Star.
London, England, 1827-11-02 00:00:00

COURT OF CHANCERY-THIS DAY.

The LORD CHAlielLiqa came down to Lincoln's
Hall this day-shortly before texo'clock, and repairedto
the private room.
Mr. SHADWILL, the new Vice Chancellor, having
robed in the private chambers of the Vice-Chan-
cellor's Court repaired into that of his Lordship,
where the usual oaths were administered to his Honour,
who having been congratulated by the Lord Chan-
cellor on his appointment, bowed and retired. His
Lordship came into Court, and proceeded with the
Bankrupt Petitions.
VICE CHANCELLOR'S COURT—THIS. DAY.
It having been announced positively, that the sew
Vice-Chancellor would be sworn in and take his seat
this day, this Court was crowdei to excess, by not
only the public, but the Gentlemen of the Bar, as
soon as the doors of the Court were opened. At
length the usual annunciation of si silence" was heard,
,and bis Honour took his seat on the bench, and having
bowed to the Gentlemen of the bar, the following
cause was called-on:—

PITUSZRALD V. STZIRANT.
This cause, which has already undergone most ela-
borate discussions, now came before the Court on a
" Dertarrrer" filed to the proceedings, on account of the
want of parties.
After hearing Counsel on both sides, his Rotuma
pronounced judgment, allowing the demurrer to be well.
founded for the want of patties.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH. Gonanats, N.•. I.
Before Lord MITIIIDIS and a Special

saatuatomr V. Tamaral.
This was an action to recover damages for a libel.
Mr. HUTCHINSON opened the pleadings. The declara-
tion stated, that before and at the publication of the
libels, the plaintiff (J. T. Barbtr Beaumont) was the,
treasurer and director of the County Fire Office, and
that the defendant published in the Morning Herold
newspaper the libel complained of. The defendant
pleaded the general issue.
Mr. BROUGHAMI cannot help rejoicing on behalf
of the plaintiff, that he has, through me, the gratifies-
lion of addressing himself to a Jury of such peculiar
Respectability, .because it is a great and much to be en-
vied sati.faction, that the care of this plaintiff, who is a
gentleman, a man of honour, and a-magistrate of 15
years' standing in the county—that the case in which
he has put in issue the amount of pecuniary compensa-
tion to be made to him for an outrageous attack upon
his character is to be tried before gentlemen whose feel-
ings are alive to the value of a good character, and
which feelings will not pervert but guide their judg-
ment. The libels contain the most foul and infamous
•calumnies

