At Let two gentlemen on the Ministerial | pose that the longer time to be taken up side of the House (we only ask for by the speeches of counsel constitutes two) commit some crimes, which will the grand bar to the proposed alterarender their execution a matter of tion. If three hours would acquit a painful necessity. Let them feel, and man, and he is hanged because he is report to the House. all the injustice only allowed two hours for his defence, and inconvenience of having neither a the poor man is as much murdered as copy of the indictment, nor a list of if his throat had been cut before he came witnesses, nor counsel to defend them. into Court. If twelve Judges cannot We will venture to say, that the evi- do the most perfect justice, other twelve dence of two such persons would do must be appointed. Strange adminismore for the improvement of the crim-tration of criminal law, to adhere obinal law, than all the orations of Mr. stinately to an inadequate number of Lamb, or the lucubrations of Beccaria. Judges, and to refuse any improvement Such evidence would save time, and which is incompatible with this arbibring the question to an issue. It is a trary and capricious enactment. Neigreat duty, and ought to be fulfilled-ther is it quite certain that the proposed and in ancient Rome, would have been alteration would create a greater defulfilled. mand upon the time of the Court. The opponents always forget that present the counsel makes a defence by Mr. Lamb's plan is not to compel long, cross-examinations, and examiprisoners to have counsel, but to allow nations in chief of the witnesses, and them to have counsel, if they choose the Judge allows a greater latitude to do so. Depend upon it, as Dr. than he would do, if the counsel of the Johnson says, when a man is going to prisoner were permitted to speak. The be hanged, his faculties are wonder- counsel by these oblique methods, and fully concentrated. If it be really by stating false points of law for the true, as the defenders of Mumpsimus express purpose of introducing facts, observe, that the Judge is the best endeavours to obviate the injustice of counsel for the prisoner, the prisoner the law, and takes up more time by will soon learn to employ him, especi- this oblique, than he would do by a ally as his Lordship works without direct defence. But the best answer fees. All that we want is an option to this objection of time (which, if true, given to the prisoner—that a man, left is no objection at all) is, that as many to adopt his own means of defence in misdemeanours as felonies are tried in every trifling civil right, may have the a given time, though counsel are alsame power of selecting his own auxi- lowed in the former, and not in the liaries for higher interests. latter case. But nothing can be more unjust than to speak of Judges, as if they were of one standard, and one heart and head pattern. The great majority of Judges, we have no doubt, are upright and pure; but some have been selected for flexible politics some are passionate -some are in a hurry- some are violent churchmen - some resemble ancient females- some have the gout -some are eighty years old-some are blind, deaf, and have lost the power of smelling. All one to the unhappy prisoner he has no choice. One excuse for the absence of counsel is, that the evidence upon which the prisoner is convicted is always so clear, that the counsel cannot gainsay it. This is mere absurdity. There is not, and cannot be, any such rule. Many a man has been hung upon a string of circumstantial evidence, which not only very ingenious men, but very candid and judicious men, might criticise and call in question. If no one were found guilty but upon such evidence as would not admit of a doubt, half the crimes in the world would be unpunished. It is impossible to put so gross an This dictum, by which the present insult upon Judges, Jurymen, Grand practice has often been defended, was Jurymen, or any person connected with adopted by Lord Chancellor Nottingthe administration of justice, as to sup-ham. To the lot of this Chancellor, however, it fell to pass sentence of death upon Lord Stafford, whom (as Mr. Denman justly observes) no court of justice, not even the House of Lords (constituted as it was in those days), could have put to death, if he had had counsel to defend him. To improve the criminal law of England, and to make it really deserving of the incessant eulogium which is lavished upon it, we would assimilate trials for felony to trials for high trea son. The prisoner should not only have counsel, but a copy of the indictment and a list of the witnesses, many days antecedent to the trial. It is in the highest degree unjust that I should not see and study the description of the crime with which I am charged, if the most scrupulous exactness be required in that instrument which charges me with crime. If the place where, the time when, and the manner how, and the persons by whom, must all be specified with the most perfect accuracy, if any deviation from this accuracy is fatal, the prisoner, or his legal advisers, should have a full