Star.
London, England, 1820-01-29 00:00:00

SALFORD SESSIONS.

Joseph Mato, of Bolton, charged with libel, was
called at the sitting of the Court, and waited for for
full an hour, but not appearing, his recognizances
were estreated.

Robert Ogdcn was next called; but Mr. DANIELS,
Solicitor for the prosecution, stated, that he had no
instructiens, and that he had told so to Mr. Nadin.
—Not Guilty.
...

Thomas Lifellor was brought up for an assault
committed with riot.

The assault and riet had been committed on the
memorable 16th of August. On the evening of that
day, the Magistrates had directed the public-houses
to be cleared. Mr. Withington, a Yeoman and.
Constable, was employed, with others, in clearing
public-houses in Pendleton, when a crowd collected,
and stones were Ihrown by some. Mr. Withington,
anxious to disperse the crowd as mildly as possible,
remonstrated with them, and particularly with the
prisoner, who was most active, bur he remonstrated
without effect : the prisoner assaulted him ; Mr. With-
ington had his coat torn from his back, his waist-
coat likewise, but he firmly and resolutely stuck to
the prisoner, and took him into custody, although in
the midst of a crowd. The prisoner had been im-
prisoned ever since the 16th of August.
The CHAIRMAN—" The sentence of the Court,
considering the time you have been imprisoned, is—
that you pay 6s. Bd. to the king, and enter into re-
cognizances to keep the peace, yourself in aa, and
two sureties in £lO each.

Sureties were provided soon afterwards.
John Chorlton, a respectable looking young man,
was next put to the bar.
Mr. STAMM, who opened the case, stated, that,
this was an indictment against the prisoner for libel:i
It charged, that he, being an ill-disposed and mali-
cious person, and maliciously contriving to bring the
soldiers if our Sovereign Lord the King into dis-
credit and disgrace, by charging them with murder
and cruelties, had published the following libels—
( Vide Manchester Observer, Saturday, Aug. 28, 1819):
" Phrsa•Loo MAsscens!!!—Just published, No. I. price Ed.
of Peter-100 Massacre; containing a full, true, and faithful ac-
count of the inhuman murders, woundings, and other monstrous
cruelties exercised by a set of internals (mis-called soldiers),
upon an unarmed and distressed people, who were constitution-
ally assembled, to consider of the best, most legal, and most ef-
ficient means of alleviating their unparalleled sufferings, when
they were broken in upon by bands of armed mime, who
murdered many, and cut and maimed hundrtds more in a hor-
rid manner !"

Mr. WILLIAms having addressed the Jury, called
John Hewcross, who proved the purchasing of the
Paper (the Manchester Observer) of the defendant, at
Mr. Wzoe's, Market-street, Manchester.
Mr. HAY—" Have you anything to say in defence
or extenuation?"

The defendant—" I had no intention, as imputed
by the indictment, to bring the soldiery into contempt,
or to excite disaffection. I entered into Mr. Wroe's
employment for the purpose of obtaining, as I thought,
an honest livelihood. I hope the Gentlemen of the
Jury will not find me guilty for having endeavoured
to obtain ari honest livelihood."

Mr. HAY—" Gentlemen of the Jury, considering
the situation in which I stand, it would be very im-
proper in me to make any observations. In many'
cases it might be necessary, here it is not, to offer
any remarks ; for the libel is so clear that it cannot`
be mistaken. I have only to say, according to the'
power vested in me to give my opinion, that this is
as gross a libel as can be. If any one chooses to
take on himself to sell what may be a libel, he is an-
swerable for it."

The Foreman took the Paper into his hand, and
turned round to the rest of the Jury. In about one
minute he returned a verdict of Guilty. •
When the Clerk read the advertisement on which
the indictment was founded, the defendant (Chorl-
ton) was asked, whether he wished the whole to be
read?—He said, he did not.

Mr. WILLIAMS—" The Jury will see the whble ;
you have therefore a right to have the rest read, if
you wish it.

Defendant—'t I don't wish any thing respecting
it."—lt was not read.

Joseph Skew now appeared, to pray that his re-
cognitances should not be entreated.
Mr. WILLIAMS—" I oppose it now."
Joseph Shaw—" I was here all the week, and
having run entirely out of subsistence, I went to Bol-
ton last night to recruit myself; I walked back this
morning, thirteen miles, as fast as I was able. I
could not be, here earlier."

Mr. HAY—" We can do nothing now. It rests
with the prosecutor."
•Mr. WZLL/ANI3." I consent. I only wished to

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hear what he had to say: I am -ready now .to proceed
in his case:'
Joseph Shaw said, that he was without any re-
freshment, and prayed a little time. •
Mr., WILLIAMS at once consented, and the priso-
ner left the Court for a short time.

