very deliberation, declared itself upon this interesting and important subject. Whatever might have been the doubts and difficulties incidental to the measure in its progress (from the real or supposed interest of these colonies), all speculation on the question has long ago been at rest. The law has passed and been obeyed. I say, gentlemen, that the law has been obeyed, because I conceive it not to be inconsistent with the duties of the present occasion and of this place, to call to your recollection, that our island legislature has gone hand in hand with that of the mother country in passing local regulations in aid of the abolition laws. This proceeding is itself in some degree a manifestation, that a desire to violate or evade them forms no part of the character of the inhabitants of this colony. This is the first time that there has been occasion to institute a legal prosecution similar to that in which we are now engaged. Indeed, I cannot disregard so suitable an occasion as the sent for declaring my implicit conviction, that in Jamaica those laws have been strictly and scrupulously fulfilled. The length of time during which I have here held a public station, must have allowed me the means and opportunities for observation; and it is from the experience and information thus obtained, that I feel myself bound to make this declaration. Your experience and general knowledge of the laws render it unnecessary to expatiate on the nature of the duties attached to you as the grand inquest of the country. You are pre well aware, that in the investigation of offences, it is your province to hear evidence on the part of the prosecution, and to inquire whether there be sufficient cause to call upon the party accused to answer it. You will have the goodness for the present to withdraw, and the indictment will be laid before you with as little delay as possible by the officers of the crown. Friday, July 30. The court being formed as before, with the exception of sir H. Popham, and the prisoners being put to the bar, his honour the judge of the Vice-Admiralty court delivered the following address and sentence : "John Hudson and John Jones, You have been indicted and found guilty of carrying away and removing, and also of detaining and confining, 44 persons, for the purpose of their being sold, transferred, used and dealt with as slaves by importation, into this island or elsewhere. And you, John Hudson, have been separately indicted and found guilty of having taken the charge and command of, and embarking on board of a schooner called the St. Antonio, as master, you well knowing that such schooner was to be employed in an illicit traffic in slaves. You have had the advantage of every assistance in your defence, and of a trial before a most respectable and intelligent jury. The evidence produced against you was unimpeachable in regard to the character and demeanour of the witnesses, and irresistible as to the clearness clearness and concurrence of their action was not made on a sudden. statements. The court were happy to find, that although the conclusions against you, to be drawn from the evidence, were undeniable, you stand alone in the transaction. Not the slightest suspicion arises that you had in this island any confederate to draw you to our shores, but you appear to have rashly come hither unseduced and uninvited. Far from meeting with encouragement when you first landed on the north-side of the island, you, John Hudson, were repelled by the person to whom you clandes tinely applied for the disposal of your cargo, and admonished of the peril in which you stood. An excuse has been alleged for your intrusion into this colony, that you were diverted from another destination by necessity and famine. Were this allegation true, it would not have been a legal exculpation; for it was a felonious act in you both, as British subjects, to have engaged in a traffic in slaves of whatever national character. It appears in evidence against you, John Hudson, that you disregarded the warning which you had received at Annatto-bay and approached Oracalessa, there again offering the Africans on board your schooner for sale, and avowing your resolution to continue along the coast for the purpose of disposing of them: ignorance of the law cannot be urged in behalf of either of you. The crime of which you have been found guilty was, it is true, once introduced and sanctioned by the British legislature; but the change in the complexion and consequences of such a trans Time was given for the sentiments and commercial habits of men to assume a new direction, before the act of trafficking in slaves was denounced as a felony. "John Jones,-The court, in admeasuring the sentence to which you are subjected by the law, have paid attention to the humane recommendation by the jury of your case to their consideration. The sentence of the law is, and