The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-29 00:00:00

EXCHEQUER.-(THIS DAY.)

(Sittings at Nisi Prius before Mr. Baron Ito LFE and a Como
mon Jury.)

HARVEY V. POCOCK AND OTHERS.
Mr. James appeared for the plaintiff, Mr. Thesiger and Mr.
Hill conducted the case for the defendants.
This was an action to recover compensation, by reason of a
trespass alleged to have been committed by the defendant
and others on the premises of the plaintiff, a master weaver,
carrying on business in Nova Scotia-gardens, Bethnal-green.
The defndants, who acted under a power of attorney of Lady
Isabella Brydges and W. 0. Hammond, being unable to ob-
tain the amount of a quarter's rent, distrained on several
looms and wheels at work iu the plaintiff's house, which he
(the plaintiff) contended was an illegal proceeding,
there being other goods on the premises to satisfy
the demand, the law exempting implements of trade
in ' use from distraint. He also contended that his
business had sustained serious injury by the seizure; also,
that the defendant never applied for the rent, and was not
acting for the real owner of the house, the original owner
being dead, and the question of ownership, a subject of con-
siderable litigation. The case was tried during last Hilary
Term, when the preceding facts were adduced, and a verdict
found for 81. 15s. 6d. in favour of the plaintiff, the present
trial being the result of an application for a new trial on the
ground that additional and conclusive evidence relative to
the ownership had been obtained.—Verdict for the plaintiff,
Damages 40s.

COMMON PLEAS.-(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings in Banco.)
LEE V. TREAD.

In this case, of which the substantial facts have not yet
come before the Court, Mr. Sergeant Shee, for the plaintiff, ob-
tained a rule nisi to enter an appearance for the defendant,
and to proceed, dating the service of the writ of summons on
the 13th of December last. The rule was obtained upon the
affidavits of the plaintiff's attorney, and two other persons, an
omnibus time-keeper, and a person described as a licensed
victualler, who deposed that, on the 13th of December, the
victualler pointed out the defendant in Regent-street to
tlii; time-keeper, who put' the copy of the writ, and
with it, . through mistake, the original document,
into the hand of Mr. Thead. Whereupon, one .of the
deponents went up to that gentleman and requested him
to return the writ which had been served upon him uninten-
tionally. Mr. Thead refused. The object of the rule was
to dispense with the production of that paper.
Mr. Sergeant CHANNEL', now showed cause against the
rule, upon the affidavit of the defendant, that when the al-
leged service was made upon him, he was in company with
some frierids, and was so much annoyed at being accosted
in the street by persons of such mean appearance as the
depotrents,,• that he did not understand the object of their
proceeding, and thrust the papers hastily in his pocket with-
out-considering what their nature might be. He lost them
out of his pocket before he reached home, and knew nothing
of the action commenced against him until he received
notice of the present rule.
The Court ordered the nile to be discharged upon the
defendant's consenting to enter an appearance now. The
costs of this application to stand as costs in the cause.

