of Ireland, (a) has one face for the poor and another for the rich. But let it be your duty, gentlemen, to-day so evenly to hold the scales of justice as never for one moment to let the balance tremble on account of the situation in life of these parties. Do not punish, as you are now asked to punish, poor men for mixing in politics, for be sure that we have begun a race which we must run on. We have brought the people into the political strife; we cannot call them in to-day for our own purposes, and exclude them tomorrow. We are in a state different from that which the world has ever known, and I believe it will contribute greatly to the safety of all the foundations of society if the working classes are allowed to believe that they have an interest in the good government of the State, and that their voices are requisite for that good government. I believe we shall find that just in so far as they take an interest in these proceedings will their intelligence increase, and with their intelligence our security. If, on the other hand, any attempt should be made to shut them out from the fair expressions of their feelings, to shut them out from that to which they have just as good a title as ourselves, if we do not judge them kindly, and are not to their errors a little blind, we shall do more to disturb the peace of society, we shall do more to unsettle men's feelings and opinions, than could be done by any other means. Let us then, always taking care that there shall be nothing which does really endanger any man, give their feelings full scope. Let us give them an opportunity of expressing what they think, and if we so do we shall justify ourselves and the law before God and man. Gentlemen, I will now leave my clients in your hands, well knowing that you will do justice between them and their accusers, recollecting that their accusers are the very persons who set the example of the offence of which they are accused. Do you but justice, and my clients will be free. Some applause and some hisses followed the delivery of the speech of the learned counsel, upon which ALDERSON, B., said: I am waiting till people come to their senses. Silence was at length restored. SUMMING UP. ALDERSON, B., in summing up: I take it to be the law of the land that any meeting assembled under such circumstances as, according to the opinion of rational and firm men, are likely to produce danger (a) Sir Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. Leonards. to the tranquillity and peace of the neighbourhood is an unlawful assembly.(a) You will have to say whether, looking at the circumstances, these defendants attended an unlawful assembly, and for this purpose you will take into your consideration the way in which the meetings were held, the hour of the day at which the parties met, and the language used by the persons assembled and by those who addressed them. Everyone has a right to act in such cases as he may judge right, provided it be not injurious to another, but no man or number of men have a right to cause alarm to the body of persons who are called the public. You will consider how far these meetings partook of that character, and whether firm and rational men having their families and property there would have reasonable ground to fear a breach of the peace, for I quite agree with the learned counsel for the defendant that the alarm must not be merely such as would frighten any foolish or timid person, but must be such as would alarm persons of reasonable firmness and courage. The indictment also contains charges of conspiracy, which is a crime which consists either in a combination and agreement by persons to do some illegal act, or a combination and agreement to effect a legal purpose by illegal means. (b) The purpose which the defendants had in view as stated by the prosecutors was to excite disaffection and discontent, but the defendants say that their purpose was by reasonable argument and proper petitions to obtain the five points mentioned by their learned counsel. If that were so, I think it is by no means illegal to petition on those points. The duration of Parliaments and the extent of the elective franchise have undergone more than one change by the authority of Parliament itself; and with respect to the voting by ballot persons whose opinions are entitled to the highest respect are (a) See Redford v. Birley, 1 St. Tr. N.S. 1071, per Holroyd, J., on pp. 1214, 1215, citing from the summing up of Bayley, J., in Rex v. Hunt, 1 St. Tr. N.S. on page 433. (b) "The crime of conspiracy is complete if two or more than two should agree to do an illegal thing; that is, to effect something in itself unlawful, or to effect by unlawful means something which in itself may be indifferent or even lawful."-Tindal, C.J., delivering the opinion of the judges in O'Connell v. Reg. 11 Cl. & F. 155, at p. 233. "A conspiracy consists in the agreement of two or more to do an unlawful act, or to do a lawful act by unlawful means."