66 shot through the lungs. They were conveyed to the rear, while the command devolved upon General (afterwards Marquis) Townshend. While supported in the arms of his people, Wolfe strove in vain to follow the battle with his eye, for, as the stream of life ebbed away, his sight became dim. An officer exclaimed, They run! they run ! "Who run?" said the dying hero, as he raised his head for the last time. "The French," replied the aid-du-camp. "Then God be thanked!" cried Wolfe," I die contented," and immediately expired. The victory was now complete, but it cost many valuable lives on both sides. Five hundred of Wolfe's brave comrades lay with him dead upon the field, while upwards of 1500 of their opponents were stretched beside them, among whom was the gallant Marquis de Montcalm, and the three French Generals next in command. The citadel of Quebec capitulated upon honourable terms the following day; and, by this conquest, the whole of the French settlements in Canada fell into the possession of the British, and were secured to the Crown of England by the succeeding peace of 1763. The remains of the lamented Wolfe, being brought to England, were deposited beneath the parish church of Greenwich, where his family had resided for some years previously; although he was born at Westerham, whither his mother appears to have returned after the death of her husband, Lieutenant-General Edward Wolfe, whose death preceded that of his son only a few months. It is recorded, that when the whole nation was engaged in celebrating the triumph of Quebec, the inhabitants of his native village forbore from all public rejoicings, in tenderness to a mother's feelings. This lady, at her death, in 1765, bequeathed 500l. to the Widows' College at Bromley. No monument has been erected over the remains of General Wolfe at Greenwich: but a handsome cenotaph was raised to his memory in Westminster Abbey; and a tablet may be seen in the church of Westerham, which bears the following inscription : "JAMES, Son of Colonel EDWARD WOLFE, and HENRIETTA, his Wife, was born in this parish, 2d January, 1727, and died in America, 13th September, 1759, Conqueror of Quebec. "While George in sorrow bows his laurell'd head, EDITOR-L. 1 POPULAR LAW. No. VI. In our last we defined the crime of High Treason; we shall now proceed to state the punishment which is annexed to it, and the peculiarities which mark the proceedings, whenever a culprit is brought to trial for this offence. As it is impossible for any man, or set of men, to do more injury to the State than by the perpetration of this crime, so does the law attempt to prevent it by the most terrible inflictions; and, as it is possible for a man to be placed in circumstances of the strongest suspicion, and yet be innocent, so has the law provided the most ample protection to those who are free from guilt. The punishment of High Treason is rendered very solemn and appalling by the mode in which the unhappy delinquent is put to death. By the ancient law, he was to be dragged on the ground from the prison to the place of execution, which was generally some distance, and not allowed to walk or to be carried; the practice is now, however, to draw him on a sledge, or hurdle. When arrived at the fatal spot, he was to be hung by the neck for a time, and then cut down alive; his entrails taken out and burnt before his face. The next process was to take off his head, and divide the body into four parts; which were disposed of according to the directions of the King. As civilization increased, and the commission of this offence became less frequent, the horrors of its punishment were diminished; and now the Sovereign may, and generally does discharge all the penalties, except first hanging till the culprit is dead, and then taking off the head, to be shown to the spectators, as an example of the dreadful fate which awaits the traitor; and where any of noble blood are convicted of this crime, the sentence is commuted to decapitation alone. In all cases, save coining, attainder follows; that is, the criminal forfeits all his estates, his goods, and chattels, to the King. Another consequence is, corruption of blood; by which he is disqualified from transmitting lands or property by descent to any heir. He also obstructs all descents to his posterity, wherever they are obliged to derive a title through him to a remoter ancestor. So that this dreadful offence brings death, in its most horrid form, to the individual; infamy to his memory; and disgrace, with loss of property, to his children and relatives. In the case of coining, the sentence is somewhat milder. The criminal is drawn to the place of execution on a sledge, and his death, by hanging, satisfies the demand of justice and the law. It is evident that an offence, so dreadful in its consequences, should be fully and clearly made out before the accused is given up to condemnation. The policy of British jurisprudence accords especially in this instance with the feelings of humanity. Facilities are granted to persons charged with the heaviest species of High Treason, for making their defence, which are not granted to lighter crimes. The jury must all be freeholders. A copy of the indictment, and a list of all the witnesses to be produced against the prisoner, must be delivered to him at least ten days before trial. Two Counsel, of his own choice, are assigned by the Court to assist him, and manage his whole defence, though in common felonies none are permitted to address the Court in behalf of the accused, except it be to argue any point of law which may arise, and examine witnesses. In the next place, two credible witnesses must be produced to prove some one overt act of treason, specially charged in the indictment, or conviction cannot follow, unless the prisoner make a voluntary confession in open court. The prosecution must also commence within three years after the commission of the offence, except the party be charged with an attempt to assassinate the King. The same compulsive process to bring in witnesses for the prisoner, as was formerly used to compel the attendance of those against him only, is allowed. Another security against an unjust verdict is the right of peremptory challenge; by which the prisoner objects to as many juryinen as he pleases, to the amount of thirty-five, without being obliged to give any reason why he refuses to be tried by them. Besides this, he has the right of challenge for cause; wherein the objections are stated before two indifferent persons appointed by the Court at the time, who determine whether they are of sufficient weight or not to require the rejection of the juryman. In this last species of challenge alone the prosecution participates; and if, upon the examination, it