opportunity of judging whether the scruples of the law have been attended to in the formation of the indictment; and they ought not to be confined to the hasty and imperfect consideration which can be given to an indictment exhibited for the first time in Court. Neither is it possible for the prisoner to repel accusation till he knows who is to be brought against him. He may see suddenly, stuck up in the witness's box, a man who has been writing him letters, to extort money from the threat of evidence he could produce. The character of such a witness would be destroyed in a moment, if the letters were produced; and the letters would have been produced, of course, if the prisoner had imagined such a person would have been brought forward by the prosecutor. It is utterly impossible for a prisoner to know in what way he may be assailed, and against what species of attacks he is to guard. Conversations may be brought against him which he has forgotten, and to which he could (upon notice) have given another colour and complexion. tions are made to bear upon his case, which (if he had known they would have been referred to) might have been explained in the most satisfactory manner. All these modes of attack are pointed out by the list of witnesses transmitted to the prisoner, and he has time to prepare his answer, as it is perfectly just he should have. This is justice, when a prisoner has ample means of compelling the attendance of his witnesses; when his written accusation is put into his hand, and he has time to study it—when he knows in what manner his guilt is to be proved, and when he has a man of practised understanding to state his facts, and prefer his arguments. Then criminal justice may march on boldly. The Judge has no stain of blood on his ermine; and the phrases which English people are so fond of lavishing upon the humanity of their laws will have a real foundation. At present this part of the law is a mere relic of the barbarous injustice by which accusation in the early part of our jurisprudence was always confounded with guilt. The greater part of these abuses have been brushed away, as this cannot fail soon to be. In the meantime it is defended (as every other abuse has been defended) by men who think it their duty to defend everything which is, and to dread everything which is not. We are told that the Judge does what he does not do, and ought not to do. The most pernicions effects are anticipated in trials of felony, from that which is found to produce the most perfect justice in civil causes, and in cases of treason and misdemeanour : we are called upon to continue a practice without example in any other country, and are required by lawyers to consider that custom as humane, which every one who is not a lawyer pronounces to be most cruel and unjust-and which has not been brought forward to general notice, only because its bad effects are confined to the last and lowest of mankind.* Counsel is allowed to the prisoner, and they *All this nonsense is now put an end to. Ac-are permitted to speak in his defence. CATHOLICS. (E. REVIEW, 1827.) 1. A Plain Statement in support of the Political Claims of the Roman Catholics; in a Letter to the Rev. Sir George Lee, Bart. By Lord Nugent, Member of Parliament for Aylesbury. London. Hookham. 1826. 2. A Letter to Viscount Milton, M.P. By One of his Constituents. London. Ridgway. 1827. 3. Charge by the Archbishop of Cashel. Dublin. Milliken. the body in a silken petticoat-and Lord; but you have sold your honour men may call you Mr. Dean, or My and your conscience for money; and, though better paid, you are as base as the witness who stands at the door of the judgment-hall, to swear whatever the suborner will put into his mouth, and to receive whatever he will put in his pocket.* When soldiers exercise, there stands a goodly portly person out of the ranks, upon whom all eyes are directed, and If a poor man were to accept a guinea whose signs and motions, in the perupon the condition that he spoke all formance of the manual exercise, all the evil he could of another whom he the soldiers follow. The Germans, we believed to be innocent, and whose believe, call him a Flugelman. We proimprisonment he knew he should pro- pose Lord Nugent as a political flugellong, and whose privations he knew man;-he is always consistent, plain, he should increase by his false testi- and honest, steadily and straightly mony, would not the person so hired pursuing his object without hope or be one of the worst and basest of human fear, under the influence of good feelbeings? And would not his guilt beings and high principle. The House aggravated, if, up to the moment of of Commons does not contain within receiving his aceldama, he had spoken its walls a more honest, upright man. in terms of high praise of the person whom he subsequently accused? Would not the latter feature of the case prove him to be as much without shame as the former evinced him to be without principle? Would the guilt be less, if the person so hired were a man of education? Would it be less, if he were above want? Would it be less, if the