The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-15 00:00:00

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LONDON:
MONDAY MORNING, JANUARY 15, 1844.

This morn dawned upon the commencement

of a trial, the effect of which, to the Govern-
ment of the country, to the people of Ireland, and
to the well-being of the empire, it is totally impos-

sible to calculate. The trial of DANIEL O'CoN-

NELL, for a seditious conspiracy, would at any

time have excited the liveliest feelings of sym-

pathy, and called forth all the anxiety of friend-

ship, among those who recognised in him the

great assertor of his country's rights, and the
regenerator of her religious freedom,—whilst
those, whose Orange bigotry saw, as the result

of his acts and deeds, the downfal of their own

long-continued selfish legislation, would have
hoped to witness his` conviction, his punishment,

and his disgrace.
But at the present time, when the utmost
power of a Government has been stretched, to
procure, if possible, the certainty of a triumph,—

when the bitterness of enmity has sharpened
every weapon, and the vehemence of a party,

desperate, in proportion to its want of judgment,

has called upon the legal officers of the Crown
to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, upon

one, who, whatever his occasional errors, has
always been the firm supporter of civil and reli-
gious liberty all the world over, and who, whilst
claiming for himself and his own countrymen en-
tire freedom, has always been equally ready to con-
cede it to others—how gratifying to himself must it
be to feel, and to every Liberal to know, that let
the result of the present trial be what it may,
neither punishment nor disgrace can attach to
him. The jury must decide upon a conviction—
we believe that they must decide rightly, and
that conviction of unfair dealing will attach to
the prosecutors— acquittal of all offence to the
traversers.

In our last number, we gave a sketch of the
various practices by which the current of jus-
tice has been sought to be impeded, corrupted,
and polluted. Upon the additional means to pro-
cure a conviction, namely, the exclusion of every
Roman Catholic from the jury panel, in a coun-
try where seven millions of Catholics are found
to one million of Protestants, the grand aggre-

gate meeting of the Catholics of Ireland, held on
Saturday, and which is reported in our columns
this day, has pronounced its indignant opinion.
In that opinion every honest Liberal will con-
cur, and denounce the proceeding as the greatest
insult to religious feeling, and the grossest in-

justice to an entire faith, that even the history of
Tory official conduct of political prosecutions can
show.

The other instance of Tory official manage-
ment, the suppression of 63 names out of a panel
of 780 qualified jurors, proved to have occurred,
no matter how—and by a Judge of character un-
impeachable, declared to be matter for grave

suspicion—and yet to have been done in such a
way, that no remedy exists for the accused until
after conviction, adds burning coals of fire upon

the heads of the Irish officers of the Crown.
And thus, to sum up all, the trial in which justice
is pretended to be about to be administered, has
this day commenced, with a total denial of every-
thing that is worthy of the name; and the sacred
temple of the laws is attempted to be polluted
by a perversion of that justice which it is the
boast of Britons, that it belongs to their very soil,
and is inherent in the very spirit of their con-
stitution.

No correct copy of the indictment supplied to
them, contrary to law and to English practice ;
the names, of the witnesses withheld, contrary to
law and to English practice ;—the witnesses
sworn in secret, and not in open court, contrary
to law both in England and Ireland ;—the

striking off the jury of all men of the Catholic
faith, contrary to Christian charity and common
justice ;--and the suppression of nearly one-tenth
of the entirejury panel, contrary to law, princi-
ple, and all fair dealing,—these are the pre-
parations for a great act of justice, in the year
1844, in the time of a Tory Government, but
after all—and greatest shame of all—in the
Premiership of Sir ROBERT PEEL. We had
hoped better things from him, but it appears we
hoped in vain ; the regret is now ours,—the eter-
nal infamy which these proceedings must entail
upon their concoctors, will attach equally to
their abettors, and will be his.
The jury have now committed to them, the
care for the interests of justice, which Tory
officials have shown they totally disregard. The
jurors sworn to determine upon the evidence sub-
mitted to them, may still keep from degradation
an Irish tribunal. They must decide, whether
the traversers are guilty of doing acts, with any
such intentions as the Crown officers impute to
them. No matter what those acts may be, it is
the intent that affixes their guilt or innocence.
The intention to do an illegal act must first
exist, before any criminality can attach to that
act. No act can amount to a crime unless
it be proved to be committed in fulfilment
of a premeditated intention, and the establish-
ment of an act, is no establishment of an intention

