Star.
London, England, 1822-03-28 00:00:00

6'.e-e;o\e-A


...

[PRICE SEVE7f-PENCE ,

1111tAT Powllllllli.. - •
Sir ROBEnI' wiLsom said', he widte4 to i a,,
IMlfloti •
to the Hon: geeretary of the Treasury respecting then& of
wheat posider. Scarcely it (fay passed that some instance did
not occur of the, arhitraty interference of the P.xcise,ofilcers with
the venders of this powder. Ile held in his hand a letter from
a person Who sold this powder, mit with a view to defraud the
Revenue; but with the declared intention of selling a cheap and
whoksome beverage. lie was sure that the 41st of Geo. 111.
which was the Act under which persons selling this powdet
were prosecuted, could never have been intended to prevent the
sale of what was put for*ard by the dealer as roasted wheat re-
duced to powder. Eloweirer, this unfortunate man was prose.:
cuted by the Exciie Board at a time When he was Confined to
prison, and the Clerk of the Cohrt informed his brother; if hc
would plead guilty the penalty zheuld not be enforcede—i,
However, when the term of his imprisonment had expired, he
was surprised to find a detainer laid on hint for £6O, the penalty
which he had reason to believe had been remitted.
Mr. LUSH' NGTON said; that the subject generally had
been referred by the Treasury to the Board of Excise, and they
were now deliberating hoie far it would be expedient to permit
*heat powder to be left in the hands of the dealers, with a view
to the protection of the Revenue.
Mr. ABERCROMBY considered it a monstrous thing, that
if • man invented a powder which was more cheap and more
wholesome to consume than coffee, he was not at liberty to
sell it. He hoped the Report of the Board of Excise would be
laid on the table as soon u it was made, and that a Cotnmittee
would be appointed to consider the same.
Sir ROBERT WILSON said, he was satisfied with the ex•
planation of the Honourable Gentleman. The name of the per-
son was Parker.

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.
Mr. SYRF.S presented a Petition from the Owners and Oc-
cupiers of Land, near Richmond, in the North /tiding of York-
shire, praying for relief. The Petitioners, he said, expressed
their opinion of the inadequacy of the measures of Ministeri to
afford relief to the farmer. They expressed themselves in strong
terms upon the necessity of further reduction of expense. So
strongly were they disinclined to agree with the Honourable
Member for Yorkshire (Mr. S. Wortley), in his views upon the
subject of agricultural relief, that thcy abstained from giving
him their Petition to present.—The Petition was then brought
up and read.
Mr. S. WORTLEY said, he did not perceite any allusion in
the Petition to any particular vote in which he had taken a part.
He regretted being obliged to differ from any of his Constituents
in opinion; but he believed the same indisposition which they
felt to give him their Petition to present, they also 'hewed to his
Noble Colleague, and for the same reason. He felt, as well as
the Petitioners did, that the means of relieving the farmer would
be to raise the prices. How was that to be done? He certainly
was not one who would give relief to the farmer at the expense
of the other bodies of the country. Tile great object which, in
his opinion, the Parliament ought to have in view, was the
keeping up of public credit. Ii they injured that, they destroyed
not only the interests of the monied man--of the landlord—but
even of that very body itself, of which those Petitioners formed
a part. With respect to taxation, he was perfectly satisfied that
the taking off of taxat: rn would not have the effect contemplated
by the Petitioners. He had stated his sentiments freely on the
subject of agricultural relief. If there were those amongst the
body of farmers who thought that hts views upon the subject
were erroneous, he hoped they would allow him the credit of
disinterestedness, for everybody knew that his whole dependence
was placed in the prosperity of the agricultural interest.—The
Petition was ordered to be printed.
Mr. DRUMMOND presented a Petition from a Distiller
(Mr. Alexander Dunlap) in Scotland, praying that the Scotch
spirits might be put on the same footing, as to the English mar-
ket, with that of Ireland.—On the questior being put, that the
Petition be laid on the table,
Mr. S. WORTLEY said, that he thought it would be some
relief to the agricultural interest, if Scotch spirits were allowed
to be introduced into this country in the same way as Irish
spirits. He wished to know from the Secretary of the Treas;:ry
if such a measure was in contemplation? •
Mr. LUSHINGTON replied, that it would be more advis.
able to leave it to the consideration of the A,gricultural Corn-
mittee.—The Petition was accordingly ordered to be referred to
the Agricultural Committee.
CA RULE'S SIIOPMAg.

Dr. LUSHINGTON said, that the Petition which
he held in his hand, and to which he was about to
call the attention of the House, was from a poor and
humble individual now sufiering under the sentence
of the law. The Petitioner complained that he was
suffering under that sentence unjustly—that the Jury
by which he was tried and convieteil was nut free
and unprejudiced, nor was it possible that they could
have been, because the same Jury, a few days he-
fore, passed an opinion on the subject of his prosecu-
tion, having tried and convicted another individual
charged with uttering the same publication. It vas
unnecessary for him to apprise the Howe, that 11:).•
thing was more important to the due administration
of justice in this country—nothing more necessary to
the upholding, in its pristine purity, the sacred cha-
racter of trial by Jury, which our ancestors never
violated, than that it should enter upon the trial of
the accused unbiassed and unprejudiced ; and in no
lease was this principle more necessary to be kept in
view, than when the person on his trial was charged
with a crime of a deep dye, because the more fla-
grant the crime, the deeper was the prejudice likely
to be. The Petitioner, John Baker, only seventeen
years of age, was one of those who had fallen vic-
tims to an Association usurping the name of Con-
stitutional." He, on the 4th of March last, was put
on his trial for having uttered a blasphemous and se-
ditious publication. The trial came on befoie the
Common Setjeant. On the impannelling the Jury,
the Counsel for the accused objected to it : and here
he (Dr. Lushington) prayed the attention of tile
House to what he was about to state—if the House
did not give the Petitioner some remedy, he had no
other quarter from which he could obtain it. The
Counsel for the accused, he repeated, objected to the
Jury, because that Jury had already, only two days
before, tried and convicted another person forhaving
uttered the same publication. This objection of the
prisoner's Counsel, the C•immon Sorjeaut said, VFA3
not well. founded. Now he (Dr. Lushington) con-
tended the objection was well founded ; and to be
tried by a Jury who had already prejudged the case,
was, in his mind, a direct violation and subversion of
every principle of justice. In this opinion he was
borne out by that great and constitu:ional writer,
Lord Coke, who laid down that no pc, son, sine ex-
ceptione, who had judged a case, was fit to form
one of a Jury which was to judge the same case
again ; because, having already decided on it, he
could not come to the investigation of it again with
a mind free and unprejudked. Was he net then on
this authority justified in saying, that the trial of the
Petitioner by such a Jury was a violation of the first
principles of justice? If an individual who had been
on the trial of a case before, could nut come to it
again unbiassed, how much mod unlikely was it