The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-05 00:00:00

SPJ,,CIAL COM iIISSIOY.

STAFFORD, 'AIONDAY EVENING.—The Special Com-
mission appointed to try the prisoners committed for
offences in Staffordshire during the late disturbances,
was opened in Stafford on. Saturday evening, and
yesterday the Judges, Chief Justice Tindal, Baron
Parke, and Baron Rolfe, attended Divine serv'ee at
Christ Church, when a most excellent and appropriate
sermon was preached by the Rev. ;V. E. Co?dwell,
from the following text, Titus, iii. 1,2, ' Put them
in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to
obey Magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to
speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle,
showing all meekness unto all men."
At ten o'clock this morning the Judges entered the
court. Sir N. Tindal, Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, presided, and was assisted by Mr. Baron Parke
and Mr. Baron Rolfe. The proceedings appeared to
excite but little interest in the town, and the bringing
up of the prisoners in batches, escortei by a party of
the 3d Dragoons, did not attract fifty spectators. The
court, which is a large and convenient structure, was
crowded, but by no means inconveniently. There
was a large number of ladies in the galleries, and
these, with the Grand Jurors, of whom there was a
very numerous and respectable attendance, composed
the great bulk of the auditory. On the bench we
observed the Earl Talbot, Lord Lieutenant of'the
county; the Earl of Dartmouth, the High Sheriff;
J. E. Piercy, Esq.; the Mayor of Stafford, 'J. lice/Yrs,
Esq., and several of the influential Magistrates of the
county.
The usual proclamations having been made, the
following noblemen and gentlemen were sworn upon
the Grand Jury :—Viscount Ingestrie, foremau ;
Viscount Sandon ; the Hon. E. R. Littleton; Edward
Monckton, Esq.; W. F. Chetavyad, Esq.; Henry
Chetwynd, Esq. ; Francis Bid, Esq. ; Thomas Hale
Parker, Esq. ; Edward Grove, Esq. ; 11. H.
liamson' ' Esq. • G. T. Whitgreave, Esq. ; Charles Ad-
derley,
Esq., M.P.; H. J. Pyne, Esq. ;
Leigh, Esq.; Henry llordern, Esq. ; Thomas Salt,
Esq. ;J. Cartwright, Esq. ; 0. Oldham, Esq. ;
Charles Coyne, Esq. ; Cantain Thomas Powys,
Samuel S. Briscoe, Esq.; Charles S. Forster, Esq. ;
Thomas Hartshorne, Esq.
Her Majesty's most gracious proclamation having
been read,
Chief Justice TINDAL delivered to the Grand
Jury the following charge :—Gentlemen of this
Grand Inquest—lt is with unfeigned regret that
those who have been appointed under her Majesty's
Special Commission to inquire . into, and adjudicate
upon, the numerous offences committed within this
county since the last assizes, are called upon to meet
you, the Grand Jurors of the county, on the 'present
occasion. It is at all times a painful and, distressing
occupation for the mind-of the Judge to pursue the
investigation of charges of guilt, and to apportion the
just measure of punishment to be awarded against
each individual offender ; and if this be the case in
the comparatively few instances which occur in the
ordinary administration of criminal justice at the as-
sizes, much more is it so upon the present occasion,
when the number of offenders is so large, the nature
of the alleged offences so injurious to the welfare of
society, and the offences have been committed, not by
single individuals, or even small numbers of persons, but
by large masses of the community impelled by one com-
mon motive, and labouring to effect one common ob-
ject. Gentlemen, it is not our design, nor indeed have
we sufficient information on the subject, if we pro-
posed to do so, to trace, with any particularity, the
origin or exact progress of those violations of the law
which have taken place within this county, and which
will shortly be brought under your consideration. It
is fully sufficient for our present purpose to give a
general outline of those transactions, drawn from the
depositions taken before the Magistrates, the only le-
gitimate source of information to which we have had
access. It appears that about the middle of the month
of August last the workmen employed in many of the
collieries, and also in many of the various manufac-
tories established in this county, had become dissatis-
fied as well with the amount of wages allowed by
their employers as in some instances with certain regu-
lations under which they were placed in the course of
their employment ; and that for the purpose of compel-
ling their masters to allow them greater wages, and to
alter the regulations by vihich they thought them-
selves aggrieved, they refused to continue to work at
the various employments in which they had been en-
gaged; that in a short time, not contented with
simply refusing to work, they proceeded, by threats,
intimidation, and violence, to compel other workmen,
who were willing to continue to work, to join the
number of those who were discontented. It appears
further, that whilst large bodies of the workmen, per-
petually increasing in number, were thus collected
together in a state of idleness, and of consequence
destitution, certain strangers, persons altogether un-
connected with them in interest, appeared amongst
them, and by addresses made to them against the
religion, the law, and ' the Government, excited them
to a state of dissatisfaction with all the established
institutions of the country, and laboured to persuade
them to persist in their refusal to return to their
employment, as the sure, and effectual, and : only
means of redressing the evils by which they were op-
pressed, and of obtaining their just rights, called
by the speakers the " People's Charter." It' ap-
pears that after such addresses had been made, in
some places tumult and disorder forthwith ensued
amongst the assembled multitudes, to the great terror
and alarm of the quiet and peaceable part of the com-
munity. In other places large bodies of the work-
men, so collected together, proceeded to acts of open
violence and breaches of the law, in some instances
against the persons of the subjects of the Queen, by
beating some, cutting and maiming and robbing others,
and sometimes against their property by acts of theft