should appear that the juryman is nearly related to the accused, or bound by the ties of interest to assist the prosecution, has expressed any feelings hostile to either party, or is likely to be influenced by prejudice in his decision, and not by a fair consideration of the evidence, he is held to be incompetent, and discharged from the jury-box. Thus carefully is the life of the subject guarded; and though it may happen that a trial upon the charge of High Treason may end more fortunately for the accused than his crimes entitle him to expect, it is hardly possible that he should have to complain of its injustice, in suffering the law's severest penalties. The offence held to be next in enormity is called Petit Treason, which, according to the Statute, 25th Edward II. may happen three ways, by a servant killing his master, a wife her husband, or an ecclesiastical person his superior, to whom he owes faith and obedience. The policy of the English law considers that these several relations are bound by a species of allegiance similar to that which the subject owes to the sovereign; and therefore murder, in any of these instances, is held to be aggravated by the violation of that affectionate duty which is pledged when the parties enter into the compact. Formerly, counterfeiting foreign coin, and reducing our own, came under this denomination of crime; and, though it is now called High Treason, the punishment is the same as in the Petit Treasons above recited, namely, to be drawn and hanged, and afterwards the body to be given to the surgeons for dissection, or to be hung in chains, whichever the Judge may direct. Next in degree of enormity comes the crime of wilful and deliberate Murder of a fellow-creature; an offence so repugnant to human nature, that it is punished with death in almost every State of the known world. Murder is described by Sir Edward Coke, a great law authority in this country, to be, when a person of sound memory and discretion, unlawfully killeth any reasonable creature in being, and under the King's peace, with malice aforethought, either express or implied. Thus lunatics or infants are incapable of committing this, or any crime, unless in such cases where they show a consciousness of doing wrong, and, of course, the power of judging between good and evil. But wherever a person is acquitted of Murder on the ground of insanity, he is deemed too dangerous to go at large, and he is ordered to be placed in some receptacle for persons in his unhappy state of intellect, to prevent him doing further mischief. Even if an individual of confirmed insanity should have a sufficient return of his understanding to know, at the time he commits a Murder, that it is wrong, he is answerable to the laws for his act. Lawfully killing can only be in those cases where there is warrant or excuse; as in the execution of criminals, in self-defence when violently attacked, or in the attempt to apprehend desperate culprits, when no other means are left of preventing their escape. But violence is not essential to the crime of Murder; nor, ac cording to a recent Statute, called "Lord Ellenborough's Act," is it necessary that death should ensue; it is sufficient that to kill is designed, and means taken to accomplish that end; and then, whether the intended victim escape or not, the crime is completed, The attempt may be by poisoning, drowning, striking, starving, and a thousand other modes by which life may be extinguished; but if a person be indicted for one species of killing, as by poisoning, he cannot be convicted by evidence of a totally different species of death, as by shooting with a pistol, or starving. There was also, by the ancient common law, one species of killing held to be Murder, which may be dubious now, as no instance in which it has been so considered has occurred for ages past, that of bearing false witness against another, with the express design to take away his life, so as the innocent person be condemned and executed. This is manifestly a crime of the very worst description; for he who destroys by perjury adds to the privation of life public ignominy, and reduces an innocent family to ruin and disgrace; yet there is no modern authority to set it down as Murder by the law of England. It is punishable, as perjury, with great severity; but to visit it with still further vengeance might deter honest witnesses from giving evidence in cases of life and death, lest they should become liable to prosecution as murderers. If a master refuses his apprentice necessary food or sustenance, or treats him with such continued harshness as his death is occasioned thereby, the law will imply malice, which, being clearly proved, the offence will be Murder. A very general error exists among the lower orders, that to kill an outlaw is not a capital offence; but outlaws, Jews, and aliens," are all under the King's protection; and therefore to kill any one of them is as much murder as to kill the most regular-born Englishman, except he be an alien enemy in time of war. To kill a child, or attempt to destroy it in the mother's womb by administering noxious drugs, is Murder, and punishable with death, though the child may not be injured. And in those cases where the mother conceals the birth of her illegitimate child, and is acquitted upon a charge of the murder, the Court may order her to be imprisoned for any time not exceeding two years, for such concealment. It will not be necessary to occupy much space in explaining what the law considers to be malice aforethought, in the perpetration of this crime. Lying in wait, menaces, former grudges, concerted schemes to do some bodily harm, are all considered proofs of this malice, which distinguishes murder from all other killing. Of course deliberately duelling, where both parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder, comes within the rule; the seconds likewise incur the same dreadful responsibility; though, from a sense of honour, the friends of the deceased generally refrain from prosecuting, and murders of this description therefore seldom come before the Courts. It were endless to go through all the cases of homicide, which have been adjudged, either expressly or implicitly, malicious; we may take it for a general rule that all homicide is malicious, and of course amounts to murder, unless where justified by the command or permission of the law, excused on account of accident or self-preservation; or softened into manslaughter, by being either the involuntary consequence of some act, not strictly lawful, or (if voluntary) occasioned by some sudden and sufficiently violent provocation. And all the mitigatory circumstances it is incumbent upon the prisoner to make out to the satisfaction of the Court and Jury. |