PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TYTC.O.
885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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afford ready facilities for communication between the prisoners confined and those without its walls, the turnkeys being also convicts. The barracks of the prisoners by day are in keeping with the hospital and gaol, and so constructed as to afford the fullest facilities for the ruf- fianism, gambling, and villany, of which they are the chosen scene,
Still the greatest of these evils, my Lord, arises from the mode in which prisoners are herded together at night. They are then locked up in the dark, in sleeping wards holding from 40 to 100 men. As long as live I shall never lose the impression made upon me by the horror I have seen expressed in the countenances of English prisoners when they have been let out of these
High capitals
Of Satan and his peers."
the morning after their landing, nor shall I ever forget the agony of mind endured by
and
when forced into their dens. I would not intrude even the thought of these things upon your Lordship's mind, were it not that I may by it awaken public inquiry, and hasten a remedy.
7. And yet the expense of the Establishment is enormous. Ships are constantly required for the transport of men to and from the island, as well as for the conveyance of supplies. Freight, in consequence of the inconvenience, danger, and detention attendant upon the voyage, is very high. I have known vessels lying off and on for weeks, unable to dis- charge their cargoes. The establishment, both civil and military, is unusually large; and although the pay and allowances of officers are very inadequate to the discomforts and privations of such a post, the amount is still enormous compared with the number of prisoners in charge. Examine, my Lord, the total expense incurred-I mean both on the island and the incidental expenditure-and you will find the account a startling
one.
I find, my Lord, that in this brief enumeration of defects peculiar to Norfolk Island, I have exceeded the short limits within which I would willingly have confined myself; and yet, at the risk of being thought tire- some, I will refer to one subject more; I cannot well over-rate its import- ance. I mean
8. The urgent necessity which exists for the establishment in England of a Court of Appeal in Criminal Cuses." In matters affecting property, however small its amount, many courses are open, by any one of which the real or supposed wrong done to an individual, may be remedied. New trials are granted; suspected evidence is șifted; additional links are sup- plied; appeal after appeal may be made, until the foot of the Throne is reached. Such care is taken that perjury or wrong may be detected, and justice be maintained. But these rights of the subject do not extend to criminal cases; and yet it must be confessed that an infinitely greater evil may be done to a man's fame-his liberty-nay, his life, against which there is no remedy, and from a dictum once pronounced, absolutely no appeal. I need not suppose a case, in which an innocent man may be reasonably suspected, apprehended, overpowered by apparently irresistible evidence, condemned, and consigned, after much previous suffering, to the horrors of Norfolk Island. Stunned by such a misfortune, the unhappy being may, for a time, lie prostrated by the blow. No copy of the indict- ment is allowed; no traverse is permitted in felonies, although, strangely enough, in misdemeanours. The accused may not have known what wit- nesses were to be brought against him until they appeared in the box. It is too late then to instruct counsel, to show that they are not to be believed. He may suddenly be called upon to plead to a perfectly new charge, wholly differing from the one on which he was committed. These are fearful odds against innocence itself, and if convicted, as in such a case the pro- bability is that a man would be, there is no appeal. Friends may petition and judges may recommend: some commutation of the sentence may per- chance be the reward of persevering assiduity; but the injured man has no remedy for the wrong he suffers, whatever evidence may afterwards be
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found to prove his integrity. If such a man had been tried in Scotland a list of all the witnesses against him, with their addresses and occupa- tions, would, in good time, have been furnished him as a right. He would have been entitled to receive a copy of the indictment three weeks before the trial. If he had been tried and convicted in Germany, and had dis- puted the justice of the verdict, the execution of the sentence would have been suspended, until every means he could have suggested for his vindi- cation had been exhausted. In Scotland there is in every case a known public prosecutor, while, in England, when the Crown prosecutes nominally, the jury are ignorant of the real prosecutor, who may secretly be at work acting from the most nefarious motives. Such things do occur, my Lord, and fear more frequently than they once did. A man, Mason, tried, whose honest front always convinced me that his fervent assertions of innocence were true, is just leaving the island, under an authority from the Home Government for his immediate liberation. His innocence has been accidentally discovered. What can compensate this man for his fears of degradation and insult? Ilis friends had tried every effort within their humble power for him; they knew he was innocent, but there was no appeal. This is no solitary case. I know others as painful. From among them I select this one, because the particulars of it must still be fresh in the minds of the public.
He
A deeply laid conspiracy was formed in London, by which the Bank of England was defrauded to a large amount. It was conceived and carried out by an ingenious scoundrel who was once a surgeon in the Borough, but who had been enabled to retire upon a considerable pro- perty. This man, Fletcher, became connected with a clerk in the bank, from whom he obtained information about the unclaimed dividends. After much trouble he succeeded in seven cases, in tracing out the real heirs, and obtained for them property, of their title to which they had been previously ignorant. But, not satisfied with the profits he thus derived, he was tempted to take a higher fight. He instructed the respectable solicitors Barber and Bircham, whom he had employed in legitimate cases, to make cautious inquiries about the claims of other individuals he pretended to suspect were heirs to other transferred dividends. These were, however, fictitious persons put forward by him- self-they were to share his profits and were in fact his tools. succeeded in deceiving his solicitors, the people at Doctors' Commons, and at the Bank of England, and the money was paid. It is unnecessary for me to enter into the details of this curious and nefarious fraud. They are minutely set forth in a memorial explanatory of the whole transaction recently forwarded to Sir James Graliam; and which will be found fully to exculpate Barber, who has, I solemnly believe, been most unjustly suspected, and condemned to a series of tortures which have well nigh broken his heart. I have long been accustomed to the tales and subterfuges of prisoners, when endeavouring to exculpate themselves, they almost invariably prove their own guilt. Tavow my firm conviction that in this case there is not a feature in common with them. I have again and again examined the principal perpetrator of the fraud, Fletcher-both privately and in company with legal friends on whose acumen I could rely. Every fact reluctantly admitted by him, has tended to corroborate his acknowledgment, that Barber was unconscious of the fraud; that he was a perfect stranger to all the other agents; that he received no share of the plunder except his professional charges, and in one instance a balance of a few pounds (certainly less than five), presented to him by one of the pretended heirs, in well-feigned gratitude for his exertions and Each of the accomplices has made a confession to the same I must add, that I have spared no pains to detect any intimacy or collusion between the partics. I am certain that, on the contrary, the worst possible feeling exists between them; on the one hand, the indigna- tion of the betrayed, the malignity of a defeated fiend on the other. host of facts has. Since the trial, come to light, all tending to clear up the suspicious cloud which obscured the integrity of an innocent man. certain that if there were any mode of appeal, 1 could triumphantly establish these facts; and so painfully do I feel the misery of such a
success. effect.
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