The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-09-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The letters of "Dicky Sam" and "An Anglican" were received
too late for insertion.
We have for some time contemplated the alterations suggested by
" A Friend to the STANnkno," but it requires time to make the
necessary arrangements.
The " Thinking Man" of the Albion states, with reference to the
case submitted by the Watch CGmmittee to counsel, that the
Town-clerk asserts, that "it is impossible to impugn" the
opinion. What the Town-rlerk really did say, as may be seen
from his letter, was that the "case is impossible for the fairness
of its statement to be impugned." The difference is important,
as Mr. Rushton appears to ground some objections against the
mode in which the case was stated.

E'br ?..iterpool ,-;-t>tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORI\ING, SEPT. 10, 1814.

The prison-doors are open. O'Connell and his
myrmidons are free—free to commence again their
insolent and injurious agitation—free to pour once
more into the ear of frantic millions those insidious
appeals, which have already wrought such fearful
alienation of
.feeling in the hearts of the Irish peo-
ple, towards British laws and the British name;
and which promise, at no distant day, to bring
about a struggle only to be quenched with blood—
a struggle whose issue must either desolate the soil
and destroy the prosperity of Ireland, or, in the
event of a dearly-earned success, strike a blow at
the power of the British empire, which all Europe,
aye the world in arms, have attempted in vain.
O'Connell is free. He stood yesterday in his
"Conciliation Hall "—with the words of conciliation
on his lips ? Oh, no : he stood there hurling
taunts, insul:s, threats against England and her
laws, whose weakness, whose merciful humanity,
have released him from his well-earned prison. He
stood, exulting in the added power of mischief,
which the very attempt to control his incendiary
career had conferred upon him, proclaiming new
sedition and new injuries to he attempted; and, by
the triumphant yells of approbation which followed
every word of insult to the Saxon poured from his
lips, he afforded to the Government and the people
of this empire a warning intimation of the days and
the scenes to come, for which it were well they
should prepare in time. Hatred to England—deep,
bitter, and abiding—was marked upon the faces,
and glared from the eyes, of the great majority of
that vast assembly, who listened to and cheered his
every word,—a hatred, the outbursting of which
England must prepare to encounter and put down,
if she would not be herself its victim.

