The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS.OF THIS DAY.
STANDARD.—We are at length within view of the
termination of the State trials in Ireland. After the
Solicitor-General had concluded his long, and, accord.
ing to its form, able speech to evidence, and the Chief
Justice, speaking for the whole Court (which is agreed)
had delivered a charge of great length, the jury,
on Saturday night delivered a verdict convict-
ing each of the traversers upon one or more
of the several counts (eleven in number), but omit-
ting to find any verdict upon several of these counts.
It will be seen from this that the jury consider
Mr. Daniel O'Connell guilty upon five counts, Mr. John
O'Connell guilty upon two counts, Mr. Ray guilty upon
three counts, Mr. Barrett guilty upon four counts, Mr.
Steele guilty upon four counts, Mr. Duffy guilty upon
five counts, Dr. Gray guilty upon three counts, and the
Rev. Mr. Tierney guilty upon one count ; with refer-
ence to six of the eleven counts, the jurors had not
come to any conclusion. This verdict was of course
imperfect, and the jurors were, at twelve o'clock on
Saturday night, locked up to this day, in order
to complete it. Sensible as we are of the
arduous task imposed upon the Learned Solicitor-Gene-
ral and the Venerable Chief Justice, we are much in-
disposed to criticise unkindly the course taken by either
of them ; it is, however, but just to the jurors, who have
been the sole sufferers by the error—if there has been
an error—to say, that though the speeches of the Soli-
citor-General and the Chief Justice extended to a length
which forced the case almost into the Sabbath, these
speeches appeared to us to have been so much overdone,
as rather to perplex than to aid the jurors in forming
their decision. The speech of the Attorney-General
in opening the case was necessarily long, because he
had to give for the first time, a narrative if tran•
sactions extending over many months, and occur-
ring in various parts of the island. And the
ordr and lucid arrangement of that narrative,
assigning his part distinctly to each traverser,
and -its legal character to each act, and showing
the connection of all the acts, and of all the par-
ties, . will scarcely be forgotten by any who heard or
read the statement ; while every lawyer admits that
it was a masterpiece of legal skill. The case as
thus. stated was to the letter sustained by evi-
dence, and its arguments were scarcely touched in all
the long (and some of them eloquent) speeches of the
seven or eight gentlemen who defended the traversers,
and of the facts alleged not one was impugned by eNi-
deuce, Now, we respectfully submit that this was not
an occasion for a long speech to evidence on the part
of the Crown counsel, who really had nothing to
answer, and who, we must think, would - have
best discharged his duty by a brief resume of
the Attorney-General's statement, carefully imi-
tating the Right Hon. Gentleman's course of applying
each act to its- proper actor, giving its legal character to
each act, and assigning the acts to their respective pro-
per counts in the indictment ; such a resume would not
have occupied more than a couple of hours at the ut
most, and it would have relieved the jury from the con-
fusion and embarrassment in which they were evi-
dently placed by the mass of unarranged matter
through which they have had no guide but the re-
collection of the Attorney-General's speech at the end
of a month. As to the seven or eight orations deli-
vered on the part of the traversers, tliey might, we
think, have been wholly disregarded by the prosecutors,
not only with safety, but with advantage. The
charge of the Chief' Justice was more scientific and
lawyer-like than that of the Solicitor-General ; but,
though excellent in all its parts, it wanted the lucidus
ordo indispensable to conduct to a knowledge of the'truth,
when the acts of individuals are to be determined,
characterised, and appropriated through a wide, in-
tricate, wilderness of events. The Solicitor-General's
speech, and the Chief Justice's charge are deficient in
this, that they do not take the counts in detail, which
would appear to have been the convenient course,
when it is considered that each count is, in fact,
a distinct indictment. The dealing with the facts
in gross reminds us of what ance occurred (as
it is said, in a London church) at the marriage
of twelve men to twelve women by a single cere-
mony—" We, John, Thomas, James, William,
&c., &c., take you, Mary, Elizabth, Jane, Sarah, &c.,
&c., to be our wedded wives, and e converso with respect
to the ladies." The happy couples, it is said, had some
difficulty and some disputes in "pairing off," and a
somewhat similar difficulty plainly embarrassed tho
Dublin jurors, when called upon summarily to mulch
the several traversers with the several counts of the
indictment. Now this difficulty, we must still
think, would have been much diminished had the
Solicitor-General been less excursive and diffuse—
which iu Ireland they call eloquent—and more
succinct and precise in his speech to evidence.