_ heaped upon his character, and circulated in
.e most inischievous manner in a garbled shape, nder
the sanction of names of the highest respectability
evoked to give credit to the slanders. As soon as the.
plaintiff was aware of the attack—as soon as he knew,
of the use that had been made of the Report of the
Commissioners of Public Inquiry—as soon as he heard;
that the fabrications agiiiist his character had been prow
pagated—he immediately brought the action, by which
be defies his calumniators to prove one tittle of what
they have dared to publish. There were plenty of per-
lobs competent to prove the truth of the libels, and were
there the shadow of truth for them, any man.pressed
by such an action, and about to be dragged into a
Court of Justice for the purpose of being convicted as
uslanderer, with the power of proving that truth by five
witnesses, would not hesitate .a moment in so doing ;
but the defendant has not justified—he has admitted
sbe falsehood—he has pleaded the general issue. Under
these circumstances, I have only to she the gross na-
.r)ere of the libel, which I shall do in the shortest manner
ghat so elaborate and so unprecedentedly large a pub•
&scion, occupying seven columns of the newspAper,
sad which you and his Lordship will be bound to
bear read through, however disgusting for its slan-
der and tedious for its prolixity, will admit of.—
You will observe that this libel appeared in a newspa-
per of great respectability, got up with great care and
much learning,—a newspaper that is not confined to
one age, as is proved by a letter which I see inserted
in one of its columns, the purport of which I wish the
editors, and also the Commissioners of Inquiry, had
practised,—a letter from the younger Pliny to his
friend Maximus, on hi appointment to be Governor
of Greece; and not content with the vernacular tongue,
thcje is in the same journal a letter from a correspon-
dent who signs in a Hebrew character, in which lan-
guage is written one half of what he communicates. 1
mention these matters to show the respectabilisy of the
journal, and that iris not confined to the reading of the
ignorant and illiterate, but finds its way into the stu-
dies a the most learned men ; so that it has carried the
calumnies far and wide, and made them of much greater
weight. The libel pretends to be extracts from die
Revenue Commissioners, the 14th repost. It does not
pretend to be the whole of the report, nor to give what
it does give in regular order ; all the extracts ate on
one side; and I arprehend the defendant will be obli.
ged to call Mr. Hansard to prove that there is such a
report, and that where the defendant has t dcen upon
himself to sander Mr. Beaumont behind his back,
be has done so by publishing extracts from that
report. It is no justification to a libel that it is the
print of a speech in the House of Commons, but none'
can deny that it is a mitigation. The defendant,however,
has not pleaded that he has copied the report. I do
not mean to have recourse to the vulgar subtlety and'
special pleading of urging that because it has not been
pleaded there is no such report. I will at once admit i
there is such a commission, that they did inquire, and
that they reported their 14th report. lint theta are two 1
ways of copying a document ; one is a fait atethied,
that is, to copy the whole of it, the good and the bad,
br th sides together. the antidote with the bane, the evi-
dence of all the witnesses, the calumny with the contra.
diction, for truth and common fairness require the whole
of what the witnesses say; one after another, in regular
order, to be given, and not to publish all that is said
against a man, without a single tittle of what is for
him. If the defendant had• given the whole of the re-
port—if he had published what was told on both sides
in the same paper, (for a man is not to be calumniated
on Saturday and excused on Monday)—if' all had been
done fairly, be would have pleaded a justification, and
he has not dune so, upon the score only of his own well
grounded. consciousness that he could not have proved
such p1ea,...0n account of the garbled manner in which
the extracts are published. I wish to speak with the
greatest respect of the liberties of the press, and should
be sorry to hear any thing advanced against its opera.
Live use, as long as those who wield its great power
, conduct it fairly and honestly, and do not deal in in-
sinuations, in surmises, in groundless and abominable
falsehoods. I allow generally that newspapers have
' the right to insert in their columns public reports,
but I do not admit that if even the whole of the (e-
-' port had been given it would have been a justifiable
publication. It may be fit that Government should
make inquiries—it may be fit that Mr. Wallace (whew
I have the honour of knowing) and his brother

; ‘..e"4*e'. tir-4;

enissioners should be NO WA sith author Tty to inqulte
into the collection of gilt immense reroutes. They
are excellent inquiries—they form a ne* era in out
history,—they date their commencement from one
of the greatest men the country ever produced—
the late Earl St. Vincent—for I hold that that il-
lustrious captain did not perform a ireater service to
his county by conqueiiog her enemies on the seas than
by instituting these inquiries and investigations into the
peculation. of those who-fatten upon their country; but
it by no means follows that all the stories that are told
to these Commissioners *told in their details be made
public, and for this reason—they make their inquiries
behind people's backs—they receive es parte statements ;
they call witnoses before them whom they do not ex-
amine by the rules of legal evidence, and whose testi-
mony is not sanctioned by any cross.exarnination; they
trench on that most sacred principle of justice which
commands us to hear both sides, and on that other al-
most equally sacred principle,Ohich teaches us to do all
matters of inquiry in public,and to do nothing in common
with the barbarous and secret inquisitions of other na-
tions. The inquiries they institute are necessarily id the
dark; but if their results are an attack upon character,
especially if they go beyond the four corners of their
instructions and inquire into atnivate individual's con-
duct, not towards the poblic, but towards his own em-
ployers, and if they publish such ex pa rte inquiries to the
:world, tithe, from a desire of shoNing their own insists-
try, or of injuring a rival establishment, or from any
private malice—if actuated by any of these motives,
the Commissioners themselves, even if their characters
stood as high as that of the great man who originated
them, should be brought before a Jury, who would de-
cide upon their conduct, and tell them that even they
must Cot expect to slander others with impunity. In
these extracts there are the examinations of William
Kappen, Godfrey Sykes, and William Campbell, Esqrs.
one of. whom, Mr. Sykes. I have long known. All that
he has said he was bound to say ; it was h;s duty to
find out evidence vihich might lead to the discovery of
abuses; but it was no part of the duty of those to whoni
he gave his report to publish it, and still less was it any
part of the duty of this newspaper, which was the only
newspaper that did publish it, to publish Mr. Sykes s
bare suspicions and surmises. Mr. BROUGHAM here
read Mr. Sykes's evidence--