-Willes, J., in Mulcahy v. Reg. L.R. 3, H.L. 306, at p. 317. See per Fry, L.J., in Mogul S.S. Co. v. McGregor, Gow & Co., 23 Q.B.D. on page 624. See also 2 St. Tr. N.S. 959; Wright on Conspiracies, 63-67. found to differ. (a) There can also be no illegality in petitioning that members of Parliament should be paid for their services by their constituents; indeed, they were so paid in ancient times, (b) and they were not required to have a property qualification till the reign of Queen Anne, (c) and are now not required to have it in order to represent any part of Scotland or the English universities. If, however, the defendants say that they will effect these changes by physical force, that is an offence against the law of the country. No civilised society can exist if changes are to be effected in the law by physical force; and if eminent persons have done as the learned counsel has stated, and their conduct were to come before us in a court of justice, we should (however painful it would to be placed in such a situation) act towards them also exactly as we ought now to act towards the present defendants. With respect to the speeches of the defendants at the meetings, I entirely agree with the observations of their learned counsel that nothing is more nufair than taking a part of a speech without its fair context, and vou will therefore take the whole which is proved and consider whether anything else that was said altered the effect of the passages relied on by the prosecution. You will say whether you are satisfied that the defendants conspired to excite disaffection; if you are so, you will find the defendants guilty of the conspiracy. You will also say whether you think that the nature of the meeting was such as would excite alarm in the minds of rational and constant men; for if so, I am of opinion that they were illegal meetings, and then you ought to find the defendants guilty on the counts for attending unlawful assemblies. The jury retired to consider their verdict for about a quarter of an hour, and returned into Court finding all the defendants guilty of attending illegal meetings, but acquitting them of the conspiracy and finding the defendants Vincent and Edwards guilty of uttering violent and seditious language. ALDERSON, B. Let them stand committed, and when they are in the proper place I will pass the sentence. (a) See the debate in the House of Commons on Mr. Grote's motion in favour of the ballot, 18th June 1839, Hansard, Parl. Deb. 3rd series, [The prisoners, who during the trial had been allowed to sit behind their counsel, (a) were then removed into the dock.] ALDERSON, B.: Henry Vincent, William Edwards, John Dickenson, and William Anselm Townsend, after full deliberation, and a long investigation of your case, the jury have found you guilty of attending an unlawful assembly, but they have acquitted you of that part of the charge made against you which imputes to you previous concert and agreement, which will make a difference in the view I take of the punishment that ought to be awarded to you. Nevertheless, I cannot but perceive that you, Henry Vincent, came down into this country, with which you are in no way connected, as a sort of missionary from a body styling themselves "The National Convention." It appears to me that in so doing you have grievously added to the crime which you have committed. Cannot the people of Newport take care of themselves, or of their interests, without your assistance? What have the Convention to do with the people of the country at all? They are an illegal body, and the Government of the country may perhaps think it right at some future time to indict them, and if they do, and if a case should be proved against them, they will be guilty of a very grievous offence indeed. If persons in your situation use language for the purpose of urging them to obtain any political measure by force and violence, or which may be conducive to that end, I warn them that I am by no means prepared to say they will not incur the penalties of high treason. It is well that you should know the situation in which you stand in that respect. The National Convention, as it is called, is an illegal body altogether, and if any body of persons seek to obtain the Charter or any other political measure by force, they are guilty of the crime of high treason, because they are seeking to secure to themselves the power belonging to the Government and to the Government alone; and if that power is wielded or asserted by any other body it must place that body in immediate conflict and collision with the Government. The sentence therefore upon you, Henry Vincent, must be more severe than upon your companions, lecause you are the ringleader and principal actor. You had nothing to do with the inhabitants of Newport or with their local difficulties or grievances, but you went down there for the purpose of exciting the people, as the jury have found, by seditious and violent (a) See below, Reg. v. Lovett, p. 1177n. language to do that which must necessarily produce danger. You are the worst, and therefore upon you must be passed a heavier sentence than upon the rest. You, William Edwards, are the next, for the jury have found that you also have used seditious and violent language. Therefore