Glasgow Courier. — 1857-09-17 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

MURDER ON TIIE HIGH SEAS.  For a captain to kill a seaman on board his own ship is In the United States considered a matter of small moment. In this respect the American flag is not as spotless as all well-wishers of the Great Republic would wish it to be. The stains of late have become of deeper dye, owing to a series of barbarities that have caused a thrill of horror to tremble in the hearts of all, wh civilisation has carried theJanguage of the Anglo-Saxon We in England were priding ourselves in the belief that our ships were comparatively free from those acts of refined barbarity for which the merchantmen of the United States have obtained so unenviable a notoriety; but while thus boasting of our own purity, the atrocities committed on board the British barque, the Martha Jane, rose before the people of England like a dark cloud. There was, however, still the virtue of indignation, which made itself manifest in a general outcry for pnnishment, prompt and terrible, upon the prepetrators of a murder combined with barbarities whichalmost challenge rivalry with the atrocities in India. Speedily followed the trial, condem. nation, and death—the death of the felon, which bequeaths to his next of kin the awful legacy of everlasting infamy and disgrace. Great efforts were made to obtain a commutation of the sentence; but the Home Secretary, considering that there were no adequate grounds why the law should not take its course, and rightly interpreting the outraged feelings of the people of England, made no sign. So it came to peas that, on Saturday last, a Bii ish merchant captain was hanged at Kirkdale, before a multitude composed of 50,000 people. The man he murdered was one of the most provoking seamen with whom a captain could be pestered on a long and harrassing voyage. He was not only stubborn and inatteethe to his duties, which were daily neglected, but Was most filthy in his habits. It was taken for granted that Captain Rogers was provoked almost beyond measure the whole voyage through, yet did a Liverpool jury convict him of murder, an English judge sentence him to death, and an English Minister refuse to listen to the pleadings of mercy on his account; and thus the merchant captain was hanged in full view of that river into which he had entered but a few weeks previously, the commander of one of the handiest barques trading to the port. A lesson is this of terrible import. It speaks trumpet-tongued to all merchant captains sailing under the British flag, and this is the burden of its song Ye shall commit no murder; be ye landsmen merely, or be ye men in command of ships, know that the law is no respector of persons, nor does it mike excuses for exceptional circumstances. Ye must not kill. If any of your crew are mutinous, put them in irons, and con•ey them before the properly constituted authorities, but dare not to assume to yourselves the terrible power of taking away life, for by doing so you place your own in forfeit.' It has been argued by some that the offence of Captain Rogers was at most that of manslaughter; but to our minds the verdict of the jury was the correct one. True, there was no sudden slaying, but the sufferings daily endured by Andrew Rose, filthy aud disreputable though he was, were worse than a hundred deaths. A sudden murder would have been merciful treatment, with the continuous and studied tortures he Never may the time come when, in be able to hear such recitals without 'ail to visit the perpetrators of such with the severest penalties of the