Star.
London, England, 1820-04-27 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS.

HOUSE OF LORDS, APRIL 26.

The House met at three o'clock. The oaths were adrninis-
tere3 to the Lords who attended, zfter which, an adjourmnent
took place at four sill to-morrow (this day). •

HOUSE OF. COMMONS.
The Srzatis came down at two o'clock ; but there was not
a suiliciout attendance to enable him to take the Chair until half-
past two. The Clerk then proceeded to swear in a number of
11.1nnhers, among whom were :
Mr. Wallis, Mr. Warren, Mr. Beckett, Mr. Abercrombie, Mr.
Ricardo, Mr. W. H. Whitbread, Mr. Davenport, Mr. Mans-
field, Mr. Bremer, Mr. Portman, Mr. Childe, Mr. T. Wilson,
Mr T. 11. Davis, Mr. Ure, Mr. Lindsay, Lord A. Hill, Sir H.
Parnell, Mr. N. Calvert, Mr. F. C. Ponsonby, Mr. J. Caleraft,
Mr. Cawthorne, Mr.'Horrocks, Mr. Whitmore, Sir T. Acland,
Mr. Gordon, Sir G. Clerk, Mr. P. Moore, the Attorney-Gene-
sal, Alderman Smith, Sir C. Morgan, Lord J. Fitzroy, Lord
Palmerston, Sir W. Coagreve, Mr. Bruce, Sir E. Harvey, Sir
It. Wigram, Mr. Brandley, Mr. Ward, Si J. Shelley, Mr. Ly-
gon, Mr. Fellowes, Lord' W. Bentinck, Mr. Spurrier, Sir C.
Mordaunt, Lord Temple, Lord Barnard, Lord Belzrave, Mr.
Denison, Lord .1. Russell, Mr. Bankes, Mr. W. Dundas, Mr.
Arbuthnot, the Marquis of, Worcester, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Free-
mantle, Mr. Heinle, Mr. Williams, Sir J. Newport, General
Gascoigne, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Blair, Mr. Neville, Mr.
O'Grady, Lord C. Fitzroy, Sir U. Burgh, Mr. Fitzgibbon, Mr.
' Dickenson Mr. Innis, Sir JaniPs Macdonald, Sir J. wen,
Mr. Cust, Mr. W. Howard, Sir C. Burrell, Mr. Irving, Lord
Brudenell, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Sheldon, Cclonel Wood, Lord E.
Somerset, Lord Weymouth, Mr. B. Wilbraham, Mr. G.
Bankes, Ecc. Bcc.—Adjotirned at half- past four.

THE EVENING STAR_

LONDON.

- THURSnAY, APRIL 27, 1820.
TUE FUNDS.
ElifCE Of STOCX3 TIHS DAY AT ONE 0.01.0EK
Bank Stack 224 2231,
3 per Cent. Reduced 68% 5/ ye %-
3 per Ceut. Consols 693/ 5
VI per Cent. 771/4--4 per Cent. 87 1/8
5 per Cent. Navy 1053/4 106
Bank Long Annuities 17 15-16 18
India Bonds 955. 265. pr.
Exclieqtrer Bills (2d4 ss. 6s. 4s. pre.
Commercial par
Consols for Acct. 691/2 54.

As long as the question of publishing the pending
Trials for High Treason was oue of respectful de-
ference to the high Judicial Authority, from Whom
the injunction against publishing proceeded, we cheer-
fully and silently submitted, in common with all our
daily contemporaries, to the inconvenience, and, we
ni:ty tru:y add, loss, which obedience to this injunc-
tion entaile.l. But now that the question is on the
eve of becoming, by the motion which stands for to-
snon-ow against Mr. CLENSZNT, one not of mere de-
brence, but of strict right--:-when disobedience to
the injunction is proposed to be made a ground for
serious punishment—when fine and imprisonment
we-the consequences with which one fearless indivi-
dual is threatened for acting up to what he con-
ceives to be only a common privilege—we should
deem ourselves equally wanting in sincerity and in
dne boldness, if we kept back from avowing what is
our honest conviction on the subject.
The right assumed by our Courts to prohibit the
publication of proceedings pending a trial, is of but
recent origin, and, so far as we can find, not founded
on any law. This assumption involves another,
namely, that the evidence emitted in an open Court
is not a publication ; which:involves a contradiction
in terms, for the KING and all England are supposed
to be present, and the very meaning of an open Court
is, that the proceedings may be known to the whole

