Star.
London, England, 1813-05-21 00:00:00

•
price far lower than they formerly paid for it. As to
the tanners, it appeared that there was no tanned
leather imported as there used formerly to be, but on
the contrary that the export of it was increasing.—
He was convinced that repealing the tax would not
take any pressure off from the consumer, while it
would be injurious to the revenue.
Lord MILTON supported the Bill, which he now
conceived to be a question between the House of
Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It
was not customary for Chancellors of the Exchequer
to press any tax which had met with so strong an
opposition in Parliament, and which had been op-
posed, as he believed, by every County Member in
the House.

Mr. W. SMITH had been thirty years in the
House, and he never knew a tax persisted in which
had met so great opposition.
Mr. BARING did not know how to oppose a tax
which appeared to him as unobjectionable as any that
could be substituted in the place of it. It was evi-
dent that the general pressure of taxation could not
at present be avoided : but if it came to a question of
what taxes should be repealed, he would name many
others in preference to this tax. As to the unpopu-
larity of this tax, he knew nothing about it. Al-
though there was a general dislike to taxes, yet the
House had no petitions against this tax, but what
came from tanners, curriers, shoemakers, and persons
particularly interested in the leather trade.
The House then divided.—For the second reading
of Mr. Benson's Bill, 120—Against it, 125—Majo-
rity against the Bill, and in favour of the Tax, 5.

IRISH SCHOOL BILL.—On our readmission into the Gallery,
we found Mr. PILL on his legs, who stated, that until the House
had unequivocally declared its opinion upon the Roman Catholic
Question, be thought it would be wrong to press the Irish School
Bill, or any comprehensive plan of Irish EduCation. He there-
fore moved, that the Irish School Bill be read a second time, and
that It should be committed on Wednesday, which was accord-
ingly agreqd to.
CATHOLIC QULIITIONe..-LOLd CASTLLRLAGII brought up se-
veral Papers relative to the Catholic Question (which had been
moved for by Sir 3. C. Hipptsley), and moved that they, should be
printed, which was ordered accordingly.
SUGAR 131rORTATION..- The CHANCELLOR Of theExcIiLQUER
brought in a Bill to allow the importation of Sugars from Marie-
galante, Sr. Eustatia, and St. Tho-nas',, on the same terms as
those from Martinique and Guadaloupe, which was read a first
time, and ordered to be read a second time to-morrow.
Tut l osacco Excise BILL—Was also read a first time, and
ordered to be read a stcotal time to-morrow.---Adjourned.

1./1111 L\7ELLJGENCE.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, MAY W.
pARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE.
TILE KING v. THOMAS CHLEVEY, ESQ. M.P.

Mr. PAuK prayed the judgment of the Court on
the defendant.