and plunder, by forcibly breaking into the dwelling-
houses of individuals by day and by night, by the de-
struction of dwelling-houses by actual demolition or
by fire, beginning with the houses of Magistrates
and other public functionaries, and soon carrying
the work of ruin to the dwellings of private persons ;
and it is impossible to foresee to what extent the ra-
pine and devastation of a lawless and misguided mob
would have proceeded in the land if it had not
beers met and countervailed by the zeal, activity, and
firmness of the Magistracy of the county, aided by the
unwearied exertions and courage of the military and
yeomanry, who lent their effectual assistance, when
called upon for that purpose,se security
t
repressing l
ie
gNv'iosleanlcliel
and disorder, and in giving wit
property of their fellow-subjects, by whose combined
efforts the work of further destruction was suspended,
the fearful and ominous results which seemed to im-
pend were averted from the county, and the law was
restored to its just supremacy. Gentlemen, it has
already been intimated that we conceive it to he no
part of our province on this occasion to discuss the
Justice of the complaints made by the workmen
against their employers, or to decide upon the merits
of the dispute existing between them. Neither is it
part of our duty to show by argument that the course.
pursued by the parties who thought themselves ag-
grieved was of all others the least calculated to
ac-
complish—on the contrary, perhaps, the most likely
to defeat—the very object which they wished to
attain. Nor, again, are we called upon to suggest
or to discuss any remediot which may be provided
by law for the prevention of similar mischief's, if, unfor-
tunately, at any future time the same ground of dis-
pute should arise between masters and workmen—a
discussion which is better fitted for a legislative as-
sembly than for the members of this tribimal, to whom
the only duty allotted is that of declaring the law as it
stands at present. Our direct and more useful course
will, therefore, be to endeavour to expound the law as
it applies itself to the several cases arising out of these
unhappy transactions, upon which you will be re-
quired to exercise your judgments, in order that you
may arrive at a just conclusion whether sufficient ap-
pears in each individual case to call upon the parties
accused to appear before a Jury of the country.
And the first observation that arises is, that if the
workmen of the several collieries and manufactories,
who complained that the wages which they received
were inadequate to the value of their services, had as-
sembled themselves peaceably together for the
purpose
of consulting upon and determining the rate of wages
or prices which the persons present at the meeting
should require for their work, and had entered into an
agreement amongst themselves for the purpose of fixing
such rate, they would have done no more than the law
allowed. A combination for that purpose, and to that
extent (if indeed it is to be called by that name), is
no more than is recognised as legal by the statute
6 George IV. ; by which statute also exactly the same
right of combination, to the same extent, and no fur-
, ther, is given to the masters when met together, if
they are of opinion the rate of wages is too high. In
the case supposed—that is, a dispute between the
maa-
ters and the workmen as to the proper amount of

1
wages to he given—it was probably thought by the
Legislature, that if the workmen on the one part re-
fused to work, or the masters, on the other, refused
i `ci employ, as such a state of things could not centi-
n uo long, it might 'fairly le expected that the party
must ultimately give way who4e pretensions were not
fount led in reAson and justice—the masters if they
offered too little, the workmen if they demanded too
much. But, un fortunately for themselves and others,
these who were d iscontented did not rest here. Not
satilfied with the , exercise of their own right to with-
hold their own labour if they were discontented with
the p rice they received for it, they assumed the power
of in terfering with the right which others pos-
sessed ..f. exercising their discretion upon the same
point; and ,lccordingiy you will have numerous cases
laid bef bre yo u in which large bodies of dissatisfied
workmen inte.itered, by personal violence and by
threats and intii ticlaticv, to compel others, who were
perfectly willing to ,-toutinue to labour in their call-
ings at the rate o f* wages then paid, to desist from
their work, to leave th.r mine or manufactors-, and
against their own IN ill to add theMselves to the.num-
bers of the discontel sited party; than which a more
glaring- act of tyral, my and despotism by one set of
men over their fellows cannot be conceived. If there

is one right which, beyond all others, the labourer
ought to be able to call his own, it is the right of the
exertion of his own personal strength and skill, in the
full enjoyment of his own free will, altogether un-
shackled by the control or dictates of his fellow-work-
men ; yet, strange to say, this very right, which the
discontented workmen claims for himself to its fullest
extent, he does, by a blind perversity and unac-
countable selfishness, entirely refuse to his fellows
who differ in opinion from himself. It is unneces-
sary to say, that a course of proceeding so utterly
unreasonable in itself, so injurious to society, so de-
trimental to the interests of trade, and so oppressive
against the rights of the poor man, must be a
gross and flagrant violation of the law, and must
be put down, when the guilt is established, by a
proper measip'e of punishment. But, even without
any evidence that combination is the object: or pur-
pose of the meeting, it' a large body of the ,-people
assemble themselves together for the purpose Of',ob-
taining any particular end, and conduct themselves
in a turbulent manner, either accompanied with acts
of violence, or with threats and intimidation calcu-
lated to excite the terror and alarm of the Queen's
' subjects, this is in itself a riot, whether the end and
object proposed be a just and legitimate one or not.