which I pronounce in the name of the court, that you, John Hudson and John Jones, be severally transported to such place beyond the seas as his royal highness the Prince Regent, in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, shall order and direct;-you, John Hudson, for the space of seen years, and you, John Jones, for the space three years; and that you be now severally remanded to the custody of the provost marshal-ge neral of this island, to be by him kept in safe custody, in execu tion of this judgment, until you shall be so transported as afore said." VIOLENT ASSAULT. Vale v. O'Brien and Simpson. -Mr. Sergeant Pell stated, that this was an action brought against the defendant, captain O'Brien, an officer in the navy, for a most outrageous assault. The plaintiff was his servant. In March last, a quarrel took place in the kitchen. Mr. Simpson, the other defendant, was at this time residing in Mr. O'Brien's house. The latter thinking that Vale had conducted conducted himself ill, ordered him out of the house.. This was about 11 or 12 o'clock at night. Vale insisted on his clothes and his wages: Mr. O'Brien, in order to remove Vale from before his house, where he persisted to continue demanding his wages, sent for a peace-officer. Brooks and Filer, two peaceofficers, attended at the request of Mr. O'Brien. The prosecutor continued too obstinately, most assuredly, to keep his situation and refused to retire. At a moment when Vale stood altogether unprepared for any such violence, the defendant struck him a blow so violent, so dreadful, that he sunk to the ground in a state of insensibility. Horrible, indeed, have been the consequences of it! A fractured jaw, a concussion of the brain, leave this young man a dreadful object, a decrepit burden on society, a creature maimed in body and intellect. The first witness examined was Thomas Brooks-In March last I was sent for to Mr. O'Brien's. It was about half-past one in the morning. Vale was then standing before captain O'Brien's house in the road. I went into the house. He asked me if I was the constable, and insisted on my taking up Vale. I said, can you take him up, Sir, without paying him his wages? He said, Mr. Simpson and I intend to swear the peace of him. Brown, Filer and I then went to take him, as I thought, but Mr. O'Brien said, "You three won't be able to take him, so you had better take us with you." When we got into the road, I said to Vale," Mr. O'Brien sent for me to take you VOL. LXI. up." He said he had done nothing to be taken up for; but if Mr. O'Brien would pay him his wages he would go. He was still very civil and quiet; he said he had more clothes in the house. Mr. Simpson asked what things; and Mr. O'Brien sent in for them and put them into Vale's box and locked it. He then said he would go peaceably and quietly if they would give him his wages. Then the plaintiff gave up the key to his master and said, "You have been a very good master, Sir;" and Mr. O'Brien said, "You have been a very good servant." He, however, still said he would not go without his wages. Mr. O'Brien insisted that we should take him up and have him before a magistrate. We then proceeded to take him up and drew up towards him. Plaintiff drew back a few yards and said, "You five shall not take me, for I have done nothing to be taken up for:" he then made a step or two forward. At this moment Mr. O'Brien struck him; it was with a stick nearly as large as the small of my arm, about two feet long. He struck him on the head. Vale fell. O'Brien was down on his body instantly. Simpson held his head whilst O'Brien tied his hands. Vale said, "For God's sake do let me get up, or pull your fingers out of my eyes." His hands were tied over his chest. O'Brien said, "Fetch the cords." They put the end of the cord between his legs. James Brown took one arm, O'Brien took the other. When he got up he was able to walk, but he said his head was very bad. We led him nearly a quarter of a mile. Q As As we went along he complained of his head. We went afterwards to Wells; we took him to the Globe; we had him into the kitchen and then let him loose. It was about 4 miles he walked. Cross-examined. Captain O'Brien did not say any thing to me of Vale's conduct being violent before I came. Vale is not more powerful than any other man. Vale made use of no such expressions as-that he would cut his way through a dozen of us. When Vale advanced, although it was in a direction towards us, it was not at all in a menacing posture to captain O'Brien; indeed, he rather drew near us than him, as captain O'Brien was on one side. William Yorke keeps the Globe at Wells. Vale was very ill indeed. I got him a cup of tea, but he could not eat any thing; he continued with me from the 17th of March till the 26th of May, or rather to the middle of June. He was attended night and day for three weeks by