The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-06 00:00:00

THE WRIT OF ERROR.
(From the Times.)
The House of Lords has given its decision in the
case of Mr. O'Connell, and that decision is a reversal
of the judgment of the court below, in opposition to
the opinions of the majority of the judges, delivered
on Monday. The majority in the House of Lords
consisted of Lords Denman, Campbell, and Cotten-
ham, against the Chancellor and Lord Brougham.
With respect to the legal points at issue, the law is in
such a state that it was, of course, a toss up which
way judgment would be given. It is unusual to go
against the opinion of the judges, and therefore it was
naturally expected that the House would agree with
that opinion. As it is, they have disagreed with it.
The matter appears to stand thus :—On the great
merits and substance of the case there was no doubt
and no difference of opinion amongst our judges.
It is quite clear that under one count or another in
the indictment, a true legal offence was described, and
that on the proof of that offence judgment was given
against Mr. O'Connell. This is the common sense
view. On the other hand comes in the legal diffi-
culty. The indictment contained bad and unsound
matter, as well as good and sound. The judgment
was given upon the indictment; the judgment was
given, therefore, upon bad counts as well as upon good
ones. Here is the point. The bad invalidate the
good, say Mr. Baron Parke and the minority of the
bench ; the good turn the bad out of the field, say Chief
Justice Tindal and the majority. Judgment is given
upon a mixture, says one side; judgment supposes
only the sound ingredients of the mixture, says an-
other. This is one of the main questions; the other
relates to the appointment of the jury, and the vicious
list out of which they were selected. There is legal
remedy in this case, says one side of the judicial
bench ; there is not, says the other. Who shall de-
cide when doctors disagree ? A majority of judges
on one side, and a minority on another, was still a
division of opinion ; and the Lords had a right to de-
cide between the two. So thought Lords Denman,
Cottenham, and Campbell. They conceived also that
they had a perfect right to entertain a coincidence of
opinion on the matter with Mr. Baron Parke, and un-
doubtedly they have. Mr. Baron Parke, as we have
acknowledged already, is a luminary of the law. No
one can dispute the right of the Whig law Lords to
entertain his view; and they have, as we see, not
failed to entertain it. A curious mixture and per-
plexity of justice ensues upon this decision. Going
upon the substantial merits of the case, Mr. O'Con-
nell has confessedly been condemned justly: going
upon the legal question, the majority of the law Lords
say he has been condemned unjustly; and he has al-
ready actually suffered part of his sentence. He can
proclaim the injustice of a now so decided illegal
sentence of imprisonment. On the other hand, an
opponent may tell him that what was prospectively
illegal was not prevented by that circumstance from
being actually at the time legal. The law put Mr.
O'Connell in prison, and the law has taken him out.
The law is his enemy and his friend ; but it is law
in either case. A legal interpretation acts subse-
quently to its promulgation, but cannot antedate
itself. What was done before was done then, and not
now ; and Mr. O'Connell's imprisonment is present
illegality but retrospective law. However, Mr.
O'Connell is now out, and at large, or will be in the
course of a few hours. It remains with him to select
the character that he will play on so important and
triumphant an occasion as the present. Will he be
serene and majestic, or indignant and threatening ?
Will he pity, or will he storm? Will he smile, or
shake his fist ? Will .he astound all Ireland with
quiet magnanimity, or immediately commence retail..
ation ? We have no doubt he will duly revolve and
debate the part he will play. It is a critical moment;
much may be made of it by good management;
much may be lost, and much gained; he must take
some line that will be striking and impressive. What
a crowd of political moves in posse will cross and
jostle one another in his brain as soon as the triumph-
ant intelligence is communicated. And the choice
must be made immediately; the prison doors are
opening, and the excited mob are waiting outside. Mr.
O'Connell should really have time for deliberation, and
be allowed, as a favour, to stay one week longer in gaol.
Meantime, without undertaking to prophesy what
the immediate effects of the decision of the House of
Lords will be, and fully aware, as we are, of the un-
favourable turn which such successes generally have
taken in Ireland, we must yet suggest one aspect in
which the present one ought to-be viewed, and which
should tell anything but unfavourably upon Irish
feelings to England. The Irish cannot at any rate
now complain of the injustice of England : we do not
decide ourselves whether this judgment of the Lords
is a good or a bad one, just or unjust: but the Irish
certainly cannot complain of it. English law cannot
be impugned and accused of Irish antipathies
at any rate in this instance. English law has set
Mr. O'Connell free. Ungrateful it would ba to an
excess in them to go to any other source than the
unpolluted purity of English law for the favour-
able sentence, or even to whisper the remotest con-
jecture of an obligation to the political partialities
of Lords Denman, Cottenham, and Campbell, for
the issue of this appeal. The Noble and Learned
Lords would disown it with indignation ; and there-
fore, they must acknowledge that it is law, and law
only—English law and justice—which has done this.
Or even supposing a shade of party—a mere touch of
the politician coming in, in the business—we men-
tion it as the barest hypothesis—still the learned
Lords are not the House of Lords. The House is
Conservative, and this is the decision of the House.
And though it may be said that custom prevents any
but law Lords voting, and that therefore this is prac-
tically only the decision of certain law Lords, this
only removes the conclusion one step further. The
fact still remains that the House has committed itself
to this decision, and that the supreme tribunal of
England has given a most gratifying judgment for
Ireland. Whether that judgment is right or wrong,
we do not say; it must at any rate be a pleasing one
to the Irish ; and they are not, therefore, the persons
Ow to complain of English injustice and partiality.