SPIRIT of the" PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

GLOBE.—The case of the prosecution termi-
nated on Friday afternoon. As if an incubus had
been suddenly removed from the physical and
mental faculties of the Judges—who in this sympa-
thised with every individual in the Court—they
cordially' assented to an !application by Mr. Moore,
one of the counsel for the defence, and adjourned the
Court until the following morning. Dulness—to
whose influence the powers of the Judges, the jury,
the bar, and the audience, had gradually yielded
themselves while the voluminous documents
were read by the Clerk of the Crown—now
ceased to be felt. Mr. Shell was to open the defence.
The opening speech of the Attorney-General, it will
be remembered, was to develope revelations of secret
treasons, privy conspiracies, and incipient insurrec-
tion. It was therefore looked forward to by the
public with anxious expectation. To hear this dis-
closure of plots and treasons was an object not
merely of curiosity, but of patriotic desire to those
who believed that any such conspiracy existed;
while others, more prudent, who regarded those re-
ports as mere moonshine, were induced to seek ad-
mission to the Court for the purpose of witnessing.an
explosion of the statements by which the alarmists
had disturbed the public mind in Ireland. But even
this combination of motives' to gain admission within
the Court to hear the Attorney-General was feeble in
its operation upon the public mind when compared
with the excitement in Dublin on Saturday morning.
The Court was crowded to suffocation. Ladies of
the highest rank and fashon occupied the places to
which the favour of the Judges and the courtesy of
the High Sheriff had obtained them an introduction
before the opening of the Court. The correspondents
of the different London journals agree in describing
the pressure as extreme, and the interest manifested
by persons of all grades was beyond all precedent.
If a judgment may be safely formed of its character
by the perusal of a newspaper report—which, however
excellent, must be imperfect—Mr. Sheil's speech was
worthy of the great occasion on which it was delivered.
.Under ordinary circumstances, however completely
an advocate may identify himself with his client, he
can feel but comps ratively little interest in the cause
itself. In the present instance, the advocate, the
client, and the cause, were not merely linked together
by professional ties, they were united by personal and
political sympathies through the long period
of the Catholic Emancipation struggle. What-
ever was essential to elevate the advocate
to the height of the great argument he
had engaged to discuss, was supplied to, and was felt
by, Mr. Shell. The conduct which was charged against
his client as a crime, he undertook to vindicate ; and
he did so with an eloquence in which the force of
demonstration carried conviction to the mind,
• while the enthusiastic appeals of the orator held
captive the generous feelings of the heart, and
at length enlisted them on the side of the defen-
dants. The Government was denounced for con-
duct which—if the charges alleged in the indict-
ment were founded in truth—was, either criminal
neglect or fatuous indifference :—The unbroken
peaceableness of the meetings—the reiterated exhor-
tations of Mr. O'Connell to the people to respect the
law and its functionaries—his assurance that if a
single unattended magistrate appeared at any one cif
the meetings to disperse the assembly, it would spon-
taneously disperse—and the immediate counter-
mand of the intended Clontarf meeting so soon as
the proclamation for prohibiting its taking place
was issued by the Privy Council—these facts and
circumstances were urged by Mr. Sheil with power-
ful effect, on the consideration of the jury. The yet
unextinguished spirit of religious proscription which
pervades Ireland, supplied Mr. Sheil with one of
those fervid appeals for which he is unequalled in
effect, and which on this occasion produced an irre-
pressible burst of enthusiastic feeling from every part
of the Court. To the alleged seditious ten-
dency of passages set forth in the indict-
ment from O'Connell's speeches, Mr. Sheil
opposed passages equally, it' not more, violent
from those of the Right
wllhoo.i:Frederick Shaw, one of
the Privy Councillors issued the proclamation
against the Clontarf meeting, other gentlemen
connected with these prosecii;ionsa•n"frompee those of Earl
Charleville, and several other Toryi
atand Com-
moners. The Earl of Charleville, in 1837,"great
Protestant meeting" held at the Mansion -ileusa
, said—
" Well, gentlemen, you have a rebellious Parliament;
you have a Lord-Lieutenant, the slave and minion of
a rebellious Parliament." Other personages of the
Tory party who distinguished themselves by violent
vituperation against the Queen, her Ministers, and
the Parliament, were also referred to by Mr. Shell.
From the spoken language, Mr. Sheil proceeded to
the newspaper press of the Tory party, and gave some
choice specimens of the manner in which those organs
of exclusive loyalty expressed themselves when their
friends were on the shady side of the Speaker's chair.
To the passages charging conspiracy on the leaders
of the Association, we can only allude in general
terms. Poignant ridicule, and .bitter satire, relieved
the elrious arguments and forcible appeals by which
the folly of the charge was made manifest. The ex-

pulsion from the jury-panel of every Roman Catholic,
and other instances of reproach and insult to the
great majority of the Irish nation on account of
their creed, were touched upon by Mr. Sheil.; but so
as to avoid offending the most sensitive of the Pro-
testant party; while his forbearance must have pro-
duoed on the reflective a more powerful and abiding
effect than if he had employed the most furious invec-