The Court would have been under a necessity
for following him—the traversers would have bees
relieved forty-eight hours sooner from a painful
suspense, and the poor jurors, who had to spend
the whole of yesterday imprisoned in a cold room
(and what a day yesterday was !) for no fault of
their own, would have been in the enjoyment of
their firesides and of the society of, their families. Now
that public attention is directed to the social evils of Ire-
land, we submit that Irish eloquence ought to be taken
into consideration. We think that there are twelve gen-
tlemen in Dublin, that is, if all have survived the cold of
yesterday, who will agree with us, that unneces,arily long,
and unsuitably fine speeches, are among these social
evils. Notwithstanding the glimpse which we have
had of the jury box, we shall not offer any opinion
as to the probable verdict. For anything we know et
present, the jurors are committed in no respect ; they
may acquit all or any, or they may convict all or any,
upon any of the counts, or upon all of them. We pre-
sume, however, that if there be any count upon which
they obstinately disagree, the Crown has the power to
withdraw that count, so that there is no danger of a
faiiuro of justice through such disagreement in part. It
must be useless to say more upon a subject which pro-
bably has beeu already set at rest.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Their Lordships met at Five o'Clock.
On the motion of Lord COTTENHAM a Bill was
read a first time entitled an Act for the Amendment of
the Law of Imprisonment for Debt.
ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.

The LORD CHANCELLOR laid on the table of the
Mouse a Bill for altering the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical
Courts.
THANKS TO SIR CHARLES NAPIER.

The Earl of RIPON, in rising to move that the thanks
,of the House be presented to Sir Charles Napier, and
.the officers and men under his command, said that he
should take especial care to abstain from anything
_which might by possibility lead to a difference of opi-
nion to refer in the reriwtest degree to any political
question. It had always been the practice, on occasions
of this kind, to pursue that course which was recom-
mended, as well by reason as by practice. lie might,
however, be permitted, before he moved that the thanks
of the House be given to Sir Charles Napier, to state to
their Lordships, as briefly as he could, the grounds upon
which he thought the conduct of that gallant officer,
and the army under his command, was most de-
serving of their Lordship's applause and thanks.
He would take the liberty very shortly of de-
tailing to (their Lordships the course of those
operations which had given new lustre to the mil-
litary character of that distinguished officer. It ap-
peared that in the course of the early part of last year
Sir Charles Napier, who was in command of her Ma-
jesty's and the East India Company's forces in Sinde, was
called upon by the Governor-General to enter into cer-
tain negotiations with the Ameers of Sinde. In the course
of those proceedings he received information, upon which
information. he (the Earl of Ripon) would offer no opi-
nion. He received information which led him to believe
that the Ameers, with whom he was about to negotiate,
were collecting troops and the means of resistance, from
which he inferred that it would become impossible for
• him to bring the negociations to a satisfactory issue
without having at hand military forces to support his
proceedings. Under these circumstances, he felt it his
duty to move from 'his position on the Indus at the
town of Sukkur to the town of Bhurtpore, in order by
this operation to disperse those forces which his
representations had tailed to do. When he ar-
riired there the Ameers and their forces retired.
but he was led to believe, from information he had
received, that their dispersion did not take place, and
that a necessity might arrive for a display of force on
his part. The Ameers were returned from the Khyrporo
and took another direction, and Sir Charles Napier, feel-
ing a necessity for securing his time of operation,
moved . forward and secured, the fort of Sukkur.
The Ameers, feeling their position was not a
secure one, retired from the position they had
taken up, and Sir Charles Napier determined to
move forward, in spite of all the difficulties which pre-
sented themselves ; and though there was a want of j
supplies, and there was great apprehension of a dell- I
ciency of water, it seemed to him that Sir C. Napier beiug
a man of great spirit, was not to be daunted from effect-
ing his march; but being at the same time a person of
great sagacity awl prudence, he felt there was some
risk ineffectingit, and he felt it necessary to guard against
the consequences which might follow. He, therefore,
placed an advanced force on the road to Hyderabad, the
capital of Sinde, and it was so posted as to enable the
main body to carry on their operations. His measures
succeded, and with that spirit which distinguished his
family ha succeeded in capturing the fort of Nemongarre.