profession and occupation of his life were to decide men's rights, or to teach them morals and religion? Would it be less by the splendour of the bribe? Does a bribe of 3000l. leave a man innocent, whom a bribe of 30l. would cover with infamy? You are of a mature period of life, when the opinions of an honest man ought to be, and are fixed. On Monday you were a barrister or a country clergyman, a serious and temperate friend to religious liberty and Catholic emancipation. In a few weeks from this time you are a bishop, or a dean, or a judge -publishing and speaking charges and sermons against the poor Catholics, and explaining away this sale of your soul by every species of falsehood, shabbiness, and equivocation. You may carry a bit of ermine on your shoulder, or hide the lower moiety of We seize upon the opportunity which this able pamphlet of his Lordship's affords us, to renew our attention to the Catholic question. There is little new to be said; but we must not be silent, or, in these days of baseness and tergiversation, we shall be supposed to have deserted our friend the Pope; and they will say of us, Prostant venales apud Lambeth et Whitehall. God forbid it should ever be said of us with justice-it is pleasant to loll and roll, and to accumulate-to be a pur ple and fine linen man, and to be called by some of those nicknames which frail and ephemeral beings are so fond of accumulating upon each other; - but the best thing of all is to live like honest men, and to add something to the cause of liberality, justice, and truth. The Letter to Lord Milton is very well and very pleasantly written. We are delighted with the liberality and candour of the Archbishop of Cashel. that all who were for the Catholics, and are *It is very far from our intention to say now against them, have made this change from base motives; it is equally far from our intention not to say that many men of both professions have subjected themselves to this shocking imputation. The charge is in the highest degree | this fine place in danger-the venison creditable to him. He must lay his the pictures-the pheasants-the celaccount for the furious hatred of bigots, lars. the hot-house and the grapery? and the incessant gnawing of rats. Should you like to see six or seven There are many men who (tho- thousand French or Americans landed roughly aware that the Catholic ques- in Ireland, and aided by a universal tion must be ultimately carried) delay insurrection of the Catholics? Is it their acquiescence till the last moment, worth your while to run the risk of and wait till the moment of peril and their success? What evil from the civil war before they yield. That this possible encroachment of Catholics, by moment is not quite so remote as was civil exertions, can equal the danger of supposed a twelvemonth since, the such a position as this? How can a events now passing in the world seem man of your carriages, and horses, and to afford the strongest proof. The hounds, think of putting your high truth is, that the disaffected state of fortune in such a predicament, and Ireland is a standing premium for war crying out, like a schoolboy or a chapwith every cabinet in Europe which lain, Oh, we shall beat them! we has the most distant intention of quar-shall put the rascals down!' No Porelling with this country for any other pery, I admit to your Lordship, is a cause. "If we are to go to war, let us very convenient cry at an election, and do so when the discontents of Ireland has answered your end; but do not are at their greatest height, before any push the matter too far: to bring on spirit of concession has been shown by a civil war, for No Popery, is a very the British Cabinet." Does any man foolish proceeding in a man who has imagine that so plain and obvious a two courses and a remove! As you principle has not been repeatedly urged value your side-board of plate, your on the French Cabinet ?that the eyes broad riband, your pier glasses-if of the Americans are shut upon the obsequious domestics and large rooms state of Ireland- and that that great are dear to you-if you love ease and and ambitious Republic will not, in flattery, titles and coats of arms-if case of war, aim a deadly blow at this the labour of the French cook, the most sensitive part of the British em- dedication of the expecting poet, cani pire? We should really say, that move you-if you hope for a long life England has fully as much to fear of side-dishes-if you are not insenfrom Irish fraternisation with America sible to the periodical arrival of the as with France. The language is the turtle fleets-emancipate the Cathosame; the Americans have preceded lics! Do it for your ease, do it for them in the struggle; the number of your indolence, do it for your safety— emigrant and rebel Irish is very great emancipate and eat, emancipate and in America; and all parties are sure drink-emancipate, and preserve the of perfect toleration under the protec-rent-roll and the family estate!" tion of America. We are astonished The most common excuse of the at the madness and folly of English- Great Shabby is, that the