to commit that crime.
There can be no doubt, that if multitudes as-
semble, with intent, by force and violence, to
compel the repeal of any law, a crime is thereby
committed; but if the intent be, to produce the
repeal of the law, without force or violence, no
crime is committed by the assembling of multi-
tudes, however numerous. The law deals with
intents, not with numbers; and -jurors will—all
jurors must—remember that no suspicion, or pro-
bability, or chance of guilt, will suffice, but proof,
clear and indisputable, of guilt and intent pre-
existent, is requisite to enable them to pronounce
an accused party guilty, in accordance with their
oaths.

The Anti-Corn-law League goes forth, as was
observed of NAPOLEON, " conquering and to
conquer." It is enlisting recruits in all quarters,
even among those who, four years since, were its
bitterest opponents. On Wednesday last, its
two most eminent members, Messrs. COBDEN
and BRIGHT, attended at a grand Free Trade
Banquet, which was given them in the City Hall
at Glasgow, on which occasion not less than two
thousand individuals were present. Mr. Fox
MAULE, who was among the guests, and who—
asl.our readers are perhaps aware—is the son and
heir 'of one of the richest and most influential
landholders, in all Scotland, spoke out in
straightforward and energetic terms on the
subject of free trade, and, as will be
seen by the fOlfowing passage, which we quote
from his speech, condensed a vast deal of signi-

ficant meaning within the smallest possible com-
pass :—" I think it stands to reason," said the
Hon. Gentleman, " that that system is best, and
promotes to the greatest extent the well-being
of all, which shall give us the easiest enjoyment
of that which the rest of the world produces,
and which shall convey back in return the pro-
duce of our own industry. Now these are the
principles upon which I wish to see legislation con-
ducted, and not in one pointonly but in all. In fact,
I wish to see no taxation which is not solely for the
purpose of maintaining our national credit, and
answering our national engagements; and I
further wish to see the taxation so levied that its
pressure may be equal on all classes, and no one
class have exemption at the expense of another."
In these few but comprehensive words we have
an admirable digest of the principles of free
trade—principles which it is the object of the
League to popularise, and whose full and perfect
triumph it is ere long destined to accomplish.
The monopolists are well aware of this; hence
the secret of their present exacerbation—hence
their mean and calumnious attacks on the
Leaguers, which, however, in consequence of
their excessive virulence, invariably fall wide of
the mark. The opponents of free trade should
learn to be discreet in their slanders; they should
impart to them an air of plausibility, so that they
may look something like truths, instead of out-
raging common sense; otherwise their clumsy
falsehoods—as indeed has been the case hitherto—
will only recoil on their own heads. We specially re-
commend this consideration to the attention of the
Rev. Mr. FISHER, of Wavington, who, at a recent
Anti-League demonstration at Newport Pagnel,
did not deem it unbecoming his clerical cha-
racter to indulge in language like this :—" There
were many things which the League had done,
which he could not advise the meeting to imitate.
He could not advise Drummondizing ; he could
not recommend assasssination and street murder.
Let the League carry on their warfare as they
would, they would carry on theirs as Christians.
He did not like to cast accusations, but he
really thought lie had seen too strong an occa-
sion to suspect that the late incendiary fires,
if not instigated, were encouraged by the
League." Assassination, street-murder, incen-
diarism ! Such are the charges which a Minis-
ter of the Gospel of peace and charity has the
hardihood and effrontery to bring against a
great popular confederacy, which—as its leaders
have asserted a hundred times, and acted up to
the assertion—desires no converts but such as
are made by argument—no triumphs but such
as are achieved by peaceful and constitutional
means. And while boldly bringing these charges
against the League, the Rev. Gentleman, in
the true spirit of Pharisaical cant, professes

his dislike "to cast accusations !" In the
very same sentence that he deprecates the
idea of slander, he slanders the members of an
orderly, constitutional confederacy in the grossest
terms possible. Fortunately, the very virulence
of the calumny supplies its own refutation, for
what sane man will believe for an instant,
even on the representation of a Minister of the
Gospel, that the League would countenance
the perpetration of deeds which, if proved
to have originated in their suggestions, would

dishonour them for ever in the eyes of their
countrymen, and deprive them of all their moral
influence ? As we said just now, the opponents
of free trade should learn to be discreet in the
exercise of their slanders, and impart to their
inventions something like an appearance of pro-
bability. The world may then, perhaps, be
tempted to place some little faith in their calum-
nies, whereas at present it repudiates them with
contempt, as the gross falsehoods of a jaundiced,
desperate, and unprincipled faction.

