The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have been requested by the London
agent of the Leith Shipping Company, to whom
the Earl of Wemyss smack belonged, to insert
a long statement by the directors in Scotland of
the causes of its melancholy shipwreck, and the
state of its sails, rigging, and hull, when it was
cast on shore, derived from the captain of the
smack itself, and from persons who had been
subsequently authorized to examine the state of
the vessel. The ground on which we are re-
quested to make this sacrifice of space, for an
object which would interest only a few of our
readers, is stated to be, the observations which
we ourselves made on the conduct of the captain
and the state of the vessel when this lamentable
catastrophe, with the loss of so many lives, oc-
curred. Now, on this ground, neither the agent,
nor the company, nor the captain of the parker,
has the least claim upon us or our columns.
Aeare that the conduct of all parties was under-
going a strict investigation, which we published
as it proceeded, we abstained from any re-
marks which might prejudge their cause,
and only inserted an article in which, al-
ludieg to the loss of the Amphitrite and 1,
the Earl of Wemyss at the same time, we
expressed our conviction that in both case,
the passengers might have been saved, had the
unhappy men in command of these vessels cared
less about the property than about the lives in-
trusted to their keeping. In our observations
on this subject we endeavoured strongly to
impress on the minds of the commanders of
vessels, that in case of imminent danger, their
first care should be to rescue their passenger-
-to diminish as much as possible the risk of
human life—to try no experiments with such a
precious deposit—to disembark them as early as
possible—and then to think of the value of the
ship, the amount of the cargo, or the loss of the
owners. The policy of the law concurs with
the voice of humanity in this respect ; and
if it can be proved that life has been lost by a
guilty indifference or negligence, by culpable
professional ignorance, or by an exces,ive atten-
tion to the mere saving of property, an indict-
ment would certainly lie against the parties for
manslaughter or murder. No new penal enact-
ment is therefore demanded on this subject.
The existing law is sufficient, and only requires
to be rigidly put in execution, to be per-
petually present to the minds of those in-
trusted with the command of merchantmen or
packets to be pressed upon them on every occa
sion where casualties occur, and particularly to
obtain utterance over the dead bodies of those
who are supposed to be the victims of its neglect.
This was the important moral which we dream
and enforced from the loss of the convict-ship
at Boulogne, and of the passengers on boare
the Earl of Wemyss, without entering into ant
detailed examination of the evidence in eithe.
case ; but now since the inquiry at Brancaster
concluded, and the captain has been acquitted ht
a coroner's jury, we are bound to say that we
are not satisfied either by the depositions taker
before the magistrates or the statement by the
owners of the smack. It is proved that the
captain did not know on Sunday whether the
tide was ebbing or flowing, till, at the suggestioi
of a passenger, he consulted the almanack,—it
proved that on this knowledge depended the
advisableness of attempting a disembarkation or
not early in the morning,--and it seems to 13(
established beyond a dout, that proper precau-
tions were not taken to prevent the sea breaking
into the cabin from the skylights. The captair
allf ged, both in Lis evidence at Brancaster ant'
in the deposition which he has made to hi
owners, that the cabin filled from below:—

" At this time," says he, (namely, S o'clock) " ever)
one considered themselves sate—the ladies in the cabin,
and the crew in the forecastle—this being considered tin
safest place, very little water being in the vessel at this
time, they having ascertained this by descending into tin
told; but upon the next flood the sea ran much bight.'
and with snore violence, and during which three very
heavy seas struck the vessel, which precipitated her from
the high place she had been upon the previous tide and
plact d her into deep water, when she instantly sunk to
the decks, the cause of which was being deprived by at
heavy beating upon the sand of a great part of her kee
and gab!) ird strake, which laid her bottom quite open
and this was the fatal moment when the loss of life oc-
curred."

The passengers are as positive that the ladies
in the cabin were drowned by the waves whirl;
broke in through the skylights. But though
we were to accept of the captain's own statement
of the causes which led to the loss of life, and
though we were to admit that the calamity was
inevitable, how can we pass over the brutal in
difference which he is said to have evinced
after ',he event, as described in the following
part of the Rev. Mr. Holloway's examination ?