-14 therefore, bills should be brought before you
charging individuals with riot, for the purpose of
raising the rate of wages, and the evidence should
show the conduct of the parties to have been of the
(I.!scription just adverted to, the offence of riot is com-
plete in point of law. Gentlemen, there is another
description of offence which will probably be sub-
mitteit to yOur consideration—namely, the exciting
and ereouraging large masses of the people, by means
of seditious and inflammatory speeches, to commit acts

of violence. and to break the peace. If such charges are
brought forward it must be left to your own good sense
to distinguish between an honest declaration of the
speaker's opinion upon the political subjects on which he
treats—a free discussion on matters that concern the
public, as to which full allowance should be made for
the zeal of the speaker, though he may somewhat ex•
. coed the just bounds of moderation ; and, on the other
gage], a wicked design by inflammatory statement and
crafty and subtle arguments, to poison the minds of
the hearers and render them the instruments of mis-
chief. He that addresses himself to a crowded auditory
of the pool er class, without employment or occupa-
tion, and brooding at the time-over their wrongs,
whether real or imaginary, will ndt •want hearers
ready to believe and apt followers of mischievous ad-
vice. You will consider, therefore, the languagelhat
is employed on such an occasion ; if it consist' of
broad and bold assertion, unfounded in fact : if, in
discussing religious topics, you find the speaker endea-
vouring to be sprightly and facetious on those subjects
which make wise and good men serious ; if, instead of
argument, he deals only in sneers and sarcasm, it will
he for yourselves to say whether, under such circum-
stances, the party charged with the offence is an honest
but mistaken man, or whether he is wickedly intending
to bring the religion, laws, and Goverment of the country
into contempt, and to teach the hearers to despise all
those institutions which it is their duty to hold in re-
spect and veneration. Gentlemen, it has been al-
ready stated, that in the multiplicity of charges which
spring out of the transactions above adverted to, some
' will appear for assaults ; some for the felonious offence,
of cutting and maiming with intent to do grievous
bodily harm ; some for robbery by violence and force;
' some for theft ; some for breaking into dwelling-
houses by night or by day; some for riotous assem-
bling, and beginning to demolish, or actually demo-
lishing, the dwelling houses of Magistrates and
Clergymen, the offices connected with the police
establishments, and the private houses of individuals ;
some charges also fon effecting similar works of de-
struction by means of fire. But it would be tedious,
and, at the same time, altogether unnecessary, to en-
large upon the law by which those offences are regu-
lated, more especially togentlemen so well experienced
as yourselves in the ordinary business of the assizes.
