The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-12 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

STATE TRIALS : Revised and Illustrated by SAMUEL
MARC!! PHILLIPPS, Esq. of the Inner Temple.
Two vols. : London.

The fact of an author's having written a Law
Book which went through half a dozen editions,
may be . a recommendation in the eyes of a
Lawyer—but we will candidly own, that his an-
nouncement as the author of the " Law of Evi-
dence," was the very circumstance which for some
time prevented our undertaking the perusal of
Mr. Phillipps's present volumes; and, indeed,
we must admit, that we owe the gratification
derived from them to the accidental perusal of
the Preface, in which the object of the work is
declared as follows, not to be purely legal.
Every reader of the early State Trials must
have often felt himself embarrassed by the pro-
lixity and confusion in which the proceedings
are involved. One who is not familiar with
such subjects would frequently find himself be-
wildered, and even a person conversant with
legal investigations, may sometimes require a
clue to guide his course. One of the objects,
therefore, of the present work, has been to give
a clearer and more comprehensive view of the
several cases, by retrenching what is superfluous
and irrelevant, and reducing into order all that
is material. The most difficult and important
part of such an undertaking is the enquiry after
truth, and an impartial statement of the fair result
of evidence. How far I have succeeded in this
part of my task it will be for others to decide.
Perhaps I may be allowed to say that I have
given to this enquiry all the consideration in my
power, and that my first wish has been to exer-
cise an unprejudiced and dispassionate judg-
ment."

Such is the principle (vide Preface, page
7.) on which the present volumes are found-
ed. Their author restricts his claims on
public attention to the circumstance of his
having merely given an ,( impartial statement
of the fair result of evidence ;" our duty,
however, as critics, compels us to state, what
his modesty seems inclined to conceal, that
he has gone much deeper into his subject ; he
has first given us an important State Trial—
Lord Stafford's, for instance, on which material
differences, even up to this hour, are enter-
tained—and then commented on that trial both
as a lawyer and as a man of the world. He
writes, however, " currente calamo," looking
rather to the amusement and instruction of the
general reader than to the particular edifica-
tion of the lawyer. Hence his volumes teem
with entertainment ; and, we may add also, that
he is the only law writer of the day with whose
volumes we are acquainted, who has lavished
on a subject consecrated from time immemorial
to dulness, the graces of a pleasant, polished, and
colloquial style. It was said of Burke that he
could make a finance statement as interesting as
a fairy tale : this was the highest praise that
could be bestowed on him, for most men can
furnish forth information on their own particular
but not one in a hundred can make that
information palatable. Mr. Phillipps, however,
llicss)one so, and thus proved, not that lie
possesses less knowledge, but that he has the
art (a sure criterion of talent) to convey what he
possesses in a more popular shape than the ge-
nerality of well-informed lawyers. His cursory
remarks on the trial of Lady Alice Lisle, are
cases in point ; they are pleasantly and pithily
expressed, and neutralize by their candour the
venom of the Chief Justices prejudices. The
trial, fact, was the triumph of a shrewd sophis-
ticalrial intellect
is anovoetrh
dsepnesrehaapn
s,d
more innocence.gene
rßalulyt stleirevrieceable light in which Mr. Phillipps's pre-
sent work may be viewed. We mean as an an-
tidote in part to Hume. Every reader knows
that where the Stuarts were concerned, that
historian relaxed the sacred dignity of truth,
and became wantonly inaccurate. He re-
quires, therefore, a counterpoise in more than
one
part of his narrative, and that counter-
poise may be found throughout our author's
account of, and comments on, the important
public trial of Lord Stafford. It is not the
province of a newspaper to enter very minutely
into detail on the subject of any work that may
happen to be the subject of review, we shall,
therefore, conclude with recommending the pre-
sent work, first, to lawyers, from its knowledge
of jurisprudence, and secondly, to readers of
history, from its scrupulous adherence to im-
partiality.

LONDON SESSIONS, JULY 11.

Mr. Turner, a gentleman of considerable pro-
perty, was indicted for having attempted to commit
a rape upon a very interesting female, not 17 years
of age, named Eliza Thompson.
' Mr. CHARLES PHILLIPS was for the prosecution,
Mr. ADOLPHUS for the defence.