" He (Mr. Holloway) ingnired for the captain, whom
he saw. Observing his jieket wet, lie advised him to
change :t. He said ' No, I shall have my breakfast first,'
which was then before him. At that instant he was called
out to speak to Mr. Horshurg, who, on observing him.
exclaimed Oh ! the poor ladies.' He (witness) replied
that there was no cause for alarm, as they were in bed am
fast asleep. Some person present observed that he (Mr.
Horsburg) meant the ladies in the cabin. This was the
first intimation that he had of any ladies being drowned.
He immediately returned to the captain, and asked him
if it was true that he had lost any passengers ? He re-
plied that he had, a few. He (witness) desired him to
explain himself. The captain, in reply, said that be did not
know what the witness meant by explanation. He then
said to the captain, ' Do you intend, by saying you have
lost a few, that some persons are drowned ?' The captain
replied in the affirmative. He then asked the captain,
Had he ever beard of a British sailor eating his breakfast
with the coolness and callrctedness of a butcher under such
circumstances ?' He inquirr d where the ladies were; the
captain said be had lett them in the cabin, which was
full of water. Understanding that the vessel was on dry
land, he asked the captain How that could be ?' 11
replied, ' That a sea struck the vessel about eight o'clock,
cirried away the skylights, and filled the cabin with water.'
lie then asked him if that was true, or whether he was
mad ? The captain coolly replied that it w is true, the
ladies were drowned. He then asked hint it he had made
any attempt to recover them? The captain said, No,
it was of no use; they had been dead ni arly four hours.'
He observed to hint (the captain) that it appeared from
his own statement that it was impossible; for he had been
up some time, aid that it was now half-past eleven o'clock
Duly."
A similar charge of indifference to hunint
life was brought against the London agent of the
ShilTing Company, who, of course, was not re-
sponsible for the lo:ss of the passengers, but in
whom it would 41most have amounted to a crime
to have employed the language ascribed to hint.
lie is alleged..by Mr. Gooch, one of the wit-
nesses examined before the Magistrates at Bran-
caster, to have replied, in answer to a lamenta-
tion on the destruction of so many lives, " that
this destruction was nothing to the loss of the
owners' property. Such an indication of har-
dened selfishness on so solemn and so affecting
an occasion—such an atrocious recklessness to
the sympathies and sufferings of our common
nature—such an uncalled-fOr and gratuitous
insult to the feelings of weeping relatives and
bereaved families, we must own did strike us as
scarcely credible. The agent has Felt the whole
weight of the charge, which, if true, would cover
him with infamy, and has answered it by the
following affidavit, which he has earnestly re-

quested us to publish, and which we are
willing to believe explains the mistake of the
witness to whose testimony it replies
"Malcolm Maenaughtan, of the Leith and Berwick
Wharf, near the T..wer, agent for the London and Leith
Old Shipping Company. who are th. owners or the Earl
of TVemyss smack, maketh oath and saith that the ob-
servation represented in the Times newspaper of Tuesday,
the Bth day of October instant, to have been made by him.
in a conversation with Mr. Gooch, relative to the loss of
and property on hoard the said packet, upon the late
most melancholy occasion, was never spoken by him, but
;Ran entire misconception of what this deponent did ac-
tudly say ; and this deponent further sayeth that the
compariann he drew, upon the occasion referred to, was
',etween the loss of property sustained by the surviving
vassengera and by the above-mentioned owners ; that he
never upon any occasion, either in thought or word, rs-
,imated the value of life by the value of property ; that
he considered the late awful calamity as a visi.ation of
Providence, which nothing on earth could compensate to
the relatives of the deceased.
" MALCOLM MACNAUGHTAN
,e Sworn at the Guildhall, London, this 15th day of Oc-
tober, 1833, before me, P. Lanni., Mayor." _ _

•
With regard to some of the other parties in-
volved in the late inquiry, we shall say nothing,
because one of them is to he put on his trial for li
felony. A scene more disgraceful to Et.gli,h-
men could not, perhaps, have been exhibited than
that which took place on board the Earl of
IVemyss, or on the shore at Brancaster,—the
treatment of the dead and of the living. To see
wretches in broad daylight, and before hundreds
of people, instead of lending their assistance to
restore the exhausted and half-drowned passen-
gers, plundering the persons of such as had pe-
, ished, tearing away their earrings and other or-
naments, and running off with their booty, is
what could scarcely have been expected in a
civilized land, and almost tempts us to a-k if a
certain part of our people have yet pasted the
savage state? After the treatment of the pas-
sengers on board the Wemyss, the harpies of the
noet need scarcely be deemed fabulous beings.—
Times.

