The Sun. — 1845-07-14 (London, England)

MURDER OF MR. PALMER AND EIG HT SEAMEN OF HER MAJESTY'S SLOOP  WASP. On the prisoners being committed on Friday, they appeared no way surprised at the result of the investigation, but rather prepared for it. Serve, the captain of the Echo, is suffering from great debility, and was obliged to be accommodated with a bed in court. He is labouring under a dreadful skin disease, the result of bad air and confinement. He exhibits a reckless. ness and abandonment of manner, as though expectant of the consequence of his diabolical crime. The cowardly Spaniard Majarval, who stabbed the unfortunate young officer Mr. Palmer, is less desperate in appearance than some of the others. He is. understood to be a native of Barcelona, and, to use the words of a Spanish captain to whom he is known, is " of a good house." Serva kept a large establishment at Rio de Janeiro. The prisoners have been removed to Exeter, where the assizes commence on Saturday. It is not probable that the case will be traversed. The evidence against the prisoners, as regards the actual committal of the horrid crime alleged against them, is most conclusive, the severest cross-examination of the approvers ( who cannot in any way be considered accomplices) was unable in the least to shake their testimony given in the examination in chief, and each afforded the strongest corroboration of the truth of the other's statements. Under these circumstances the main line of defence, it is understood, will be very different from that first attempted. The question of the illegality of the capture by the British, and the justification of the act of the prisoners, as under the protection of the Brazilian power, will be raised. It is said the arguments of counsel for the defence upon this point will, under all the circumstances of the case, be more strongly grounded than might at first be imagined, and the ability of the gentleman who has been employed by the Spanish and Portuguese Consuls at this port is a guarantee that he will make the most of the position he has advi-edly taken. Even apart from the atrocity of the dreadful murders, the nationality of the point which will be raised and decided will invest the trial with unusual interest. , During the latter part of the examination of the prisoners before the justices an episode occurred of rather an interesting character. One of the men who was on the raft with Lieu.. Wilson, named George Steer, in &tomer to several questions put by the bench and Air. Eastlake, the Crown solicitor, stated that he caught the shark upon which they had subsisted during the twenty days they were on the raft. He held his hand in the water with a piece of salted pork until he saw a shark approach. A Krooman most dexterously cut his tail off immediately it approached the surface to prevent its sweeping the men off the raft, which it no doubt would otherwise have done, and then ropes were fastened round it instantly, and they made a hearty meal off its sides, the " best slices" being speedily in requisition. The shark must have weighed from two to three cwt. Five of the men died from exhaustion and thirst, and the preservation of the others was most miraculous, momentarily threatened as they were with the breaking asunder of the raft.