Mr. H.A.v—(to Chorlton, who continued to stand
at the bar)—" You may stand down; but -perhaps
you wish to hear the other trials? If so, you may re-
main as you are.
, TRIAL OF JOSEPH SHAW, FOR LIBEL.
After the lapse- of about half an hour, Shaw re-
turned into Court, and having declared himself ready
to proceed to trial, he was given in charge to the Jury..
The indictment charged the prisoner, that he,
being an evil-disposed person, and wishing to excite
in certain of his Majesty's liege subjects a hatred and
contempt of the laws and Government of this realm,
and also a hatred and contempt of the Houses of Par-
liament, did, on the 23d of August last, publish a
certain seditious libel, entitled, " A Letter to the Sol-
diers, on the State of the Country, and sheaving the
means that were used to separate tliern from the
great body of the People."—Thislettel- was published
in one of Sher win's Political Rcgisters. •
The defendant was aked, whether he would have
the indictment, which was extre ely long, read'
over? to which he replied in the a rmative.
4n
The Clerk began to read it, arid had proceeded
for some time, when

Mr. WILLIAMS contended, that as the defendant
had heard, the indictment read over before (on his
pleading last Sessions), it was contrary to practice to
have it read over now : besides, it would consume a
great portion of the time of the Court.
The defendant wished the reading to be continued,
which was done for some time longer, when, at his
own reqsest, it was given up.
Mr. St...rums then opened. the case, and read prin-
cipal parts of the alleged libel from his brief. The
'substance of the leading parts is as follows :—The
letter began by alluding to an Act passed in the year
• 1817, by which it was made a felony, without benefit
of clergy, for any person to attempt to seduce any
soldier or sailor from his allegiance, or to excite them
to any acts of mutiny or disobedience to their Offi-
cers ; and it observed, that this Act was passed be-
cause the Boroughmongers, meaning the Houses of
Parliament, were afraid, that if the soldiers em-
braced the doctrines of Reform, they could no longer
look upon them, as they now did, astheir only hope and
safeguard in the country, and that they (the soldiers)
would no longer submit to be the tools of such mod,
in attacking their peaceable fellow-subjects. It fur-
ther stated, that it was not the wish of the writer to
disturb their allegiance to the King ; that, it ob-
served, would be a dangerous subject, and here again
it referred to the Act of 1817. It was not the wish
of the writer to say anything of the Royal ninny,
' for," it added, GOD knows they are unpopular
enough already ;" " but," it continued, " to the
Boroughmongers (meining the Houses of Parliament)
you (meaning the soldiers) owe no allegiance, and
you ought to perform no duty to them." It then
went on to point out the uses to which the Army
were destined by Ministers, one of whom, it observed,
had said, that without the aid of the Military force
it would be impossible to collect the Taxes. It next
adverted to what it termed the Military escort of the
Sovereign froin Carlton House to St. Stephen's
'Chapel, and contrasted this alleged fondness for mi-
litary guard with the conduct of Queen Elizabeth,
who, when asked by the Spanish Ambassador on her
way to the Parliament House. where were her guards?
answered, that they were there, (pointing to the Peo-
ple). The Boroughmongers (meaning the Houses of
Parliament), were, it observed, afraid that the sol-
diers should at length prove unwilling to draw their
swords upon their fellow-subjects, whose distresses
might induce them to demand their rights from
Boroughmongers (meaning the Houses of Parlia-
ment), te whose conduct all those distresses were to
be attributed, and in consequence of this fear they
were every day encouraging armed Associations in
the country, in order that they (the armed Associa-
tions) might be ready to. perpetrate those deeds which
an honest soldier would be ashamed to perform. The
question with the Boroughmongers (meaning the
Houses of Parliament) was not, whether they (the
soldiers) were willing to do their duty, but whether
they would consent to murder their fellow-subjects
in cold blood ; not whether they (meaning the irol-
diers) would support the King of England, but
whether they would give allegiance to, and support
king Castlereagh, king Sidenouth, and a thousand
others of their description ? It also alluded to the
grant of ten thousand pounds-a year to the Duke of
York, for going once a month to visit his afflicted
father, a few miles from London, and added a report,
that that money had already been lost by his Royal
Highness at play. In the conclusion, it stated, that
it had not touched upon the subject of the military;
that it was not the intention of the writer to seduce
soldiers from their allegiance, or to encourage them
to disobey their Commanding Officers; but it made
a broad distinction, as, indeed, it did throughout,
between the obedience to their Commanders, and
that which- they owed to the Boroughmongers (mean-
ing the. Houses of Parliament); but it added, that it
might not be accused of omitting so important a
subject as an allusion to the individual conditions of
the soldiers; it begged their particular attention to
an extract from Voltaire's Candide. It then gave
the extract beginning with that part, where Candide
is desired by his comrades, on entering the regiment
as a recruit, to " drink the King of Bulgaria's
health," and ending with his description of the ter-.
rible carnage he had witnessed in a battle with the
enemy. The whole of which appeared to be a strong
and highly-coloured irony on the hardships and pri-
vations incidental to the life of a soldier.