Kingdom. He who prints the proceedings is not the
enrol ;her, but the republisher. The publication comes
f om the mouths of the Witnesses, the Counsel, the
Defendant, and the Judge.
Before the invention of Printing, publication of
Judicial proceedings was deemed necessary for the
ends of justice: to obtain this publicity, the Courts
'were declined open. By a fiction of law, the Jury
are the Country, but every person for whom room'
can be found, may be present. Human ingenuity
could not, as things then stood, contrive means for
mote effectual publication; but the invention of
P. jilting has lessened the extent of the legal fiction,
and enabled a much larger portion Of the community
to know lie actual proceedings in the Court.
Has any mischief ever resulted from the publi-
cation of the Reports of Judicial proceedings pend-
ing a Tiial ? 'tire may boldly challenge all the
Lawytrs in Ent,7a Id to pioduce a single instance.
At all events we take upon us to say, that for every
single instance that can be adduced of supposed!
inconvenience, ten may be produced where it has

greatly promoted the ends of justice; and among
these, scme in which the lives of innocent indivi-
duals have been saved to the community, after evi-
dence had been received of their guilt which satisfied
be- di the Rtry and the Judge on the trial. •
In fact, this attempt to stifle the knowledge of
what transpii es before the tribunals of justice, we
regard as a preliminary symptom of what may be-
come a determination, to shut out the Public from
the Courts • entirely ; which may (at some future
time) render fhem equivaknt for all the purposes of
oppression, as detestable engines as the secret tribu-1
nals of Venice, or the Spanish Inquisition. Nothing,)
indeed, among all the attempts to wrench the Consti-;
Luton from its old and salutary usages, ought to be
contemplated with more serious apprehension, than 11
this sacriligeous troubling of the fountains of justice.
Not, however, to enter into any defence of the prac-
tice of Reporting the proceedings of the Courts, we
would maintain, that as public opinion, in a refined
state of society, is of as much influence and efficacy

as the law itself, in preserving and in producin
correct moral sentiments, a most important check on
nefarious accusations will be suppressed. Besides, if
the Public be excluded from hearing what passes at
trials, (for to this issue the measure in question evi-
dently tends,), we would ask, how is it possible to
know that justice is administered at all? If ever,
therefore, anything occurred alarming to the liberties
of the People, it is this disposition to render the ad-
ministration of justice irresponsible to public opinion,

While on the subject of the Public Prase, we shall
offer also a remark or two on4mother case which oc-
cupies a large share of the attention of the Public—
that of Sir FRANCIS BURDETT. To hold the writing
of a libel in Leicestershire to be the same thing as its
publication in Middlesex, and vice versa, appears to
us contrary to every dictate of reason. To hold as
a crime the writing of what would be a libel bcpub-
fished, though not published, can be equalled only by
making it criminal, as one of the Roman Emperors
did, in men to dream !
We know, whatever new dicta may now be at-
tempted to be introduced, that formerly the writing
of a libel was held to be no crime—the crime was
czeated by the publication : and we have some re-
collection of an action for a libel (some of our legal
Readers may know the case) in which the plaintiE
was nonsuited, though there was no defect of evi-
dence as to the writing of the libel, which was a
letter addressed to the plaintiff by the defendant.—
The Court held that there was no publication of a
libel till the letter was made public, and that the
plaintiff having made it public, he himself was the
publisher. This case we take to be quite in point.

• The Paris Papers of Monday arrived this morning.
The Kum has been advised to place the celebrated
General CAMBRONNE on active service. " The long
fidelity," it is curiously said, " which this General
spewed to the Government which is no more, is a
pledge of the eternal fidelity which he will preserve
to the Government that exists !"

The last Madrid Gazettes received at Paris are
said to contain nothing interesting—addresses of feli-
citation to the KING continued pouring in from all
quarters.

We have this morning received files of Papers
from Virginia to the 16th of March, the contents-of
which are important. The Virginia Herald of the
15th March, gives the following paragraph respect-
ing the Floridas, from the National Intelligencer :

" Washing-ton City, March 9.

" The Commitee of Foreign Relations of the House of Re-
presentatives, have this moment reported a Bill, authorising the
President of the United States to take immediate possession of
the East and West Floridas, and to establish a permanent Go-
vernment therein, and authorising the employment of the Ar,my
and Navy therein."
KINGSTON, JAMAICA, FEBRUARY 9.

Private accounts from Carthagena state, that the Insur-
gent forces had descended the River Magdalena as far as the
Plyon, on their route to Santa Martha; that they had captured
four of the bungiers of the Royalists, with 172 men and 200
muskets belonging to Warlerta's division, who had his head:
quarters at Cassares, and it would require great skill on his part
to prevent being cut off by the Insurgents.

The following letters were posted at the New Eng-
land Coffee-house this morning :

RETRACT OF A LETTER FROM NORFOLK (vsucnno)o OT KARON IS.
" By an arrival yesterday from the Havannah, in Mae days,
we have accounts of an insurrection in St. Jago de Cuba. The
vessel in question sailed from Havannah on the 4th instant, and
the account of the insurrection had been received there about ten
days previous; during which time the Governor bad fitted out
an Expedition, consisting of two transports, with troops, under
convoy of a sloop of war, which sailed from Havannah on the
3d of this month for St. Jago, to aid in quelling the insurrec-
tion. It was understood the insurgents were principally Rods,
but the extent of their numbers my informant did sot under-
stand.—The ship Virginia, Fismta, in 31 days from Livespool,
arrived in Hampton Roads, yesterday."

" NIAGARA (CANADA), FZIRDART
" We are informed that a few days since one of the Six Na-
tion Indians at the Grand River, shot a black woman, after
which, he invited three of his friends to the house, made them
all drunk, and set fire to the house and consumed them. The
Indians were holding a Council, and the result is not yet known :4
it is stated as most probable that this monster win be shot."