THE JAMAICA COMMITTEE PROSECUTIONS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 478, 13 May 1867, Page 4

THE JAMAICA COMMITTEE PROSECUTIONS.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. [Morning Herald.] The Morning Herald observes that the Jamaica Comuattoe, notv their repeated disavowals, have commenced in earnest their series of prosecutions. Warrants have been applied for and granted by the chief metropolitan magistrate, at Bowesreet, for the apprehension of Brigadier Nelson and Lieutenant Brand, c n a charge of wilful murder, in the execution of G. W. Gordon, in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica. ExGovernor Eyre is only allowed impunity until he comes, by residence, within the jurisdiction of Sir Thomas Henry. The most salient circumstance of the matter is that the Jamaica Committee after denying its complicity in these prosecutions, avows it now without diffidence or shame. We were told, six weeks ago, that the committee were in no way responsible for the fourfold indictment. But who appeared ? Mr John Stuart Mill, in conjunction with Mr Peter Alfred Taylor, They represent the committee. The committee takes the part of public prosecutor. It assumes the whole responsibility of charging two English officers and gentleman with the worst crime known to law, and thus the question stands. It may be presumed that Sir Thos. Henry did not grant the warrants without legal justification ; it may also be taken for granted that the process will be carried out upon legitimate principles; but, regarded as a whole, this affair is so like an attempt at a jugglery of justice that the feeling of the country must inevitably revolt against it. The general mind of the community, however, will he relieved whenever this abominable burlesque of Criminal litigation comes to an end. The publicity of the case consists in this—the whole prosecution rests upon the private motion of a few individuals who have a part to play How they engaged a man so eminent as Mr Mill, or how they induced him to take his scat by the side of Mr Petei Alfred Taylor, while the process was opened at Bow-street, it is not nownecessary to inquire. The committee expects no verdict: it feds well assured that this mere attorney's case against a number of British officers and gentlemen who have done their duty will explode amid contempt and disgust; and yet, will even that conclusion be satisfactory ? The Jamaica Committee, whatever their collapse and breakdown, judicial opinion decides the question which ffiey have endeavored to overload with dishonest prejudice, will have effected their object, they will have bitterly persecuted brave and honorable men who have served their country in a time of need.

[Daily News.] The Daily News says that the interests at stake are co-extensive with the British Empire. Whut is alleged to have been done in Jamaica may be repeated in India, in Ireland or in London. The practical question to be de cided is whether the conduct imputed to Mr Eyre and his coadjutors shall be a precedent or a warning. They are not called to account for acts of violence committed in the suppression of rebellion ; destruction of life or property necessary for this purpose is admitted to be justifiable. The charge which they have to answer is that, after the restoration of tranquility, they continued to use weapons which can be properly employed only against tumult: that they banded over to military violence a British subject, who, so far from being taken in armed insurrection, had never borne arms, nor been near the seat of tumult; and that they had unnecessarily, and therefore criminally, transferred to a military tribunal a man who had voluntarily surrendered himself in time of peace to the civil powers. If these things can be done in Jamaica, they may be done in England.

[TiicesJ

The Times says that the abstract turn which the Jamaica Committee have given to their prosecution was curiously manifested in the speeches of Mr Stephen on Wednesday and yesterday. Never wore alleged murderers spoken of in such terms aud treated with such courtesy. Mr Eyre is t: a brave though

mistaken (€ a and li

man of honor;” and the counsel for the prosecution apprehended there is no doubt that he will be ready and willing to meet any charge, and to appear when the occasion for his doing so arises. On the issuing of the warrants, Mr Stephen observed that nothing could be further from the desire of the gentleman conducting this prosecution than that any disrespect or any personal indignity should be offered to the defendants in the service of the warrants, and that if Lieutenant Brand would give his word that “ he would attend at the Court at a specified time to answer the charges preferred against him, the committee instructing him would be perfectly satisfied. There was no desire to place these gentlemen under needless restraint.” Mr Stephen then suggests to the magistrate the usual course of admitting to bail the defendants whom he charges with the highest crime known to the law. One would think it an amicable suit, in which the Jamaica officials were to bear a voluntary part, for the purpose of settling a knotty constitutional point. This demeanor of Mr Stephen is highly to his credit, but it suggests that there is something radically false in the position of those who would prosecute the late Governor and the men who acted under him for the highest crime known to law. A charge of murder is a charge of murder, and no courtesy or half assurances that the proceedings are only formal and for the purpose of trying a constitutional principle can lessen the gravity of such an accusation to the defendants, and not only to them, but to all who served the Crown during the disturbance. The Central Criminal Court will be called upon to consider whether the common law of England allows the punishment of offenders by martial law, and, if so under what conditions; whether there be or be not a power in the executive to use all means for the preservation of the public safety, and who is to be the judge whether the means used were necessary; whether the Act of indemnity is valid—this last question depending upon uncertain legal considerations and minute points of colonial history. Can it be supposed that the best way of solving such obtruse problems is by placing a colonel and a naval lieutenant in the dock at the Old Baily ?

fStaudard.J The Standard says that, taking it at its best, the prosecution of Mr Eyre, General Nelson, and Lieut. Brand, is open to this strong, and to ordinary understandings, fatal objection, that it raises an entirely false issue. Technically, if tried at all, they will be tried for taking part in and approving the acts of court-martial informally held. For it should be borne in mind that the sufficiency or insufficiency of the evidence on which Gordon was condemned cannot be made a subject of inquiry here. The members of the court-martial which tried him, as jurors charged to pronounce upon his guilt or innocence, formed their conclusion upon the evidence laid before them, and they can no more be arraigned for the manner in which they performed their duty than the jurymen who found Polioni guilty could be tried for attempting to murder, or those who convicted Toomer could be sued in an action for false im prisonment. The inquiry will still leave in debate the question whether the Governor’s repressive measures were wise or foolish; whether they were the result of calm deliberation or terror-stricken panic; whether they were precisely what the occasion required, or greatly in excess of its real necessities. Nor will, as we have shown, elicit an expression of opinion from a jury at Middlesex on the sufficiency of evidence on which Gordon was condemned. It will do, and can, at the very utmost, do nothin? more than settle whether he was, in Sidney Smith’s phrase, “hung with parliament rope and on a statutable gibbet.” In other words, it will at best be an expression of lay opinion on a legal point, and as such will be of no weight as an authority, of no value as a precedent. The prosecutors themselves scarcely make a secret of their belief they will fail to secure a conviction. Mrs Gordon has disowned them, the nation has repudiated them, the press has condemned them, yet they I nevertheless persevere in their wrong-

Leaded endeavors to bring the case to trial, “ for the sake of the cause, and of the principle therein involved.” How “ the principle” can be vindicated by a verdict against it, or bow “ the cause” can be served by making its acmerems parties ty a proceeding which, it is confessed, will be abortive for the end proposed, we confess ourselves unable to comprehend.