Mr. Justice Le BLANC stated, that this was an in-
dictment for a libel, in the form of a report of a speech;
purporting to have been made by the said Thomas
Creevey, in the House of Commons ; containing
therein, amongst other things, to the tenor and effect
following Mr. Creevey said, upon this subject of
the grievances that the town of Liverpool now la-
boured under, there had been of late another calamity
inflicted upon the place, differing in its .nature from
those lie had mentioned, but doubly affecting the com-
forts of the great population of this town ; he meant
the sudden conversion of an Attorney in the town,
to the character of an Inspector of Taxes. Without
meaning any offence to the feelings of this gentleman,
Mr. Kirkpatrick, he believed he might safely say, he
was not in the most.eminent rank of his profession ;
and by way of retreat from an avocation that was
either not agreeable or not lucrative, it seems he hail
suggested to the Right Hon. the Chancellor of the'
Exchequer a new department of equal advantage to,
himself and to the State : this new profession of the
Learned Notary, was to be, that he should turn public
informer or accuser against his neighbours and fellow
townsmen, for having their lands assessed below their
real value ; and that a great annuity was to be his
recompence, for undertaking himself to screw up their
assessments to the extent of his own imagination.
This operation had accordingly been performed, to
the no small consternation and confusion of the town:
It was no feeble illustration of die effect of this visi.
cation to state, that the nerves of the ordinary profes-
sional tax-gatherer could not stand it. The surveyor
had actually resigned in consequence, and others he
understood had expressed their terror at the effects
of these rigorous proceedings of the learned Inspec-
tor. In the inquiries that naturally arose, under such
circumstances, from what cause the Minister of the
Crown could have listened to such a proposal as that
just stated, he found a general impression in the
town, that this Gentleman owed this sudden and sin-
gular elevation in life to the circumstance of his hav-
ing been a client of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
when they were both in the same profession,—one of
his early friends,—and that this appointment was
only a natural return for such friendship. Of the
real truth or cause of such preferment, he himself
knew nothing ; but of this, he was quite certain, that
the Minister of the Crown, who hires men, by great
salaries, to assist him in repairing the devastation
which his own ruinous measures bring upon the reve-
nue of the country, by turning spies and informers
upon their neighbours, and by helping to subject their
property to additional vexations and oppressive taxa-
tion,—such a Minister, so acting, is introducing into
this country, a state of society that fortunately has
never been known before, and that in its nature, and
from its consequences cannot be of long duration."
The Learned Judge then recapitulated the evi-
dence, on which the Jury found the defendant guilty.
Mr. Creevey now put in the following Affidavit :
It Thomas Creevey, of York-street, St. Jame; 's-square, in the
county of Middlesex, Esq. Member of Parliament, maketh oath
and saith, with respect to stile alledged libel as contained in the
paper called the Livered Mercsry, and which is the subject of
this prosecuiiln, that he verily believes every word contained in
it was spoken by him in his place as a Member of the House of
Commons ; that his motive for printing this speech in the Liver-
pool newspaper was as follows :—This deponent, on the 6th of
February, IS t 1, when the affairs of the East India Company were
under the consideration of the House of Commons, had urged, as
an argument in favour of an open trade to the East Indies, the
then suspension of the ordinary commerce of this nature; and
he did particululy state, as of his own knowledge, the great dis-
tress that bad been brought upon one of the principal out ports
of the kingdom, the town of Liverpool, by the late rapid de-
cline of its accustomed trade; that some time after, whilst this
deponent was at Liverpool, General Tarleton, then one of the
Members of the town of Liverpool, read a letter iu his place in
the House of Commons, from a merchant in Liverpool, staring
that the account which this deponent had given of the distress
of that town was very inaccurate, and it was much overstated;
and it was on this account that upon the 2d of March followniSs
the lust opportunity that occurred atter this depot., is return
iroat Livereoule inch was on gestural Tarletun's pi usentiog a

