HC Deb 10 April 1815 vol 30 cc0-467
Sir Samuel Romilly

said, that the Secretary of State having been so obliging as to inform him, that the case of Lathrop Murray, which he had some time ago brought before the House, was not such as to call for the mercy of the Crown, he felt it his duty to present the Petition of which he had spoken when he had first mentioned the business. He did not mean to blame the respectable Judge who had passed the sentence, nor did he mean to censure the Secretary of State. He would state the case from the report of the short-hand writers. Mr. Murray, who was an officer and had served in Spain, was married in 1797, in Londonderry in Ireland, to a lady of the name of Marshall. He was married by a Dissenting minister. Dr. Black, the clergyman who married him, had in his evidence said that he was younger than the lady, and that he had seen Mr. Murray but once at a dissenting congregation. Mr. Murray contracted a second marriage with a lady in London, in 1801, after he had been informed, as he said, by two civilians that the first marriage was not valid by law. There was no evidence that the second wife was not fully apprised of the first marriage, nor even was there sufficient proof that there was a second marriage. He mentioned the case only with a view to the apportionment of punishment. Mr. Murray was sentenced to seven years transportation. This was the severest punishment which could be inflicted under the most aggravated circumstances for the crime of bigamy. But even allowing the first marriage, and that there Was full proof of the second marriage, this was not a bigamy under those aggravated circumstances. There was an affidavit from the second wife, that she had been fully apprised of the first marriage; and surely there was a wide distinction to be made between a man marrying a second wife and previously informing her that he had been married before, and a man marrying a second wife and imposing himself on her as a single man. An hon. member had said that if Mr. Murray did not deserve his sentence for bigamy, he deserved it for swindling. But he (sir Samuel) could not believe that the Secretary of State would proceed on such a ground. It was against every principle of law, that a person should suffer the punishment for one crime which, he deserved for another. At any rate, there should be some inquiry, into the reality of the second crime, before the punishment was inflicted Mr. Murray was most anxious that there should be every inquiry made into the charge of swindling against him, in the full confidence that the charge would be found to be wrong. Sir Samuel said he did not mean to press the petition in any adverse sense; but he thought, that at any rate, the House should have the Recorder's report to the Secretary of State before them.

The Solicitor General

rose and said, that in his own opinion, and that of his learned friend the Attorney General, after having examined every act of parliament in Ireland respecting the validity of the marriage ceremony, the first marriage of the peti- tioner was a legal one. He could state also, that some years ago certain very eminent civilians in that country were consulted respecting that marriage, all of whom declared that it was a legal one, and that no Ecclesiastical Court in Ireland would venture to set it aside. The question which the learned Judge who tried the case, had promised to reserve for the opinion of the Judges, was, not as to the legality of the first marriage, but whether, under the act of parliament, a single witness who was present at a marriage, together with the registry of it, were sufficient to establish its having taken place. Upon that point, however, he had no doubt; and the hon. and learned member then referred to a case in which lord Mansfield had decided, in opposition, to sir William Blackstone, that the registry of a marriage alone was sufficient evidence, to prove the marriage. The Solicitor General said, he had no doubt upon his minds, therefore, to the legality of the conviction.

Sir S. Romilly

admitted that bigamy, was always a profanation of a sacred ceremony; but thought that the crime was much aggravated when it produced the misery and ruin of the second wife. If in a case that was not aggravated by this circumstance, the severest measure of punishment was inflicted, how would they deal with an aggravated case? In this instance, the petitioner, who was a gentleman by education and profession, was treated like a common felon, and had the severest punishment inflicted that it was possible to pronounce.

Mr. Addington

said, that the case had been most maturely and impartially considered by the noble Secretary of State. The law part of the case was submitted to the law officer, and the merits of the case referred to the respectable Judge who tried it.

The Petition of Robert William Feltham Lathrop Murray, late a captain in his Majesty's Royal Waggon Train, was then presented and read; stating, "That the petitioner has been prosecuted by a person named John Pickering for bigamy, for having, nearly twenty years ago, when only eighteen years of age, serving with his regiment in Ireland, been entrapped, into a marriage ceremony with Alicia Marshall, a woman nearly twice his age, which ceremony was performed by a person named Robert Black, declaring himself to be a Dissenting preacher, never having been in any way ordained; and the petitioner, being a Protestant of the Established Church, and being educated at Westminster School and the University of Cambridge, and the ceremony itself, such as it was, being performed without banns or licence in a private room of the woman's house, no person being present but her own family, and with the total omission of all those forms and ceremonies by which the marriage contract is supposed to be rendered binding, more especially as the petitioner, being a minor entitled to considerable landed property in Shropshire on coming of age, and being then under the controul of guardians, was incapable of legally entering into a marriage contract; and that there was no proof whatever of the second marriage with one Catherine Clarke but the oath of the said Robert Black, the Irish Dissenting preacher, and John Reeves, the police clerk at Union Hall, who swore that the petitioner admitted there that he had married her the said Catherine Clarke;—and also stating other particulars as set forth in his Petition, and complaining of the sentence passed upon him; and that the petitioner, having thus submitted his case to the House, which he is induced to do from the accumulated punishments he has already had inflicted on him, and from his apprehension of being transported with the commonest convicts to Botany Bay, a punishment worse to him than death itself, confidently relies on the justice of the House to afford him that relief which in its wisdom may appear meet."

Ordered to lie on the table.