The Sun. — 1837-02-08 (London, England)

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.  Yesterday James Skreen was indicted for feloniously cutting and wounding George Thompson on the high seas within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, with intent to murder him.. There was another count in the indictment which charged the prisoner with wounding the prosecutor with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm. Mr. Curwood prosecuted, and Mr. Doane defended the prisoner. The RECORDER summed up the evidence, and the Jury found the prisoner Not Guilty, on the ground of insanity. The trials being over, the RECORDER, soon after 6 o'cloek, proceeded to the New Court to pass the sentences. The following prisoners were sentenced to transportation for seven years : —Eliza Jakes, Bridget Henry, Mary Fleming, Mary Ann Keith, Ann Ryder, Mary Caney, William Jones, otherwise Myers, William Everett, Thomas Rawlinson, William Bennett, John Thorpe, James Brady, Felix M'Guiness, Charles Frederick Radford, Joseph Raffley, William Evans, Michael Lalley, Edward Callaghan, Samuel Harris, William Bryley, William Johnson, William Connor, George Cartel., Timothy Crawley, Charles Selsbury, John Warner, Joseph Wooster, Edward East, Benjamin Moss, Dennis Prendergast, John Coventry, James Bullock, William Thurling, John Thurling, William Hopgood, Henry Skinner, James Godfrey, Arthur Knox, Patrick Crawley, George Jennings, otherwise Wilson, Robert Beale, William Stewart, Frederick Wilson, Thomas Court, John Smith, Richard Hart, Robert Cupid, Charles Jones, Dennis Collins, Henry Chappel, George Walker, Daniel Driscoll, John Hutten, John White, Thomas White, William Powell, John Clements, John Fishington, Robert Spencer Stapleton, John Stapleton, and Chs. Young. Sentence of transportation for 14 years was passed upon the: following prisoneis :—Betsy Simpson, Mary Simmonds, Margaret Taylor, Robert Coombes (two indictments, seven years on each), Henry Johnson, Frederick Blackwell, John Smith, Thomas Capnell (manslaughter on the high seas), and Dennis M'Carthy, otherwise Green. Sentence of transportation for life was then passed upon William Tucker, Thomas Marshall, John Jones, John Joseph Saxon (embezzling a post-office money letter), Jonathan Bailey (for the manslaughter of his wife), George Denny, John Wooten, and John Minter Hart (for feloniously forging and altering a bill of exchange for 5001. with intent to defraud Mr. Charles Herbert Jenner. )  The following prisoners, who had been capitally convicted,. ' were then called up and received sentence of death :—James Smith (for aiding others or assisting to shoot a gamekeeper), Thomas Westwood, George Allen, William Milts, Henry Livingston, John Jones, and Henry Bates (all for burglaries). When these prisoners were removed from the bar, proclamation for silence was again made, and John Pcgsworth was brought up for judgment. no RECORDER then addressed him in nearly the following terms:-_' Prisoner at the bar, you have been by your own plea, the plea of guilty, established to be the person who accomplished the death of John Halliday Ready by an act of wilful niurder. Let me then, I implore you, remind you while yet I may, of the perilous situation in which you stand. Let me conjure you to think that you are now on the awful brink of eternity and the grave, beyond which you will have no opportunity for repentance, if you do not, while life is yet granted to you, endeavour to employ your few remaining hours in heartful penitence and prayer. By your rash hand you hurried another into the awful presence of his Ma— ker. You suddenly cut him off from• life without affordinghim an opportunity of offering up a single prayer for mercy, or a wcrd to prepare him for that awful change, which is fearful to the best, and still more dreadful to those who have a life of sin to atone for. It is necessary, not only for thesafety of society, but for the protection of its best interests,. that a crime such as yours should be punished with death.. It now only remains for me to pass upon you the dreadful, the' inevitable sentence of the law, which is, that you, John Pegs,worth, be taken from hence to the prison from whence you came, and from thence to a place of execution, where you.., shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that drat, pursuant to your sentence, your body shall be buried within the precincts of the said prison, and may the great and just God have mercy upon your soul." The prisoner heard his sentence in the same resigned and becoming manner which he evinced when pleading guilty to the indictment. The sessions were then adjourned to Monday, the 27th instant.  --