The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-30 00:00:00

It would be amusing to read the outrageous and absurd
fabrications so unblushingly put forward in some of the Paris
papers relative to state of things in the northern provinces
of Spain, were one not to recollect the base motives which
inspire, and the dishonest ends which such fraudulent" fables
are intended to accomplish. Whilst some of these journals
inform their readers, in the most confident manner, that
Burgos has opened its gates to Don Carlos, and that, after
publishing I know not what proclamations, he set out on
his march to Madrid, that ill-advised and, as it would ap-
pear, incapable personage, is wandering about close to the
French frontiers, almost reduced to a state of destitution,
certainly to one of great personal privation and continual
hardship, being obliged daily to shift his position, and seek
for food and lodging, and that in a country from which all
the wealthier classes have fled, and the poorer classes are
reduced by the exactions of both parties to the most miser-
able state, almost bordering on starvation. I heard to-
day from a Polish gentleman, apparently a man of
fortune travelling fcr his pleasure, and whose pre-
dilections seemed to be no more to one party than the
other, having indiscriminately mixed with both Car-
lists and Christinos, whilst, -in Spain, that on the day lie
quitted St. Sebastian (yesterday morning), it was positively
known there, that on the preceding night, Don Carlos, ac-
companied only by fourteen persons, all on foot, had slept
in a wretched village close to the French frontiers. He fur-
ther added, that the total absence of energy and capacity,
evinced by this personage since his arrival in Spain, had
completely dispelled any prestige his name might have at
first given birth to, and that the most clear-sighted, even
amongst his most devoted followers, would wish, for the
present at least, to see him well out of the country. Zu-
malacarreguy, he added, was completely tired of him, as his
presence was rather an obstacle to, and dead weight upon,
his operations, than a help. Were he unencumbered with
the care of this poor pageant of royalty, he thinks he might
act with more decision and daring ; but the King being in
the field, he is obliged in some measure to make known his
plans, and act in some manner under the Royal orders. The
Polish gentleman abovementioned, saw in a village some
distance from St. Sebastian, about 60 Carlists, who came to
exact from the wretched inhabitants 2,000 rations. These
Carlists, from their looks and clothes, appeared in such
a state of destitution, that under other circumstances
one would have been more inclined to offer them cha-
rity than submit to their arbitrary demapd of a
forced contribution. As to the full and particular
details relative to the state of things in the Spanish pro-
vinces, contained in the French Papers, and even in some
of those not in the Carlist interest, little or no faith should
be attached to them. No such details are received here
from Spain, though many such are manufactured here for
the Spanish press. The knowledge of what is going on in
the disturbed provinces is of the most scanty and naked
nature. The country between this and the seat of opera-
tions being chiefly inhabited by Carlists, all the peasantry
at least being so, and the Carlist cause not prospering, they
of course let as little intelligence of the real state of things
as possible transpire. So that even when something of im-
portance, such as the action between Rodil and Zuivalacar-
reguy, on the 25th of the last month, occurs, still nothing
but the bare fact, which somehow or other always makes
its way is known. Of that action, up to this moment, no
details unless the very scanty ones contained in Rodil's bul-
letin, have reached here. This may account to you for the
apparent want of plenitude in my communications. But I
thought it worse than useless to send you mere conjectures
or rumours, which I should have had to contradict the next
day and I preferred incurring the charge of silnce rather than
run the risk of misleading you by ungrounded information.
The following is the latest official intelligence received
here this evening.