Men are asking themselves, everywhere, "How
has this event been brought about ? How is this
man enabled from day to day to dare and evade the
powers of British law? What unaccountable agency
can have enabled him on this occasion,—when for
the first time in his turbulent career within the walls
of a British prison abiding the sentence of a British
jury,—to escape in defying and triumph to his
favourite agitation ?" They glance with distrust
towards the Conservative head of the British Go-
vernment—to the man who has once earned that
distrust, by concessions to the dictation of this very
demagogue. But the hands of Sir Robert Peel are,
this time, clean. He has not brought about a re-
sult so apparently inexplicable. The prerogative of
the Crown has not been exercised to bring it about;
and we are driven, therefore, to one or other of
these conclusions; viz.—either the law of England
is too feeble to put down treasonable conspiracy,
such as that of which O'Connell and his con-
federates were proved guilty, or that law has been
wrongfully administered. Let us see which of these
alternatives we are to adopt.
The legality in form, of the sentence by virtue of
which these conspirat ors were committed to a prison,
was agreed at length under a writ of error before
the House of Lords, the last court of appeal. It
was agreed before the whole House, mind, not the
Law Lords" alone, of whom there were only five
present. Several issues were prepared upon points
raised by counsel and sent down for the opinion of
the judges of the courts below, seven of whom were
strongly of opinion that the judgment of the Court
of Queen's Bench in Ireland must be affirmed ;
one (Baron Parke) was undecided, but leaned to-
wards a reversal, and Mr. Justice Coltman alone
was decisive in favour of such reversal. These
opinions were given to the House of Lords on
Monday last; and there was scarcely a man in the
realm (out of the secret) who did not feel assured
that the decision of the House of Lords would he
in accordance with that of the majority of the
judges. But it appears to have been the practice—
she etiquette—of that House to leave the decision
of the dry matters of law usually submitted to them
to the " Law Lords" who had heard the case, (in
the present instance, consisting of the Lord Chan-
cellor Lyndhurst, and Lords Brougham, Denman,
Cottenham, End Campbell ;) and when Lord
Wharncliffe had impressed upon the House the
propriety of adhering to such practice, and leaving
the Law Lords alone to vote, the case was over, the
decision almost certain for ivhiggery. The Lord
Chancellor and Lord Brougham were for affirming
the judgment, Lords Denman, Cottenham, and
Campbell for reversing it; and as the result, O'Con-
nell and his confederates are at liberty, and the law
of England a mockery.
It must strike every impartial man that there is
something very anomalous and even absurd in the
course here gone upon. It is plainly one opposed
to common sense, to the spirit of the constitution,
and to the very existence of the House of Lords
(properly so called) as a court of appeal. The form
of the whole proceedings implied that the house mas
to decide the question at issue, not the law lords
alone, or whence the necessity of taking the opinion
of the inferior judges. The law lords (superior
judges) did not want such opinions to guide them.
They went directly in their teeth after they had
them. Their minds, we have no doubt, were made
up long before they had them ; and they were, there-
fore, useless, unless, as we believe, they were in-
tended for the guidance of the whole house, lay lords
as well as law lords, who had the undoubted privilege, ,
and should have been left free to exercise the
privilege, of voting upon an occasion so important
as this,—of taking care that the majesty of British
law was not set at nought and justice defeated; by
the quibbles and the party leanings of political law-
yers.
We regret that the " old ways of the constitution"
were not adhered to,—that new-fangled etiquette
was so fatally preserved ; for we are perfectly satis-
fied not only by the result, but by the mode of its
attainment as well, that a deep injury has been in-
flicted upon this country and her institutions. For
what must be the necessary result of this untoward
decision. So far as the impression produced in Ire-
land 11 concerned we know what has been the effect.
It has destroyed, or fatally weakened, the character
of the judicial bench in that country. Already we
hear from the lips of the agitator himself threats of
impeachment directed against all the authorities who
were concerned in the sentence pronounced against
him. But a more disastrous effect is that which
must be produced throughout the empire, to the
disparagement of the whole course of our judicial
code, which is thus shewn to be arbitrary, utterly
incapable of being depended upon in its decisions,
and liable to he influenced as to those decisions by
party bias.! :For a moment examine the authorities,
—their character and standing,—who have recorded
their opinions for and against the reversal of this
judgment. On the one side we have, for the rever-
sal Lord Cottenham, Lord Denman, Lord Camp-
bell, Baron Parke (dubious) and Justice Coltman,—
five in number ; two of them, (Lords Cottenham and
Campbell,) place-hunting Whigs, and the latter a
violent and a needy partizan,—a man whose " greed"'
of lucre, to use the expressive language of his own
country, was so conspicuously shown in his grasp-
ing the Chancellorship of Ireland at a time when the
Ministry to which he belonged was in extremis.
For confirming the judgment we have Lord Lynd-
hurst, Lord Broughem, Chief Justices Tindal and
Pennefather, and Judges Coleridge, Williams,
Maule, Patteson, Alderson, Gurney, Burton, Cramp-
ton and Perrin.—in all, thirteen in number, against
five; and how far removed the bulk of them from
even the imputation of political partizanship ! How
unimpeachable in the dignified character of their
judicial position ! No such decision as this, against
weight of authority so evident, can possibly have the
respect of the reflecting portion of the empire, or be
regarded in any other light than that in which it is
regarded by the at)test journal in Ireland, the Dublin
Evening Mail, as " a political, not a legal decision."
For the present we leave its further
consideration,
with pain and heartfelt sorrow for the results which
it involves. We may return to it. There are, we
fear, circumstances in the background which time
alone can aid us in developing.

in another part of our n
'We have given, ,aper, a
descriptive account of so much of the nature of
Captain Warner's inventions as we have been ena-
bled to gather, and to convey in the small space at

our disposal, from the "correspondence" on the
subject recently published, by order of the House
of Commons. We have also to some exterv, made
known our own unprofessional impression of the
value, of the inventions in question, and the treat-
ment received .by the inventor in his efforts, with
safety to himself, to bring them experimentally to
test before the various parties appointed for the
purpose of adjudicating upon their merits and prac-
ticability. We have been candid in doing this ;
and we feel confident that our comments upon the
temper of a letter referred to in our last, and in
which our representative, Sir Howard Douglas, was
spoken of by Captain Warner with a considerable
degree of asperity, will be received as based upon
a desire to do equal justice to both; and that whilst
defending an honourable man, accused of over
strictness and something even more, in the dis-
charge of an onerous and most responsible duty, we
are perfectly willing to consider and regret the po-
sition of Captain 'Warner at the time of these en-
quiries, and to make due allowance for any ordinary
degree of warmth of temper which it might have
called forth. _ _