nurses and constant attendants. Mr. O'Brien would not pay the bill. Vale gave me what money he could for my attention. Mr. Sweeting, surgeon, called in to see Vale. Found him seated in a settle, his eye black, a wound on his neck and blood on his clothes. He complained of dreadful pain in his head. The jaw was fractured. There was likewise another injury which I feel justified in considering a concussion of the brain. Such was his appearance when I first saw him that I thought him mad. I saw him surrounded with persons whom I thought to be his keepers, and I took his incoherent account of what had happened as a proof of his insanity. He complained of great pain in his head and of a sickness on the stomach, the usual consequence of a concussion of the brain; violent startings, delirium, dreadful symp toms, in short, appeared, and he continued extremely ill whilst I attended him, which was for six weeks. I consider him still (and I saw him this morning) as in a very deplorable state of health. The wild look which I mistook for insanity, is often a symptom attendant on the concussion of the brain. Had his jaw been broken before Mr. O'Brien gave the blow, it would have been impossible for him to have had the conversation he is reported to have had with the constables. Mr. Moore for the defence, stated, that Vale had behaved with such violence on the day of this accident, that captain O'Brien was fully justified in insisting on his going away. Captain O'Brien told him, that on his accounting for the plate and such things as were intrusted to him, he would pay him his wages. The plaintiff, however, refused to go without them, or to retire to bed; for the alternative was proposed to him. After some hours altercation the plaintiff was induced to leave the house, but immediately returned and attempted to force the door, which, as it had no bolt, the defendant was obliged to hold against him with main force. Finding he could not induce Vale to leave his premises, the defendant sent for the peace-officers. Mr. Moore insisted on capt. O'Brien's right to prevent Vale's return after after he had once been turned away, as it was admitted that he was; and urged that the sending for the peace-officers was a proof of the propriety of the defendant's intention. Mr. Moore then called Anne Heele, who was proceeding to depose to what had passed before the violence in question, when such evidence of what had preceded the constable's arrival was objected to. The assault could not be considered as a continuation of any former violence after the evidence which the constable had given, that on his coming up he found the plaintiff most gentle and peaceable. It was held that the evidence was not admissible, except in mitigation of damages. Mr. Justice Best, understanding at this period of the cause that an agreement had been come to between the parties that a verdict should be taken for the plaintiff for 2001. declared that he agreed in thinking nothing could justify this violent assault. Verdict (by consent) for plaintiff– Damages 2001, EXETER, TUESDAY, AUG. 3. Stak v. Scammel.-Mr. Sergeant Pell stated this to be an action brought to recover damages for a most base and unjustifiable libel, The plaintiff, Sophia Stak, was a young woman only 22 or 23 years of age, of the most irreproachable character; and though reduced by necessity to the situation of a domestic in the family of the defendant, she was descended from a most respectable family, and her connexions were still of a grade in life much superior to that which she had been compelled to fill. The defendant was a professional man residing at Plymouth. Without the slighest reason, the defendant had dared to publish of the plaintiff the following false and scandalous hand-bill, which he circulated most extensively: "Plymouth, May 20.-5l. Reward. ،، Whereas Sophia Stak, my servant, absconded from house my yesterday evening, and is supposed to have stolen some of my plate; whoever shall apprehend the said Sophia Stak shall, upon her conviction, receive the above sum of 5l. She is about 25 years of age, stout and fresh coloured; whoever harbours her shall be prosecuted according to law." The first witness was an officer in the mayor's court, Plymouth. He remembered the plaintiff and defendant being both present before the mayor on the 29th May last. The former had been charged by the latter with stealing his spoons. The hand-bill in question was shown to the defendant on that occasion, by his attorney: defendant said it was printed at his request. It had been stuck about the town of Plymouth. Plaintiff gave herself up: she was not in the custody of a constable. Scammel said he had lost 2 spoons. Plaintiff denied having taken them. Witness searched her lodgings, but could not find them. He accused her of absconding from his service: she replied, that he had had intercourse with another wo |