Eliza Thompson stated, that the defendant, who
was landlord of the house in which her father resided,
and was well acquainted with the family, called at
the house of the 25th of November. While he was
there, a Sheriff's officer entered, and said that her
father had been arrested for 61. or 71., upon which
defendant said that he should not stay in prison for
that sum, or for 1001., and desired her to accompany
him to the lock-up house in half an hour, as he did
not know the way. She consented, and as they went
along defendant told her that as her mother had to
go to the Burlington Arcade, she could not meet
them at the lock-up house for two hours, and they
might as well go round by Cheapside. They then
went over London Bridge, and defendant led her
through some lanes to a house which he said was the
" Shades," where they could get refreshments. She
objected ; but upon his declaring that the house
was respectable, she went in. A woman met
them in the passage, and defendant %poke to
her in a low tone of voice, upon which the wo-
man sheaved them up stairs to a sitting room, and
at his desire brought up a pint of wine. Witness at
first refused to drink any, but he insisted upon her
drinking off a glass, and then pressed her to take
another, but in vain; he then told her how much he
liked her, and that he would marry her, and keep
her, and he dragged her over upon his knee, and
began to kiss her hand ; she resisted this liberty, but
he proceeded to greater, and pulled her to the sofa,
where he showed that his intention was to do her
irreparable injury ; he tried to stop her mouth too,
but she screamed as loud as she could; the woman
then ran up stairs, and asked her whether she knew
what she came there for ? to which she replied in
the negative ; defendant desired the woman to go
out of the room, and she went, and nodded to her
as she went away; witness,was scarcely able to
stand, and held by the door, and she told him that
she would tell her father as soon as she should get
home; she then went down, and he followed her,
and the woman said to him as they went out, " you
are a very bad man ;" witness was exceedingly ill
when she got out, and she was so frightened that
she took his arm ; they then went in, and stopped
at the public-house of a Mr. Bailey, who was known
to her father, and who gave her a glass of wine ;
defendant then told her not to tell her father, and
she at length consented not to mention what
occurred; she did not tell her father for some time,
as he is greatly in debt to • the defendant; on the
following day she told her sister, Emily, and the
servant girl, what had occurred, and they all agreed
that it would be best not to say any thing about the
transaction, on account of the debt ; in three months
her father was made acquainted with it; defendant
had liberated him on the evening alluded to.
Cross-examined:—When her father was acquaint-
ed with what had happened defendant put a dis-
tress into the house for rent; about a month after-
wards she went to the man in the house ; her father
had been assisted with money often by defendant;
Mr. Broom, her father's lawyer, dined every day at
the house, and carried on his business there; de-
fendant had told her that her father behaved ill to
her, and that he would take her to himself ; this he
said on their way to Elbow-lane; she was not so
friendly with defendant after the occurrence; after-
wards she went to the play with her mother and sis-
ter, and Mr. Turner ; she and her brother were se-
parated from her family by the crowd, and defendant
took them into the boxes.

Juliet French, a fat, elderly, well-dressed lady, for
some time the proprietor of a brothel, stated, that
she kept the house, No. 8, in Elbow-lane ; she had
seen the defendant several times ; she remembered
that he went to her house one night in November
with a young lady ; she heard a noise on that occa-
sion ; she went up on account of it; the lady was
standing up ; witness might have nodded to her, but
could not recollect whether she said any thing to the
man ; it was very likely that she said something re-
proachful to him ; it was her practice to do so, if a
man went to her house for an improper purpose.
Cross-examined.—Ladies were in the habit ef
making a noise in her
.house; the lady in question
did not require her to give protection, nor did she
appear at all weak.
Frances Hedges deposed,. that Eliza, upon going
home on the night m question, appeared greatly
flurried, and burst into tears, but did not tell her
what occurred until next day, when she related what
had been just stated.

Emily Thompson, sister to the prosecutrix, gave
evidence to the same effect.
Mr. Thompson, fatli,er to the prosecutrix, stated,
that the moment he heard the story he went to a
lawyer, by whose advice he commenced a civil ac-
tion; but finding that the advice was wrong, he
proceeded criminally, lie had given his accept-
ances to defendant for what was due, and they would
be paid when due. Mr. Broom did not dine at his
house frequently.
my. Broom said, that he is an attorney; that he
had issued a writ for the assault upon the prosecu-
trix; that an action was going on for damages sus-
tained by his client by the loss of his daughter's ser-
vices. He had another action for the trespass, and
one for the schooling of two children of a lady who
lived with Mr. Turner.
The RECORDER—It is nonsense to talk of an
action for the loss of services. The charge is for
assaulting the person. You may be well charged
for assaulting the purse.—(Laughter.)
Mr. Broom—Mr. Thompson's business is the
principal business I have.
Rutland, a Sheriff's officer, stated, that after the
alleged assault he saw the defendant kiss the prose-
cutrix.

Eliza Thompson was again called :—She swore
that he did not kiss her, but that he whispered her
not to tell her father.

Mr. ADOLPHUS addressed the Jury, declared that
the whole was a conspiracy, but called no witnesses.
Verdict—Not Gniity.