A strange sort of article, under the head of
Prussian Frontiers, appears in our extracts from
German papers (Allgemeine Zeitung). We
know not the authority to which it is entitled ;
hut the writer affects to be deep in the councils
of the three Sovereigns, and anxious to impress
on the world that they had not so many meet-
ings for nothing—that they were not like the
King of France, who, with fifty thousand men,
marched up hill and then marched down again.
It would seem as if the writer felt uneasy under
the idea that Europe did not attach sufficient
importance to these goings and comings of Sove-
reigns, hut that the people were inclined to treat
them with ridicule. He reminds us of a fellow
we once saw assuming airs of importance, which
Bxciting only derision in some of the bystanders,
he rose up, stamped, and looked big, exclaiming,
" I assure you it is no laughing matter." He
tells us that the three Sovereigns would rather
,ot fight, but that if they must fight they will
fight. "No blame can attach to them if, amidst
'he elements of destruction by which society is
•hreatened, it should be found necessary to
tbandon a system which aimed at maintaining
uerfect tranquillity by pacific means, and to
iroceed instead to extreme measures. Every
well disposed mind is undoubtedly averse to the
adoption of the latter, and the Sovereigns will
certainly not adopt them except as the last
resort ; but they are most firmly resolved to
employ them as soon as the decisive hour comes,
Ind the only alternative is—To be, or not to
he !'" This announcement is something like
what the Scotch term " Piper's news !" We
can well believe that the three Sovereigns did
not part, without coming to some sort of under-
standing that they would make common cause.
A sort of regret is expressed that they should
have allowed themselves to be bullied by France
into an acquiescence with her cavalier treatment
of the King of Holland ; and coupled with it
;1 sort of threat that should France act this part
over again, the armies of the three Sovereigns
would be put in motion. This attempt to look
big is very ridiculous. No one supposes that if
France were to set all international law at defiance,
and to encroach on the three Sovereigns, they
would not be justified in defending themselves as
well as they could. But is it meant to be said, that
their armies shall prevent the different nations of
Europe from ameliorating their institutions? The''
desire for such ameliorations they may rest assured
will not be repressed by their military preparations;
and they will think twice before arraying the
public feeling of Europe against them by any '
wanton aggression of France. The allies of the
French are everywhere. The enemies of the
three Sovereigns are in their own dominions.
That man must have read the signs of the times
to little purpose who can believe, that if the
people of the Continent are democratically in-
clined, the measures of the Sovereigns can wean
them from such an inclination. At same
time, though the people of Europe are, no
doubt, put to much inconvenience in being
forced to maintain large military establishments,
because it pleases the Sovereigns to be afraid of
republicanism, yet we would if possible wish ex-
tremes to be avoided. The people of Europe
will all obtain improved institutions, and we
trust in good time. The delay may not be so
unprofitable to the nations as some suppose.
Every year strengthens the liberal party, and,
consequently, diminishes the power of their
opponents, and the chance of violent collisions.
—Morning chronicle.

The contumacious resistance of the Leicester
corporation to the authority of the King's com-
mission, considering the quarter it proceeds
from, is bad enough of itself ; but when they
come to offer their reasons, the utter indefensi-
bleness of the proceeding is undenilble. These
persons have a right to be judged by the stand-
d of their own tone and character. The Lei-
cester corporation have been at all times a Tory
body. Now neither Toryism nor Whigism have
any peculiar charms for us. They are in our
eyes equally in fault ; and have proved but too
often equal frauds upon the people. But To-
ryistn, at least modern Toryism, claims to
itself the character of being the peculiar depo-
sitory of loyalty, religion, and obedience to
the laws, and to the powers that be—all ex-
cellent qualities in name, but far better in
reality. We do not know whether this
corporate body, like most others, possesses
any armorial hearings or flags to be used in
public professions, &c. ; but if they do, the
motto upon them probably is, " Fear God—
Honour the King ;" and when feasting at the
expense of those of whose property they are the
guardians, their toasts, no doubt, are all as
sound and orthodox as the port they quaff. But
doffthe lion's skin—the assumed and selfish
garb in
of an animal have 2
.. theO
which it has arrayed itself, and what sort
we
fearing God, neexpwohesuirlei, iofnsittesad of
own
tears only.
misdoings, and which,
instead of honouring the
Kings sets his authority at defiance the moment
it comes home to itself. There has been so
much of this convenient kind of
loyalty in the