•
petition from the town of Liverpool in favour of a free trade to
the East Indies, that this deponent adverting to what had taken
place in his absence, did repeat his former detailed statement
of the distress of the toven of Liverpool, and did insist upon the
same being strictly true, and it was upon this occasion of speak-
ing of the distress of he town of Liverpool, that this depo-
nent stated the additional grievance which be had been re-
cently informed, and believed to be true, affected the town of
Liverpool, from a new and vexatious assessment of its property
by a person recently appointed an Inspector of the Tams, and.
till then a practising attorney in the town : And thla deponent
saith, that it was because a most erroneous account of the speech
thus made by him, on the twenty-third day of March, One thou-
sand eight hundred and twelve, was given In the Liverpool and
other papers ; that he did, in justice to himself, send a true and
accurate account of every thing he said, on this occasion, to be in-
serted in the paper called the Liverpool M y And this de-
ponent further saitb, that, in printing this speech, he conceived,
and he does now conceive, he was doing nothing that was not
perfectly lawful for him to do; that by the Bin of Rightt, it is ex-
pressly enacted, that no debate or proceeding in Parliament shall
be called in question in any Court or other place out of Parlia-
ment ; and that having proved, or it having been admitted on the
trial of this prosecution at Lancaster, that the alledged libel was
spoken by this deponent in his place in Parliament, he claims
to be within the protection of the Bill of Rights, and not ame-
nable to the jurisdiction of this or any other Court; that he knows
of no exception in the Bill of Rights as to printing debates or
proceedings of Parliament, nor of any other law of the land pro-
hibiting such printing ; that the House of Commons has, by sun-
dry resolutions on its journals, pothibited the reporting of its de-
bates by Newspaper Writers, tut in no instance by its own Mem-
bers. That this deponent admits he is answerable to the House of
' Commove, and to that House alone for any speech made in Par-
liament, but that no objection was or has been made by the House
to the speech in question; that it is the constant practice of Mem-
bers of the House of Commons to print their speeches, and long
has been so. That this is the first time, since the passing of the
Bill of Rights, that any Member of the Commons House of Par-
liament has been called upon, in any Court, for words spoken in
Parliament, whether printed or published by himself or other-
wise; and for all these reasons, this deponent doth protest so-
lemnly against the jurisdiction of this honourable Court over him.
—And this deponent futther saith, with respect to the charged
libelous matter of the said printed speech upon the character of
the prosecutor, that, to the best of his knowledge, he never saw
the said prosecutor in his life, and that be never had any cause
or ground of personal quarrel with him ; that having been in-
formed of the great vexation brought upon the inhabitants of the
town of Liverpool by the prosecutor's mode of assessing the pro-
perty of the town, as an Inspector of the Taxes, he did in his
place in the House of Commons, and in discharge of his duty
to the public, as one of its Representatives, state this grievance.
And he Weil, as he has before deposed, that it was because the
Writers of Newspapers did, in violation of the Resolutions of the
House of Commons, make a report of his speech, and that such
report was most erroneous; that he did, in justice to himself,
and in the exercise,of what he then considered, and now consi-
ders, as his undoubted right and privilege of Parliament, print
and publish that report of his speech which, in this trial, was ad-
mitted, and which. tat, deponent now swears was the true one."
Lord ELLEN/30110E111 asked, whether the defendant,
by himself or Counsel, wished to address any thing
to the Court ? •

Mr. CREEVEY stated, that he had not any wish to
address the Court in either way.
Mr. PARK then said, that the affidavit of the De-
fendant was of such a nature, that it would not be-
come him to take much notice of it. Neither the
Court below, nor the Court above, ever meant to in-
terfere with a Member of Parliament, as to what he
thought necessary to say in Parliament ;—but they
meant to decide, that every publication in a newspa-
per, whether by a Member of Parliament, or any
other person, was within the jurisdiction of that Court.
It would be highly improper if it were otherwise.—
The defendant had stated, that his reason for repub-
lishing his speech was to correct an erroneous state-
ment which had been given of the same speech some
time before in the same newspaper ; but the Learned
Counsel stated, that he could not discover any differ-
ence, except that the name of the prosecutor was
erroneous in the first, and that there was some dif-
ference as to the number of persons who were stated
to be in distress in Liverpool. Before a Gentleman
published matter so highly reflecting on any person,
he ought to be certain that he was well founded in
his assertions. There was a part of the libel, the
facts stated in which he would have known must
have been.false, had he looked into the statutes of the
land: He meant that part which says that a great
annuity was to be his recompence, &c.—for by the
48th Geo. 111. cap. 141. sect. 3, it is enacted, that
no person to be appointed Inspector-General under
this Act, shall be entitled to amend any assessment
made under the said Acts, or to surcharge any per-
son or persons in respect thereof. If defendant chose
to publish, he ought to have enquired and ascertain-
ed
that it was the fact ;—although he says, that he
was not actuated by any malice, yet before he made
a charge involving a character as pure and inviolate!
as any that had ever appeared, he ought to have in-
quired ; so eminent a character should not be attacked
rashly. He then goes on to state, u of the real truth
cause of such preferment, &c." This was the subject of
complaint ; it was not to be endured that a Member
of Parliament should say, he had nothing to do with
ascertaining the truth of a charge highly reflecting on
the character of an individual, but that he would
give it all the publicity possible. The defendant com-
mitted another mistake, when he relied upon his not
having any malice ; their Lordships would tell him, !
that if he wrote any thing reflecting on an individual,
malice would be inferred. He did not apply to the
Court to punish the defendant for any thing which he
had said in Parliament ; but he hoped the Courtwould
inflict such a punishment as would shew that a Mem-
ber was not justified in publishing libels in the news-