LYTIIOToNfy.—Mr. Stuart Hargraves success-
fully performed this operation on Thursday last,
on a lad about ten years old, extracting a stone
weighing six drachms. Mr. H. substituted the
use of the knife in lieu of. the gorget, on the
occasion. The lad is likely to do well,
Brighton Guardian.
AURORA BOREALIS.—This beautiful phe-
nomenon occurred in a remarkable degree on Tuesday even,
ingjust after sunset. Its corrusca tions were particularly vivid,
and shot up witk great rapidity to the zenith ; it lasted,
however, only for a quarter of an hour. It may be no-
ticed, that for tke two preceding days the heat had been
some hours;rthw the sky had been ,
and blowing fresh.
re-
markably -
vet", ireat in London, the thermometer in the shade stand-
ing at
Towards the afternoon of Tuesday the wind increased to
almost a gale, and it had but little decreased at the time
9 clear, and
80
the for
windsom north-west,
the Aurora Borealis appeared. The night continued clear
for some hours afterwards, and was cold. Yesterday morn-
ing the horizon was clouded over, and a heavy shower of
rain fell at half-past seven.

MURDER OF THE REV. J. WATERHOUSE.

(FURTHER INTERESTING PARTICULARS.)

HUNTINGDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 10.

Our local authorities have been unceasing in
their exertions to discover, the perpetrators of
this atrocious deed, but hitherto without success.
Circumstances, however, appear now to be in a
train likely to lead to a speedy and complete dis-
covery. A young man, of abandoned character,
belonging to the village, was, a few days since,
apprehended on suspicion, and has subsequently
undergone several long examinations. He had
been drinking in a neighbouring alehouse till
one o'clock of the morning on which the murder
was committed, and from that time till the even-
ing of the same day could give no satisfactory
or consistent account of himself. At first, he
stated that he went to Godmanchester to invite
his sister, a married woman, to Stukeley Feast,
and that he had spent the day in her house.
The sister, on being examined, corroborated this
assertion, but her husband has since come for-
ward, and deposed that the prisoner was not in
his house during the whole of the day. Anothei
sistei‘of the suspected person was a short time
since in the occasional service of Mr. Water-
house, when the house of the Rev. Gentleman
was entered at midnight, and about 31. stolen
from his purse, in his own bed-room. The
suspicions of Mr. Waterhouse instantly fell upon
this young man, and, suspecting his sister to be
privy to the robbery, he discharged her from his
service. In revenge for this, the prisoner was after-
wards heard to -declare that he would murder
Mr. W. As the parents of the prisoner also bore a
bad character in the village, their house was on Sun-
day last searched by two of our constables, when
property was found not likely to have been
honestly obtained by persons in their destitute
condition. Though in the weekly receipt of
money from the parish, the inmates of this
miserable cottage were found to possess six oi
seven flitches of bacon, two sacks of peas, &c.
They were brought up for examination yesterday.
when one of the sons confessed to being con-
cerned in several robberies in conjunction with
his brother, the supposed murderer, and We
other fellows who have since absconded. In the
cottage was also found, covered with blood, and
in some places with grey hairs, a bill, or cleaver,
the kind of instrument with which it has al]
along been supposed the murder was committed.
The bill belongs to a poor man, a lodger in the
house, who, after cleaning and sharpening it to
prevent rust, deposited it in a cupboard about
three months since ; it was found at the back oi
the house, in the condition we have described.
On minutely examining the clothes of the
prisoner, his coat was discovered to be stained
with blood inside, though care had been taken to
wash it off the exterior. His breeches also ap-
pear to have been partially washed. It seem;
scarcely possible to accumulate more decisive
proofs of guilt than the foregoing; but that the
case might be fully investigated in every point,
application was yesterday made to the Secretor\
of State for the Home Department to secure the
assistance of"a Bow-street officer, in consequence
of which Ellis.has arrived, and is prosecuting the
investigation with his accustomed activity. Foi
this wise, and, we hope, conclusive step, the
county is indebted to Henry Sweeting, Esq., the
solicitor of the deceased, a gentleman highl\
respected by his fellow-townsmen for his hu-
manity and public spirit.
The prisoner, together with his father and
mother, a brother and sister, have been remand-
ed to prison for further examination on Thurs-
day. Should he escape the capital charge (which
seems highly improbable), he will be committed
for trial at the ensuing assizes, on four distinct
cases of burglary.
Mr. 'Waterhouse, the deceased, was a gentle-
man of eccentric and no very dignified habits,
though he at one time offered himself as a can-
didate for the Mastership of Catherine Hall
Cambridge, of which College he was the oldest
remaining Bachelor of Divinity. He was fo)
many years a Fellow of Catherine Hall, and dis-
charged, with credit to himself, various office;
connected with the University, such as proctor;
taxer, &c. His latter years presented a wofti
contrast to the honourable, scenes amongst which
his youth and manhood were spent, and furnish
ample matter for reflection to those who love ti.
study the various phases and aberrations of hu-
man nature. For the last 20 or 30 years of hip
life, the Rev. Gentleman might be considered a!
no bad representative of a certain class of the
English clergy of the last century, who sat su
models for the pen of Fielding and other sa-
tirists, but who are happily now fast disappearing.
In dress and manners he was simple as Abraham
Adams himself, though it must be confessed, in
some parts of his character, he bore a closer re-
semblance to Parson Trulliber. The land at-
tached to his rectory at Stukeley, which was
worth about 4001. per annum, he retained in his
own occupation, and busied himself incessantly,
though often very unprofitably, in the manage-
ment of his rural affairs. As he would seldom
pay his labourers the wages usually given in the
parish, his ground remained uncultivated if
work was to be obtained elsewhere, and last year
be had not completed his hay-harvest till consi-
derably after Michaelmas. The large and ele-
gant rectory-house he converted into a sort of
granary for his long-hoarded grain ; and at one
time loads of corn, sacks of wool, and bushels of
fruit, the produce of his farm and orchards, might
be seen in rooms decorated with Turkey carpets,
and the other insignia of refined society. Con-
sistent with this plan of utility, in utter contempt
of taste and ornament, Mr. AVaterhouse had
nearly all the windows of his house blocked up;
to save the payment of the window-tax. Out of
twenty in front, two only were suffered to re-
main. He lived constantly in the kitchen, with.
out any regular female domestic, and performed
the office of cook for himself and workmen.—
Every Saturday the Rev. Gentleman walked to
Huntingdon market, a distance of between three
and four miles, frequently driving his pigs before
him ;: and after transacting his farmime business,
he used to carry home, in a basket, his tea and
sugar, and other necessaries for the week.—
If Mr. Waterhouse's habits were such as are not
often found amongst the clergy, his dress was
equally uncanonical. A coarse blue great coat,
with metal buttons, corduroy breeches, and light
grey stockings, formed his usual costume. The
following passage in the life of this singular cler-
gyman is worthy the pencil of Cruikshank. He

