HC Deb 02 June 1840 vol 54 cc895-908
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd

presented a petition from Birmingham, praying that Henry Vincent, now confined in the Penitentiary at Milbank, should either be sent back to the gaol at Monmouth, or that her Majesty would be pleased to abridge his punishment. The hon. and learned Gentleman also presented a petition, signed by 14,000 persons, inhabitants of Birmingham, in favour of Mr. Feargus O'Connor, and then said that both the motions, of which he had given notice, involved the same principle, although the details of each of them were essentially different. Before he addressed himself to that principle, it would be right to state the circumstances of the case of Henry Vincent, on whose behalf he appeared upon a petition of many most respectable persons, including his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) and the hon. and learned Member for Dublin, and other persons of great respectability. It had fallen to his lot to know something personally of the case of Henry Vincent, that knowledge having been acquired from his having had the duty cast upon him of conducting two prosecutions against him. The first prosecution took place at the last summer assizes for the county of Monmouth. It included the charge against Vincent having attended seditious meetings in that county, at which language of an extremely dangerous and improper character was used, and such as it would ill become him to justify or palliate; and it included that anomalous crime which he could not help thinking was a disgrace to the English law—he meant the crime of conspiracy, which might mean almost the highest offence that could be committed, or the lowest and most venial. The jury acquitted Vincent of conspiracy, but found him guilty of having attended seditious meetings, and he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Monmouth gaol. At that time some question was raised with respect to the treatment of this young person, whose decent manner and demeanour, and he believed unspotted cha- racter, except as to his being connected with these meetings, excited a considerable feeling in his favour. Some discussion took place between the judge and the magistrates of the county as to his being subjected to the rules and discipline of the prison. In the end he was exempted from the more penal regulations to which the prisoners committed to that prison for ordinary misdemeanors were subjected. He was not subjected to the degradation of wearing the prison dress, or having his hair cut; in fact he was subjected to as little painful treatment as possible consistently with the restriction and safe custody of his person. Some question was afterwards raised with respect to the books he was to be allowed to read; and certainly he had heard with some surprise that Henry Vincent was to be restricted to books merely of a religious character—he heard it with surprise, because he felt that such a restraint was not good for the mind of a young man active and inquiring. He himself made application to the noble Lord who was at that period at the head of the Home Department (Lord John Russell) upon the subject, and he received from that noble Lord an assurance that Mr. Vincent would only be restricted from reading improper books, but not from reading books of a miscellaneous character. At the last assizes Vincent was tried upon another indictment, for an offence of a nature similar to that for which he had been previously convicted—namely, for attending other meetings of the same character, in the same county, and about the same time; in fact, for part and parcel, not identically, of the same offence, but of the same transaction. On that occasion Vincent conducted his own defence, and he must own that the manner in which that defence was conducted—the temperance, the forbearance, the talent, and even a certain degree of grace which that young man displayed—interested every one in his favour, and induced them to hope that he would not be subjected to any indignity that might prevent him from retrieving that character which no doubt had been deeply injured, but that he might at the termination of his imprisonment be suffered to become a useful and valuable member of society. The jury found him guilty, but recommended him to mercy, which was a circumstance that spoke favourably for the young man. For, considering the events that had then recently taken place in the county of Monmouth, he thought it was a circumstance that might be referred to, as showing that in the opinion even of a jury of persons living in that county, the young man had not been guilty of a very serious offence, and that there were materials about him that rendered him a person particularly fit to be recommended to mercy. Vincent was sentenced to a further period of imprisonment. He remained in the gaol for the county of Mon-mouth for some time, and until it pleased her Majesty's Government to remove him. He thought it was a wise and judicious step for her Majesty's Government to take—that of removing the young man from the scene where, unhappily, he had been one of those connected—if not with open outrages against the laws, still with meetings of a dangerous tendency and character. But, on Mr. Vincent's removal, he became subjected to a kind of punishment which he was quite sure was as little contemplated by the judge when passing sentence as it was disproportioned to the nature of the offence committed. In that prison he was attired in the prison