Bearing in mind, then, the whole circumstances
of the case, we must repeat the conviction expressed
in our last that, not only towards Sir Howard
Douglas, in his letter of the 28th ult. addressed to
the London Times, but to other officers, with whom
he has been brought in contact, Captain Warner
has shewn a degree of hastiness very unwarrantable.
It was entrusted to these officers—men distinguished
in their profession—to investigate into the merits
of newly discovered' powers, unknown to science,
and upon which they were told that the fate of their
country depended. These powers were to be pur-
chased by Government, in the event of a favorable
result of the investigation. Such, at least, was im-
plied, although expressly repudiated as a necessary
conclusion of that favorable result ; and the duty,
therefore, of the investigators was to exercise a de-
gree of jealousy and care amounting even to hardness
of belief. Captain *Warner, in many parts of this
i correspondence, admits the power of his inventions
to be surpassing credibility. He permits no near
scrutiny, in case of experiments being made. He
has his secret to keep until Government consents to
purchase it. The officers commissioned by Govern-
ment have to satisfy themselves that it is worth
such purchase, from the meagre opportunities of
testing it, which the circumstances of the nego-
ciators and the cautious inventor permit. It is a
fine game of fence—a quasi-diplomatic treaty, car-
ried on at "a long range"—a duet in which one of
the performers wants to look over the other's score,
whilst that other is ever and anon crying " hands
off"—

" Procul oh procul ote profani !"
With this view of the case, firmly impressed upon
us by the correspondence itself, we cannot but think
that Captain Warner has been injuriously hasty and
extremely unjust towards Sir Howard Douglas in
his letter to the editor of the Times, accusing him of
unfairness in his conduct of the negotiation, and
misrepresentation in his speech of the 31st July
last, in the House of Commons. He states that
Sir Howard had given to the house only such a
portion of the correspondence between them as told
against himself, and had snppressed what was fa-
vourable. Now, we must say that an attentive pe-
rusal of the parliamentary paper has conveyed to
us no such impression. It has convinced us,in-
deed, that before none of the commissioners has
Captain Warner been submitted to a more searching
investigation, and before none does he appear to
less advantage than before Sir Howard Douglas.and
Sir Byam Martin. Nothing but a satisfactory ex-
periment would suffice to convince any man, read-
ing the minutes of that examination, (to be found
at page 19 of the correspondence, under date of the
19th April,) that the invisible shells of Captain
Warner, insisted upon by him to be first tried, were
practicable in their working and safe to those work-
ing them. Nowhere has Captain Warner dealt
more largely in unsatisfactory assertion than in his
communications with these officers.

An iniurious intimation is attempted to be con-
veyed in Mr: Warner's letter, that Sir H. Douglas
had startled him, during the negotiation, by the
inquiry, when upon the subject of remuneration,
" What is to prevent my asking £400,000 of the
Prime Minister ? After you have put me in pos-
session of your secret, I shall be as formidable as
yourself." According to the printed correspon-
dence, however, Sir Howard made no such startling
remark. In questions 73 and 74 of the proceedings
of the 19th of April, Captain Warner having stated
that "one man in every fleet" must be in the secret,
it is asked (and we may remark that the questions
in this examination were put from written notes
previously prepared, and put too by Sir Byam
Martin, the Chief Commissioner,)—" If this be the
case, the secret would no sooner be bought than it
would he lost, unless the Government gave £400,000
to every person who may become acquainted with it,
&c. Perhaps you may suggest some way of secu-
ring the secret which does not cccur to us "—and
the want of any apparent ability on the part of
Captain Warner to suggest such plan, was the in-
ducing cause of the Commissioners' discountenan-
cing as useless any investigation of the merits of
the shells, and expressing a wish to proceed to the
trial of the " long range." This attack, therefore,
against the honour of Sir Howard Douglas entirely
fails, and is anything but creditable to the party by
whom it was made.

