The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, r%TTTLY 3, 1844

reason to plume ourselves on our superiority in this re-
spect than we had fondly imagined. The recent trials in
Ireland show that substantial justice may be made to
yield to the necessities of a State prosecution ; and the
public have just been made aware, through the medium
of proceedings in the House of Commons, that the race
of official spies is not yet extinct in England.
There is nothing more abhorrent to the minds of
oar countrymen than any invasion of the sacredness
of private correspondence. The law punishes the
opening of a letter as a gross misdemeanour, and the
person who should be discovered taking advantage
of the opportunity to read any private paper, inadvert-
ently left within his reach, would feel himself degraded,
and would justly be regarded as a dishonourable, if not
a:dishonest, man. The general prevalence of this feeling,
and the stringency of the regulations that have been
adopted in regard to the transmission of letters, have
naturally led to an unbounded confidence in the honour
and integrity of our Post-office department. No one
has doubted that his communications, from the moment
they were put into the Post-office slip till they were de-
livered at their destination, were as safe from the prying
eyes of curiosity, as if they had been inclosed in a case
which no one could open but the party to whom it was
addressed.

Such, however, is not the case. The whole na-
tion has been startled from its propriety by being
told, what was formerly known only to a few, that Go-
vernment has the power of granting warrants for the
opening of any letters passing through the Post-office,
and that this power has recently been exercised to a
considerable extent by that most honourable and con-
sistent of all Home Secretaries, Sir J. Graham. There
is, it seems, a separate department at the General Post-
office for examining correspondence, furnished with all
the necessary means and appliances for opening letters
and closing them again in such a way that the gross
breach of trust can, with difficulty, be discovered.
Think of the confidential officers of the British Govern-
ment gravely employed in steaming wafers, procuring
duplicates of stamps, and taking impressions of seals, in
order to conceal a disgraceful attempt to get at the
substance of letters passing through their hands 1
We are yet ignorant of all the purposes that Sir J.
Graham has had in view in invading the fancied sacred-
ness of private correspondence ; for, when questioned
on the point, he answers nothing, but falls back with
silly iteration on his responsibility as a Minister. The
cases that have been exposed, however, show that to the
meanness of making himself a spy, he has added the
degradation of tracing out secrets fur the use of foreign
despots, at the expense of national honour and national
hospitality. What a precious employment for a British
Secretary of State !
The last debate on this snbject in the House of Com-
mons was one of the most damaging for Ministers that
has occurred during the session ; and even the division
must have taught Sir James Graham that his conduct is
indefensible. The Times sarcastically wishes him joy of
his majority of only 44.
On the whole, we are pleased with the tone taken by
the Whigs in the course of the debate ; but we should
have liked that they had insisted a little more strenuously
on the necessity of putting an end, at once and for ever,
to the obnoxious powers by virtue of which Sir James
Graham has acted. The plea of State necessity we hold
to be utterly untenable ; for all the disadvantage of
allowing the Post-office to be made the means of convey-
ing treasonable suggestions must be more than counter-
balanced by the feeling of security which the suppression
of so disgraceful a system of inquisition would inspire.
Moreover, of what avail are their powers likely to be
now? So long as their existence was unknown, a Home
Secretary might be able, justly or unjustly, to put him-
self in the possession of the secrcts of political opponents
or traitors ; but now, who is there that has any design
against the Government that would trust his communi-
cation to the Post-office ? The exposure of the spy
system has fairly defeated its object, and the sooner it is
abandoned with a good grace the better.—Aberdeen
Herald.

MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF DALMAS.—Yesterday
afternoon Dr. Sutherland, accompanied by Dr. Munro, pro-
ceeded to the county gaol at Horsemonger-lane, by the au-
thority of the Home Secretary, to examine into the state of
mind of the convict Dalmas, the friends of the convict having
repeatedly urged upon the attention of Sir James Graham,
that during the last two years Dalmas has been subject to fits
of mental aberration, brought on by incessant and severe
study, in conjunction with his chemical experiment.% The
result, of course, is, as yet, unknown.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OP QUEEN'S BENCH, July 2.
(Sittings at Nisi Prins, at the Guildhall, before Lord
PENMAN, and a London Special Jury.)

CONSPIRACY.-THE QUEEN V. LORD ASHBURTON AND

OTHERS.

This was an indictment against Lord Ashburton, Mr.
F. Baring, and Mr. Mildmay, members of the house of
Baring and Co., for a conspiracy to ruin and destroy the
credit and property of Mr. Kinder, by procuring an Act
of the Legislature of Mexico to nullify a contract in
which he was engaged.
Mr. Erie and Mr. Bodkin conducted the ease for the
prosecution; and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Clarkson appeared
for the defendants.