tives.
STANDARD.—Another act of the Irish State
trials (it is hard to determine in numerical order the
several stages of this tedious drama) opened on
Saturday with the first speech in defence. The
speech was delivered by the Right Honourable
Richard Shell, and occupied rather more than
five hours in the delivery. Many considerations
render it difficult to speak with freedom of this
address, and yet we are unwilling to pass unno-
ticed what appears to us the most able effort
of an able man, and of one for whom we have always
entertained a high respect. The speech of Satur-
day seems to us not only Mr. Shell's best, but
much the best speech of the Grattan school of
eloquence ever delivered by any disciple of that
school, or by its founder. The school is, no
doubt, a bad one, but Mr. Shell's talents, we
will say, his genius, has raised him above its
defects, in the speech which we present this
day. To say that the speech does not even
slightly touch the merits of his client's case would
be, perhaps, to say that the case is one which will
not bear handling; and to compare it with the calm,
sedate, and copious, but concentrated, urgent, and
masterly statement of the Attorney-General would
be, in truth, to place in invidious contrast the respec-
tive cases of the Crown and the traversers. At
present, we must not pretend to say which of the
two speeches ought to be the more successful, in
that which is the proper object of eloquence—
the determination of the judgment of the third party
—the jury and the public. Upon the line of argu-
ment taken by Mr. Shell, as well as upon some topics
" beyond the record," we may, perhaps, remark with-
out transgressing the limits which forbid the least ap-
proach to an anticipation of the verdict. A great part
of the Right Hon. Gentleman's speech is directed
against the law of conspiracy—such an attack may
be judicious in the advocate of persons charged
with the offence, as inspiring in the jury a wish to
acquit, if possible • but the law is the law, and while
it remains the officers of the Government must vin-
dicate its authority when very signally violated, and
sworn jurors must respect it, as they shall answer to
the most solemn of all tribunals. The merits of any
law are not to be canvassed or decided upon in an),
Court but the High Court of Parliament. This
is our reason for not following Mr. Sheil upon
this point, but we think that we have some
time since satisfied our readers, that without some
law restraining political conspiracy, civil Govern-
ment cannot be long maintained in any free country.
Mr. Sheil also attempted to justify the Repeal As-
sociation—its administration, its institutions, its
affiliated assemblies, its elaborate and wide-spread
organisation, by the analogy of other societies and
meetings ; societies, perhaps, as well organised, if not
as extensive ; meetings as numerous in some instances
as those held. in obedience to Mr. O'Connelr s fir-
mans. The analogy is, however, fallacious in this—
Mr. Sheil was not able to bring the things compared
under a common category, which constitutes the whole
force of analogical reasoning. And even were this
possible, acts, all innocent by themselves, may be
in =orals, as well as in law, rendered criminal by
the vinculum of a common bad purpose. When,
therefore, we are told of an organisation un-
connected with any formidable meetings in one
place, and ex tempore meetings, calculated to in-
spire terror, in another, of violent speeches of
isolated individuals here, and of, violent writing
in independent newspapers there, we may admit
the propriety of conniving at them separately
without conceeing that all of them united,
concerted, and combined, ought to enjoy all impu-
nity. It is the collected evil that constitutes a public
danger and indicates an evil purpose. Mr. Shell's ar-
gument, in this respect, reminds one of the well-
known lines of Pope
" I cough like Horace, and though lean am short,
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high;
Such Ovid's nose, and, Sir, you have an eye ;
Go on, obliging friend, and let me see
All that disgraced my betters meet in me."
But, as we have intimated, it is not merely in
being collected, as it were, sparsim, that the ma-
terial of Mr. Sheil's analogy is wholly inapplicable
Its several parts do not come under the same
category with the Repeal Association. The
avowed object of that association is to, obtain
by some means a change in the laws
and constitution of the country, notwithstanding
manifest proof that such a change cannot be effected
without violence offered to the wishes of the legisla-
ture, if not without actual war. The object of the
Orange institution, for example, was not to procure
a change in the law and the constitution,
but to defend both, and to defend them
by lawful means. Nov this surely makes
all the difference in the world between the
Reprialers and the Orangemen—as much difference
as exists hotw s-n the mob which makes a disturb-
ane,,, to aid the, unlawful purpose of a street

practitioner, a i lhe crowd of honest persons who:
join in pursuit -of the detected delinquent. The
Repealers are against the law—the Orangemen
were for the law ; and the law must there-
fore regard them in very differents aspects. There
is alao as between these two classes one very
striking illustration of their opposite relations to the
law, which Mr. Sheil cannot forget. The Orange-
men dissolved their society at the very first intima-
tion of a wish on the part of the Legislature. Has
he Repeal Association shown equal promptitude of
obedience ? Parliament has more than once intimated
its desire. The Queen's speech and the answering ad-
dresses of the two Houses are now nearly half a year
old ; but, if we are not mistaken, the Repeal Asso-
ciation still holds its sittings. So much for the de-
fence from analogy. Mr. Shell complains, in a suc-
cession of brilliant periods, that the traversers have
been entrapped by the Crown prosecutor's delay.
But this, surely, is unjust. Early in the summer
the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel
gave notice of their resolved purpose to put down
the repeal agitation. A like declaration was con-
tained in the Queen's Speech ; but these declarations
were so little heeded, that half a dozen monster meet-
ings were held in the month succeeding the last of
them, and it was not until the nuisance actually in-
vaded the seat of Government—until it-was threatened
to traverse the streets of the metropolis of Ireland
by disciplined and regimented bands of the repeal
cavalry—that a Government, reluctant to resort
to harsh measures, was compelled to make its
stand ; this, if we remember rightly, was about
six weeks after the delivery of the Queen's
Speeoh. Thus, the Repealers had warning,
repeated warning—and they had time, full
time, to profit by that warning—though they
declined doing so ; and it is hardly worthy of
Mr. Sheil, even as an advocate, to speak of their
being in such circumstances entrapped.