libel, and for having suspended the plaintiff from his office as Surveyor-general of the crown lands in that province, without any sufficient ground, whereby he sustained considerable damage. Mr. Sergeant Best conducted the prosecution. He said there were three grounds of complaint upon the record; first, that the plaintiff, being Surveyor-general of the crown lands in the province of Upper Canada, had been suspended by the defendant, who was Governor-general of the same province, from his office, without any just cause or reason: secondly, that, after having so suspended the plaintiff, he wrote letters to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department containing such representations as prevented the plaintiff from being restored to his situation: and thirdly, that the defendant published against the plaintiff a most false, scandalous, and infamous libel. With regard to the second charge, he would candidly state that it must fail, as it was not in his power to support it by evidence. The let ters which the Governor-general wrote home to the Secretary of State had been applied for, but the government refused to grant the use of them. They could not therefore be produced. He should, therefore, confine himself to the first and third charges, both of which he had no doubt of being able to prove to the satisfaction of the Court and the jury. It appeared that the defendant suspended the plaintiff from his office, and of course deprived him of its emoluments, without any just cause or pretence. In the pamphlet (the publication of

which constituted the libel complained of in the last charge), he assigned his reasons for suspending the plaintiff'; and it would be proved, not only that all those reasons were false, but that Gen. Gore knew them to be so, at the time he assigned them. The learned Sergeant then read extracts from the pamphlet, which purported to be a letter from General Gore to Lord Castlereagh, complaining of the conduct of certain factious and turbulent in- : dividuals, whose intentions were to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the province. Among those individuals the plaintiff was included by name, together with Judge Thorpe, Mr. Wilcox, and others. In another part of the pamphlet it set forth, that the plaintiff turned out of his office an old man, who had been many years in the service, merely because he voted for the government (an allegation completely false, for the individual in question had solicited permission to retire); and it further affirmed, that the plaintiff, having obtained a grant of 1200 acres of land, fixed his eye upon 200 acres near Niagara, which had been cleared and cultivated by a man of the name of Young, a disbanded sergeant belonging to Butler's Rang

vestigation to take place, and was enabled to defeat the deep-laid scheme. Who," continued the Governor in his pamphlet, "after such acts, could question the justice and propriety of dismissing such a person from his office?" Now, not one word of the allegation about the lands at Niagara was known to General Gore at the time he suspended Mr. Wyatt. There was, indeed, some inquiry instituted afterwards, but that was when Mr. Wyatt had been suspended, had left the province, and was on his way to England. As to the charge against Mr. Wyatt, that he was a seditious and disaffected person, and employed in disturbing the public tranquillity, he would call persons of high rank, Mr. Thorpe, the judge of the province, and the attorneygeneral of the province, to prove that his conduct was most exemplary. It was insinuated, also, that the plaintiff had been intriguing with the Indians; but he should be able to call before the jury the chief of one of those tribes, a British subject, who would prove there was no good ground for that accusation.

Mr. William Frith was called. -He was attorney-general of the province of Upper Canada from the year 1807 to 1811. The plaintiff had left the province before he arrived there in 1807; the office of surveyor-general was one of great trust and confidence; its duties consisted in regulating the location of lands, surveying them, and passing grants through, the office; the fixed salary was 3001. a-year; the perquisites made it much more.

Dr. Thorpe was next examined. -He held the situation of judge

of the province of Upper Canada The plaintiff was there during some of the time that the witness was in Canada; he remembered, the time of his suspension, but did not remember any official inquiry taking place respecting the location of lands at Niagara. The Guardian newspaper was first published after Mr. Wyatt had left the province; there was no other press, before that paper was set up, except the government press

Mr. Sergeant Best was about to call Colonel Norton, the Indian chief, to prove that there existed no understanding between the Indian nations and the plaintiff; but Mr. Sergeant Lens objected to his evidence, in which objection Sir V. Gibbs concurred.