papers.
Lord ELLENBOROUGII-.-About the jurisdiction of the
Court there could be no question ; and if necessary to
consider that question, it had been already considered
in the motion for a new trial.

Mr. Justice Gaon, in delivering judgment, said,
that Mr. Creevey was brought up for judgment on
an indictment for a libel, in printing a publication
tending to create discontent in the minds of the peo-
ple, and to vilify and traduce the Inspector-General
of the Taxes appointed under the 48th Geo. I l The
object of the publication was to create dis.ithttion
amongst his Majesty's subjects, and to introduce the
Inspector. General to the hatred of the people, Bits
the Court conld not help thinking, that there was
something more in the case than appeared either from
the defendant's affidavit or on the face of the trans-
action, which led hire to suspect, that the prosecution
was not entered into for the mere love of justice it
was otherwise wonderful that it should have been de-
layed so long : but he was sorry to say, that the shaft
in the publication was not leselled only at the cha,
ratter of the present prosecutor, hut also at a person
whose character and name were above all implication.
He was sorry to say, that this appeared to be more
the object'ot the publication, than to throw a stigma
on the present prosecutor.
The Court having considered eTery part of the
transaction, and conceiving that such an evil as this
ought not to be tolerated, did yuler and adjudite,

that the defendant should pay to the King a Ele
5100, and remain in the custody of the Marshal c:
the Marshalsea till such fine was paid.
Mr. CREkVEY immediately paid the fir.e. and
rew with the following friends, who accompaLtej
im into Court :
Lords Cowper. Mbemprie. and °unison ; the linrotr:At
Mr. Bennett, Sir Harry Montgomery, Sir 'ilomas ! wistu.
Sir John Cos Hippoley, Mr. Whitbread, Major•Geier..4:
son, and Mr. C. C. Westerp.

COURT OF CHANCERY. MAY so.
II PARSE STOCKS.
The LORD CIIANCIMLOR this day superse.c4
Commission of Lunacy in this Case.

THE BATTLE OF LUTZEN.

(PRUSSIAI OFFICIAL ACCOUNT.)

