Star.
London, England, 1808-07-28 00:00:00

ADNITRALTY COURT. DOCTORS' COMMONS,

vsesnios, 'LILT se.
This day the Right Honourable Sir WM. SCOTT,
proceeded to the adjudication of the following cases :
The Jane, Mix master.—This vessel, under American colours,
laden with coffee, &e. seas bound to London, when captured.—
Ship condemned, and further proof ordered with respect to the
cargo.
Margaret, Tnrgey master.—This American vessel was going in
ballast from New York to Bourdeauz.. No claim being set up,
the .Hip was Condemned.
Aurora, Roeloffs master.—This Danish vessel, laden with va-
riotra merchandize, war on a voyage from Portugal to Amster.
dam. The .que‘tion respected the property of the cargo, the
greater part of which was pronounced to be Portuguese, and the
unclaimed part condemned.
Twende Wenner, Roeloffs master.—This was a Smyrna vessel,
aden wick various merchandire.—The bulk of the cargo pro-
nounced to be Ottoman property.
Victor, Jacobs master.r-This Knlphausen vessel, laden with
sugar, coffee, &c. was bound from Gottenburgh to Amsterdam,
at the time of capture. It appeared that she sailed under two li-
cences, one front the King of Sweden and the other front the
King of Great Britain.—Ship and cargo restored.

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ing paid fur them, and that tbePlaintiffassociatedair •
non-commissioned officers of the DrivereCorpi, at
Cork, and got drunk with them ; he said the Plain-
tiff had made some arrangemedt for' the paytnent
of the debts he. owed in Cork before he left it, and
that the debts he owed were .not of any great
amount.
The SOLICITOR GENERAL stated the Case for the
Defendant, and objected that the Plaintiff had not
entitled himself by any evidence he had given, to a
verdict from the Jury, and that the Court would .be
warranted in point of law to nonsuit the Plaintiff,—
He insisted that the act of the Defendant in writings
the letter was not the publication of a maliciousslan-
der, but was the act of a person discharging a public
duty, and he instanced several cases where one man
has charged another with the most serious offences, but
being charges brought forward for tits purpose of a
necessary inquiry into the conduct of the person ac-4
cured by a competent tribunal, the policy of the law.
would not allow an action of slander to be maintain-
ed thereupon—that in the present case it appeared
that the letter written by the Defendant to Lieute-
nant Colonel McLean was nothing more than an offi-
cial document, coming from the Defendant, as Com-
mander of his District, reporting the conduct of an
officer under his command, and calling. for an inves-
tigation of it by the proper jurisdiction-.-that the
Defendant would have been deficient in his duty' if
he had omitted to make such report, and that from
the MISS examination of Captain Lane it appeared
that the Defeitdant had very sufficient grounds for
doing so—that should it be at all thought necessary,
he was prepared to go fully into evidence to prove
tl:e justification pleaded by the Defendant, but that
`he conceived the Plaintiff had not made out any case,
o supporthis action, there being no other ground for
it than the official letter of the Defendant'—that the
lartourable testimony given by the Plaintiff's own
witness, Lieutenant Colonel M.Lean, of the purity of
the Defendant's motives, put it beycnt a doubt that
the Defendant acted without any malicious iteuntion
towards the Plaintiff, and that the present action
could not be maintained without the utter subversion
of all military discipline.
Mr. BURROWES, Counsel for the plaintiff; replied
at length to the argument of the Solicitor General,
and insisted that the plaintiff ought not to be non-
stf ted—to which the Lord Chief Justice assented.
The Counsel for the defendant were then asked by
the Court if they meant to give any evidence—they
said that they were prepared with a great number of
witnesses to prove every part of the: justification,
pleaded by the defendant, but as doing so would
only lead to great, and -as alley conceived, unneces.
nary length of examination, by which ad adjourn-
ment of the trial to the foll Owing day, from the num-
ber of witnesses, would be the 'consequence—they
preferred leaving the case to the Court and Jury upon-
the evidence adduced by the plaintiff.himself.
Thb Loan CHIEF JUSI'ICE then addressed the Jury,
and after recapitulating the evidence, told them that
if a superior officer had received information of the
misconduct of any officer under his command, it
would be a breach of his duty, and for which he
!would be liable to punishment himself, if he had not
reported it to the Genaml Officer, to whom it be-
longed to inquire into such misconduct s that no man•
h tying a command in the army could exercise any'
authority, if an action of this sort were to lie ; it would•
tend to the dissolution of every thing in the military
.establishment of the country ; he adverted to the evi-
dence of Lieutenant Colonel M‘Lean, who said that]
the letter was received by him in the Ordinary course
of an official communication ; and that as such, he'
transmitted it to General Manly ; and 'the same wits
ness, by his knowledge of the general character and,
good conduct of the defendant, rebutted any presumpr-
von of a malicious motive existing in the -mind of the:
defendant. His Lordship also remarked on the evi•
deuce of Captain Lane, and told. he Jury that if they
believed the letter in question was not an official re-
port, but merely written to injure and defame the,
plaintiff, and not with a view to put the matter com-
plained of in a regular course of military investiga:
tion, they eught to find for the plaintiff; but if they
believed the letter to be merely an official commdni.
cation, then, in pcint of law, defendant had not writ-
ten a malicious libel, whether the charges in that
libel were trot or false, and therefore, if the opinion
cf the. Jury was, that the letter was of that description
they must find for the defendant on the general issue •"
and it was quite immaterial to inquire into the truth,
or falsehood of the charges, which was subject to the
second plea put in by the defend .nt.
The Jury
'retired, and in about twenty minutes-
brought in a verdict for the defendant, with 6d. costs.
The Earl of IdAttniNoioN, the Conini.inder of the
forces in Ireland, sat on the Bench- during the whole