This case, which occupied the attention of the Court
during the whole of yesterday, was resumed this morn-
ing, when the case for the prosecution closed. The fol-
lowing are the facts of the case, as we gathered them
from the evidence of Mr. Kinder, and from the very vo-
luminous documentary evidence which was put in and
read, consisting -of all the proceedings in a Chancery,
suit instituted by Mr. Kinder against Baring and Co.:—
In the year 1825 Mr. Francis Baring, who was at that
time travelling in Mexico, agreed, in conjunction with
the representative of the house of Mr. Kinder, in Mexico,
to take a very large tract of land, extending from ocean
to ocean in that country. Information was sent to the
members of the house of Baring in London, and to Mr.
Kinder, by their respective agents, and it appeared that
both parties were dissatisfied at the purchase. At that
time the house of Baring held dishonoured bills of
Kinder's to a large amount, and granted him indulgence,
to which Mr. Erie contended he was well entitled, inas-
much as his resources had been stopped by Mr. Francis
Baring in Mexico. Mr. Kinder, it appeared, had sug-
gested to Lord Ashburton the propriety of transferring
the purchase to a joint-stock company, but the firm of
Baring, which had kept itself aloof from all joint-stock
companies, refused to accede to such a proposition.
Baring and Company sent out to their agents in Mexico,
warning them as to Kinder's credit, and stating that
they held dishonoured bills of his to a large amount, and
desiring their agents to adopt every means in their
power to put an end to the contract. In accordance
with these instructions, the agents exerted themselves
to procure the passing of an Act through the Mexican
Legislature to nullify the contract. This Act was passed
on the ground that foreigners could not hold land in
Mexico, and it appeared from certain letters from the
Mexican agents of Baring and Co., that one of them,
a foreigner, named Noulti, had bribed certain mem-
bers of the Legislature to support the Bill.)
These transactions took place in 1829. In 1830 Mr.
Kinder went to Mexico. He returned to England about
the year 1837, and in 1838 he filed a bill in Chancery
against Lord Ashburton and his. partners. They put in
their answer, which gave Kinder access to all the
papers. In 1840, and just as Lord Ashburton was on
the point of sailing for Mexico, Mr. Kinder went before
the grand jury at the Central Criminal Court, and pre-
ferred this indictment, on which Lord Ashburton was
arrested, and gave bail at the Judge's Chambers four
days before he sailed to the United States on a diplo-
matic mission relative to the Boundary Question.
Mr. KELLY, for the defence, commented on the con-
duct of Mr. Kinder, waiting sixteen years before he
brought forward this indictment, and in bringing it for-
ward in the manner and at the time he did, just as Lord
Ashburton was about to leave England as the represen-
tative of his Sovereign. With regard to the facts of the
case, he contended that if the House of Baring had been
desirous of ruining Mr. Kinder, they might have done
so most effectually by securing him on his dishonoured
bills, instead of holding them even as they had done.
It appeared that at first Kinder had expressed himself
dissatisfied with the purchase, and there was nothing to
show that*, had even expressed his satisfaction at it, so
that the house of Baring might well believe that he like
themselves would require to get rid of it, their interests
in the purchase being identical, and as they knew that
Kinder was not possessed of funds sufficient to carry on
the undertaking, it was not surprising that they should
desire to get rid of the connexion with him. There was
nothing illegal in supporting a Bill before the Mexican
Legislature to nullify the contract ; but then it was said
hat Mr. Notilti, the agent, had in 16. d. True, 1u his
accounts there was a sum entered for bribes, but
those bribes had been paid without any com-
munication with the Baring!, who knew nothing of
Noulti's acts until after the transaction bad been con-
cluded, and with regard to those bribes it should be re-
collected, that in many foreign countries it was ins-
possible to get any great public business, even of a judi-
cial character, transacted without giving what were
called gratifications to
ever officer, from the judge down
to the crier. Now, all that had been done had been to
allow these sums in Noulti's account, and no doubt, if
they had not been so allowed, Mr. Kinder would have
y
called the attention of the Court to it, as a most
unfair and most unjust transaction. Then, with regard
to the communication to the agents on the subject of
Kinder's solvency, that was certainly a confidential com-
munication. No action of slander would lie on such a
communication. If it had been brought. Messrs.
Barings might have
justified, and have put in the dis-
honoured bills in evidence, and, therefore, this could not
be given as evidence of a
criminal conspiracy to ruin the
prosecutor.
Lord DENMAN summed up.
lie said that this indict-
ment charged the defendants, in
vent the prosecutor from h seven counts, with a
conspiracy to bribe the legislature of Mexico to pre-
holding
lands there ; in five
other counts with it cons iracy to turn him out. of pos-
session of lands w
which they should put on those The case to be in two others to injure his credit'
charge of conspiring to injure
pre-
sented to the jurors would mainly depend on the letters
with the strong observations
which had been put in evidence, and on this meaning
which rightfullyi belonged to him ; and
letters. This was a
the conduct or men who though at the very the prosecutor ; and cer-
tainlyoutset of the case they must be struck
which had been made on
such a conspiracy, had for, ugh now charged with
prosecutor to o*e them so many thousand pounds, and
very. purpose which they we're
had forborne to put in force t ainst him the legal rights
so many years allowed the
which they possessed, and which they could not have
enforced without instantly and by law, effecting the
towards the prosecutor, had
vouring to effect by conspiracy.
now charged. with. endea-
It certainly did seem
strange that such a course should have been pursued
existed in the way supposed. At the same time, it could
the desire to injure him
not but be regretted that there had not been from the
first a more free and unreserved communication between
these parties. The defendant, Mr. A. Baring, would
certainly 'have avoided' all that
suspicion which had
since arisen If he had freely communicated with the