had a strong, insuperable aversion to beggars of
all descriptions, and as, in most small villages,
the domicile of the Pa.C7' 7.'; only inferior in im-
portance to the mansion of the 'Squire, numbers
of these itinerants contrived to way-lay the path
of the Rector of Stukeley ; of course they were
alWays repulsed with scorn and indignation ; and
not unfrequently veteran tars and soldiers might
be seen at his gate shouldering their crutches,
not to show how fields were won, but to
attempt the achievement of fresh victaries.—
One Sunday, while performing divine ser7
vice, the Rector perceived from a window
in the Church, a sturdy mendicant prowling
about his grounds; whom he instantly de-
termined to remove In the most prompt and
efficacious manner. Waiting for an oppor-
tune moment, the Rev. Gentleman descended.
from the desk after prayers, as the clerk was
giving out the Psalm, and throwing off his sur-
plice at the church door, he attacked the grace-
less intruder, and fairly thrashed him off ;he pre-
mises. Having performed this feat, Mr. Watef-
house quietly re-entered the church, at the con-
clusion of the psalm, and proceeded to read the
lesSons of the day. In one point the Rector of
Stuaeley was a careful shepherd of his flock ; he
would not suffer any of his parishioners to appear
in church dressed in a smock-frock, the usual
garb of our agricultural labourers; and if a ;-apless
rustic chanced to drop in, arrayed in the prohibited
toga, lie was instantly ordered by the pastor to
quit the church ! Amongst the most amiable
of the peculiarities which marked the wayward,
ill-regulated mind of Mr. Waterhouse, may brs
reckoned a peculiar fondness for the company
sad amusements of children, which contrasted
strangely with his usually selfish, violent, and
even-morose temper. He delighted also in teas-
ing and frightening. his poor uncouth farm-boys,
and it is perhaps to his indulging in this propen-
sity that the death of the Rev. Gentleman may
be indirectly attributed. After the perpetration
of the sanguinary deed. he was first discovered
by two of these boys, lying in a mash-tub, groan-
ing deeply, with his legs hanging over the side
of the vessel. The boys immediately quitted the
house, and acquainted a neighbour with the cir-
cumstance, when they were answered that their
master only did it on purpose to fi igliten them.
Screams were also heard issuing from the house,
but from the singular character of the deceased,
or from culpable negligence, they were in .like
manner disregarded. Assistance at this moment
might have saved the life of the unhappy man,
and prevented the full accomplishment of a crime
which can only be paralleled in atrocity by the
kindred horrors of the murder of Weare.