On the 20th inst. Don Carlos made his appearance at
Lefra in Navarre, and the next day continued his march
towards Escarra. He was accompanied by four battalions
of Guipuscoans and Biscayans, and two companies of Na-
varre guides. Early on the morning of the 23d, the troops
under General Rodil divided into three columns, left To-
losa, and went in pursuit of Don Carlos. At the same
date Zumalacarreguy was in Navarre, with four battalions
of Navarrese, two of Alavasians, and one of Guipuscoans,
closely watched by the columns of Lorenzo and Ora. The
famous convent of Aranzara has been burnt down by the
volunteer bands under Brigadier Jaureguy. The celebrated
image of the Virgin, which it contained, has been trans-
ported to Arpeitia. Some of the principal men of their
respective neighbourhoods have been sent with detachments
of 150 or 200 men to garrison Roncevaus, Sanguesa, Sos,
and other villages, and protect the inhabitants from the
exactions of the Carlists. The white charger, supposed to
be destined for Don Carlos, and the purchasing of which
was one of the causes of complaint against M. da Cruz,
the ex-Portuguese Consul, who has been forced to quit
Bayonne, has disappeared from the stables of the Hotel
St. Etienne, and is now most likely between the royal legs
of true Pretender.

CANTERBURY, AUG. 28.—Our races commenced
yesterday under favourable auspices. The weather, though
fine, was considerably cooler than for some days, and the
course greatly improved by the rains which have recently
fallen. The city at an early hour presented all the usual
bustle and gaiety attendant upon such occasions, and at noon
carriages of every description were rapidly proceeding to the
Downs. The theatre and fire-works were numerously at-
tended, as was also the first ball at the Assembly-rooms. We
noticed present—The Earl and Countess of Winchilsea, Lord
Maidstone, Sir E. and Lady Dering, Sir W. Geary, the Rev.
Archdeacon Croft and family, the Rev. Hughes Hollet and
family, the Rev. W. F. Bayley and:family, Richard Holford,
Esq., Colonel Baldwin, T. M. Forster, Esq., &c. Weip-
pert's celebrated band is engaged, which is a great point of
attraction, and it is expected the grand dress ball on Friday
will be most numerously attended.
The quantity of coals consumed in England and
Wales is calculated as follows :—ln manufactories, 3,500,000
London Chaldrons ; in household consumption 5,500,000,
making 9,000,000 London Chaldrons consumed from In-
land Collieries ; the quantity sent coastwise on both sides
of the Island is 3,000,000 chaldrons making twelve millions
in all.—Dorset Chr9nicle.

EVIDENCE OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
I ought to have stated, when I had last the honour of
attending the committee, that in consequence of the opi-
nions which I entertain upon this subject, and the result
of my observation and experience of the law of libel, after
the best consideration could give to the matter, while 1
was a member of the House of Commons I obtained leave
to bring in a bill, and did bring in a bill, which was read a
first time and printed in 1817, and of which I gave a se-
cond notice a very short time before I ceased to be a mem-
ber of that house, in November, 1830. Its object was to
alter the law of libel materially, permitting the truth in all
cases, civil and criminal, to be given in evidence ; but in
no case to be conclusive, either as an answer to the action
or a justification of the misdemeanour, only allowing the
judge and the jury to take it into consideration in deter-
mining the question of guilty or not guilty in a criminal
case, and in deciding for or against the plaintiff, as well as
in assessing the damages, in an action ; in short, cous:*.ter-
ing that it is an unilateral test, falsehood being strong evi-
dence of guilt, and therefore to be taken into consideration
by the jury and also by the judge, as a circumstance of ag-
gravation in determining the punishment ; but the truth of
he matter being not so decisive on the other side, although
a nltost important ingredient or element in the defendant's
case. That was the prikcipal object of the bill ; but it
comprehended also the alrolition of ex officio informations
and special juries. 1 have since reflected much upon this
measure, ar,:d I adhere to my former opinions, with the
exceptions of tL!! abolition of ex officio informations and
special juries, on wNch I have some doubts. I question if
it would be convenielt altogether to abolish ex ,?fficio in-
formations even in the ca:e of libels. In some cases of an-
other kind, it seems plainly (Ltsirable to leave the power in
the hands of the Crown counsel I particularly allude to
revenue cases. With respect to pro,ecutions for libel ex
officio, that may be matter of more doubt I wish, however
to state my opinion with respect to a public prosecutor ge-
nerally. It appears to be a very great error to suppose
that a grand jury gives more protection to defendants
