain Johnstone appears at length to have been
made aware that he had become a main actor in a scene
of the most horrible atrocity within the memory of man.
But ho was uncertain what to do. He put his steamer
into Lough Foyle, but it was twelve hours before ho
could make up his mind to pass up to the quay at Derry.
Lest it should be supposed that the former extract might
convey but an impression received amidst horror and
confusion, here is how we find the condition of the
steerage cabin described when entered on Sunday morn-
ing by the mayor and magistrates of Derry:—
" The scene on entering the steerage of the steamer
was perhaps as awful a spectacle as could bo witnessed.
Seventy-two dead bodies of men, women, and children
lay piled indiscriminately over each other, four deep, all
presenting the ghastly appearance of persons who had
died in the agonies of suffocation; very many of them
covered with the blood which had gushed from the mouth
and nose, or had flowed from the wounds inflicted by
the trampling of nail-studded brogues, and by the frantic
violence of those who struggled for escape. For it was
but too evident that, in that struggle, the poor creatures
had torn the clothes from off each other's backs, and
even the flesh from each other's

We have nothing. more to add to this brief but tragic
tale save that the coroner's jury have found Alexander
Johnstone, captain; Richard Hughes, first mate; Ninian
Crawford, second mate, of the Londonderry, guilty of
manslaughter, and have expressed in the strongest terms
their abhorrence of the inhuman conduct of the other
seamen on board throughout this unhappy transaction.
We will not anticipate any defence these persons may
advance at their trial. But upon such an occasion as
this we must remind the public that their lives are con-
fided every day to the ignorance and indifference of per-
sons of Captain Johnstone's class. Suppose a storm had
come on in good earnest, and a question had arisen of
saving even the chief-cabin passengers, or of the crew
making good their escape, which course would Captain
Johnstone and his men have adopted ? Even if we can-
not secure proper persons in command, at any rate for
the future let some proportion be observed between the
passengers and the accommodation and shelter the vessel
can afford.

POST.—Many persons have felt and expressed some
surprise that Mr. Barkly, M.P. for Leominster, a
thorough• going l'eelite, should have found such favour
in the sight of Earl Grey and the Colonial•office as to
have been appointed to a Colonial Governorship. That
surprise will not bo lessened when we inform them that
Sir Robert Peel's second son is already in the field, or in
the town rather, to secure for himself the seat in the
House of Commons which the appointment of Mr.
Barkly will make vacant. This is, no doubt, a very
cunning arrangement, and well calculated to impress the
public with a sense of the high-minded sincerity with
which this young gentleman's father accepted the new
system of the Reform Act as one which should thence-
forward form a part of the British Constitution. Mr.
Frederick Peel has addressed the worthy and indepen-
dent electors of the borough of Leominster, and says
thi3t he has been " induced respectfully to offer them
his services as their representative in Parliament."
We do not marvel that it should have required some
inducement to cause a modest young man, like Mr.
F. Peel, to offer himself for the representation of
Leominster, especially as ho proceeds to state, at the
very .outset, a very sufficient reason why he has no
business to intrude himself upon the worthy and inde-
pendent electors of that town. " I have not," he says,
" the advantage of local connexion with your town or
neighbourhood, and my claim upon your confidence
must therefore mainly rest upon your general approval
of the course which it is my intention, if returned to
Parliament, to pursue." Now, we are far from saying
that, under the existing circumstances of the representa-
tive system of this country, any man desirous of servine.
is h
his country in Parliament not perfectly at liberty to
ask the favour of a seat from a constituency with which
he has no local connexion; but, admitting this, we deny
that it is fair or reasonable that a very young man, who
has no public character—no public services to appeal to
—who is as destitute of any general as of any local
i
claim to the favour and consideration of a co tt
Peelsdoues-
ency, should thrust himself forvsarel as Mr. F.
at Le:sminsicr. lie would not, dare L 0 do so except he
had expectations based upon acme underhand ar-
rangement—some plotting in the dark—which is not a
whit more in harmony with open and independent °lee-

tion than was the old system of nomination by gret tt
proprietors. Mr. F. Peel but the other day completod
his twenty-fifth year, and, of course, our readers will ex-
pect to hear something of the enthusiasm of youth which
tinctures his first political address. We shall, therefore,
give them a specimen of this " flow of his youthful
I emotion;" but we confess that, judging from.this corn-•
position Jr. Frederick Peel requires something more.
than " the accomplishment of verse," in order to mallo
him a poet. He says—
" I am deeply impressed with the necessity of a search-
ing inquiry into .every branch of our expenditure, and,
of. every-retrenchment which may be compatible with
the public safety—with the adequate protection of ,otn•
widely-extended commercial interests—and with.the firm
maintenance ofi tile national credit.
" The necessity of a wise economy is the morn urgent,
in my opinion, because I shall feel it incumbent upon
me to resist any attempt (if such be made) to re-impose
taxation upon those articles of foreign import which co:a-
stituto the materials on which our manufacturing indus-
try is employed, or which enter into the subsistence,. or
aeministt r to the comfort of the great mass of the cons,
munity, unless it should be deemed prudent, on mere
extensive experience of, the effects of free-trade measure`,
to adopt a different line of policy, a re..‘ult, however,
which I do not anticipate."
Such is the glowing and patriotic effusion by c,hich
rn
young gentleman of five-and-twenty seeks to movsl thti
heat is of the independent electors of Leominster in kis
favour. The elaborate profession of devotedness to *log
principles of free trade, with the significant proviso
thereto appended, is laughably characteristic of •the pa-
rental instruction under which this address was, no doubt,
penned. Mr. Frederick Peel will support free trade, tux-
!ess ho find it expedient not to support it! Who will
deny that this new political aspirant is a chip of the old
block ?. Upon the whole, it seems to us that the Perna-
mentary representation of Leominster has become the
subject of very discreditable political huckstering. We
are not surprised to find the Peel people mixed up hi
this, but we beg the public to observe that it is the Whig
Government which affords the opportunity, by making a
placcznan of a Peelite„