The Sun. — 1842-11-17 (London, England)

COLERIDGE—There is a later case in the 2d Neville and Marriott, the King v. Blake. Mr. KELLY was obliged to his Lordship ; that case decided that persons who had been discharged by habeas corpus were privileged from arrest, until they should have an opportunity of returning home. He, therefore, submitted to the Court that Captain Douglas must be discharged from the custody of the Sheriffs' officer, and that their Lordships would interpose their authority for his protection until he should have had an opportunity of returning home.  Mr.RocEas and Mr. CHAMBERS followed on the same side.  The ATTORNEY•GENERAL subillitted that Captain Douglas was not entitled to his discharge. He had been arrested not upon a civil, but upon a criminal process. By the Act 33 George 111., cap. 52, sec. 62, it was enacted that if any officer in the East India Company's service should be convicted of demanding and receiving any sum of money as a gift or present, either for his own use or for the use of any other person, from any other nation, he shall be deemed guilty of extortion, and of having committed a misdemeanour in law, and proceeded against and punished as such, and that the offender should also forfeit to the Crown the whole amount so received, or the value thereof, in addition to the punishment which the Court might award to him. So that their Lordships would that possibilityiese()rtto ‘lvvaehrriiecs her. see that he was arrested on a criminal charge, and that, therefore, no question of privilege could by snidema nu!. would el toal o nrtgehfeeedr creditthatth e ir cases oif Lordships therdo-f ships to the case of the King v. Stevens and Agnew, 5 East, 244, to show thatinformation the which he had filed, and under which Captain been arrested, was strictly atrheie:(ll,weurat.e regular. Douglas had case an objection had been taken t thern that case form of the proceedings. The case had been heard before Lord Ellenborough, who had decided that the proceedings had been strictly l regu ar. Was it to be contended, that if Captain Douglas had been charged with murder, he would have been privileged from arrest, because he had been discharged by habeas ? Certainly not. How then could it be contended that he was privileged from arrest for misdemeanour ? He had been arrested in a criminal, and not in a civil process, and therefore the cases which had been quoted were altogetherinapplicable. He had filed the information as Attorney-General at the suit of the Crown, apprehending from the information which had been laid before him that the Crown had an interest, not only in the recovery of the penalties, but also in the punishment of the offence with which Captain Douglas was charged. That information he was willing to admit he had received from the East India Company, but it was in his official character that he had filed this criminal information. He had done so merely in. the discharge of his duty, and a most unpleasant duty it had been to him to have imposed upon him. He submitted that, having been taken into custody on a criminal process, Captain Douglas was not entitled to his discharge. The Solicitor-General and Mr. Clarkson followed on the same side. Mr. Kelly having been heard in reply, Lord DENMAN said that there was no doubt that if any person had been discharged by the Court under a writ of habeas corpus, such person was privileged for arrest under civil process until his return to his home. The only question the Court had to consider in the case was whether Captain Douglas was in custody under civil or under criminal process, as there could be no doubt that any person arrested under criminal process was not so privileged. Now although in this case there was a penalty to be reco