The Sun.
London, England, 1819-03-18 00:00:00

111alei 15, 1819.

P. S. If the portentous measures now proposed
are carried, or even rendered more attainable here-
afte►, there is not a single statement that is over-
charge►d, nor a picture too highly coloured, in the
" Tidings from Rome," as will be acknowledged,
~•hen it is too late, and nothing remains but un
availing regret, Weeping over her miseries.

Pon TUE SUN.

PETERBOROUGH JUSTICE.

MR. EDITOR,—I suppose, Sir, that I must take
for authentic the distant date of MUCUS'S Reply,
" FebruAry 23 ;" hard as it is to be brought
back into the contest after so long a silence. The
answer, however, which• makes up in novelt?
what it !acts in promptness, must not be very
fastidiously received ; and having this evening,
for the first time since our Peterburgian discus-
sion, learned that I have " got the untenable
side of the question," and that my " assertions
have been tented," I must of course be obliged
for the novel information. Pray, Mr: Editor,
who has untenanted me ? Who has refuted my as-
sertions ? Does Amtcus fancy himself thus tri-
umphant over that " extraordinary at•riter,'• Jus-
Tus Upon my word, Sir, I am impatient to
learn the how, the whet►, and *the where, of this

extraordinary" achievement.
Wu i!int: under an assumed siviatnre, I have no
tight 10 complain of iny autaonist's concealment.
If, however, this AMICUS he not t'o'per Amicus
if I am still engaged a ith my former orpiment,
his attitodes and his weapons seem strangely al-
tered. The conntry Attorney gives way to the
Country Apothecary ; whose metaphor's too
strone,ly of the mortar tor my taste, with love not:
physic.

illutcos remembers me, Sir, (tithe Lipsey man,
,
who tancied that no one was sober but himNelf.
Nothiag will setve him, but I must be full of
spleen, intemperate, and angry, because he has
lost his temper.—Possibly, 1 am .he irritable
animal of his description ; but greater powers
than his ate necessary to stimulore my irritation.
A Siraw dropping on the stream cannot excite a
ripple, much less a tempest. AN:teus' cannot
even stir me by his charge—that 1 lore not Our
ConStilution, and undervalue Our Church. if
Amicus has served the cause of either with half
my zeal, he has done better service than I yet
suspect him for.

Yes, Sir, I " would have the case of every
capital convict in the kingdom reported to the
Sovereign." The Judge is appointed to admi-
nister the law ; try " hear, try, and determine,"
between the prosecuting Sovereign and the ac-
cused subject. When he has, pronounced the
Judgment of that law his function may there
reasonably stop ;' and the discretion of the law's
execution may he left to-the Soverei,4n. Ilow the
capacity for sitting ill judgment would be there-
by impeached, some mote astute brain than I
bear most discover ; since the Judges of Assize,
and even the Magistrates of Peterborough, mit"
not be put on a lower scale of capacity than the
Judges who sit in London.
So then—if the Judges are unfit to exercise the
Sovereign's prerogative of Mercy, they ate ,dually
unfit for tie distributiOn of Justice !---PturilLgit
athliee
fit st clause into my own language--thus,, mn
bot the Sovereign himself is fit to decide
Sovereign's . personal prerogative.—l admit it ;
nay, I Contend
,for it. But the latter clause is pe-
culially AMICUS'S own. It is a 13071 sequitur, as
Partridge says ; which must not be -34thiled
upon me.
As completely also must ANuctts keep to him-
self his very decorous argument, that the capital
convicts in the country are safer than if left to the
Sovereign's mercy. The verity of this handsome
saying may he tried by a plain tact, that through-
out the country many convicts are executed for of-
fences of a class which would.not hare brought them
to a London scaffold. Amtcus arraign for
this the mercy of the Sovereign, and question the
wisdom of its exercise ? Animus narrow
his prerogative within the shrievalies of London
and Middlesex Mucus insist, not only
that punishment is wisdom in the Country, but
that pardon is foolishness in the Town.
But the Judges, including of course the re-
vered Magistrates at Peterborough, can better de-
cide on " the final event"—a delicate phrase this
for the life or death of a fellow being !—than the
Sovereign can, because the trial has just taken
place ; whereas the Recorder's Reports are gene-
rally made after a long interval. So Mr. BEN-
NET has said, for the second or third time,
think.. Yet that interval is possibly more agree-
able to [be poor convicts than to be expeditiously
hanged " at the time."—Oh, this expedition is a
fine thing ! especially at Peterborough, whose
chartered Judges can neither mitigate nor post-
pone the execution of their own sentence !
Delightful justice it is, to pronounce the- fiat of
death in the moruing, and after dinner decide
over one's claret, at the—l forget the sign—
whether the Sovereign shall be allowed an opportu-
"ity of exercising his mercy
" Local friends" too intervene in the country,
and " local circumstances," which in town could
not operate. Why not ? A " local friend "
would be as apt to solicit a case in -London,
through his County or Borough Member, as ef-
fectually as even at Peterborough. And as for
" local circumstances," what those can be which
the Judge would not report, either in the trial of
with it, unless indeed they occur after the poor
devil has been banged, Amicus will be kind.
enough to instruct me.

the inconvenience of such reports !
and their delay !—and their trouble !—Sr,i when
put in, the Valance with a life, these objections
vanish,.
De vita hominis nnlla cunctatio est Tonga.