you must suffer a larger share of punishment than you, John Dickenson, and you, William Anselm Townsend. With respect to you, William Anselm Townsend, I much regret to see a person of your apparent respectability and station, and so youthful too, ir such a situation as that in which you are now placed. I do hope and trust that you will consider how very foolish your conduct has been, and how very wrong it is by such conduct as that which you have pursued to place others in a situation of inconvenience and alarm. You have, some of you, children and a wife belonging to you. How should you like to have them continuously agitated by not knowing what might happen to them or to you day by day or hour by hour? The older you grow, the wiser I hope you will become, and the more you will see the error and folly of such conduct as that which you have been pursuing. The sentence of the Court upon you, Henry Vincent, is that you be imprisoned for one year, (a) that you, William Edwards, be imprisoned for nine calendar months, and that you, John Dickenson, and William Anselm Townsend, be imprisoned each for six calendar months. Talfourd, Serjeant, (b) R. V. Richards, and Whateley for the prosecution. Roebuck and Keating(b) for the defendants. Attornies: T. Jones Phillips and Roberts. MATERIALS MADE USE OF.-The foregoing report is taken from 9 C. & P. 91, and the shorthand notes in the possession of the Solicitor of the Treasury, No. 1626, and in Home Office Papers, Disturbances, 1839, 14 (5). The Times report has also been consulted. (a) Vincent was, in March 1840, tried and convicted at the Monmouth Assizes for con spiring with Frost to alter the Constitution, and was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. See as to the first sentence on Vincent, Lord Brougham's speech in the House of Lords, August 22, 1839. Hansard, Parl. Deb. 3rd series, 50, 483. (b) Afterwards a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. THE QUEEN against HOWELL AND OTHERS. TRIAL OF JEREMIAH HOWELL, FRANCIS ROBERTS, JOHN JONES, THOMAS ASTON, AND HENRY WILKES, BEFORE LITTLEDALE, J., AND A COMMON JURY AT THE WARWICK SUMMER ASSIZES, ON AUGUST 1, 3, AND 5, 1839, FOR RIOTOUSLY DEMOLISHING A HOUSE. (Reported in 9 C. & P. 437.) J. H., F. R., J. J., and T. A. with others to the number of 2,000 or 3,000, riotously and tumultuously assembled together in an open public space in the middle of a town, broke into a dwellinghouse and shop, plundered the premises, and set them on fire. H. W. addressed the mob in violent language at a place some distance from the premises destroyed; but it was not proved that he was present when they were attacking or destroying. Indictment under 7 & 8 Geo. 4. c. 30. Ruled by Littledale, J. : 1. Felony.-Principals in the Second Degree. It is not necessary to make a party guilty of felony that his should be the hand by which it is committed. Those who are present aiding, abetting, and assisting are principals in the second degree, and are equally guilty with the principals in the first degree. Nor is it necessary that parties aiding should be within view, if they are so placed as to prevent persons coming to the assistance of the party injured. 2. Felonious Demolition of Houses. If rioters attack a house and begin to destroy it, the fact that they persisted until prevented by the military and police from doing further mischief is evidence of a beginning to demolish it feloniously. 3. Indictment.-Parish. If a parish is divided into several divisions for ecclesiastical purposes, the place where the offence was committed is well laid in such parish without specifying the particular ecclesiastical division. THE QUEEN against HOWELL AND OTHERS. Indictment, on the stat. 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 30, for feloniously demolishing a house. The first count of the indictment charged that the prisoners, together with divers others, to the jurors unknown, to the number of 2,000, on the 15th of July, 1839, riotously and tumultuously assembled together to the disturbance of the public peace, and with the said other persons so riotously and tumultuously assembled together, did feloniously and unlawfully, and with force, demolish, pull down and destroy a certain house, in the parish of Birmingham, belonging to James Bourne and Henry Bourne. The second count charged that the prisoners did "begin to demolish and pull down" the house. The indictment also contained other counts, on which no question arose. As soon as the prisoners had pleaded, (a) (a) See Reg. v. Fitzgerald, 1 C. & K. 201. Daniel, for the prisoner Wilkes, stated that the prisoner Wilkes had not been committed on any charge of felony, but had on the 18th of July been committed on a charge of misdemeanor, alleged to have been committed by the prisoner Wilkes on the 15th of July; and that depositions had been returned which referred to that charge. (a) He therefore applied that the trial should be postponed, and that the Crown should furnish to the prisoner a statement of the evidence to be adduced against him on the charge of felony. LITTLEDALE, J.: I do not say anything at present as to postponing the trial; but as to the other point, whoever heard that any prisoner was to be furnished with a statement of the evidence ? If there are any depositions, they are returned, and the prisoner is entitled to a copy of them.