Mr. WILLIAms followed on the part of the Cro~vu,
strongly arguing that the Jury were bound to return
a verdict of Guilty against the accused.
William Nelson was then called. He knew the
prisoner, who is a calico-printer, and kept a small
bookseller's shop, in Church-street, Bolton. He pur-
chased the number of Sherwites Register from the
defendant, at his shop, on the tad of August last.
Here the case for the prosecution closed, and the
prisoner being called upon for his defence, addressed
the Jury to the-following effect:—
" GENTLID/Pf or ME Juar—You 'cannot expect great things
from me on this occasion, as I am but a poor labouring mechanic,
an,d only has driven to selling little books by the badness of my
Mde. If the writer of the artick before you was present, be
TOMS* doubt be better able to speak to you than I am. I

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caught a severe cad in tiling am steel, and I hayo already lost
two to nulls of my'time, and a great deal of money. At the
time nnv papers weee seized, the officer took away severaLac-
counts, by which I was prevented front getting several stars of
money I rom my et:comers, and thereby am not now able to pay
a learned friend (Counsel) :o p:ead my cause. As to the libel,
it is nothite, to me; I am rut the writer, nor the printer, nor
have I had the books !Turn the ; they pas:•••41 through
two or three hands before they came to me; trade being.bad, I
was glad to do any little business by which I -might support my-
seif and family, tath7 than be idle. • Tar wiiter of the article,
Mr. Sherwin, is at large in London, and has not been ruaisbed
in arty way for what he has done. It rests then with}ou, Gen-
tlemen, whether I shall be allowed-to return to the bosnm of
my family, or be incarcerated in a dungeon for the act cf ano-
ther. As Goo is my judge, I had no intention whatever of
bringing his Majesty or the Government irtu contempt by any
thjtig I did. lam not one of that sort. - All that know my
c taracter, know me to be an honest industrious man, endeavour-
ipg to support a wife and two small children. 'Whatever may be
done to tne now, I shall always be rawly to do my duty to my
sing and country. I think, indeed, the case is very herd, thlt
r should be punished, and that Mr. Sherwin should be at I age.
though he is the writer. It is a very hard case, indeed. Being
a very poor man, I have not been able to pay a Gentleman of the
Bar to advocate my cause for me. I have done for the present."
Mr. WituAms.—lt k right you should know,
that if you have anything more to say to the Jury,
you must do it now, as you cannot address them
alter this.

Rev. Mr. linv:—Perlraps you may have some-
thing more to say, which you cannot now recollect.
Take your own time.
Prisoner.--s• •Jf the Court would allow me, I would wish t
read what Lord Liverpool said in the House of Commons some
time au." (Here he read a *passage front the Mrtichester 010
server of the 15th instant, in which the writer ::ongratolates thT
Public or: the fact admitted by lard Llv!rpot in his speech in
the House of I'eers on the Seditious Libtls' Bill ; tta• a libel on.
his Majesty's Ministers coidd not be conbidered as a libel on hb
Majesty's Government). Then, after a 11:use, the delendaur.
continued. " I cannot say I Lave a.ty ab li is to study the law.
on these subiects, or the law about libel; far be it from rue to
study anything of that sort. lam of a d fferent_way of life,
and I hope I shall never do any such thi, g. I hope you wit
deal with me as liberal men, and as Eogli ;fatten. Tae situatio,.(l
in which lam looks like a trap to catch me. For the book I.
sold was published three weeks before, and Mr. Sherwin was!
not indicted for it. Why was not that done? If Mr. Sierwin'
had been punished, I would willingly sniTer anything for rub-,
lishiny, it afterward..; but now I am to suffer for what I did net
know, was a crime."
This address, in the course of which the defendan
paused several times, as if not knowing what to gay.
was delivered in a very mild and submissive manner,
and with apparent simplicity.
The Rev. Mr. HAY, in addressing the Jury, ob-
served, that after the obcervatinns they had heard
from the Learned Counsel, his duty •n this occasion:
was rendered very short, and the defendant could.
not at all events complain of the narrowness of the
ground which the Learned Counsel had taken, for
he had certainly given every chance which he could.
The Rev. Gentleman then observed, that after look-
ing over the article which he had never seta befote,
he had no hesitation in saying, that it was a gross
libel. The defence set up was untenable, for it
would have been better for the accused to work a>
a weaver, than to earn a livelihood by such means
With respect to his not being the writer, that was not
a defence in point of law.
The Jury, with very little hesitation, returned I
verdict of Guilty.