Star.
London, England, 1821-09-13 00:00:00

FROM VIE TIMES.

This, we doubt not, is, on the part of the Jury, a conscientious
verdict. The impression which was left upon our own minds
by the whole of thesvidence taken together, and mere espe-
cially by certain portions of it which were the most positive,
uncontradicted, and unsuspicious. might perhaps have induced
us, had we been Jurymen, to lean towards a judgment less qua-
lified in the degree of guilt which it ascribed to the destroyers
of Honey. nut though, on fair and manly grounds, we dissent
from the exact terms of the verdict, we respect the motives by
which it was governed ; nor shall we follow the modern exam-
ple of intimidating Jurors, or vilifying their decisions, when
they happen to be at variance with our own. Much as, in our
opinion, it would be desirable, that so far as was consistent with
the sworn facts of each case, the sense of every tribunal through-
out the land, from the Coroner's Inquest to the final array of
the Petty Jury, should be declared against the agents of military
violence, and should stand in the breach to protect our free Con.
stitutiob no humane or reasonable being could entertain such
a sentiment from vindictive feelings towards the unfortu-
nate soldiers.

Where the soldier betrays no peculiar and malignant ferocity,
but acts, although strictly speaking, in contravention of the law,
yet, speaking morally, under the pressure of painft.l and per-
plexing circumstances, arising of necessity out of the situation in
which his superiors have unjustly placed him, a Jury, it is true,
may he compelled by their oaths to find such a man guilty of the
crime of murder : yet the Ministers who have exposed him to
the risk would be unpardonable for suffering him to undrrgo
the punishment. Why, then, we shall be asked, call for the
trial of a criminal, only that he may escape the gallows? We
answer, that it is of inestimable importance that an arbitrary
Minister should be forced to screen from punishment a crime
which has been perpetrated in obedience to his wenvetters. It
would be such an exposure of the red criminal—it would be such
a signal condemnation of that kind of Government under which
crimes become inevitable, and punishment impossible—that after
a very few public instances of subjects shot, and soldiers after
convicting' pardoned, little more would be heard of peace-officers
in helmets, of constables' staves represented by drawn sabres, er
of Magistrates receiving orders from a Captain of the Guards.
It is from our constitutional anxiety to see the end of this ter-
rible system, that we are disposed to lean in every case of mili-
tary violence against the principle from which the violence ema-
nates, though not against the persons (more to be pitied than
condemned) who have been its unwilling agents. It is there_
fore that we feel disappointed in some degree, when we find, or
think we find, a Jury entrapped by their own moderation and
tenderness into a judgment which militates against a great re-
form in our state policy, but which saves no culprit from legal
punishment; because, as we said before, none Is in danger of
his life. At the same time, let it be well borne in mind, that a
bill of indictment may yet be found for a crime more serious
than that which the present Jury have recorded, and that a con-
viction, even to the extent of Manslaughter, would not be with-
out advantage to society.

FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
The pews of the Jury will, we have no doubt, he generally
racogn'.,:cl as sounder than those of the Coroner, who recom-
mended a verdict of Justifiable Homicide. The defence set up for
the soldiers by the Coroner, that their lives were in danger, and
they were acting only in self-defence, was rather at variance with
the suggestion thrown out by him, that during the interval of
calm which preceded the firing, they were leisurely employed in
loading their fire-arms. But such a defence as this for military
in array ought at all times to be viewed with great distrust, as
withdrawing the military from all dependence on the civil au-
thorities. To allow soldiers to act against the people without
orders from a Magistrate, and on a supposition of die people's
having no legal right to the position they may chance to occupy,
to drive them from it, and, if resisted, to fire on them, on the
pretext of self-defence, would be to relieve soldiers from all civil
controuL The Jury, however, have adopted sounder views, and
have not made themselves accessary to the establishment of
practices which are directly at variance with the principles of
our Constitution.
While we consider ourselves bound to give expression to
these opiates, we arc fax from estertah)ing any hostility against

the unhappy instruments of Nlinirderial obstinacy and litvs3,..
deuce. We are anxious to expose a ‘ystem gradually iuvadLl
the Constitution, the baneful effects of must he
and traced in their destructive progress. In mercy, then, t,,
is
dividuals, we cannot spare principles of actico pregnant
mischief to the community. The rash folly of a self-willed nos
may give motion to a piece of dangerous maettittery, the (ler,
Lion of which it is nut in his wisdom to foresee, nor in his posht
to commit! ; but he is no less answerable for having gi7t„, etc
impulse, and the primitive Wisdom of the law would withdraw
from bins the opportunity of ever again employing she ensitk of
mischief; the passive instrument of death is forfeited with us, and
was abhorred by antiquity. There is no law, in the ease
ttnw
before us, unhappily, that reaches the cause of disaster, the
sur-
fortunate agent must bear the punishment, his employer only the
disgrace. Military interference, the root of the evil, is ex,,
now in this country in its infancy, but it is the infancy of a gig.,
whose clumsy strength is not the less forinitizble because Suite
by little reason, and exerts.] on frivolous occasions, to aseertais
the extent and measure of its powers. It behoves us :0 uwch
the growth of the monster.