The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-23 00:00:00

marked—

the ends of justice should be so defeated. Guilty per-
sons ought not to he thus suffered to escape upon a

mere point of form
highest authorities .in the state, and, in particular, of
the attorney and solicitor-generals. The learned baron
made these statements with much earnestness." his
learned brother remarked—" These matters were much
better managed in the-time of the advocate for the Ad-

It deserved the attention of the

miralty. Great care was then taken in bringing for-

ward those cases, and they were properly managed
The same care ought to be observed now."

We have not been able to ascertain with whom the
blame rests of the blundering here properly complained
of—whether it is attachable to any of our law-officers
here, or to parties in the crown-office above. We pre-
Fume, however, with the latter, to whom copies of the
depositions taken before Mr. Rushton (if not the ori-
ginals, which it is, we believe, usual to retain on the
spot) were surely sent. The only remaining conjecture
is, that in the absence of all depositions, the case was
hurried into court, in London, without any previous
examination of the witnesses at the crown-office, the
indictment being framed merely from the brief. This
appears probable, from the remarks made by Mr.
Bodkin, one of the counsel for the crown. But, be
this as it may, the 'Times introduces his remarks, by
instancing a recent and somewhat similar case, in which
a Captain Partridge—also charged with murder on the
high seas, under the same pretence of maintaining dis-
cipline, and in which the victim was also a foreigner—
as the Times remarks, " from the unintelligible le-
niency of the judge, and the disgraceful fatuity of the
jury, escaped with but three months' imprisonment,
while the present parties got clear off from a technical
variance between the evidence and the indictment"—

and, after giving the principal facts in the latter case,
makes the following, eloquent appeal in behalf of all
classes of seamen employed in British ships :

" Cases of crime upon the high seas should, as Baron
Alderson remarked, be regarded with especial care by English
tribunals. Deriving as we do our wealth from our extended
commerce, and our security from our powerful fleet, and re-
lying for the efficiency of our mighty marine upon the uni-
versal and unhesitating enforcement of the sternest discipline,
we are bound to see that every member of those 10,000
floating commonwealths which issue annually from our ports,
dependent only on their own internal order and resources,
to carry the name, and influence, and products of Great
Britain thousands of miles from the presence of any English
authority, and divided perhaps for months together from all
human communication or assistance,—we are bound to see
that each one of these, in her longest and most distant senar-
ation from the shores of her mother country, shall ever feel
the presence within her of English law, shall never lose the
sense that time and space do not effectually divide her from
that centre of authority which has committed to the com-
mander his almost despotic power, but which will unfailingly
visit upon him and his subordinates any abuse of their great
but necessary responsibility. We above all nations are

eminently bound to the protection of the seamen. On us,
above all nations, it is incumbent to provide that these frag-
ments of our country shall bear with them the protection of
English law, that a safe and certain appeal shall ever and
everywhere be secured against that dangerous authority which
our interests oblige us to surround with far more than the
ordinary terrors of British justice. With every temptation
to tyranny, and every opportunity for evading the proof of
its exercise on the one side, and on the other the continual
alternative of absolute submission or absolute mutiny, it is a
wonder that we find in British ships so much of forbearance
and steadiness as exists. But the ground of wonder will
rapidly cease if we allow outrages committed under a power
of our own creation and maintenance thus to slip through the
fingers of justice. It matters not who is the delinquent,—
captain, mate, or their rough and unruly instruments,—it
matters little whether the escape is effected by the stupidity
of a jury, the leniency of a judge, the blunder of an attorney,
or the ignorance of a clerk of assize. One thing is certain,
that every single example of impunity is at once an encourage-
ment to tyranny and a provocation to mutiny. And the ex-
amples which have hitherto occurred.if not more mischievous,
have at least a more disgraceful appearance from the fact, that
they are not English sufferers whose fate we have allowed to
pass unavenged."

The sentiments thus forcibly expressed we have en-
tertained for some time ; and we purpose in a series of
articles to draw attention to the subject of maritime
legislation, not only as affecting all seamen on board
of British ships, and embracing the operations of the
Merchant Seamen's Act, but with reference to the ge-
neral management of nautical cases involving insurance
and mercantile questions, in which, from the ignorance
in nautical matters of the advocates and other func-
tionaries employed in investigating them, justice is
often jeopardised, and not unfrequently subverted:
We have been led to this opinion by a consideration
of the numerous cases which have, from time to time,
come before our local courts, both sessions and assizes, in
which, this being the second port in the kingdom, they
are of frequent occurrence, and the result in many in-
stances such that (having seme personal knowledge of
sea-faring matters) we have, on occasions not few and
far between, left the respective tribunals with, reluc-
tantly, no very high feelings of respect for the laws in
that respect, and, on many more, for their loose, inde-
finite, and even oppressive administration. We rejoice
that the subject has been taken up by our talented and
influential cotemporary ; and we shall, in the articles
alluded to, submit some remarkable facts, which have
recently fallen within our own observance.