Among the most offensive pruriencies of
modern legislation, we cannot refrain from
reckoning the mania for " Prisoners' classifica-
tion," " Prison discipline," and " Prison build-
ing," as perhaps the-favourite type of the law-
making mania. In no other instance is the tran-
sition from soundness of principle to abuse of
practice so abrupt or unfortunate as that which
our statesmen generally make, from the specula-
tions of their Cabinets to the Bills which they
introduce into Parliament on the " Better Ma-
nagement of Prisons." No object can be pro-
posed of more intrinsic humanity, or of sounder
administrative wisdom, than to establish a system
of careful inspection, at undefined periods, of
moral and responsible management, of good
order and impressive regulation, providing at
once for the due physical subsistence, and (of
such as desire it) for religious instruction and
counsel, as to all prisoners confined under sen-
tence by lawfUl authority. It is not merely
" well " it is not only " proper "

that due care should lie shown for the
health, and the orderly deportment of prisoners,
but it is just, equitable, and right, that in their
confinement they should not be deprived of the
advantages of such superintendence. Imprison-
ment is the whole, or a part of the penalty, which
the law of the land has decreed against them for
this or that violation of it. If it be but part and
parcel of that penalty, the law carefully pro-
nounces, by the mouth of the Court, the precise
character and extent of the additional punish-
ment which shall be superadded to imprison-
ment. If this latter sentence involve the whole
of the atonement which the law will exact for the
offence committed or wrong done, it is contrary,
not merely to the spirit, but to the letter of the
law itself to exceed the pain of imprisonment
by any superadded visitation on the prisoner. In
neither case was it ever the intention of the
common law, or of statutes, to invest individual
functionaries (especially such as are not judges
or executive officers of its own jurisdictions) with
power to aggravate the term or the nature of
the punishment decreed, excepting only as to such
alterations thereof as may have been subse-
quently incurred, through personal misconduct
or delinquency on the part of the prisoner, ac-
cording to the directions of the Acts for the
better enforcement of prison discipline. But
there is a large class of pseudo-philanthropists
and legislators, who are never satisfied with such
securities as these,. They are for enforcing on all
prisoners—aye, even upon prisoners for debt—a
course of penitentiary and cumulative suffering,
ingeniously protracted and aggravated beyond
the amount of expiation demanded by the law.
The law in the eyes of these men does not un-
derstand its own objects. It cannot accomplish
its own purposes. They step in, professedly to
work in the heart of the prisoner that moral
expiation which human law never can accom-
plish. They seek to touch and soften the heart,
by afflicting the senses and breaking down the
native energies, mental and bodily, of those
whom the law would restore to their free agency

after inflicting on them a certain amount of bodily
suffering, or personal restraint, with or without pe-
cuniary fine. In thisattemptthe very first absurdity
they commit, because it is an inevitable result of
an impracticable system, is to confound different
classes of criminals and different degrees of
crime under one and the same category of
searching, spirit-breaking, unrelaxing, uncom-
proinising, unremitted "discipline." This height-
ened discipline, like Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S low-
ered "dietary," is to be applied to all-alike, and

without distinction. The deeper and more des-
perate criminal, if he be liberated at all, leaves
the " model prison," not moved and melted into
kindlier feelings for his fellowmen, by a con-
scious sense of having received kindlier treat-
ment and more charitable usage than he had at
all merited; but breathing inextinguishable
hatred against, and devising schemes of future
vengeance upon, that society, under the ordi-
nances of which he has been made to .endure
such excesses of abject humiliation and mental
torture beyond that penalty of the law which the
sentence solemnly pronounced in open court had
apprised him that he had incurred. The minor
offender, of feelings less seared and delinquencies
far less criminal, quits the walls that have wit-
nessed his aggravated punishment, and shame,
,and misery, with the dangerous impression that
had lie sinned more gravely against " Heaven
and man," he must have realised a larger plun-