against unjust prosecutions than an individual public prose-
cutor. The Lord-Advocate, who in Scotland performs
the same duty in all cases which the Attorney-General
performs, by filing ex officio informations, is much more
averse, generally speaking, to put a person on his trial, than
a grand jury is with us. My opinion is, that the subject
has a better security from such an individual officer than
from a grand jury, where there is hardly ever any diffi-
culty in getting a bare majority of 23 men to find almost
any bill. They have no responsibility ; they are shrouded
and concealed under the name of " the grand jury ;''
they are encouraged to give rash verdicts by the num-
ber dividing the responsibility ; and indeed each person is
protected by the impossibility of saying which of the 23
were concerned in the finding, 12 being the number that is
required, and all being sworn to secrecy, so that nobody
can tell whether any particular individual was concerned in
what may be deemed an obnoxious verdict, or was one of
the remaining 11 who may have dissented. My experience
of the office of public prosecutor in Scotland would lead me
to say, that it affords a very considerable security against
rash and groundless prosecutions. The personal individual
responsibility of the officer prevents, in most instances, any
thing oppressive being done. We all recollect what oc-
curred in the year 1804. The Lord Advocate of that day
happened to be a Member of Parliament, and had to come
and answer a complaint in his place ; but if not, he would
still have been liable to be called to account by the Mem-
bers of the House of Commons or the House of Peers.—
Those who have had experience of grand juries, and know
the verdicts frequently given, must be aware that in times
of violent and arbitrary proceedings the Crown was never
at a loss ; bills were easily found. At a later period, when
Sir Vicary Gibbs was Attorney-General, there no doubt
were 20 or 3Qex officio informations filed about the same
time ; but that is a rare case ; there is always a restraint
by the expression of public opinion,which has not much weight
with a grand jury. And where there is any strong feeling,
especially in the upper classes, against particular opinions,
or the expression of them, the bills are sure to be found by
the grand jury.. I will put the case of the violent outcry
against the expression of liberal of opinions at the beginning
of the French war, or the case of the religious outcry, that
the church was in danger, which prevailed in 1807 ; I will
venture to say, there was hardly a grand jury in all En
g-
land—l am sure there would not have been a single
grand
ni
n
all Scotland—whofindinga truebill against
any p
would have hesitatedartysuspected
fora
mo-
mentjuYr'
of
what was called disloyalty or sedition. That is my deli-
berate berate opinion. I have no hesitation in saying, that I
could name 50 respectable and even highly-eonnected per-
sons in Edinburgh (and I lived in Edinburgh at the earlier
of these periods), against any one of whom any grand jury
would have found almost any bill that was preferred, but
against whom a Lord Advocate or an Attorney-General
would not so easily have consented to file an ex officio in-
foi mation.
Has it occurred .to your Lordship that there is a risk of
public feeling preventing a grand jury affording that pro-
tection to the character of an individual which is due to it?
Very often ; that is the converse of the proposition. I once
knew at the assizes a case of a Catholic gentleman, a most
respectable man of 10,0001. a-year, tried for murder, the
grand jury having found a true bill, to the great indignation of
Mr. Baron Wood, who tried him. The case arose out of
an old woman on her return from market having fallen
across a string which the gentleman's workmen had drawn
across a road they were repairing. If he himself had drawn
the string across and death had ensued, it would have been
only manslaughter at the utmost ; but he was tried for
murder, because his servants had done this. Now, in the
worst of times no Attorney-General proceeding by
cx officio information, nor any Lord-Advocate, nor any
person who acts under the Lord-Advocate, would
have ventured to put that individual on his trial
for such a thing. Unfortunately, in times of violence
such as I am supposing, when people's minds are very
very much inflamed with political or religious animosity,
grand juries afford no such security as there is in the case
of an officer of the Crown, responsible personally for inva-
ding the rights of the subject by an oppressive use of his
power. He would have at least some chance of being
called to account, and having to justify his conduct before
the representatives of the people ; and therefore I doubt
whether there is any good reason for abolishing the power
of information ex officio, and substituting only the grand
jury in the case of libel ; but I think it is a question on
which persons of enlightened opinions and extensive know-
ledge may differ.