(b) been committed on a charge of riot, alleged to (a) The prisoners Wilkes and Jones had have occurred at Birmingham on the 15th of July 1839. (b) See 6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 114. ss. 3, 4; 11 & 12 Vict. c. 42. ss. 27, 34; 30 & 31 Vict. c. 35. ss. 3, 4; Reg. v. Greenslade, 11 Cox, C.C. 412. This is only like any other felony. In cases of high treason there are particular arrangements as to the list of witnesses, and a copy of the indictment, &c.; but that does not apply in felony. If the prisoner had been indicted for a misdemeanor, and that had been a different misdemeanor, from that for which he had been committed, or held to bail, he would have been entitled to traverse, even though he had been committed or bailed more than twenty days(a); but this case is the same as that of any felony (a highway robbery, for instance) which has occurred during the assizes, and there the prosecutor is always entitled to prefer his indictment and try at the same assizes. An affidavit of the prisoner Wilkes was put in, which stated that he was committed for a misdemeanor; that six persons were examined as witnesses against him, and that he was now indicted for a felony of which he was ignorant; and that he was unable to defend himself, there being seventeen witnesses on the back of the bill, of whose evidence he knew nothing. The Attorney General(b) for the Crown: If the affidavit had stated that there was any particular witness whose attendance the prisoner could not procure at these assizes, there might be some ground for postponing the trial(c); but nothing of the kind is suggested here. Daniel: If the affidavit had named any witness, it would not have been entitied to credit, as the statement is, that the prisoner is ignorant of the evidence he has to meet. LITTLEDALE, J.: It does not appear to me that the general nature of the charge is so different from that on which the prisoner was committed, that the prisoner must be taken to be wholly ignorant of it, and that I ought to postpone the trial till the next assizes; but it seems to me to be reasonable, as the case has taken a different turn, that a reasonable time should be given, because the course of defence may be different in felony to that in misdemeanor. I therefore think that the trial should stand over till to-morrow. Miller, for the prisoner Jones, applied that the trial should be postponed as to him, on the ground that the prisoner Jones had been charged before the magis trates with a misdemeanor only, and had (a) See 1 St. Tr. N.S. 47n; Rex v. Williams, M. & Rob. 503; Rex v. James, 3 C. & P. 222; 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4. c. 4. ss. 3, 5. But see now 14 & 15 Vict. c. 100. s. 27. (b) Sir John Campbell, afterwards Lord Chancellor. (c) See Rex v. Hunter, 3 C. & P. 591; Reg. v. Savage, 1 C. & K. 75; Reg. v. Macarthy, Car. & M. 625; Reg. v. Palmer, 6 C. & P. 652. 0 61636. not been committed twenty days, and that, intending to traverse to the next assizes, he was wholly unprepared to take his trial. LITTLEDALE, J.: Your affidavit will state that your client is entitled to traverse, that he did not expect to take his trial at all these assizes, and he is therefore to be considered in the situation of a person who is totally unprepared, and has got no witnesses, and intended to traverse. I think it is reasonable that you should have till the day after to-morrow. Warwick, August 3, 1839. The jury panel was called over, and the following gentlemen answered to their George Abbot. names: John Bellis. William Boddington. William Cooper, of Farnborough. LITTLEDALE, J.: Prisoners, you all have your challenges. No objection was made, and the jury were sworn. OPENING SPEECH FOR THE CROWN. Attorney General: May it please your Lordship, gentlemen of the jury, The prisoners stand indicted upon an Act of Parliament that was passed in the 7th and 8th years of the reign of his late Majesty King George the 4th. (a) It is one of those Acts introduced into Parliament by Sir Robert Peel when Minister for the Home Department, and I am quite ready to acknowledge the obligations under which he laid the country for his improvement of the criminal law of England. Gentlemen, by the 8th section of this Act, which I believe was a re-enactment substantially of former statutes, (b) it is enacted that "if any persons riotously and tumultously assembled together to the disturbance of the public pull down or destroy, or begin to demolish, pull peace, shall unlawfully and with force demolish, down, or destroy any house, stable, coachhouse, out-house, warehouse, office, shop, &c., &c., every such offender shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall suffer death as a felon." Therefore this is a capital offence you (a) 7 & 8 Geo. 4. c. 30. see now 24 & 25 Vict. c. 97. ss. 11, 12. (b) See Russell on Crimes, 5th ed. by Prentice, 1, 368n. M M |