world, this sailing under false colours, and the
world has been so egregiously imposed upon by
it, that it is fit it should be unmasked whenever
a fair opportunity presents itself of so doing.
The fellow who has been making such a harvest
of stealing Prayer-books and Bibles in churches,'
committed his thefts under the colour of
a more than ordinary sanctity ; and it was
proved in evidence that, when he beat his
wife he did so with a stick in one hand
and a hymn-book in the other. If the
Leicester corporators were sincere in their
professions they should have been the first to set
an example of obedience to the authority which,
in theory and in appearance, they bowed to so
obsequiously. The utmost extent of their re-
sistance should have been a submission under
protest. And what, after all, do they gain ? A
little breathing-time, it is true—an opportunity,
were they base enough so to use it, of destroyin,
documents, miscolouring facts—in short, of
preparing for the worst. OF objects, at once so
dangerous, and, in the end, so futile, we will
not suspect them. What they really gain is the
unenviable distinction of being the only corpo-
rate body in the kingdom with the bad taste
anti audacity to resist the King's Commission,
and the almost moral certainty of undergoing a
much more scrutinizing inquiry than an early
and ready submission would have subjected them
to.—Morning Herald.

At a meeting of the Common Council of the
city of London, the proceedings of which were
reported in our yesterday's paper, some discus-
sion, it appears, took place with respect to the
charges to be incurred in furnishing information
to the Corporation Commissioners. It seems to
us that a principle of some importance is in-
volved in this question. It has generally heen
understood that the assent of the whole Legis-
lature is necessary to the imposition of any tax
upon the subjects of Great Britain. But if the
Corporation Commissioners have, as they as-
sume, a right, acting by the sole authority of
the Crown, to demand the production of char-
ters and other documents, which cannot be pre-
pared for their perusal without expense, how is
this right to be distinguished from that of im-
posing a tax ? Or can it be supposed that this
tax assumes a less arbitrary or unconstitutional
character, merely because it comes in the shape
of a demand to supply costly information gra-
tuitously, or because, in other words, the parties
thus taxed without the consent of Parliament
are at the same time, and in violation of
another principle of the British constitution, re-
quired to furnish evidence to be used against
themselves ? A very old and intelligent member
of the Common Council, Mr. Dixon, very
shrewdly remarked that, before they agreed to
facilitate the inquiries of the Government Com-
missioners, it would be wise on their part to
ascertain, if possible, with what motive the
Commission had been issued. It has been
suspected that the real purpose is to effect such
changes in the Corporations of the kingdom as
may give the Whigs an ascendancy in all these
bodies. With respect to the corporation of the
city of London no change for this purpose is re-
quired ; but fortunately there are many Corpora-
tions in Great Britain whose members are actuated
by principles and feelings somewhat different to
these of Mr. Charles Pearson and the majority
of his colleagues in the Common Council.
When, by a stretch of arbitrary power, in the
reign of Charles 11., the Corporations of the
kingdom were deprived of their old charters,
and compelled to accept new ones, the
new charters contained a clause authorizing
the Crown to remove or disfranchise any
corporator, or any number of corporators, at
pleasure, which clause was more obnoxious to
the Corporations generally, and gave more of-
fence to the people than any other circumstance
or incident connected with the whole proceeding.
Sir Francis Palsgrave, one of the London Com-
missioners, some time before the Commission
was issued or thought of, wrote and published a
pamphlet upon the subject of remodelling the
Corporations throughout the country, in which
pamphlet he gives the form of a proposed
new charter to be used for that purpose.
We understand that this pamphlet, of which
copies in abundance were to be had for asking
for nearly up to the moment of issuing the
Commission, became, by some means or other,
and very suddenly indeed, ati extremely scarce
book. We never happened to see this publica-
tion of the Learned Commissioner ; we have,
however, been told, and believe, that the form
of a new charter for the Corporations of Great
Britain and Ireland which it suggested, contained
a clause precisely similar to the above-cited most
obnoxious part of the charters of Charles the
Second. Whether it is intended to let the pub-
lication of Sir Francis Palsgrave see the light
once more, when the Commissioners shall have
completed the preparatory stage of the process
in which they are now so sedulously engaged,
we do not know ; but in the facts we have stated
there certainty seems to be enough to warrant
the precaution and vindicate the sagacity of Mr.
Dixon.—Morning Post.