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100 stand of arms and some pistols. The lieutenant-colonel, having in vain attempted to convince these deluded people of their error, and every attempt to induce them to lay down their arms having failed, he made his dispositions, charged the two bodies simultaneously, and dispersed them with the loss of from 100 to 150. On his side there was only one rifleman slightly wounded. This success put a complete termination to the revolt. During its continuance, the western district of the colony remained perfectly tranquil.

Courts-martial were held for the trial of the prisoners; and many of the insurgent slaves were executed. From the evidence given upon the trials, there was reason to believe, that the object of the conspiracy did not go further than, by taking temporary possession of the estates, to compel the promulgation of those regulations in their favour, which they believed to have been made, but to be withheld by their masters and the go

vernor.

The vengeance obtained by the execution of slaves, was not deemed sufficient. Smith, the missionary, had been taken into custody on the 21st of August, on the charge of being concerned in the conspiracy; all his papers were seized; and so strict was his confinement, that his brother missionary, Mr. Elliott (against whom there was no ground of suspicion, as not a single negro under his superintendance had taken part in the revolt) was imprisoned for ten days, merely because he had paid a visit to his fellow labourer in the work of Christianity. On the 13th of October, Smith was brought to trial before a court-martial, which continued, by adjournment, to the 24th

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of November, and concluded by finding the accused guilty of a capital offence. The men, however, who had courage to condemn, were afraid to carry their sentence into execution and proceedings were suspended, till his majesty's determination on the case could be known. In the mean time, Smith was subjected to the closest imprisonment, the miseries of which were aggravated by much unnecessary severity. A disease, under which he had laboured, when he was first deprived of his liberty, went on increasing; and he was rescued by the hand of death, before the news arrived, that his majesty had rescinded the sentence of the court-martial.

The details of the proceedings of that court-martial were not known at the time; but the most important parts of them were subsequently published-a most melancholy specimen of ignorance and injustice. The members of it disregarded equally the forms and the principles of law; every rule of evidence was violated; and after all, there was not a shadow of proof, that Mr. Smith had had the slightest intimation of the insurrection, till the moment when it broke out, and he interfered to suppress it. But he was a missionary, and therefore he was condemned condemned by a court sitting in the name of the Crown of England, in defiance of every principle that Englishmen hold most sacred. It is long since our annals have been stained with an act of injustice equally outrageous; and the safety of mankind and the sanctity of law, require that the participators in so foul a deed should not pass unbranded and unpunished.

The emigrants, who had formed

new establishments at the Cape of Good Hope, were reduced in the present year to a very miserable condition. For three years successsively, the crops of wheat and Indian corn had been famished by drought, or destroyed by a species of blight called rust; the soil and climate were discovered to be utterly unfit for purposes of tillage husbandry; and the resources of the settlers were wholly exhausted. Many of them applied to lord Charles Somerset for a conveyance to England or to Van Diemen's land; but the answer was, that no means of such conveyance" were at his excellency's disposal." During his temporarv absence in England, Sir R. Donkin, who held the command ad interim, with a view to the safety of the emigrants, established military posts in the neighbourhood of the Fish River Fort Wiltshire, in advance of that river and Fredericksburgh, be tween the Fish River and the Beeka. The latter, composed of half-pay officers and other military

acquainted with the mode of Caffre warfare, was half way on the route towards the Caffres, and formed an effectual protection to the settlements newly created. Immediately on lord C. Somerset's return, all these safeguards of the colony were, it is said, withdrawn. The town of Bathurst, in the centre of the emigrant country, was stripped at once of its garrison, and deprived of its rank as county town; the capital of the unfortunate persons, who had expended their all in buildings and domestic establishments there, was lost, and the whole country was left at the mercy of the Caffre depredations. The consequence was, that the cattle were carried off by droves ; the colonists, Dutch as well as English, attacked by the plunderers in open day; and some of them savagely murdered. The complaints against his lordship's administration were loud; whether they were well founded or not, we are as yet without the means of judging.

CHAP. IX.

Motion respecting Mr. Bowring's Imprisonment: the Conduct pursued by the British Government in that Affair Claim of Mrs. Olive Serres to be Princess of Cumberland: Mr. Peel's exposition of the Imposture Prorogation of Parliament-Mr. Canning's refusal to acknowledge or hold communication with the Regency of MadridAppointment of Consuls and Consuls-General in the States of South America Our Relations with South America-Mr. Canning's increasing popularity: his speech at Plymouth.

MONG the alleged cases of

were in the present session, brought before parliament, only two deserve to be noticed: those of Mr. Bowring and of Mrs. Olive Serres, styling herself the Princess of Cumberland. Mr. Bowring's case was brought into discussion, on the 27th of February, by a motion of lord Archibald Hamilton for the production of certain papers connected with the imprisonment of that gentleman.* According to lord Archibald Hamilton's statement, Mr. Bowring, being on his return from a commercial journey to France and Italy, had arrived at Calais. After his baggage was examined at the Customs, he was informed, that he must submit his papers to an inspection; and being taken before the mayor, was committed to prison. In answer to his inquiries into the nature of his alleged crime, he was told that a telegraphic despatch had been received, directing the examination of his papers. After remaining in prison at Calais two days, he was conveyed, in obedience to another telegraphic despatch, to Boulogne.

* Vide Vol. LXIV. p. 216.