Captain 'Warner proceeds in his letter to state,
that Sir Howard Douglas, in a peremptory man-
ner, said I must disclose my secret agent, and ex-
plain its nature, properties, and composition, as well
as the plans of putting it in operation." Through-
out the printed correspondence we can find no such
peremptory demand. On the contrary, Captain
Warner was repeatedly told that no portion of his
secret—nothing that would endanger his secret was
sought. The commissioners insisted upon satisfac-
tory trial of his powers, unconditioned as to subse-
quent remuneration; and upon this point, and this
alone, the negotiation was broken off.

We readily allow that throughout the affair, on
the part of Sir Howard Douglas, much strictness
was observed—much precaution against possible
detection, by which the country might suffer pecu-
niarily in case of the purchase of Captain Warner's
powers. But we must in justice say—we have al-
ready said that the negociation between Captain
Warner and Sir T. Byam Martin and Sir Howard
Douglas was unsatisfactory, so far as •the captain's
replies were concerned—that the previous evidence
taken, and, of course, in the possession of these
officers, was equally so. Upon the subject of the
long range, for instance, the answers to questions
respecting its powers (No. 18 to 23) bear the une-
quivocal interpretation that it is a projectile, at all
times capable of application. Admiral Owen, how-
ever, to whom its powers had been explained by
Captain Warner, describes it as an engine by which
any place or any squadron could be destroyed "of
which he had the weather gage"—a description cer-
tainly far from satisfactory, as taking from it all the
utility of a projectile.
We must here leave the subject. Our only mo-
tive for entering into its discussion further than we
had already done, was to protect the character and
conduct of Sir Howard Douglas, in that part of the
long negociation which was managed by him. We
trust we have done that, and we leave the question
of the real merits of the inventions of the captain to
abler hands.

We gave in our last publication the substance of
an opinion, taken upon a case submitted to counsel
through the Town-clerk of Liverpool, defining the
relative powers of the W:itchCommittee and the
magistrates, in respect to the dismissal of members
of the police force. In another portion of our pa-
per we give to-day both the opinion and " the case"
itself. The public will judge of the fairness of
the one and the legal correctness of the other.
The known ability and leaning of the Town-clerk
will be a sufficient warrant of the former; the end-
nent legal names of the counsel consulted will be, to
most minds, a guarantee for the latter.
It would appear, however, that the distinguished
lawyer, who presides in the Police-court of this
town, (and upon the legality of whose acts, and
those of the magistrates, upon a recent occasion,
the opinion in question pronounces,) has thought
fit to dissent from the correctness of such opinion ;
and at a special meeting of the magistrates, held at
the Town-hall on Friday last, some extracts from
which appear in our columns, the same learned
functionary proceeded to lay before his brethren of
the bench, and the public, at great length, the
grounds upon which he has arrived at such a con-
clusion. To this statement, elaborately drawn up
—written, and read to the meeting, because " he
thought the occasion was one which called for a very
W and
tciaieut4iottuesntdioisncroimf
oinuartrioenad"e—rss.ve propose Dewtoisdirecte