Catholics are men, who do not perceive that both their own enemies. that the violence France and America are only waiting of Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Shiel have for a convenient opportunity to go to ruined their cause — that, but for these war with this country; and that one boisterous courses, the question would of the first blows aimed at our inde- have been carried before this time. pendence would be the invasion of The answer to this nonsense and baseIreland. ness is, that the very reverse is the fact. The mild and the long-suffering may suffer for ever in this world. If the Catholics had stood with their hands before them simpering at the Earls of Liverpool and the Lords Bathurst of the moment, they would not have been We should like to argue this matter with a regular Tory Lord, whose members vote steadily against the Catholic question. "I wonder that mere fear does not make you give up the Catholic question! Do you mean to put emancipated till the year of our Lord | Church of Ireland, says our alarmist. four thousand. As long as the patient Why do you care so much for the will suffer, the cruel will kick. No trea- Church of Ireland, a country you son-no rebellion-but as much stub- never live in? Answer I do not bornness and stoutness as the law per- care so much for the Church of Ireland, mits a thorough intimation that you if I was sure the Church of England know what is your due, and that you would not be destroyed.—And is it for are determined to have it if you can the Church of England alone that you lawfully get it. This is the conduct we fear? Answer - Not quite to that. recommend to the Irish. If they go on But I am afraid we should all be lost, withholding, and forbearing, and hesi- that everything would be overturned, tating whether this is the time for the and that I should lose my rank and my discussion or that is the time, they will estate. Here then, we say, is a long be laughed at for another century as series of dangers, which (if there were fools - and kicked for another century any chance of their ever taking place) as slaves. "I must have my bill paid would require half a century for their (says the sturdy and irritated trades- development; and the danger of losing man); your master has put me off Ireland by insurrection and invasion, twenty times under different pretences. which may happen in six months, is utI know he is at home, and I will not terly overlooked, and forgotten. And if quit the premises till I get the money." a foreign influence should ever be fairly Many a tradesman gets paid in this established in Ireland, how many hours manner, who would soon smirk and would the Irish Church, how many smile himself into the Gazette, if he months would the English Church, trusted to the promises of the great. live after such an event! How much is any English title worth after such an event any English family - any English estate? We are astonished that the brains of rich Englishmen do not fall down into their bellies in talking of the Catholic question-that they do not reason through the cardia and the pylorus-that all the organs of digestion do not become intellectual. The descendants of the proudest noblemen in England may become beggars in a foreign land from this disgraceful nonsense of the Catholic question-fit only for the ancient females of a market town. Can anything be so utterly childish and foolish as to talk of the bad taste of the Catholic leaders ?- -as if, in a question of conferring on, or withholding important civil rights from seven millions of human beings, anything could arrest the attention of a wise man but the good or evil consequences of so great a measure. Suppose Mr. S. does smell slightly of tobacco-admit Mr. L. to be occasionally stimulated by rum and water-allow that Mr. F. was unfeeling in speaking of the Duke of York-what has all this nonsense to do with the extinction of religious hatred and the pacification of Ireland? Give it if it is right, refuse it if it is wrong. How it is asked, or how it is given or refused, are less than the dust of the balance. What alarms us in the state of England is the uncertain basis on which its prosperity is placed-and the prodigious mass of hatred which the What is the real reason why a good English government continues, by its honest Tory, living at ease on his obstinate bigotry, to accumulate-eight possessions, is an enemy to Catholic hundred and forty millions sterling of Emancipation? He admits the Catho- debt. The revenue depending upon lic of his own rank to be a gentleman, the demand for the shoes, stockings, and not a bad subject—and about and breeches of Europe · and seven theological disputes an excellent Tory millions of Catholics in a state of the never troubles his head. Of what im-greatest fury and exasperation. We portance is it to him whether an Irish persecute as if we did not owe a shilCatholic or an Irish Protestant is a Judge in the King's Bench at Dublin? None; but I am afraid for the ling - we spend as if we had no dis- ' affection. This, by possibility, may go on; but it is dangerous walking-the |