PARTICULAR STATEMENT OF THE LATTLE 41L7
GROSS-GORSCHEN, ON THE 2n 01. MM.
On the 50th of April, information was received at
General Count Von Wittgenstein's Head-quarters, n(
the greater part of the French army and the FreLeh
Guards having crossed the Seale, in the vici:;:ty c;
Naumburg : it was at the same time reported, tire
the Emperor Napoleon had arrived at the army. We
observed that the Viceroy's army drew to the right.
It was therefore clear, that the enemy endeavoured
by all means to form a junction, and that it was most
probably his intention to give a general battle • J. ,s
Majesty the Emperor Alexander, and his Majesty the
King of Prussia, therefore, went to their armies, to
animate the courage of the troops by their personal
presence. But the better to be enabled to judge of
the enemy's strength, a reconnoissance was under-
taken with General Winzingerode's corps, from Leip.
sic, on the road to Weissenfels. This confirmed the
intelligence received of the enemy being there in con-
siderable force.
Upon this, a very severe engagement took place on
the lit of May, with the said corps, by which we were
convinced, that the main force of the enemy Was in
the vicinity of Weissenfels and Lutzen. It was be-
lieved, that the Viceroy's position was between Leip.
sic and Halle, and consequently the enemy's plan for
the battle was clearly apparent. General Count Von
Wittgenstein resolved on being before-hand with him,
to obstruct him in his dispositions by a bold attack,
and to restrain his offensive operations. It was oe.
cessairy in this attempt to make it our main object,
immediately to fall on such part of his force as was,
on his side, considered to be the best troops ; in order,
after such a stroke, to give larger space for the ope-
rations of our flying corps, over whom the enemy had
latterly acquired a superiority. Therefore it was re-
quisite, if possible, to direct the attack immediately
against the rear-most troops. For this purpose, the
main army broke up in the night between the Ist and
2d of May, from Notha and Borna, in two columns,
and pushed forward as far as the defile of the Elster,
in the vicinity of Pegau. General Von. Winzingerode
received orders to mask this operation, to leave his
posts of cavalry standing, and to unite himself with
the main army by the way of Zaenkau.
At break of day all the troops passed the defile of
the Elster, near Pegau, and drew up in order of battle
on the left bank of Elster, with their right wing to
the village of Werben, and their left to that of Gruna.
By reconnoitring, we discovered, •that the enemy's
main body already extended beyond Weissenfels, to
the villages of Gross-Gorschen, Klein-Gorschen,
Rahno, Starsiedel, and Lutzen. The enemy did
not venture to attempt disturbing our march, nor to
get before us into the plain, but took his position in
the village between Gross•Gorschen and Starsiedel.
About twelve o'clock at noon, General Blucher
received orders, as commanding the van-guard of the
army, and supported by a part of the Russian artil-
lery, to attack the enemy. The attack was made
on the village of Gross-Gorsqhen, which was obsti.
nately defended by the enemy. It was taken by
storm. General Yorck marched with his corps to
the right of the village. The whole army wheeled
to the right, and presently after the battle became
general along the whole line of Blucher's corps.—
t'he enemy, at the same time, displayed a nume-
rous artillery, chiefly of heavy calibre, and the fire
of musketry in the villages was kept up with great
vivacity for several hours.
In this murderous battle the villages of Klein-
Gorschen and Rhano, as likewise the village of Gross
Gorschen, were early taken by storm, and with unex-
ampled bravery, and kept possession of for several
hours. At length the enemy returned in considerable
force, surrounded, and in part retook these villages ;
but on the attack being renewed, was not able to re-
tain possession of them. The Prussian Guards moved
forward, and after a most obstinate combat of an hour
and a half, those villages were again retaken from the
enemy, and remained in our possession. During this
time, the corps of General Winzingerode on the left
wing, and the corps of General Yorck, with a part o
the Russian troops under General Berg, had taken a
share in the battle. We stood opposed to the enemy,
at the distance of 100 paces, and one of the most
bloody battles became general.
Our reserves had drawn nearer to the field of bat.
tie, to be in readiness wherever needful, and thus was
the battle continued till near 7 o'clock in the even-
ing. During its course, the villages on the left wing
were likewise several times taken and retaken by both
parties. At seven o'clock the enemy appeared with
a new corps on our right wing before Gloss and
Klein-Gorschen— probably with the Viceroy's army ;
made a brisk attack on us, and endavoured to tea
from us the advantages we had gained.
The infantry of a part of the Russian-reserves was
now brought tortard to the right wing, to the sur-
aTtratcokefd,GeannercialthYeomrcoslets
dceosirwrpsa,
tewheincghagwemasebnot briskly
which the Russian Artillery during the whole re.
maining time greatly distinguished itselt, as did the
corps of Yorck, Blucher, and Winzingernde, the
whole day) was now continued till night CAMe on.--
The enemy had likewise again attacked our centre
and the villages with great briskness, hut we mair-
;alined our Position. In this situation night put
end to the battle. The enemy was to have been .tg "2
attacked on the following morning, the :I‘l of :44)•
He had meanwhile taken Leipsic during the battle.
This obliged us to manoeuvre with him. It WAS UO,
till afterwards that we were informed, that colt'll_
(pence of the battle he had again been force to
it, and had by the same means lost 1.3 i h.:
men of his best troops ; many of his caution are itswagg
mounted, and a number of his powder '
blown up. Our light detachments are .I:•;..in