a Will you detail the inquiries you have made with respect to the
return of duties to the County Fire-office this* it happened
about the middle of May that accounts had arrived at our Board
that improper practices were prevailing at the County Fire-office with
regard to the return of rimy; it was communicated to ?dr. Mawe,
my principal clerk. He inanwdiately got the particular book now
before the Board • to see what the amount of duty was, and the first
thing that struck us was, that there appeared a very great difference
of duty between the return to that once and that to others. This
gave a prime facie appearance that they could not be right. Upon
ibis I considered in my own mind what was best to be ascertained ;
the poison making the communication sent certath papers containing
the number which he had got from a book called the Premium
IteturtEbook. 'These papers (producing them), which are copies,
contain the numbers of the policies, the amount of the duty, and the
period for which ihe dotlitswere withdrawn ; at the same time he
gave certain extracts which were taken from this book,explaining the
circumstances respeetiog at numbers, diet and it appearing from
these papers that.duties had been withdrawn, the first thing that,
appeared necessary to be done, was to inquire whether the polleiis
were actual subsisting policies during the period fur which the du-
tles bad been wklitimern? one of these papers relates principally so
Edinburgh, sod the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and another to
Sussex ; I thought first bf sending a clerk down to Sussex, to see
whether the policiftwere subsisting, but, upon the suggestion of the
persoo who gave this information, that I had better inquire at Edin-
burgh (the policies there having been effected by persons in trade.
I might get the informaribo more easily); I scut a copy of several
of those numbers to Edlubergh, with a 'rumba Bremner, desiring
him to make the necessary inquiries.
What was the result of those inquiries?—The result of those in.
quirles was, that sonic of the persons had beeotris bankrupts, and
no information could be obtained respecting'thent; but with re-
spect to No. 50,5-54, 1 gef•an account of payments of premiuth and
duty for the years 1814, 11116,,aui1-1817; and for the year
1115, which is one of dame years, Mr. Bremner seut me a copy of
by receipt, signed , the agent of the society. According to the'
inforriwil accoum, the denes,were returned front the years 1816
and 1817. I had thought that when Mr. Dean first went down to
the County Fire,o4llce, we had given him only a list of one-half of '
the numbers, MO directioos to ascertain when each policy corn.
silenced and when it terininated. ;The answer he made to rue was,
that be found those numbers were correct, but on turthet inquiry
beard that the first time be went he saw this book, which I wanted
to get hold of. and in that very book he found the same account of
the premium withdrawn for the years 1816 and 1817. as had been
communicated to me; and we alsd found those same numbers
among the quarterly returns ending the 22d March, 1823, an inter-
val of six or seven years after the policies had been effected—eo
that, connecting these circumstances, I have a case as to that par-
ticular number. _ _

