I submit that the salary of fifteen or eighteen hundred a-year to be paid to a man for most laborious duties cast upon him in a country in which the expense of living is necessarily great, in which life is pre-eminently uncertain, in which the middle season of life-that in which provision for the future must be made might be of short duration. Eighteen hundred a-year under these circumstances ought not, I think, to be pressed as matter of aggravation to make this a case of a worse description than any which have gone before it.

There is another circumstance upon which I would wish to trouble the Court with a very few words, not only as it is of consequence to the defendant, but as it relates to my own conduct in the management of his case. It is perfectly well known, that, on the very eve of this trial taking place, a report of the military commissioners appeared for the first time not merely upon the table of the House of Commons, but it found its way into all the public prints, containing charges of the most odious description against this unfortunate gentleman, and accompanied by comments of the most injurious and inflammatory kind. In stating the case on the part of the prosecution the attorney-general (as it was likely he would do) properly and humanely adverted to this circumstance, and cautioned the jury to forget whatever they might have read or heard, and to confine their attention to the simple charge before them. On the part of the defendant I complained of the circumstance perhaps a little too urgently. In summing up, his lordship stated to the jury that if any such publications had appeared, and had produced any prejudice against the defendant, an application ought to have been made to the Court to postpone the trial-an observation to which I perfectly assented at the time, and of which I do not mean now in the slightest degree to complain. I will merely state to the Court, with their permission, why no such application was made. It was submitted to me by the defendant himself, but when I considered the nature and extent of these charges-the quarter from which they proceeded-that they had found their way into the hauds of every man perhaps from the highest to the lowest in this country that years must elapse before any refutation could take place, so that it was impossible any change could happen in the public feeling in the interval between one sittings and another-feeling as I then did and now do, that, from the nature of these charges, if the unfortunate gentleman being at liberty, were to walk the streets of this town, his life would be in danger-I did not think it my duty to defer the trial to a more distant day (when I foresaw that the public feeling would be precisely the same) at the expense of a continuation of the misery which the defendant must endure.

There is only one other circumstance to which I would draw your lordships' attention, and that is, the dreadful state of this gentle

man's health. Though I do not mean to say that the degree of guilt can be varied by his state of health, yet in fixing the sort of punishment to be applied, I am sure the Court will attend to it, and will not make that, which would be merely imprisonment in one case, the means of destruction and death in another.

Mr. Attorney General.-My lords, the painful duty is imposed upon me of drawing your attention to those circumstances of this case which, in my view of it, require you not to pass a light sentence upon the defendant. But let me at the same time do him that justice which I should wish to do every man, particularly one against whom it was my duty to bring forward so heavy a charge as that which I have on this occasion proved by incontrovertible evidence. My learned friend has truly stated that the defendant has, in his path through life, in all the relations of civil society, performed his duties correctly and without blame. I think he deserves that character; and to whatever reflection he may justly be exposed, he will find that the recollection of his virtuous acts will be his best consolation: but I must not leave him to hope that they can be of any avail to him on the present occasion, otherwise than as an internal consolation.

Your lordships, I know, feel (as I do) upon this occasion, that you have a painful duty to perform. You feel that it is peculiarly painful to pass a severe sentence upon a man the general tenor of whose life, if you were to except the particular transactions presented to your view, would incline you to mercy; but whom, notwithstanding that, it is your duty to punish as the crime he has committed deserves, and that you must not be led aside by the considerations which have been urged by my learned friend.

I did endeavour, as far as I could, to guard the jury against any impressions that might have been made upon their minds by what they had heard out of doors. I did not advert to the report of the commissioners to which my friend has in terms adverted; but I did advert to reports which every body must have heard, and which certainly had prevailed much to the prejudice of the person against whom these charges were preferred. I cannot, however, think it was matter of blame in the commissioners that they published their report at the time when they did so; they ought not to be biassed by any consideration of circumstances of this sort as to the time when that duty to the public which they were bound to discharge should be performed. It was not their fault that the trial of this cause had been so long delayed; it certainly was their bounden duty, as soon as they were prepared for the execution of that trust which was reposed in them, to execute it, and I hardly think (although it struck those interested for the defendant as a hardship upon him) that the commissioners would have been satisfied in delaying the performance of their duty of publishing

their report, on account of the particular case of the gentleman who is now to receive your lordships' judgment.