And who shall presume to assert, that I show
any disregard to the Constitertion—nay, that 1 do
not -show the most useful regard to it—when
pleading for its Sovereign's most excellent and
must endearing prerogative in the amplest extent ?
when I urge that his power of mercy should be
bounded only by the farthest limit of his domi-
nions ?—t.hat no subject should determine upon
its exercise ?—that he should know throughout
those dominions the sum of human vice and
human misery 2—that he should be made ac-
quainted with the dreadful aggregate ; and thereby
be enabled tn judge of its remedy ?—that he, who
stands accountable to Heaven for Lis people:s hap-

' pines, should have an iceount rendered to Lim-,
self of their lives ?—Thus far I have spoken of
the Sovereign, generally. I now speak of our
Regent : that all his people, even the-miserable
tictims of the Law, should have the benefit of
his personal abhorrence of blood.
But-under the name which I have assumed, I
must not talk of Mercy. Be it so. .1 will own
that I am too merciful .to the wretched criminals
in their cells to style myself JusTus, it my an-
tagonist will own that he is too hostile to their
hopes to style himself Amiens. I beg pardon.
He is very friendly :—as staunch a friend as ever
to the—Peterborough Magistrates.
For all that Amicus bath yet said, the analogy
between the Right—was this omission the fault
of your compositor, Sir, or mice own careless-
ness ?—the Right Reverend Bench of Bishops and
the Reverend Judge at Peterborough, is still pre-
cisely what I stated it to be. The Bishops sit in
Parliament by virtue of their office, though the
temporal baronies attached thereto give them their
,eats. In obedience to the one, they decline the
judicial function; while, in sight of the other,
they record their privilege to,use it. Yet, should
a temporal Peerage descend upou a Clergyman,
the Canon Law requites him to postpGaie hits tem-
poral privilege to his spiritual character :--4a suffi-
cient proof of the analogy—and of the principle
too—that it is the profession, not the dress, which
determines the capacity; and that a Clergyman,
thOtigh he casts off his casiock and surplus, can-
not divest himself of his. clerical obligation.--
Oceanus non facit monachunt. ,In his gown, or out
of it, the servant of the Altar is still vowed to the
Altar's service. A curious defender of the Priest-
hood is this Mucus ;. who, while accusing ate
of " disliking the Clergy," himself attaches their
sanctity, not to their function, but to their
garment t.
took it, Sir, on their own argument, rather
tit diriously, you will say, towards their wor-
ships, that the Peterborough Justices are " the
ooly speaking Trumpet" of the poor, horse-
stealer. Either AMICes, or Mr ATKTlvseizi, Ido
.
not exactly remember which, said, that they ap-
plied in his behalf for the Royal Mercy.. Re _would
have had small chance of it, Sir, had they not
thought fit to allow the ReGE,IT that opportunity
of exercising his blessed prerogative. The fact
proves my case ; let the Peterborough Jus!ices,
or their literary champions, prove on the other,
hand' that they always have allowed to the Crown.
the same opportuni!y ; that they have nerCr hang-
ed a thief without first giving him the chance of
die Sovereign's mercy.

If 111)11 not tell it, AMICUS has now told, " how
bard verbiage may be." Nevertheless, I shOl nit
" dip more deeply into JOHNSON'S
[lad I applied the epithet " Magisterial,'' to h is
Peterborough Justices, Atutcy s would haye as-
sailod ni witlt the authotity of our great Lexico-
grapher, that " Magisterial- flietiliS, riot what
belongs to the office of a Magistrate, but " lofty,
arrogant, proud, insolent, despotic ;" epithets,
which, all pow( tint as are their chartered tor-
ships, I was not quite so rude as to apply to
them. A thousand slipslop talkers and writers
Use " it as referting to a Magistrate;
still so may Asztcus, for aught I know ; but
" Magistratieal" I will contend to be a term
" classically" formo, and properly lipplied, pro:.
vided that this onceps syliaburum will not iudiet
me tot coining, befote ;he Iteverend Judge of the
Soke of reterhorough.
For the pre,ent, Sir, I release you ; praying
only, that as 1 bare answered' Amtcos on'the
saute day whereom you published him, yoti will
be somewhat more txpeditinus in putting we into.
i ot. Any termination of my Reply, Aintcus
will call, lam sttec, " a happy Abruptness." He
may style it a " faAce" too it he clauses ; though
Iris desire of abridging the prerogative of limey
infers a' taste more disposed toward tragedy.
March 15, ISt% JUSTUS.

T EATRICAL 11 F. GIST ER.
Perl'ormeit Last Night.
THEATRE ROYAL, DRUHY-LANE.--AO. Oratorio,.
THEATRE ROYAL, COVENT-GARDEN.-tiu Pcsfurinance•

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THE SUN.

lOLEM QUIS DICERE FALSUM .AIIDEAT !,

- LONDON,
THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1819.

We received last night the Paris Papers of Suti•
day last. .Those of Monday, which were due this
morning, have not arrilved. It will be seen by
the following extracts, that the 39 new Peers,
whose titles had been verified, took their seats
on Saturday, on which day also the titles of nine
others were verified, and they are to take their
seats at the next Sitting. The Chamber of De-
puties did not tneet. The pt ()position respecting
the Election Law was officially communicated to
the President :