At the outset of his statement, Mr. Rushton com-
plains that the justices " had no part in the prepa-
ration of the case ;" the opinion " bad not been
taken for both bodies," nor " been taken with their
consent, approbation, or advice." He admits that
"the facts are fairly stated," although in his opi-
nion " rather nakedly stated." Ile admits the fact,
stated in the opinion itself, of one counsel having
been selected to argue the points in dispute, on be-
half of the Justices, and another on behalf of the
Watch Committee; but he repudiates the circum-
stance of either of such counsel being the Justices'
" representative," inasmuch as they had not drawn
up their own case—had not laid before him, in ad-
dition to " a fair," although a " rather naked state-
ment," one coloured to their own taste. We might,
however, remind Mr. Rushton that he and his bro-
ther magistrates had ample opportunity to take an
opinion of their own. It was sufficiently notori▪
ous
at the time that the Watch Committee were doing
so; and it is rather too late, therefore, to quarrel
now with the result of the proceedings taken on
such a ground, especially when he puts his opposi-
tion to the correctness of the opinion upon stric• tly
legal, not circumstantial, grounds. Besides, the
Town-clerk states, in his letter to the Watch Com-
mittee, that the " statements in the case, for fairness
and impartiality, cannot be impugned." If the
Town-clerk has given unintentionally any colouring
to the case, it is much more likely to be favourable
to Mr. Rushton's views than to those of the `Watch
Committee, as the former gentleman, at the time
of drawing up the case, was avowedly of the same
.
opinion as Mr. Rushton.
The premises are virtually admitted upon which
Mr. Edward Rushton is at issue, as to the law, with
Mr. Fitzroy Kelly, Mr. Cowling, and Mr. Edward
Cardwell—the two first names those of the most
eminent lawyers of the day, with perhaps one ex-
ception, and the latter almost equally eminent.
Messrs. Kelly, Cowling, and Card Well were una-
nimously of opinion that
" The justices could not regularly or lawfully have pro-
ceeded to dismiss from the police force the constables in
question, if they had refused to resign their membership
of the Orange Society, however objectionable it might be,
that persons charged with the preservation of the peace
should continue members."

Mr. Edward Rushton maintains that their Jaw
is bad.

Messrs. Kelly, Cowling, and Cardwell express
their opinion upon the remaining points thus :

" 2. We think that, by passing Mr. Bolton's resolu-
tion, and communicating it through the head-constable to
the parties, the justices have acted in an irregular manner,
and have claimed to exercise a power not vested in them
by law. We think the statute 5 and 6 William IV., c. 76.
has placed the Watch Committee in the situation of
Courts Lest at Common Law in regard to the appoint-
ment and dismissal of constables, 2 Str. 798. and T.
Jones 2:2, and, that these powers, except so far as may
be otherwise expressly provided by the act, are vested ex-
clusively in them. We think that, under S. S. 77 and
80, the justices have a power of adjudication upon the
conduct of constables in the discharge of their duty, one
part of which duty is a compliance with the regulations
directed in S. 77, to be framed by the Watch Committee,
and that, after such adjudication only (Str. 1,050) have
the justices the power of dismissal mentioned in these sec-
tions. We think that, as no prohibition against belonging
to an Orange Society is included in those regulations, and
as the tendency to occasional breaches of the peace is too
remote to be the subject of legal complaint, the being a
member of such a society constitutes no default in the
duty of a constable, cognizable by the justices under the
act, but is a a consideration properly falling within the
province of the Watch Committee, to whom the general
regulation and management of the force belongs."

Upon 'these points, too, Mr. Edward Rushton in-
timates his total dissent from their decision. Upon
all the points of the case our stipendiary is at issue
with these leading members of the legal profession !
The weight of his opinion is in the one scale; the
great experience, the profound learning, and ad-
mitted talent of the most eminent men of the British
bar is in the other; and yet the Justices of Liver-
pool have deliberately determined to commit them-
selves to the guidance of the former of these autho-
rities, and at his advice to plunge themselves into
an actual collision with the Watch Committee, who
rely upon what they believe to be the better gui-
dance of better lawyers.
We have not troubled ourselves here with doing
more than laying before our readers the bare facts
of this difference of doctors—this conflict of legal
authorities. We shall not presume to oppose our
opinion to that of " counsel learned in the law" on
either side. Mr. Rushton may be right in his view
of the case ; but it is more likely that he is wrong :
and weighing the opinions on both sides, and the
standing of the respective parties, we certainly have
very little fear of the result of an appeal to the deci-
sion of the Court of Queen's Bench upon the points
at issue. We cannot, however, but depreeate the
neeetisity of the heartburninge and enmities which
are likely to be thereby created between the mem-
bers of two bodies, whom it is so desirable, for the
sake of peace and good order, to see working in
amity together.
We may, however, offer a useful hint or two to
the Justices, by calling their attention to the light in
which they are placing themselves in the eyes of
their fellow-townsmen, by their conduct throughout
this affair, as compared with that of the Watch
Committee. They were the aggressors in the first
instance. They inflicted what is considered a slight
and a wrong upon the latter body by their hasty
proceedings. But was any temper or unworthy
feeling displayed in return ? No—the Watch Com-
Mittee, with a becoming dignity, proceeded to
ascertain, from the most eminent authorities, an
opinion as to their position and the extent of their
privileges. That opinion was favourable to their
own views of those privileges; and now mark again
the difference in the conduct of the two bodies.
The Committee, without any unworthy flourish of
triumph, calmly, through their chairman, laid before
the magistrates a copy of the case submitted, and
the opinion thereon in their favour. Not a com-
ment was made which could provoke an angry feel-
ing.
But what was the demeanour evinced in re-
turn by Mr. Rushton and his colleagues? A spe-
cial meeting of the bench was summoned forthwith,
the reporter for a favourite Radical journal sent for,
and Mr. Rushton's thunder launched forthwith at
the heads of the Watch Committee. Surely the
difference in bahaviour and discretion here exhibited
is not one calculated to advance the bench in public
confidence and respect, whilst it is infinitely credit-
able to the gentlemen composing the Watch Com-
i mittee.