Here the case closed for the prosecution.

Mr. Sergeant Lens then, on behalf of the defendant, contended that no case had been made out which proved the malicious or unjust motives of General Gore, in suspending the plaintiff from his office; that it did not appear the libel had ever been shown to any human being except Mr. Frith; and he would put it therefore to the jury, whether that was a case which called upon them to give exemplary damages,

Sir V. Gibbs then charged the jury. It did not appear to him that the first charge had been proved, as there were no statements in the pamphlet which showed that what was there urg ed constituted the grounds on which Mr. Wyatt had been suspended. The pamphlet, in fact, appeared to be only an answer to something which had been pub lished by Judge Thorpe and others. As to the last charge,

C

that

that of libel, it had unquestionably been proved. The publication of the pamphlet was an offence against the laws which could not be defended; and so far the plaintiff would be entitled to a verdict. It would be for the jury to estimate what degree of damage the character of Mr. Wyatt was likely to sustain from the publication of that pamphlet, always bearing in mind the manner of its publication, and its very limited circulation.

The jury then retired for a short time, and gave a verdict of 3001. damages.

regain possession of the articles of jewellery, under the promise of returning them the following day, when he had given Mr. Carter reason to suppose he should bring with him the plate, which he had ordered to a considerable amount. Mr. T. returned to Gloucester with the intention of taking legal advice as to the most effectual manner of exposing the character of the plaintiff, who, Mr. Thomas ascertained, had but two months prior to his taking up his residence at Matson, in a ready-furnished house belonging to Lord Sidney, been discharged from the King's Bench prison,

The defendant was Mr. Thomas, jun. son of a silversmith in the Strand. The action was for a malicious prosecution from a warrant issued from Bow-streetoffice, and for verbal defamation. The damages were laid at 50001.

It appeared by the evidence and cross examination of the witnesses produced for the plaintiff, that Mr. Thomas, jun. in consequence of Mr. Carter's having obtained goods from his father's shop in October last, obtained a warrant from Bow-street for his apprehension, on a charge of obtaining goods under false pretences, followed the plaintiff to Matson-house, his residence, in the vicinity of Gloucester, and by means of stratagem, contrived to

Mr.

his debts, according to his schedule, amounting to 12,000l. and the assets to liquidate those debts being only 191. 6s. 6d. Thomas was passed by a gentleman in a tilbury, who the sheriff's officer who accompanied him informed him was Mr. Stephens, a magistrate and banker in Glou cester, (a material sufferer by Carter,) and that most probably he was going to dine with Mr. Carter: this immediately deter mined Mr. Thomas to return to the house and expose Mr. C's true character before Mr. Stephens, as a magistrate and a person who had, together with many others of the greatest respectability, become dupes to the specious and plausible manners of the plaintiff: he accordingly did so, and entered a drawing-room in Mr. C's house, where the party were assembled, and told them that Mr. Carter was a notorious swindler. Much altercation then took place, during which Mr. Carter struck the defendant, who,

after

after having convinced Mr. Stephens and others of the accuracy of his statements, left the house, assuring them that he should go to every respectable shop in Gloucester and make known Mr. Carter's character; observing, that although he had outwitted him in recovering his jewellery, yet he considered he had an important relative duty to perform to society at large. Mr. Thomas, as appeared by the evidence of many witnesses, did go round to the tradesmen of Gloucester, and in the most undisguised manner, with honest indignation made known to them the real history of Mr. Carter, who, at that time, was considered a man of immense property, and had incurred debts with various tradespeople to a very considerable amount; in fact, such was the high opinion entertained of him, that the freedom of the city of Gloucester had been presented to him. Carter left the neighbourhood the following morning, and had since been living at 57, Nelson-square, Blackfriars-road; and, from the cross-examination of his witnesses, it appeared, that none of his numerous creditors had been paid, except one person, who was paid a small sum, in order, as Mr. Dauncey, the counsel for the defendant, observed, that a larger might be contracted. Such were the grounds on which the action originated; and although the declaration contained 13 counts, only one could be proved, which charged Mr. Thomas with having spoken the word "swindler," which was admitted not to be actionable, unless special damage could be proved, in which

the plaintiff's counsel failed, and those counts relative to the malicious prosecution were set aside, as no evidence was adduced to disprove the accuracy of the information on which the warrant was granted.

