The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-01 00:00:00

arming 24"m4

LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1844,

The Irish Attorney-General, already too cele-
brated for his way of conducting state prosecutions,
has at last reached the climax of absurdity, and
brought the Government which he represents into
supreme contempt. In every step he has taken in
these momentous trials he has committed a blunder.
The original panel of jurors was mutilated by the
withdrawal, or suppression, or abstraction, of forty-
eight jurors; all the Catholics on the list were struck
off; the whole of Catholic Ireland was roused to mad-
ness by this deliberate insult; and every wise and im-
partial and honest Protestant said this rash proceed-
ing vitiated the whole proceedings. But all these
blunders or machinations, all the remaining bigoted
prejudices of bygone times, all the concealed rancour
of Orangemen in office, and the evident determination
of certain parties, by foul or fair means, to obtain a
verdict against Mr. O'CoNNELL, are nothing com-
pared with the outrageous, and the hitherto un-
exampled, conduct of the first law officer of the
Crown, in challenging a brotheradvocate in the midst
of the proceedings to fight a duel. Why is he not
put into Bedlam at once ? Why is the representative
of even-handed justice—the guardian of the
laws —the man that evil-doers should look
up to with fear, and the good for pro-
tection—to be allowed to disgrace his office,

and break down a prosecution, which, if it had
been the most just and imperative, could not have
withstood such unmeasured folly for two days ?
Talk of the wild Irish ! Talk rather of the wild
Saxon ; for in the whole course of the proceedings,
rashness, and bigotry, and violence, and the worst
passions, have all been displayed on one side, and that
is the side of the Crown. It is impossible to form a
greater contrast than that between the prosecu-
tors and the traversers. The latter have, in every
respect, conducted themselves according to the
strictest forms of law, and the most fastidious cour-

tesy towards the Bench and the law officers of the
Crown.; yet, because one of the counsel in the course
of his address to the jury tells the Attorney-Gene-
ral some plain truths, that legal functionary
flies into a passion, and insults the Court, the de-
fendants, and his country, by an appeal to arms. "If
these things are done in the green tree, what will be
done in ttip dry ?" -If such opprobrious acts are
committed in open Court, what may be committed
behind the scenes ? If a list of forty-eight jurors is
stolen, who will now be accused as the culprit ? If
an Attorney-General can openly set the law- of his
country at defiance, while conducting a solemn in-
vestigation, what may be done by himself and his
underlings in secret ? The impartial public, nay,
even those that are not al ways impar-
tial, will view such a scene with ab-
solute horror, and ask what chance any
man has for justice under such a system ? If Mr.
O'CouNsu, is guilty of the charges brought against
him (of which we believe him entirely innocent), he
has " the d—l's luck" in being blessed with such a
prosecutor. No one cares what Mr. SMITH now
says or does, and the sooner these trials are
brought to a close, by an acquittal, the better for the
Crown, the Government, and the country.

The Irish State trials were resumed on Tuesday, when
Mr. FITZGIBBON commenced his address, as Counsel
for Dr. GRAY. He said that the doctrine of con-
spiracy, as laid down by the Attorney-General, was,
that it was a combination of two or more persons to do
an illegal act, or to do a lawful act through unlawful
means. He denied the correctness of the doctrine.
That preposition had been laid down by Lord DEN-
MAN, in a case which occurred in 1832, and had been
repeated by the same Learned Lord in a case in 1834.
But it was a mere dictum and not a decision ; and in
1839, when it was cited before Lord DENMAN himself, his
Lordship said he did not think it a correct proposition,
In the case of the King r. Forbes, better known as
the bottle riot case, Chief Justice BusnE had laid
down a similar doctrine to that of Lord DENMAN,
and it was to be found in East's Pleas
of the Crown. But however good a
text-writer EAST was, he denied that [he was
to be considered a good legal authority.
They had looked in CORE, and all the old autho-
rities on the subject, without being able to disT
cover any such doctrine. With respect
to the two cases cited by the Attorney-General in
support of the doctrine above quoted—viz., the King
v. Watson, Howel's State Trials, vol. 22,
' and the case of the King v. Murphy, Bth
Carrington and Payne, in which latter case
Mr. Justice COLERIDGE had laid down the doctrine
of conspiracy adopted by the Attorney-Gene-
ral, he submitted that they did not apply in the
present instance at all. The former case was one of
high treason, and could not be cited as similar to
the present, which was one of misdemeanour, and
therefore Mr. Justice BATLEY'S decision on it must
not be considered valid. In the case of the
King" v. Murphy, though the doctrine laid
down by the Attorney-Gefieral was applicable
to the facts there, it was by no means so to the facts
in the present case. The Learned Gentleman de-
nied that there was . any case of conspi-
racy established. The people were peaceable
and orderly. They were not drilled, and ordered
to advance and. retire, as they were in Eng.
land. The people met in large numbers, but
it was by such means that redress of grievances was
always obtained. The Learned Gentleman then re-
ferred to the means adopted by the mailed Barons of
England when the great charter of England's liberties
was wrested from King Jouw, and to the attitude
assumed by the people at the time of the Clare
election. He afterwards commented, in very strong
language, on the conduct of the Attorney-General,
with regard to the prosecutions. He did not
object to his doing his duty, but he ought
to do so in a manly and straightforward manner, and
not state the law incorrectly to obtain the conviction
of a brother barrister, who had been an ornament to
his profession for many years. He concurred with
the Attorney-General that this was a mo-
mentous case—momentous to the Attorney-General,
and the party with which he was connected. It
would afford that party a scourge to repress
the people from giving expression to
their feelings and opinions, but he trusted
the Court and jury would interpose to pre-
vent them from obtaining that power. The
juries of England had always saved the liberties
of the people when they were sought to be
crushed by charges like the present. The last case
of this kind was the charge of constructive
treason brought against TOOHE and . HARDY, but an
English jury three times brought in a verdict of not
guilty.
Our Dublin Correspondent gives the result of the
day's proceedings in these words .
" One of the most extraordinary scenes that perhaps
ever took place in a court of justice, was enacted this
afternoon in the Court of Queen's Bench, between the
Attorney-General and Mr. FITZGIBBON. It would
seem that the good old practice, so peculiarly Irish, of
settling all matters in dispute by an appeal to
the pistol is, in these degenerate days, becoming so
fallen into disuse, that, to sustain the character of the
law, even the law-officers of the Crown, and that too
in open Court, call out " Any money for a duel !"
During the progress of Mr. Fi '
this day, the Court and Jury r asusual
about speech
this N ech
about two o'clock, for refreshment. During their
absence the Attorney-General' was observed
to convey a 'tote to Mr. FITZGIBBON, which
he had been writing in Court. On the return

of their . Lordships, Mr. FITZGIBBON applied
to them to ascertain whether he had, during