dress, fed on the prison diet, restricted from the use of books, pens, ink, and paper, and was permitted to communicate with his friends only once in four months, and then only by means of a letter. And here he would observe that the reason assigned for this latter regulation in the prison rules afforded a striking proof of the un-fitness of such discipline for such an offence—it was said "that the restriction of communication was intended in order to enable the prisoners to keep up connection with the respectable portion of their friends, to whom it was hoped they might be again united, and not to enable them to hear the common news of the day, with which they (the prisoners) could have no concern." Such discipline as this was clearly utterly inappropriate to the cases of persons committed for political offences, and it afforded a striking contrast to the kind of punishment formerly awarded to persons found guilty of political libels. Instances innumerable had, in former discussions on this subject, been referred to where persons had been imprisoned for political offences, but where there existed no traces of the indignity to which Mr. Vincent had been subjected. If political writers, they had been allowed to continue their political writings, they were allowed the use of books, and free communication with their friends—in short, the punishment which they received was confined solely to restriction on their personal liberty. There was the case of Sir Charles Wolseley, tried and convicted of conspiring to be elected the legislatorial attorney of Birmingham, who was confined in Abingdon gaol, but was allowed in his (Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's) memory to come into court, and listen to the trials. There was also the case of Mr. Lovett, proprietor of the Statesman, sentenced to be imprisoned in Newgate, as the very harshest sentence which the judge could inflict, yet he was allowed to have a large room of his own—to have his proof sheets sent to him—to communicate with his friends—and to enjoy all the conveniences of life consistent with his deprivation of personal liberty. Now he could not think it right, that a change should be made in the condition and treatment of prisoners, silently, and without the intervention of the Legislature, and, moreover, at a time when there were so many more incitements to political discussion than existed at the period to which he referred. The discipline, too, to which Mr. Vincent was subjected might be applied in cases of ordinary libel, even where there was no ill-feeling—where the party convicted was merely the publisher of a newspaper—as for instance, Mr. Lawson of the Times, who had recently been convicted—and utterly unable to read all the various paragraphs which appeared in the paper for which he was responsible. This was a state of things which could not last. The advanced state of the human mind required that punishment should be apportioned to the nature as well as to the degree of the offence—that the individual convicted of an offence which arose from an aberration of the mind, should be treated while in confinement in a manner totally different from the individual who was convicted of felony. The punishments of public whipping for high treason, and of the pillory for other offences, had already been abolished in deference to this state of public feeling on the subject. But when these facts were brought forward and a change applied for they were told that no one was responsible. The judges said they never intended to inflict anything like such punishment. The Home Department referred them to the visiting magistrates as having framed the prison regulations, and the visiting magistrates in their turn declared that when they framed the regulations they never contemplated any such consequences, but that having been framed they must be abided by. Still, injustice had been committed—punishment had been inflicted that had never been contemplated. Then let the precise punishment in future be known, and let it be apportioned to the offence. For one month such punishment as Mr. O'Connor endured in York Castle was equal to years of punishment under the old system. Every Member of that House was to a certain degree responsible in this matter. He did not desire to make any harsh observations as to the past—as regarded the future there was no excuse. They were all guilty. Government, if they allowed these regulations to continue, would be to blame. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, with the right feeling upon such subjects as these, wholly free, as he believed them to be, from all party considerations, would be to blame if they permitted them; and those who supported a Liberal Government, who were accustomed to look back with regret to those times when former sentences for political offences were passed much more severe in appearance than that of Mr. Vincent—they would, if they allowed such oppression to continue, bear a share in the guilt. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that, Considering the privations that had already been endured by Mr. Vincent, an humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying that she will be graciously pleased to order his removal from the Penitentiary to some other prison, where he would not be subjected to the same system of privation and suffering, or that her Majesty, in consideration of that privation and suffering, would be graciously pleased to abridge the remainder of the term of his imprisonment.