Mr. Thomas had no occasion to call any witnesses; and after Mr. Baron Richards had summed up, the jury immediately returned a verdict for the defendant.

MISCELLANEOUS.

PROPERTY.

Chelmsford, Friday, March 15. (Special Juries.)-Sutton Barksworth and another. This was an action of a novel sort. It. was brought against the defendants, as owners of a vessel called the Gunson, for salvage of the lives of five seamen, and also a very small part of the vessel. The defendants had paid 501. into court. The plaintiff, Sutton, is resident at Colchester, in this county, and is owner of a small vessel called the Success. The master of the vessel gave the following account of the transaction

That on the 6th of December last it was blowing a very heavy gale of wind, with a rolling sea, and there were several ships in the offing making signals of distress. He went out with the intention of assisting a large Russian vessel on the sands, when he perceived the Gunson lying on her beam-ends, and some men sticking to the wreck. He immediately turned his attention towards them, and with great danger and difficulty saved the mate and four men from inevit

able death-they also picked up a yard, a boom, and some other

pieces of the vessel, of no great value, not in the whole amounting to 501.

This case being proved, Mr. Marryatt, for the defendants, said they were not at all liable in this action; for with respect to those parts of the vessel for which salvage was due, the defendants had given notice to the plaintiffs that they had abandoned them to the underwriters, and therefore whatever was due on that head was due from the underwriters, and not from the defendants. With respect to the other head of claim, namely, salvage for the lives of the men, no such claim existed in our law. It was a duty of humanity which the plaintiffs were morally bound to perform; at most it could only be considered as work and labour done for the defendant's servants. And it had been ruled, that where a servant had broke his leg in his master's employ, the master was not bound to pay the doctor. The defendants, however, though they were not liable for any thing, had nevertheless paid 501. into court, which was abundant compensation for the use of the plaintiff's vessel for the day which it was occupied.

Mr. Justice Abbott said, that this action was the first instance he had ever recollected of a claim being made for saving the life of a man. There could not be any salvage for the life of man, for salvage was a reward proportioned to the value of the thing saved; but the law contemplated the life of man as above all measure of value. It was considered in law as inestimable, and although no recompence could in this case be

legally demanded on that ground, he was sure that the humanity of British seamen would always be equally exerted on behalf of their fellow-creatures in distress. With respect to the articles of the vessel which were saved, and for which a salvage would be due, the defendant had disclaimed all title to them, and therefore they were not chargeable on that head. The only way in which the defendants might be at all chargeable in this action might be for work and labour, and saving the servants of the defendants for the plaintiff's benefit. The measure of this sort of benefit saved to the defendants, would be the value of the services so saved. The jury would on this head consider whether the 501. paid into court would satisfy this part of the case.-Verdict for the defendants.

John Bennet, Esq. and others, v. The Rev. Thomas Prevost.-The plaintiffs in this cause are owners and occupiers of lands in the parish of Tisbury, in Wiltshire ; the defendant is vicar of the same parish.

It appeared, that in the year 1801, a bill was filed by the vicar in the Court of Exchequer, calling on the plaintiffs to account to him for the tithes in kind of the following articles :-cows, calves, heifers, eggs, poultry, and gardens. The plaintiffs in their answer insisted, that there were in existence, in and throughout the parish, the following moduses, viz. three-pence for a cow, sixpence for a calf, three halfpence for a heifer, one penny for eggs and poultry, and one penny for gardens. On the hearing in

the