That number has been claimed upon for a Mum of duty as hay-
ing ceased in ltlt 5 sod 1816 —you sent to Scotland and found them
.10 claimed • it had Wien an existing policy in thnae years, and the
' premium ;aid 3—Yes; and I found the receipt for the years
121548...-and when Air. Dean went to examine the book, he found
that number (511.154) as subidating, and he found this on the very
page co which the informer refers me on that very book. •

. _
Can Mr. Dean swear to the book out of which he copied it 7
I have no doubt he can. I also found this true as to one other
somber.
Were they both, found true in Scotland 7—Both of them.
Have you applied that inquiry to any numbers hr England ?—I
then got Mr. France to write down to Horsham, and the account-
there is, that the books are not to be found at present ; but the
Scotch cases appeared to me so clear, I did not go further. Mr.
' Dean went again to inquire about this particular book, and to pur.
sue his inquiries further ; upon that occasion he was told that Mr.
Barber Beaumont was gone to Paris, and that he had left directions
that no book should be examined. Being thus denied access to the
books, I saw that I could not prove my case ; it coming to Mr.
Beatimont's knowledge that I was investigating this business, he
sent me a letter, stating that he understood that inquiries had been
made at Edinburgh and elsewhere on this subject ; that he con-
ceived it improper to have made the inquiry, as it had been made
without first inquiring at the County Fire Office; that he con-
ceived A ought to inform him of the names of the Informers, sod
the particulars of their information ; and refers to two persons whom
be supposes had given me the information. The way in which the
matter arose was this :—..1 person who had been a clerk in the
Conroy Fire Office told Mr. Spike, the Solicitor for the Beacon
Office, that whenever country collectors • failed, Mr. Barber Beau-
mont ordered lists to be made out, and claims to be mode for re-
cants of duty, ;o the amount to which the agent had failed ; that this
was with the knowledge of Johnson and Shepherd; that Johnson
had ',dosed, but that Shepherd had done it. This was commuoi-
toted by Spike to a member dour board; who is one of the Direc-
tors d the Beacon Company. Having considered the subject for
some dayS,'l Went into the board room, there beteg present Mr.
Hallam, Captain Montagu, and Mr. Addington! I stated that I
had mitred this paper, with *hick I believed they were or-
oathted, and that I thought of inking to Mr. Bremner to get in
formation. I wrote on the VAI of May; a week after that k was
mentioned by Captain Montagu and Mr. Add:ngtoa to the Chair-
man, who thought that though he was connected with this office,
be ought not to be kept in the dark about it ; the Chairman then
came out to me with a great deal of good temper, and asked me what
was going on 7 I said there was a very awkward charge against Air.
Barber Beaumont, for having withdrawn large sums from this
office, whey policies were subsisting. I said, " You may think
it strange I have not mentioned • this to you ; but understanding
that you was intimate with Mr. Barber Beaumont, and a director
of that office, I did not feel myself at liberty to mention it." He
said Mr. Barber Beaumont wasnot a particular friend of his, and
that he would follow up the inquiry ; and that the best way would
tlo, be to wait till the time lot o freak recur; of Madre, and .n to
examine into it. Ido not think I mentioned at Mat time thee a
writteo to Mr. Bremner, which I had done thine or four d be.
fore • that was on the Friday evening; it was too late then to get at
the book to the Comptroller s Office, and be said the next morn-
ing we worth:Stook over that book, and examine into the alleged dis-
parity between that office and others. I did not see him the next 1
day; we did not happen to be in the office at the same time; I had
no further conversation with him till the Tuesday following. On
the Tuesday, I received a letter front Mr. Bremner, disclosing the
information be had obtained; I took the letter into the Board; the
Chairman woe extremely angry to think that I should send to Scot-
land to make Inquiries on this subject; he said the proper way
*Mad have been to have gone to the office, and asked for
the books; I said, 0 'We may differ, perhaps, a little upon that. If
kid bap hoed fate vc 0. !oaks coaling befOre you, pro.

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