Has your Lordship in your experience known instances
in which bills have been found by grand juries for various
offences without any evidence at all ?—Very frequently ; it
is rarely indeed that grand juries throw out bills, unless
when there are cross-bills, and than they are apt to say
both parties are probably in the wrong. I recollect an in-
stance of two gentlemen connected with the public news-
papers having attacked one another, and the grand jury got
the bills the same day ; if they had got the one bill one day,
they would no doubt have found it ; but they got two the
same day, and therefore they ignored them both. It would
have been far more just to have found both.
Were not grand juries found useful in the reign of
Charles 11., when Roger North mentions that the mon-
ster Ignoramus was in existence ?—Yes, but the period was
also that when Lord Shaftesbury said that he could do
anything with his " merry boys of London," as he called
them ; they justly threw out that bill for high treason,
but so they probably would any other preferred against
their favourite leader, however guilty he might have been.
Your Lordship's objection to grand juries, after all, ex-
tends to other cases as well as those of libel ?—Certainly.
' I am afraid that in other cases also I have not so good an
opinion of grand juries as I have of public prosecutors ; at
all events, I am sure the addition of public prosecutors
would be of great use ; nothing can be more clumsy and in-
artificial than our law leaving it to private parties.
In Scotland the Lord Advocate upon his responsibility
may restrict punishment from a capital to what is called an
arbitrary punishment ?—He may ; at the same time, if the
public prosecutor either neglects or refuses to prosecute
in any case, the private party injured, or any one being a re-
lation of the party murdered, may prosecute for his own inte-
rest criminally and before the Court of Justiciary with what is
called the concourse of his Majesty's Advocate, which it is
generally supposed he cannot refuse ; and when the Lord-
Advocate of the day was supposed to have improperly al-
lowed the military to escape prosecution for their conduct
at the riots of Aberdeen in 1802, I myself saw a private
prosecution, the trial of which lasted for nearly 24 hours, of
those military officers who had commanded the troops.
They were all acquitted.
In the nature of an appeal ?—Yes, but with this differ- i

-
Even supposing the stamp laws could be carriej into full
effect, are there not stamped newspapers which do address
themselves to that line of personal abuse and obscenity ; and
supposing we could carry into effect the laws against those
publications, would the stamp have the full effect of preventing
it ?—I certainly do not read many such publications ; for I
read but one paper, and not that every day ; but I have at
times had occasion to see, chiefly professionally, publications
of the grossest nature, regularly stamped newspapers, contain-
ing the grossest libels, and which appear to me to carry on
a trade in personal slander, not unmixed with obscenity.
There has sprung up a class of publications within the last
14 years which t believe did not exist before ; but in one
particular they appear to have operated beneficially, for
they appear to have formed a sort of drain for the other
newspapers, to carry off their worst trash ; for I do not
think so much slander is to be found in the daily papers of
late years. Since those weekly papers have been carried
on, the respectable papers have become ashamed of it, and
have not dealt much in it.
It has been supposed by some persons that the lower
classes are desirous of that sort of reading ; has your Lord-
ship found that writers of that kind address themselves to
the lower classes exclusively ?—My experience is very little
in those papers ; as I am generally the object of pretty
copious, abuse in them, I do not feel bound to read them,
and still less to pay for them. Ido not go out of my way
to avoid them, but I certainly do not go out of my way to
read them. I have seen them occasionally, and my expe-
rience would lead me to say, not only that they are not
adapted to the working classes, but that those classes have
no taste at all for what they chiefly deal in. Every writer
who publishes for the discontented part of the common
people' abuses the institutions of the country, and all public
men ; but I do not think such writers abuse men's private
character ; they do not care to be personal, and to attack
men's wives and daughters, and mothers and sisters ; their
readers, generally speaking, do not care for seeing private
slander about individuals ; that they do not trouble
their heads about. On the contrary, I think that the
appetite for such vile and often indecent trash belongs to the
higher classes of the community, extending down to the mid-
dling classes. There are some people among the latter who
like to read the gossiping stories put in the newspapers.
