The Sun.
London, England, 1803-02-01 00:00:00

IRELAND;

C()t1.11t KlN(;'s

TRIAL AT bilk! PAILS SIEFORL LOAD KILWARDAti.

• CRLM. CON.

M(CRACKEN JOhNSON.

Mr. WALL ts opened the-Pleadings by saying this
' was an Aaioo of TaespaSs "v 1 et armis The De-
' elaration conea'ified three counts--=the first charging
the Defendant with the crime' of adultery, corn_
mined at various times-with Plaintiff's wile, and
the two following with having excited her to elope
with him, and carry off clandestinely from. her
husband, haberdashery goods to a considerable value,
Mr. G. PONSONBY stated the case, at large.
.He 'commenced "by declaiing the present to be a
case much more strongly marked 'with moral turpi.
tude, than. any one of a similar tendency which
ever came within his knowledge or experience, yet
attended with such circumstances of novelty and real
' eccentricity",, as notwithstanding the indignation it
must create in every honourable and feeling mind,
would' still render it impossible, with the utmost
gravity " that ,could be conceived due to the discus-
sion of the subjea on this solemn occasion; to divest
it entirely of the ridicule in which it is so evidently
involved.—The Plaintiff, his injured client, did
not move in a very elevated sphere in society ; he
was an humble
..‘ri,feur 111;0-maker •
in the year 1768, he formed a, matrimonial con-
ncelion with . this frolicsome partner, whose recent
deviations from the bed of honour and conjugalli.
delity; had laid ground for the present anion , their
felicity was uninterrupted for the principal part of
a period
.of near thirty-five years, during whiCh
they had twelve children ; but in an evil hour the
Defendant marked another novelty in this curious
case. .It is true he is a member of a society for in-
dustry, frugality, benevolence, morality, and deco:
cottn, pre-eminent throughout all the nations of'
the civilized world, wherever they reside, for supe-
riority in these truly honourable and respettable
qualities. After such description, it was almost tin.
- necessary to say, that he stood enrolled among the
Quakers—he was now more than sixty years of
age—had three wives of his own, who came to
.him in lawful matrimonial succession, but whatever
species of enjoyment he might have had in so
liegated a feast, it,would appear by his condud to
the Plaintiff; who was the friend of his bosom,
that at length he would prefer the use of any other
man's wife, rather' than embroil himself in a fourth
experiment ,of his own. Habituated to the confi-
dence, the hospitality, and warm unalterable friend.
ship of the Plaintiff, to whose house and table he
was without the clogs of ceremony, or invitation,
uniformly, and at all hours,, welcome, with only
one .exception. " Notwithstanding the ordinary
impediments of religion, morality,' and, the old
prescriptive rights of hoipitality, familiar, as 'oe
was with the Plaint'iff's house,. familiar with his
board, he was resolved to be equally so with his
:bed, and 'with the assistance of his piecious para-
mour, be at length .succeeded in planting thorns
in those pillows, which love and conjugal affedion had
for .30 previous years unalterably strewcil with roses.
.Mr. PonsoNLY afterwards expatiated very seriously
on the grossness of the crime, and its !atilt:noble
consequences to society, particularly by the bad ex.
ample it afforded in deviating so strangely and un-
accountably from those moral and decorous do.
mestie habits, Ibr which K:males in the middle
r.snks of society, in -this •kingdore were allowed to
outstrip all competition . among siwilae ranks of
their sex•throughout Europe,' or pet hap the world
beside.

'Eleven Witoes4es were adduced on behalf of the
flaintiff—the faa of adultery was clearly proved,
a 3 aho the cohabitation of the criminal parries un-
..det the feigned names of Magrath, at two different
lodging homes near' the Bleeding Horse, in the au-
.tumn of !Soli also their presumed intercourse at
this days among these Witnesses wcre,one or two
who-deposed to the apparently happy and conjugal_
like state of the.Plaintiti and his wile—the
son alone, a youth of sixteen years of age,'on his
troSs-examination swote, that M'Cracken, ,wider
whose roof he was brought up in the charader of his
`child, did, in..iariouii wrangles with hil, the Wit_:
,mess's mother, deny that he was his son—,did often,
upbraid his mother with an indiscriminate criminal

connexion with all the lodgers at their house in
~Henry-street, .for . sixteen years hetore : among
these were a Major Murray, and Captain Lamp-
bit that so strong were the Plaintiff's .suspicion:;
of his wife's infidelity, that he uniformly in his an-
gry fits called his sons and daughters a bundle, of
• bastards; and when his wife eloped from him, he.
laid some stratagems :to, get her out; of-the house of
'a Noble Earl now deceased, with whom he:con.:
ceived she had Occasional connexions--,that he af.
• feted to have discovered. and .proclaimed her
minalintercourse with the- Defendanti at,leastione.
year before her elopement with hitn,',and.'still., did!
cohabit with,ber,., • .

Mr. CURRANT in the -defence, exhibited those'
marks of wit _and elqcntion for which he- is so erni:

neat, in support of the principle of damages, merely
nominal, if• the jury'should find a verdid for the
Pliiintiff. He argued on the evidence of the 'boy,.
though adduced on the part of the Plaintiff, drawing
this inference, that the Plaintiff. dial patiently and
calmly acquiescela his own disgrace ; and, from his,

. __.......
own conduCi, cOuld not be said— to have suffered any
privation of those comforts belonging to the mfr.;
riage state, when its principles are not perverted by
immorality ninth/ice. '•

Lord Kt LwAR DEN charged the Jury ; his Lord.
ship recommended to them, in the, verdi4t they
should give, to mosure the damages in proporti4m
to the injury they wiould suppose the Plaintiff had
sustained. On the distindions of rank in society,
his Lordship adverted to the false system of qua,
liry so,seduloudy pruagated.by modern reformers;
.The true dodrinr, .on that principle, was, perhaps,
confined to the British realms alone, aacquality of
rights, between the Peasant and, the Noble•—he
therefote conjured the jury not to permit their judg.
tents to be led astray, by all the wit and light
pleasantry they might have heard on the inferior