The Sun.
London, England, 1802-04-29 00:00:00

LAW REPORT.

COURT OF KING's BENCH, APRIL 18.
STTINGS BEFORE MR.. JUSTICE GROSE AND A SPECIAL
JURY, IN GUILDHALL, LONDON.

BURKE V. GUY.

•Tits was an Alion for Damages for a Libel al-
ledged to have been published by the Defendant, of
and concerning the Plaintiff. To which the De-
fendant pleaded Not Guilty ; also a Justification,
that what he published of the Plaintiff was true.
The Plaintiff is a Wool Broker in the City of
London, and in December last went down to Chip_
penham, in Wiltshire, which is a considerable
cloathing town, and solicited the-suffrages of the
Freemen of that Borough, to represent it in Par-
liament ; on which the Defendant Mr. Henry
Guy, a considerable person of that town, published
a printed Letter, signed with his own name, insist-
ing on the unfitness of the Plaintiff as a Candidate
to represent the Borough in Parliament—stating,
" That as a Wool Broker, he was bound by his
bond, as well as by his oath, to confine himself to the
mere busines of a Broker, which was that of a mid-
dle man between the buyer and the seller of wool,
who was bound not to deal on his own account for
profit, &c. That if he was an honest man, he could
not favour the town at all in the way of trade, as it
was said he pretended to do : that however he had
carried on trade in wool for himself to a large
amount, had, contrary to his oath as a Broker, and
contrary to the specification of his bond which he
gave in when he was sworn, dealt largely for himself
and in the course of his dealings, it was imputed to
him that he had been guilty of many dishonest
pradices ; such as having, on his own account, and
in his own possession, large quantities of Spanish
Wool, writing to his Agent in Holland to send
over what he had there with false marks, and to
use various arts to raise the price here on that ar-
ticle, &c. ; and charging, specifically, that he had
fraudulently put into his own pocket 2d. in the
pound on Wool, which he was under contrail to de-
liver as a. Broker (being many thousand pounds
weight), to a person therein named." The latter
part was the only thing insisted upon by the Ac-
tion ; and by the averments of the Declaration, the
Plaintiff was bound to spew_ that the Defendant's
assertion was false.

The Trial lasted the whole day. Much of the
merits depended on the statement of accounts as
they appeared in books ; and therefore the Learned
Judge left the case entirely to the Jury as Mer-
chants, to say whether the Plaintiff' had made out his
. Averment or not ; for if he had not, the Defendant
was entitled to a Verdi. He took occasion, how-
ever, to say, that the Bond in this Case war not
duly attended to ; for the Plaintiff appeared to have
dealt largely on his own. account, although he was
most solemnly pledged not to do so'. This was
abominable, certainly. Still the Defendant had no
right to say of the Plaintiff what was false. Whe-
ther it was false, was the question—the Jury would
judge of that. He was afraid that this was a Libel
on a great part of the Trade of Brokers ; and whether
it was so or not, the Defendant could not do better
than to read it every day he had to live; for it ap-
peared to the Learned Judge to be an admirable Dis-
sertation on the Trade of a Wool Broker. That the
publication was proved to be made by the Defendant
was beyond a doubt ; but the main question was,
Whether what was said was true, because the 'De-
fendant had justified what he had said ?—lf, there-
fore, it either appeared to the Jury, from the in-
speetion of the hooks, that what,the Defendant had
said of the Plaintiff was true, or if it did not appear
that what the Plaintiff complained of, as published
by the Defendant, was false (for in this case the
Plaintiff had, by his declaration, cast upon himself
the burthen of proving his own allegations in his
declaration to be true), in either of these cases the
Defendant was entitled to a Verdid. On the other
hand, if they thought that either the Plaintiff had
:proved the truth of the averment in his Declaration,
or the Defendant had failed to prove the truth of his
justification, the Plaintiff would be entitled to a
Verdia. On the subject of Damages, it was pe-
culiarly the province of the Jury to determine.
The Jury withdrew, and returned with aVerdid
for the Defendant. ,

The Officer of the Court informed the Gentle-
men of the Bar, and Parties in Causes, that to-mor-
row there will be no Sittings. That on Friday the
Causes which stood for Thursday, and those which
remained of this day, will stand for trial ; but no
alteration was made in the paper as it stood for Sa-
turday.

About a fortnight ago, a woman of one of the
Scilly-Islands.(St. Martin's) having the misfortune
to lose two or three sheep through sickness or starva-
tion, possessed herself with a notion that this cala-
mity had fallen upon her through some supernatural
agency, and that she and her sheep were bewitched.
Determined to sift the affair, she took a passage to
Penzance, to consult a genuine son of the Druids,
who is content to sell his oracles under the appella-
tion of a Conjuror. The Wizard proceeded to
work, and soon discovered that the malignant spirit
who had caused this mischief inhabited the frail
body of an old mare, the property of the un-:
fortunate woman, and who had long inhabited the
same fields, and cropped the same herbage with the
deceased sheep. He assured her, that while this
mare lived, nothing would prosper with her, but
that if she burnt the mare to death, her future sheep
and herself would live long and prosper. She re-
turned home, assembled her neighbours, who, as
credulous as herself, were ready to assist at this
aute.da-fe. The mare was tied to a stake, the
straw and faggots placed about her, and, surrounded
by a circle of ideots, was offered up a sacrifice to
the genius of superstition ! In plain English, they
aflually burnt the old mare to death.

The De Witte Vosse, Lorentzen, from Hambro
to Buenos Ayres, was spoke with on Sch Feb. in
lat. 26-5. 8. long. 35-9. W. out is weeks by
the Fortune, Capt. Halcrow, from the South Seas.
The Edward, Martin, from Air for Memel, has
been on shore in the Orkneys, where she received
considerable damage, and intends to .proceed to
Shields to repair,

OLD B AIL EY .