Mr. Williams (Monmouth)

said that, as one of the magistrates for the county of Monmouth, and for the districts which bad been disturbed, he felt called upon to state that he looked upon Mr. Vincent as the chief cause of all those disastrous events which had occurred since his imprisonment. That individual originally by his great talent in addressing large bodies of people, and subsequently by the ability with which he had conducted the paper called the Western Vindicator during more than twelve months, had aroused the people of the districts in question from a state of peace and contentment to that state of mind in which they were prepared to follow John Frost, and ultimately to rise in insurrection. While he felt bound to make these observations, he begged to be understood as not wishing to throw any obstacles in the way of the learned Sergeant. He, for one, would be a most warm advocate for the separation of felons from political offenders in prisons.

Mr. Fox Maule

said, his hon. and learned Friend had not previously informed him of the nature of the motion with which he intended to conclude; but he was prepared to say, without, he hoped, exposing himself to any charge of inhumanity, that he could not meet his motion with any assent. When he looked at the conduct of Mr. Vincent and the grounds on which sentence had been passed upon him, he must say, that he thought there was some risk in arousing at the present moment the popular sympathy for one who had done so much to disturb the public peace. He was quite ready to admit that whatever was the sentence passed on Vincent, there was no right inherent in any party to make that sentence stronger. The facts were these:—Vincent, when sentence was first passed upon him, was confined in Monmouth gaol, where, as the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted, indulgences were afforded him that were not generally afforded to persons so confined. One of those indulgencies was, that he was allowed the use of writing materials in the prison, but the use which he made of them was to continue to conduct the Western Vindicator, a paper which contained matter of such a kind that Mr. Marryatt, the visiting justice, felt it necessary to put a stop to some paragraphs. In the end the visiting justices came to the conclusion that the imprisonment of Vincent and the others so near the scene of their offences, and in the midst of a population partially, if not entirely excited by their own proceedings, was not desirable; and they therefore, recommend, for the preservation of tranquillity in that part of the country, that they should be removed to another prison, and as the Penitentiary at Millbank was the only place to which they could be sent at the expense of the State, they were removed thither. Of course, when they entered that prison, they became subject to its discipline—a disci- pline which certainly was established for the reformation of felons, and not for the punishment of persons convicted of political offences. The system, however, did not seem to have affected Vincent at first, for in the first letter which he wrote to his mother from the prison, he stated, that solitude had great charms for him, and he signed himself "Your happy son." He, however, admitted that the punishment inflicted on Vincent in the Penitentiary was much more severe than had been originally intended. But the fact was, that there had been only a choice between two evils—between submitting him to the full discipline of Monmouth gaol or to the discipline at the Penitentiary, which could not be relaxed without infringing an Act of Parliament. He could, however, state to his hon. and learned Friend and the House, that in order to adapt the discipline of the Penitentiary to cases where it might be desirable, it was intended to propose an alteration in the existing law, by which the Secretary of State and the governors of the prison would be empowered to deviate from the rules, in order to accommodate such cases as the present. But he would not consent to agree to an address to her Majesty to remove Vincent to another gaol. The only gaol to which he could be removed would be the gaol at Monmouth, which did not appear to him more fitted now for the purpose than it was at the time when the prisoners were removed from it for the reasons which he had stated. To remove them to any other gaol would be unjustly to cast a burthen upon another part of her Majesty's subjects. He, therefore, considered it would be better for him and his companions to remain at the Penitentiary, receiving every indulgence that was possible, and put upon such a footing as would leave no just ground of complaint. With regard to the latter part of the learned Sergeant's motion, he must say, that he did not think the time was arrived to advise her Majesty to abridge any portion of the sentence of Vincent. They should remember that a storm, the full extent of which they could not calculate, had only now blown over; that they knew not whether the embers of a conflagration did not still exist, and might be fanned into a flame; and that it would be very imprudent to remit, at the present time, the remainder of the punishment of those who had been the cause of the disturbances. He was far from wishing, as were the Government, for any undue severity towards persons convicted of offences—indeed, he thought that he might claim for the Government the credit of dealing temperately, calmly, and fairly, with the whole of the persons engaged in the disturbances of last year.

Mr. Hume

said, that they were not to consider the nature of the offence, but how far the sentence of the court had been carried out or exceeded. The treatment of Mr. Vincent had been aggravated beyond all precedent in such cases, and was infinitely more calculated than any other course could have been, to create sympathy for him in the public mind. It had been said, that Mr. Vincent made a bad exorcise of the privilege allowed him in Monmouth gaol, of the use of writing materials, by composing objectionable articles for the Western Vindicator, but he (Mr. Hume) had a petition from Mr. Francis Hill, the other editor of that paper, in which he stated that from the time of Mr. Vincent's being imprisoned in August last up to May, that gentleman had only furnished three articles to the paper. As to other communications having been intercepted, if such was the case, then no harm had been done.

