The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-25 00:00:00

did not wish to stop the case, but merely to direct the atten-
tion of the counsel to the material point to be proved.
Henry Lee, the groom to Eliot; proved that he saw the
prisoners at the spot before the duel took place, but his
evidence was not material.—Two other witnesses were
called, but their evidence did not go to show that the prisoners
were actually present aiding and abetting the commission of
the offence.—This was the case for the prosecution.
Mr. Adolphus appeared to ask the court whether there was
a necessity for him to address the jury ?—The court said Oak
it thought it ought to be a question for the jury, whether or
not the prisoners were present under such circumstances as
to give a countenance to the act which had been committed.
Mr. Adolphus then addressed the jury, and said that he was
not young or rash enough to contend that the proceeding of
duelling was legal, but he hoped the jury would look dispas-
sionately at all the circumstances of the case. He knew it
was not enough to make the proceeding legal to say that
great personages, both legal and others, had resorted to it,
but still that would show the feeling of society, and that
persons of great legal knowledge, who it might be supposed
would be the first to uphold the laws of the country, had very
frequently resorted to that proceeding. He begged the jury
to recollect that the prisoners were charged with the crime of
murder for merely being present. The learned counsel then
proceeded to mention several cases of a similar kind, and one
of Captain McNamara, in which he had killed his antagonist,
but the jury, believing that he had received such provocation
as no man of honour could bear, thougnt he was justified in
adopting the course he did, and they acquitted him. He then
proceeded to contend that there was no evidence to show that
his client Webber, bad any guilty knowledge of what was
going on.
Mr. C. Phillips then proceeded to address the Jury in a
powerful speech on the part of the prisoner Young. He said
that when he came into Court that morning he did so with
fear and trembling, from what he had seen published in the
newspapers in -respect to the unfortunate transaction with
which thi prisoners at the bar were identified. It had been
stated—and the calumny had been most industriously circu-
lated through the medium of the press—that some one said
to Eliot, the principal, "You have nothing to fear, it's all
right," and the inference drawn from this was, that there
had been something unfair in the duel; but had anything of
the kind been proved? On the contrary, had it not been
clearly established in evidence that everything that had taken
place-had been according to the nicest rules of what was
called the code of honour? The Learned Gentleman then
adverted in a strain of indignation to the permission given
by parties in authority to the existence of such disgraceful
places as the Saloon, where the unfortunate broil which led
to the fatal transaction, which all deplored, took place. The
learned gentleman having closed an able and eloquent ad-
dress, concluded by calling witnesses.
Several highly respectable persons then came forward and
gave both prisoners excellent characters for mildness and
general kindness. It appeared from the testimony of these
witnesses that the prisoner Webber is the son of a wine-
merchant at the west end of the town, and that the prisoner
Young is the son of a gentleman living on his private pro-
perty.
Mr. Justice Vaughan then proceeded to sum up the evi-
dence, in doing which be observed, that there were some
peculiarities in this case which made it differ from others
that had come under his notice. One of these was the num-
ber of persons engaged in it. The prisoners at the bar, al-
though present, were not called upon, it would appear, to
officiate as seconds, as there were other persons present who
seemed to have acted in that capacity, for they measured the
ground, loaded the pistols, and gave the necessary signals;
but the question for the consideration of the Jury was not
whether the prisoners were seconds at the duel—for if the
Jury believed that they went down to the place of meeting
with the parties engaged in the melancholy transaction to
further it, then, although they might not have acted as
seconds, by loading the pistols, or doing any act usually per-
formed by seconds, still they would be guilty of "aiding and
abetting," and liable to all the consequences of such a posi-
tion. If, however, they had any doubt that either of the
prisoners were present on the occasion, then they, ought to
give them the benefit of such doubt, and acquit them. -
The Jury then retired, and in about twenty minutes re-
turned, finding both prisoners "Guilty." The Foreman
then said that he was requested by his brother jurors to say,
that they were not influenced in the decision they had come
to by any paragraph which had appeared in the newspapers.
He was also instructed to state to the Court, that the Jury
felt great abhorrence at the conduct of Mr. Scott in the en-
tire transaction, and their great regret that he had not been
placed at the bar with the other prisoners. Mr. Justice
Vaughan said he perfectly concurred in this last observation
of the Jury.
Mr. Chambers legged, before the Learned Judges pro-
ceeded to pass sentence on the prisoners, to say that the
prosecutor, the brother of the deceased, recommended them
to the merciful consideration of' the Court.
Mr. Justice Vaughan.—We intend that the verdict shall
be recorded, by which the prisoners lives will be spared.
The Learned Judge, then addressing the prisoners, observed,
" It is our intention to recommend that you should be sub-
jected to a term of imprisonment. You are now in the hands
of the Executive, and any application for a mitigation of the
sentence to be pronounced upon you must be directed to the
Secretary for the Home Department."
he prisoners were then taken from the bar.