If there were the slightest reason to suppose that the publication of that report, and the effect which it produced in the public mind, had any connexion with the verdict of the jury --if upon the evidence which his lordship has just read I could entertain the slightest doubt of the guilt of the defendant-I should be the first to request your lordships that he might have the benefit of a rehearing, and that that which might by possibility have been produced, by the prejudice of the public, might not operate injuriously to him. But, my lords, it is impossible for a man possessed of even the most common understanding, after hearing the report which his lordship has just read to the Court, to entertain the slightest doubt that the guilt imputed by the indictment to the defendant has been brought home to him by incontrovertible evidence-by evidence which in its own nature cannot be supposed to be false-by evidence which if false he had the most ample means of refuting. Your lordships will observe that this indictment, supported as it is by the evidence, not only imputes to the defendant that he entered into a corrupt contract with Mr. Higgins to share with him the profits which Mr. Higgins contrived to make upon the supply of provisions, but that he entered into this contract, through the agency of another person, Mr. Hugh Rose, who was a participator in the same fraud, although he could not (for reasons to which I adverted at the trial) be joined in this indictment.

Mr. Higgins was the person by whom in the first instance, I proved the guilt of the defendant. There was no imputation cast upon the evidence of Mr. Higgins except that he was himself a participator in the same fraud. I took the liberty, at the trial,* of doing that which I shall do in one word now; I shall distinguish the case of Mr. Higgins from the case of an accomplice, who, having a crime fixed upon him, comes forward to say, "it is true I committed this crime, but if you will let me off I will shew you who was concerned with me." That was not the case of Mr. Higgins, because he proved the guilt of the defendant, in which he stated himself to be concerned, and, unless he spoke truly of the guilt of the defendant, he was himself not an accomplice. That is the distinction between the case of Mr. Higgins and the case of a common accomplice.

But why do I waste your lordships time in speaking upon this? Mr. Hugh Rose was in the kingdom-he was attending the Court; and if that which Mr. Higgins stated to have passed from Mr. Jones, through the intervention of Mr. Rose, to him were not true; if that relation. which fixed the same degree of guilt upon Mr. Rose as upon Mr. Jones, and gave Mr. Rose as strong an interest to support the innocence of Mr. Jones, as any man would

Vol. x, p p. 261, 314.

have to support his own were not true; if the charge was not truly brought against Mr. Jones, why was not Mr. Rose called to contradict Mr. Higgins?

It would be wasting your lordships time to observe further upon the sufficiency of the evidence for the conviction, indeed upon the impossibility of suggesting a doubt in the case. Mr. Winter stated, that he called upon Mr. Jones, by his desire, to communicate to him the amount of the profits Mr. Higgins had made. What had Mr. Jones to do with the amount of the profits Mr. Higgins made, if Mr. Jones was not to share them? The Bterests of the two parties were in direct op position to each other. The object of Mr. Jones should have been to keep down Mr. Higgins's profits, if their transactions were honest: the object of Mr. Higgins must have been to conceal from Mr. Jones the enormity of those profits: but, instead of his thus acting, you find him communicating to Mr. Jones, the amount of those profits. If any further confirmation were wanted look to what they call the American adventure. The whole transaction not being yet wound up, something was still to be done; and you have a further sum of 800l. paid by Mr. Higgins to Mr. Jones on account of the profits of this adventure, and a receipt from Mr. Jones to Mr. Higgins for that sum. Is not that a sufficient confirmation (if any were needed) of this story? Here was money paid by Mr. Higgins to Mr. Jones: on what account? What was the situation in which these two persons stood with relation to each other? Mr. Higgins was to supply the provisions and shipping, and Mr. Jones was to pay him for his supplies. In the course of that transaction Mr. Jones might, while acting for the Crown and contracting with him, be indebted to Mr. Higgins: but it is impossible to conceive, that any debt could arise from Mr. Higgins to Mr. Jones, unless through the corrupt agreement which we have charged.

I beg your lordships' pardon for having called to your attention the manner in which this case was proved. I think after reading the evidence, there cannot be the slightest doubt upon any man's mind. It remains for your lordships to determine by what punishment an offence of this sort shall be visited.It is not for me to suggest it to your lordships; we all know the different species of punishment that may be inflicted. All that I feel justified in doing, having done something of the same sort in a former instance, is to point out those circumstances of the case which may possibly incline the Court rather to one than to another species, and to show how far the civil rights of the parties concerned may still be affected.

Your lordships will recollect the case of Mr. Davison,* that he receiving a compensation from government for a certain check which it was his duty to exercise upon the contractors,

* Vol. x p. 99.