They say, " Let us see what Lady so and so is doing with
Lord so and so. Also men milliners, ladies' maids, and
upper servants, are I believe, great " patrons" of these sort
of publications ; and I have been told by many gentlemen
and ladies that they have found them in their servants' halls
and upper servants' rooms very much. But no doubt it is the
drawing-room that furnishes the effective demand for such
writings ; and the upper classes are very unjust in blaming
the press and its licentiousness, as they are so prone to do
on all occasions, seeing that they themselves afford the mar-
ket for the worst sort of scurrility. I have an opinion on
the subject of libel which is not often entertained by Chan-
cellors, and hardly ever by Attorney-Generals, and that is,
that public libels do very little harm ; but private libels do
a great deal of mischief. Many persons say they had ra-
ther give 1001. than have to prosecute such a libel ; and it
makes them and their families uneasy. This is therefore a
real injury, and one from which nu-purity of character or
correctness of conduct affords the least defence.
By public libel, your Lordship Means a libel abusing the
Government ?—Yes ; and the institutions of the country.
Your Lordship. would hardly extend that opinion to a
writinc, which incites to a breach of the law ?—Decidedly
not ; I wish to make a distinction. Any libel which incites
to a breach of the peace, or a felony, as murder, arson, and
so forth, is hardly to be taken as a libel merely ; it is a mis-
demeanour of the class consisting in procuring the com-
mission of crime ; and I am not astute enough to perceive
that it makes any great difference in what mode such an
act is done ; it is as if I offered a man 101. to knock an-
other on the head, which is clearly indictable ; and if I do
the same thing by strong speeches and inflammatory writ-
ings, it is akin to that offence rather than to mere libel or
spoken slander.
Your Lordship would hardly distinguish between an of-
fence committed by a man by act from that which he com-
mitted by works spoken or written ?—Certainly not.
Your Lordship is aware of a distinction sometimes drawn
between incitements to general resistance to Government
and incitements to resist the laws in detail ?—To a particu-
lar breach of the peace. lam aware of the distinction. I
should say there is no danger whatever from libels which
consist only in strong and violent, and, if you will, harsh,
vituperative, and unfair observations against the Govern-
ment. I think no people in the world ever was excited to
disturb the Government, or to join in revolution or insur-
rection, or even to wish for revolution or insurrection, merely
by writings in newspapers or pamphlets which stated that
there were grievances, that there were abuses, and used in-
flammatory language, inciting the people to throw off the
yoke which perpetuated those abuses. If the people do
not feel aggrieved, if there is no truth in the representations
made to them, they must be persons of greater folly than
any people that ever existed, to be excited by such fictions
to resist a Government which they do not suffer from. I
can understand a demagogue getting 2,000 or 3,000 people
together in a square, and inciting them to go and break the
peace at the close of his harangue ; but that comes, as Hon.
Members are aware, under another head. From discus-
sion, however intemperate, I have no fear, even from the
most false and unjustifiable representations. I remember
an anecdote related by the late General Fitzpatrick, which
I thought quite a parable upon this subject. The late
Duke of Queensberry was a great alarmist in 1792, like
many other very noble, very rich, and very honourable men.
He thought there was an end of all things, and he used to
be abusing principally the seditious writings of the day, giv-
ing them and their authors ill names in great abundance
and variety, as infamous, detestable, abominable ; when one
day some toad-eater who attended his person added, " Ay,
indeed, and full of such falsehoods." " No," said the Duke,
" not falsehoods—they are so true--that is what makes
them so abominable and dangerous." If his Grace had felt
all that was said on the corruptions of Parliament and office
to be groundless, he would have let them write on in the
same strain to the end of time ; but he was too sagacious
not to be aware that the state of the representation was not
such as it ought to be, and he wisely dreaded the effects of
such a topic powerfully handled. lam quite sure the pub-
lications alluded to in this examination are not merely for
the lower orders ; but it is only fair to the weekly papers
to say that they are far from having a monopoly of slander
and falsehood. On the contrary, the last publication of
this description I have seen, and about the grossest and