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28.

TUTS day the Sessions were opened in the usual
form, before the LORD MAYOR, Lord Chief Justice
ELLENDOROUGH, Mr. Baron THOMPSON, the Rs_

CORDER, &C.

John Harris, :Joseph narhail, &tikes, and
Henry Borcombe, were charged with a capital offence,
in...feloniously assaulting, on the 14. th of March,
on the king's highway, Peter Tl2odore, and forci-
bly taking from his person a silver watch and chain,
with a seal, together with several articles cf weLr-
ing apparel, his property.
The circumstances of .this case, which took up
the attention of the Court a considerable time, were
substantially to the fillowing effect.
It appeared that the Prosecutor is a Portuguese
Mariner ; on the day above mentioned,_he had been
drinking in one of the public-houses in Wapping,
• and had got rather intoxicated : in this state, soon
• after his coming out of the house, he- was marked
by a party of young depredators, with whom the
Prisoners associated : the number at first consisted
of five or six.: they followed him until he came to
Hunt-street, when three or four of the party closed
with him, and the Prisoner Harris knocked him
down on the steps of the house, knelt upon 11;s
stomach, and took his watch from him : another DI
the party took a bundle which he carried, and
which contained the other articles laid in the
ment. They ran off different ways. This took
place about two o'clock in the afternoon. The
whole transaction was beheld by one of 'the Wit-
nesses, a Mrs. Smith, who happened to know Har.
ris's.person : and the Prisoner Raphall was seen by
another of the Witnesses not far from the spot,
running away with a bundle. In the evening, about -.-
four o'clock, in consequence of the information
received, and the exertions of the Officers, these
four Prisoners were apprehended in a pubiic.house
in Spitalfields. The Prisoner Harris, who it ap-
peared was that morning discharged from the Tower
Hamlets Militia, was taken in the dress of a Sailor.
And it further appeared in evidence, that Harris
sold the Prosecutor's watch, in the interval, to a
Jew dealer, who gave him 11. 6s. for it, and that
the Prisoner Raphall came soon after to this person
to inquire if Harris had sold the watch in question,
and what he got for it.
The whole case against the Prisoners was nar-
rated in detail by a lad of the name of Walker,
who had been an accomplice, but was admitted as
an evidence.. He was, however, substantially cor-
roborated in all the material parts of the case by
the testimony of Mrs. Smith► above mentioned, an I
the other Witnesses alluded to, as well as by the
person to whom Harris sold the watch, &c.
The watch was satisfactorily identified by the
Prosecutor—the Prisoners offered no circumstantial
defence, but a few witnesses appeared to their cha-
raders.

Lord ELLENBOROUGH summed up the evidence,
and delivered au able charge to the Jury, adverting
to such points of the evidence as seemed to him to
implicate the prisoners, with the exception of Bor-
combe, whom his Lordship deemed to be Very
slightly aticeted by it.
The Jury after conferring some time found the
prisoners Harris and Raphall, Guilty Death—and
acquittted Stokes and Barcombe.

Samuel Clarke was tried for a capital offence, in
burglariously breaking and entering a dwelling_
house, which, by different counts in the Indiament,
was laid to be that of Henry Styles and Mary-
Styles—and to belong to each of these persons se-
verally ;—and for stealing therein a quantity of
plate, their property.
The Prosecutors it appeared were brother and
sister, and resided together in a house near Staines.
In the course of the night, between the 9th and loth
of March, a noise was heard in the house by the Pro-
secutors, who, it appeared, took no particular notice
of it at the time, as it4lid not continue long; but on
the servant maid's going down the next morning,
the shutters were found to have been forced, and a
beaureau broke 'open ; from which the articles laid
in the IndiElment were taken : these fads clearly
appeared from the evidence of the Prosecutors and
of the maid servant.

The Prisoner, it appeared was affected by ano-
ther chain of evidence.—On the morning of the
following day he met a Jew pedlar who was going
to Chertsey, whin he asked if he would buy any
wedge, a cant term for plate, and produced a salt..
spoon—the Israelite enquired if he had got no more
—to which the Prisoner replied he had, but that it
was planted; i, e. buried.—After some conversa-
tion on the subjed of selling stolen plate, the
risk of detection, the Prisoner was induced
also to bury the solitary salt spoon—which he
did in the presence of the Jew when it was
agreed he should meet about seven in the even-
on Staine's Bridge, in order to settle their
bargain about the whole batch of plate. How-
ever, they had not long separated when the Hebrew
chap-man, deeming it unwise to let slip even the
least possible advantage, returned to the spot, took
up the salt-spoons, and buried it in sanother place,
known only, to himself. In the interval, upon ma_
tttrely considering the affair, he determined to go
to a Magistrate, and disclose all he knew of it.
This he accordingly did, and the Maczistrate recom-
mended him-to keep the appointment with the Fri-
soner, and on the produCtion of tie Plae to call in
the assistance of those whom he should send with

him,. and who were to lie in wait for the oppor-
tune moment, when the Prisoner could be effectually
charged with the transattion, and secured. This
plan ;was carried into eireEt, and the Prisoner con-
dufted the Jew to the spot where the plate was
buried—he soon got it out of the ground—in was in
a brown bag ; the signal was given—the Constable
rushed to the spot, seized the prisoner, and charged
him with the commis3ion of the robbers-, saying at
the same time, that die bag which he (the prisoner)
still held was the proof of it. It happened that the
place was very near the river Thames, and the pri-
soner throwirig, the bag from him with considerable
force, it fell into the river ; however it was soon
drawn out of its watery receptacle, the contents
explored, and which proved to be the plate
which had been taken from the prosecutor's