One observation only can be made, which relates to
every species of offence committed by several acting
in concert and company together—namely, that if
many are present at the time when the breach
of the law takes place, having one common
design in view, and acting with common
consent, although they do not all take share in the
performance of the very act which is the subject of the
indictment, yet by affording countenance, encourage-
ment, and protection to the pe.rsons who actually per-
petrate the crime, they are all equally guilty in the
eye of the law. But there is one case in the calendar
to which, for the purpose of avoiding any interruption
in the general view of the transactions which have
taken place in this country, I have not yet adverted--
I'-mean the case of one William Ellis, who has been
committed by the Magistrates on a charge of high
treason ; and as we are not aware whether bills of in-
dictinent may not possibly be presented against that
person, and perhaps others also who appear upon the
depositions to stand in the same predicament for the
offence of high treason, it becomes necessary that the
principles of the law, so far as it relates • to the species
of treason upon which the charge, if preferred, will
probably be founded, should be laid before you with
suilieient precision to enable you to determine whe-
titer the accusation is so far established that the parties -
seemed ought to he put upon their trial for that
offence. Gentlemen, the precise species of high
treason upon which the charge, if made, must rest,
is either that of levying war against her Majesty in
her realm, under the statute of Edward 111., or that
for which Ellis was committed,—viz. "compass-
ing and intending to levy war against the Queen
within her realm, in order by force or constraint to
compel her to change her measures or counsels ;"
which latter offence was first made substantive treason
by the more recent statute 36th George 111., c. 7,
made perpetual by a subsequent Act. Gentlemen,
you are well aware, that at least as early as the statute
05th Ed ward 111., and thence down to the present
time, the bare compassing or imagining the death of
the Sovereign, when proved by any open or overt act,
la amounted to high treason. For, where the life or
personal safety of the Sovereign is concerned, so pre-
cious has it always been held in the eye of the law,
that the bare intention or imagination of the heart to
put it in jeopardy, although no injurious consequences
follow from such intention, when proved by an overt
act, has of itself, and alone, constituted the treason.
By that statute also the levying of war within the
realm, when proved by an overt act, is made a dis-
tinct and substantive species of treason. But the
mere " compassing" or " intending to levy war,"
that is, the mere purpose or design of the mind or
will to commit that crime, was never made a specific
treason until the statute 36th George 111., c. 7, and
then only " where such compassing or intention is
expressed, uttered, or declared, by publishing any
printing or writing, or by any overt act or deed."
Now, the only or principal evidence of treason stated
in the depositions is the uttering of violent and in-
flammatory speeches to the assembled multitude. But
it is to be observed, that the mere speaking and utter-
ing of words, considered by itself, and abstractedly,
and without reference or connexion with any act or
design, however wicked and atrocious those words
may be, is not an act of treason. The Judges, on a
reference made to them in the 4th year of Charles 1.,
upon the subject of words spoken by one Pyne, certi-
fied unanimously, " that though the words were as
wicked as might be, yet they were no treason, for
unless it be by some particular statute no words will
lie treason." On the other; hand, however, where
words are uttered and spoken with reference to any
treasonable plan or design already laid, and in the
contemplation of the speaker, if they are words of ex-
hortation or encouragement to carry into effect such
plan or design, such speaking or uttering of words is
strictly and properly an overt act of treason, being
the means Made use of to effect the treasonable pur-
pose; although, even in that case, the more precise and
accurate mode of expression would seem to be that
the plan or desiß is the treason, and the words of en-
couragement and • incitement are evidence of the
,existence of it. It will be for you, therefore, to say,
supposing no further evidence is given than that •of
words.uttered, supposing there is no proof laid before
you of any existing plan to subvert the authority of the
'Queen, the established order of government, or the
laws of the land—whether, from the mere speaking
and uttering of the words by the party charged with
treason, you can feel yourselves authorised to infer
that at the time the words were uttered there did
exist a deliberate design in the mind of the speaker to
effect any -of those wicked purposes, and that the
speech was made by him to induce the hearers to take
up arms, or to use force and violence, for the purpose
of carrying such design into effect; you must deter-
mine for yourselves whether such is the safe conclu-
sion at which you can arrive upon such evidence
alone, or whether the words are not rather to be con-
sidered as the production of a heated and distempered
mind, thrown out at the moment rashly and hastily—
words, indeed, " as wicked as might be," as was said
in Pyne's case, but words spoken without refer-
ence to any formed design or settled purpose in the
heart of the speaker. In the latter mode of viewing
them they would not constitute an act of treason, but
be punishable as a high misdemeanour only. Gentle-
men, I cannot close the observations which I have
thought it right to submit to you without expressing
the earnest hope of my brethren and myself, that the
administration of criminal justice under the Commis-
sions which have been specially issued into this
county, and into others where similar enormities have
taken place, may have the wholesome effect of teach-
ing all who need such warning, first, that in this
country the punishment of crime will follow the
commission of it with a pace so sure, so steady, and so
speedy, that the guilty can have no chance of esect)4B,l
and secondly, the more important lesson, that what-,
ever attempts may be made by discontented persons to
subvert the Government, the laws, or the religion of
their country, and to establish a new order of things in
their stead, they will find the law of the land too strong
for them, and that the honest part of the community,
the lovers of peace and order, will at all times unite
themselves with the established authorities of the Go-