(From the Morning Herald.)
" The glorious uncertainty of the law" has had a
new triumph. The judgment of the Irish Court of
Queen's Bench, in the case of O'Connell and others,
though approved of by seven out of the nin2 judges
free to offer an opinion upon the subject, and by the
Chancellor and Lord Brougham, has been, reversed
by the votes of only three Noble and Learned Lords
—two of them ex-Chancellors of Whig promotion,
and the third a nobleman whom we dislike to find in
such company—though fourteen years ago he was a
Whig—Lord Denman. Let us marshal the autho-
rities on each side :
FOR THE JUDGMENT. AGAINST IT,

' IN IRELAND.
Chief Justice Pennefather.
Mr. Justice Burton.
Mr. Justice Crampton.
Mr. Justico Perrin.

The Chancellor.

Lord Brougham.

IN ENGLAND.
Lord Cottenham.
Lord Denman.
Lord Campbell.
Mr.-Baron Parke.
Mr. Justice Coltman.

Chief JustiCe Tindal.
Mr. Justice Patteson.
Mr. Justice Williams.
Mr. Justice Coleridge.
Mr. Justice Maule.

111 r. Baron Gurney.
Mr. Baron Alderson.

Such is the state of the law that five judges,
neither higher in judicial rank nor otherwise, have
the power of overturning the judgment of thirteen;
an arrangement, in appearance at least, not very
honourable to the administration of justice in this
country. The question naturally occurs to every one
—why, if the votes of Lords Cottenham, Denman and
Campbell must be paramount in any case, were the
circuits delayed—the prorogation of Parliament post-
poned—and the traversers detained improperly six
weeks in prison ? Why were the judges consulted at
all if it was predetermined, as manifestly it must
have been, that the opinion of the majority of them
should go for nothing ? Is this the way to make the
administration of justice respectable in the eyes of
the people ? A question, in some measure connected
'with the last, respects the attendance of the lay Lords.
If these Lords were to give efficient votes, their at-
tendance is intelligible enough, and the exercise of
their privilege ofth voting would go sonic length in
explaining
for, even though tehe
opinions of the judges were called
.aw. Lords might have resolved
to disregard tese
because, instructed by
the opinions and thellenaNFtest-d; abreguments of the judges,
most educated laymen
as competent to form
a sound decision as an equity. pleaderno more con-
versant with Crown law than the
ex-Chancellor he Cot-
tenham, or than the noble and unsuccessful p jcosoecutor
of Frost, Lord Cardigan, Mr. Feargus
and so many others; but the lay Lords were not
permitted to vote, and one can hardly imagine
a slight passed upon any men more humiliating
than the detaining their Lordships from their
country seats, their relaxations, and the society
of their families, merely to look on, like the guards
at an execution, while Lords Cottenham, Denman,
and Campbell should snub eleven out of thirteen
Irish and English Judges. As to the consequences
of the decision, the only ill-Consequences that we ap-
prehend, in addition to those which must attend every
perversion of law and justice, is the new force that
this decision will give to the too prevalent conviction
that "there is one law for the rich and another for the
poor." The judges, law Loris, and all who have had
the matter before them, unanimously edmit the moral
justice of the punishment of, the. Repealers, though
some on one technical crotchet, some on another, have
concurred in withdrawing the offenders from that
merited punishment. This acknowledgment of the
real substantial guilt of Mr. O'Connell and his accom-
plices is on one side good, because it reduces the tri-
umph of the liberated convicts to the triumph of suc-
cessful wickedness and f
rad, but it is on the other