THE CANADIAN COMMISSIONERS.
Wens the view of making the public better acquainted with some of the worthies on whose advice the Government has acted in its fierce and sweeping attacks on the liberties and constitution of the North American Colonies, we are induced to put into English cir- culation a document transmitted to us by a correspondent from India—the charge of Sir CHARLES GREY, then Chief Justice at Bengal, to a Special Jury. A very short explanation of this paper is requisite. In 1827, the East India Company imposed a stamp tax on the European and native inhabitants of Calcutta; but, after the law was passed, they found that it was not valid, unless sanctioned by a registration in the King's Court of Justice. They applied for the registration ; and, there being but two Judges on the bench at the time, and the Chief, Sir CHARLES GREY, having the casting voice, there was no great difficulty about getting this done—the stamp-tax became law. Next year, the Indian Government instituted two prosecutions against one of the principal mercantile firms of Calcutta, for drawing bills of ex- change on unstamped paper; and Sir CHARLES GREY and his col- league had to try causes arising out of a law which they were themselves parties in passing. It appears that, in the schedule of the law, bills of exchange were not specified ; but the Chief Justice contended that they were included under the name of " other obligations;" while the counsel of the defendants pleaded, that, in law, an "obligation" to pay money was a "sealed instru- ment," and that the prosecution being a criminal one, the law ought to be rigidly construed. One of the three Judges, now Chief Justice of Calcutta, and nearly the whole bar, agreed in this latter view. In the first trial, the Jury gave a verdict for the de- fendants—contrary to the directions of the Chief Justice; and it was on the second trial that Justice Midas, losing all patience, delivered himself of the following philippic ; despite of which, however, the Jury found another verdict for the defendants.
" Gentlemen, I will next draw your attention to the situation in which you stand, and to what I conceive would be the ruinous consequences that would follow your departure from the rules of English juries. You stand at a crisis— at the last of the Charter. This is the second case of the kind you hate been called upon to try. Thee 5ourcem of raising revenue must spread ifeolonization spreads, and must be drawn from llritish subjects ; for can it be said, that they are to be excluded from contributing towards relieving the burden of the State? Gentlemen, you are also at another crisis ; exertions are making to introduce into this country trial by jury—very much on your conduct will de- pend this and what I have before mentioned. Do not blind yourselves to the consequences. Do not give an appearance for saying that you by your verdict have done that which way prevent the introduction into this country of trial by jary in all ca-es.
"Gentlemen, there are other modes besides the present of recovering and en- forcing the payment of the revenue. When a Special Jury was moved for, io this ease, there ss an, at first, a doubles to the right of bringing it before a jury at all ; the Court were, however, of opinion, that, as it was, in a certain degree, a Criminal prosecution, it was the best means of trying it. But, if it shall be found that juries give any foundation to say that they will not take the direction of the Court in revenue cases, they may he prevented from interfering in such wises at ail.
"Gentlemen, in many countries, juries have no voice in such matters. In
England, no paper can be produced in a court of justice'unless it be stamped . and I ant glad that such a clause was omitted in the present regulation. Ha; do you think, that if a statement went home, that juries defeated and would . not take the law as expounded by those who are bound to expound it to them, that other means than the present could not be found for enforcing this regulation? I have told you, you stand at the introduction of a new system. If the conduct of a jury is not free from suspicion or collusion, no legisla- ture could extend the right of trial by jury to this country ; and if they take the power of deciding law as well as fact into their own hands as a right, they will not long hare it in their power to exercise that right. The Legislature might, if they thought proper, separate the question of law from fact, and means could be devised for compelling juries to confine themselves to their proper province.
"Yost have no right, under the British law, to decide whether a bill of ex. change is an obligation for payment of money. My direction is that the con. atruction put upon the regulation by the Court is a legal construction. If you take upon yourselves to decide it, there can be no further deliberation ; if not, it can be moved in arrest of judgment. I say that it would be a violation of all
law. of your sacred duties, and this to ,gintr institution, to take upon your- selves to decide the validity of this regulation as a law."
Was the author of this speech—was a man who entertained such notions of colonial taxation and colonial liberty—a fit person to be intrusted with a mission of conciliation to a colony excited and disgusted by long-continued misgovernment ? The injunc. tion at Court was "not to lose Canada;" in obedience to which, and with a recollection of former recommendations on a similar subject from the same quarter, Sir CHARLES recommends the only class of measures by which the connexion could be pealed. The Thirteen American Colonies were lost by a small stamp-tax,- by taxes on such petty items of consumption as paper, glass, red lead and white lead, and twopence per pound on tea. To say nothing of the refusal to reform the mock House of Lords of Lower Canada, is it possible to conceive that the seizure of 140,000. of the Canadian taxes—five times more than the amount of the taxes which produced the separation of the old Colonies, levied on less than one-third part of the number of people—should not, sooner or later, lead to insurrection and separation? The Colonial Office gentry, and those who are advised by them, clearly look upon the history of their country for the last seventy years as " an old al ma neck."
By the way, is the Canadian Commissioner the same Sir CHARLES GREY who is invited by the Reform Association of Tynemouth as a candidate at the next election ? If so, the Reformers of Tyne- mouth are not in their is its ; or they are in disguise. Let them be asked, as a matter of curiosity, to point out the microscopic difference between the hair-splitting prerogative lawyer and even GEORGE FREDERICK YOUNG, truant to pledge and principle as he is.
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