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crime. He had not been long at Boulogne, before the inconvenience of his imprisonment was increased by many unnecessary severities. He was confined au secret in a loathsome prison, deprived of the society of his friends, and denied the benefit of professional advice. Mr. Bowring having in the mean time applied to Sir Charles Stuart for protection, a new charge at the end of eleven days was manufactured; and Mr. Bowring learned, that he was now accused of being engaged as an accomplice with others, in a plot against the French government. After several other examinations, at none of which he had been allowed a professional advocate, a letter was received at Boulogne, by which Mr. Bowring was summoned to go to Paris, but was at the same time informed that he could not be compelled to go. At length the proceedings were concluded by a sentence, the words of which were, that Mr. Bowring was set at liberty, because the crime, of which he was accused, did not warrant his imprisonment at all.

Mr. Canning, in reply, gave such an account of the con

duct of our government on this affair, as satisfied every person of the zeal of the secretary of the foreign department in protecting the rights of individuals. He stated, that, when he heard of the arrest of Mr. Bowring, it appeared to him, that the part, which the British government were bound to adopt, was, to take care that the laws, not of England, but of France, were applied to his case with perfect impartiality. Instructions were sent, within three quarters of an hour after the affair was known, to his majesty's ambassador at Paris, directing him to take instant measures to inquire into all the circumstances of the case; and, if there were no cause to warrant an application to the government as to some special measure, to watch carefully over all the proceedings, and to see that the law was administered with the best legal information, with perfect impartiality, and with strict justice. He did not feel it right to ask, that Mr. Bowring's case should be separated from that of any other set of men in France, native or foreigners: He was not entitled to demand that the writ of Habeas Corpus, or the trial by jury, should be introduced into the French territory, on account of Mr. Bowring: but he did think it proper, that, whatever was the practice in France towards an accused person, that practice should be strictly observed with respect to Mr. Bowring; that any deviation from it might justify national interference; and that national interference could only begin, when individual injustice was perpetrated. Mr. Bowring was, in the first place, arrested as the bearer of sealed letters, and as thereby defrauding the post-office of France, a crime

of no moral turpitude, a crime not malum in se, but malum prohibitum -an offence, however, which was a misdemeanor, by the English law. With us, it was visited by a pecuniary fine; in France, it was punished in a more summary manner.

But, being detained as the carrier of letters, there grew out of those letters,or of other things which arose in the course of that accusation, matter which occasioned a charge of a heavier crime—a crime that incurred the punishment of imprisonment. On this latter crime, however, be it what it might, he was never brought to trial; and he was ultimately released. When he was released for the greater crime, he was not detained on account of the lesser; but was set at liberty, as the lesser crime did not incur the punishment of imprisonment. Mr. Bowring was not released because he had been unjustly imprisoned; but because the offence, which incurred the punishment of imprisonment, was not proceeded on, and the other offence had not that punishment attached to it by the French law. Mr. Canning added, that, during the whole of these transactions, if Mr. Bowring had been nearest to the British government in affection, and nearest to Mr. Canning's own feelings individually, it would have been impossible to watch over the proceedings with more anxious vigilance. But, when those proceedings were brought to an end (and their close, he believed, was precipitated by the interference of the British government; an interference, which called on the French government, not to let go, but to proceed or let go)—the only course for the British government to pursue was, to inquire whether any compensation was due to Mr.

Bowring, and to ascertain by the opinion, not of English lawyers, but of French lawyers, whether the entire proceedings were consonant with the usual course of French jurisprudence. Accordingly, he himself instructed sir Charles Stuart to lay before two of the first advocates of Paris, who were officially employed by government, and two other eminent advocates selected from the bar, and who were known to be politically hostile to the government, the whole proceedings in Mr. Bowring's case, and to ask whether, with respect to that individual, the ordinary course of the French law had been steadily observed ? The answer of these gentlemen (concurring in their knowledge of the law, but differing in their political opinions) was, that, in the proceedings towards Mr. Bowring, the usual practice of the French law had been scrupulously observed-that those proceedings were exactly the same as would have been adopted towards a French subject. It therefore appeared, that Mr. Bowring, being in the French territory, had nothing more to complain of, than any Frenchman who was detained without trial might complain of. That gentleman, undoubtedly, was detained. To that inconvenience the accusation necessarily subjected him. If the accusation were wanton and malicious, the course would be, to establish that fact by an individual proceeding; and in the progress of such proceeding (if the French law allowed it), Mr. Bowring was assured, that he should have the countenance and protection of the British government. If, however, the French law did not allow such a proceeding, Mr. Bowring could only regret that he had gone to a

country not se happy in its constitution, and not so just in its laws, as the state which he had left; and having subjected himself to the jurisprudence of that country, he must abide by the consequences.

Ac

On the 3rd of March, sir Gerard Noel presented a petition from Mrs. Olive Serres, asserting her claim of descent from the royal family ;* and on the 18th of June, he moved that the petition should be referred to a select committee. Mr. Peel, on this occasion, showed satisfactorily, that Mrs. Serres either was herself practising a most impudent imposture, or was the innocent dupe of others. cording to Mr. Peel's statement, there were formerly two brothers of the name of Wilmot; the one, Dr.Wilmot, the other a Mr. Robert Wilmot: and the person now claiming to be princess of Cumberland was the daughter of Robert Wilmot. Proof of her birth and baptism existed, and for a considerable time she had been contented with this humble origin. But in the year 1817, she discovered that she was the daughter not of Robert Wilmot, but of the late duke of Cumberland, brother to his late majesty. She did not then, indeed, pretend that she was the legitimate, but the illegitimate, daughter; and, in 1817, a petition, signed "Olive Serres," was presented to his majesty by a person on her behalf, which contained these words-" May it please your royal highness to attend to the attestations which prove this lady to be the daughter of the late duke of Cumberland, by a Mrs. Payne, the wife of a captain in the navy. Mrs. Payne was the sister to Dr. Wilmot, and this lady was born

* l'ide Vol. LXIV. pp. 11, 421.

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