The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-10-02 00:00:00

LONDON LAW_ REPORT.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURt-MONDAY.

John Grove, a clerk in the banking-house of Messrs. Master-
man and Co. was found guilty of en:Lon ging the sum of £9OO,
the money of his employers. Mr. Phillips, on the part of the
prisoner, raised an objection to the indictment, which Mr. Jus-
tice Williams reserved for the consideratiou of the judges.
The minor offenders having received their several sentences,
the recorder ordered Robert Swan, the soldier, whose trial we
gave in our last number, and John Smith and James Pratt, con.
victed of an unnatural offence, to be brought to the bar.
On being asked what they had to say why sentence of death
should not be passed, Swan said, " My lord and gentlemen, I
am certainly satisfied with my trial, and I am also fully con-
vinced that the jury did their duty; but the statement of my
prosecutor, Mr. Reynolds, is false, and I am as innocent as a
child. Although death is to be passed on me, I can assure you
that he pressed the property on me, and through his entreaties
I accepte. it. With respect to my statement to the police that
I wanted him to take a person into custody is false, for I told
Mr. Reynolds that I would not say anything about what had
transpired, and when I saw him before the magistrate -I then
said nothing, although I could do so. I have a wife, my lord,
who has been ill for the last two years, seven months of which
time she has been an inmate in St. George's Hospital. She
knows not 1 am here, and God forbid she should be made ac-
quainted with my fate. On my trial an attempt was made to
charge me with having accused a gentleman before of a similar
offence, which is false. I have been in the army ten years, and
never was punished for a dishonest action. Until within twenty
minutes of my trial I did not know I was to have the assistance
of counsel. Mr. Chadwick Junes offered to defend me gra-
tuitously, for which I am very thankful, and I do trust that God
will reward him for his humanity, it being out of my power to
do so. I freely forgive Mr. Reynolds for what he has sworn,
and I hope God may also forgive him ; but his conscience will
not. I, therefore, hope that that mercy which is shown to Mr.
Reynolds will be shown to me."
The recorder.—The learned judges who tried you have as-
sured me that they are equally satisfied with the verdict of the
jury, as well as with the innocence of Mr. Reynolds. If there
is a crime which in the eye of heaven can be more aggravated
than another it is one of those false and horrid charges which
you have made against an innocent individual. Under these
circumstances I cannot hold out any hope to you. This I will
do—every minute circumstance shall be brought under the par-
ticular attention of his Majesty and privy council, and on the
facts so adduced you must stand or fall. Sympathy towards per-
sons for such offences cannot be expected to be shown; forthey
are offences which, in a British country, mercy can never be
extended to. The learned recorder, in a most solemn manner,
then proceeded to call on the unhappy prisoners to apply the
short time they had to live to God for that mercy-which they
could not expect to receive from the hands of man.
Swan then bowed to the court, and the three prisoners were
removed from the dock.

The court then adjdurned until Monday, the 26th of October.

VISIT OF THE KING OF BELGIUM.

Our letter from Ramsgate announces, and we believe cor-
rectly, that the King of Belgium is expected at that place, on
a visit to his sister, the Duchess of Kent. A steam-vessel has
been sent from this country to bring over his Majesty, and his
resolution to come has been formed so suddenly and so secretly
that till the application fur that vessel was made we have been
informed the Belgian Ambassador' here had not heard of his
sovereign's intention. He learned it only on Saturday. and
communicated it by an express, late in the evening, to Lord
Palmerston, who has arrived in town to-day. Of course this un-
expected visit of the King of Belgium, particularly when the
circumstances recently brought to light in relation to the wishes
and intentions of the Orangemen to alter the succession to the
throne are recollected, will give rise to a variety of conjectures,
and nobody will at first believe that his Majesty's visit not
connected with political objects. We are induced, however, to
suppose that it is one of mere friendship to his sister. The
Queen of Belgiiiin,lias not, we believe, vet been made person-
ally acquainted with the Duchess of Kent, and that may have
had some influence in determining a visit at this season, when
so many of the nobility and sovereigns of Europe have put them-
selves in motion. Leopold may, perhaps, wish to have a per-
sonal consultation with our ministers on the present situation
of his own country. It has been publicly, and even ostenta-
tiously, avowed, that one of the objects of the meetings of the
sovereigns at Toplitz is to settle the affairs of Belgium and
Holland ; and he may naturally feel a little alarmed at the suc-
cess which is said to have attended the mission of M. Van Ver-
stolk to Vienna last year, and at the recent approach towards
the principles and favour of the Holy Alliance which has been
made by Louis Philippe. Though he can have no apprehen-
sion that his father-in-law would both forsake him and be un-
faithful to the alliance with England, he may not be without
some misgivings as to the ulterior effects of the flatteries which
the Holy Alliance have lately bestowed on Louis Philippe, and
of the attachment he has evinced to their principles of govern-
ment. He can have no just ground to suspect that Louis
Philippe would sacrifice the independence of Belgium to propi-
tiate the Emperor of Russia, the near relative of the King of
Holland ; but he may be desirous, by personal communication,
of drawing closer the ties which unite Belgium to England.
We have heard, indeed, a great variety of rumours on the sub-
ject of the visit; but we believe that it is altogether one of a
private nature, and prompted more by family affection, and a
regard to his sister's interest, than any apprehension he enter-
tains for the security of his own crown. The hostility of the
Northern Posers to Belgium is known, and the conferences at
Toplitz were not required to convince the world that they would
gladly replace Belgium -under the dominion of the King of the
Netherlands, if they could accomplish their object. But what-
ever may be their wishes, we cannot believe, particularly after
their jate declarations in favour of peace, that they would run
the risk, for the sake of pleasing the King of the Netherlands
of involving Europe in war.—London paper.