Having said this much, we leave the case for the
consideration of our readers and the public, once
more reminding them ►hat the authorities on either
side are-
211r. _Edward Rushton,

FITZROY KELLY, Esq
Queen's Counsel,
Mr. COWLING, and
Mr. CARDWELL.

Stipendiary Nlagis- v.
trate, &c.

THE FUNDS, SATURDAY NIGHT.—The funds have
been firm, without a great amount of business. Saturday
in general is a quiet day at the Stock-Exchange, eonse-
qu,mt upon the early closing of the markets. Consols for
money left off this afternoon 991 to ; and for the ac-
count 994 ; Exchequer-bills, 755. to 975. premium ; and
India Stock, 282 to 281. The foreign securities showed
no new feature, speculative business being exceedingly
limited. Spanish Five per Cents. closed 2n to 23; the
Three per Cents, 33i to 31; Portuguese, 444 to 454 ;
Peruvian, 23 to 25; Mexican, 35i to 96: the Deferred,
151 to ; Dutch Two-aryl-a-Half per Cents., 62-4 to 621;
the Five per ('ents., 1001 to ; Danish, 883 to 894 ; Co-
lumbian, 134 to 14 ; Chitian, 102 to 104; Buenos Ayres,
3-1 to 36 ; Brazilian, 844 to
.854 ; and Belgian, 1024 to
1034.
THE INDIAN MAIL.—The Sud of Marseilles says—
" The Indian mail has not arrived at its usual time. We
think we can explain the delay as follows :—The de-
spatches are usually conveyed from Alexandria and Malta
by one of the Oriental Company's steam-boats. On the
arrival of this vessel at Malta the mails are transhipped
to another steamer, which brings them on to Marseilles.
The Alecto was appointed for this service on the present
occasion, but, according to our letters, this English packet
should be'
now at Mogador. It is nodoubt owing to this
circumstance that the delay arises. The mails have pro-
bably been put on board some sailing packet, which will
be longer in performing the passage from Malta to Mar-
seilles." The Morning Herald of yesterday says—" It
should be borne in mind that the monsoons are on at
about this season of the year. The steamer, Memnon,
was lost in the month of September last year. The pro-
bability is that the mails have been delayed in conse-
quence of the violence of the monsoon. The ear before
last the letters were received by the 3d of September, if
memlsl7 serves us right ; but at that period the weather
was more than usually moderate, and the steamers worked
regularly and without interruption. By Wednesday or
Thursday next, no doubt, the arrival will be announced."

SMUGGLING WHISKEY.-At the Police-court, yester-
day, a female named Ann Doyle was charged before Mr.
Rushton with having received two gallons of whiskey,
which had been illegally imported in the steamer Finn
M'Coul, from the north of Ireland. Mr. Woodruff, im-
port surveyor, stated that he preferred the information
under the revenue act of Geo. IV., c. 8, s. 118, which
required the infliction of a penalty in each case of £lOO,
but left it to the discretion of the magistrate to mitigate
the same to one-fourth cf that amount. Mr. Rushton
accordingly, under the circumstances of the case, fined
the prisoner £25, and in default she was ordered to be
committed to gaol for three mouths.

THE LIVERPOOL. STANDARD.