Mr. Hawes

said, that by the Gaol Act, 3rd and 4th Geo. 4th, the visiting justices were empowered to alter and modify the rules and regulations of prisons in special cases; and, therefore, if there was blame to be attached to any party in this case, it was attached to the visiting justices of Monmouth in the first instance, who should have inquired whether there were special circumstances in the case, and if so should have acted accordingly. The Secretary of State had no discretion in the matter.

Lord G. Somerset

said, that it had been his misfortune to read several of the articles in the Western Vindicator, since the imprisonment of Mr. Vincent as well as before, and he had some reason to believe that these articles were contributed by Mr. Vincent for several months after his imprisonment. When the superior acquirements and respectable condition of persons situated as Mr. Vincent was, were urged in mitigation of their punishment, it should also be taken into consideration that those precise circumstances ought to have had an "influence in keeping them out of such a situation."

Mr. T. Duncombe

said, that the complaint in this case was, that the law had not been fairly administered. The hon. Gentleman, the Under Secretary of State, admitted that no party had a right to make the sentence of a judge severer than the judge intended it to be; this was precisely the point. It was contended, that Government had made the sentence of the judge more severe than the law or the judge intended. The hon. Member for Lambeth said, that the Secretary of State had no discretion in such cases; he (Mr. Duncombe) should like to know, then, by what authority Government had removed Mr. Vincent from Monmouth gaol to the Penitentiary, where Mr. Vincent found himself so much worse treated than at Monmouth? Mr. Vincent's counsel, Mr. Roebuck, had applied to the judge, after the trial, to know how Mr. Vincent would be treated, and whether he was to be subjected to the same treatment with criminal offenders, and Mr. Baron Alderson said, that he saw nothing in Mr. Vincent's case which called for severity, and that he should consider Mr. Vincent ill used if any harsh treatment was resorted to in his case, and the learned Baron not only gave Mr. Roebuck permission to state his feeling on the matter to the noble Lord at the head of the Home Department, but said that he would write himself to the noble Lord to convey his sentiments. The noble Lord would say whether he had received such a communication. What he had to say was, that Mr. Vincent, it was clear, had been treated in a manner not sanctioned, but, on the contrary discouraged by the judge. It was true that Mr. Vincent was not in bad health, but he poignantly felt the degradation he had been subjected to, and well he might; he was in a state of solitary confinement; the silent system was maintained; he was compelled to work as a tailor. Now, was it any part of his sentence that he should work as a tailor? They might just as well make him tramp on the treadmill, as sit on the tailor's shop board. The hon. Under-Secretary had urged that Mr. Vincent, in a letter to his mother, had subscribed himself "your happy son." He could have admitted the correctness had he signed himself "yourgallant son," or "your high-spirited son." These terms would have been well justified: and he could well understand that in order to allay the anxiety of his mother, Mr. Vincent might have signed himself "your happy son," but such an expression should not be taken advantage of by the hon. Gentleman. Mr. Vincent was not a happy man; he felt himself to be a degraded man. The hon. Undersecretary of State talked of introducing alterations by which Government would have the power of altering prison rules; but this was no palliation of their conduct in the present case. It was undeniable that the sentence of the judge had not been fairly carried out in this case; and why? Because Mr. Vincent was a Chartist! Why was not the same description of punishment inflicted upon the rev. Mr. Stephens? He was living in affluence in Chester Castle, with his family; but the truth might be guessed at, when it was stated that he gloried in the name of a Tory, while Mr. Vincent was a Chartist.

Mr. John Jervis

thought that the explanation given by the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Home Department seriously aggravated the charge made against the Government. In a county jail, the magistrates had the power of alleviating the circumstances of the imprisonment of any person, and the mere fact of its being unfair that any other county ought not to be held liable for the expenses attending such an imprisonment, other than that in which the offence was committed, was no sufficient ground, in his opinion, to warrant the removal of a prisoner to the Penitentiary, and his being subjected to all the rigorous discipline of that gaol, more especially in a case like that of Mr. Vincent, where the learned judge by whom he was tried had expressed an opinion that he should receive such lenient treatment as the rules of the prison to which he was first committed rendered justifiable. He thought that the Government ought to interfere to put Mr. Vincent into the situation which was contemplated by the learned judge, and that he should be sent back to Monmouth gaol, or if that were not safe, he should be placed in such a gaol as that he might enjoy the privileges contemplated.

Mr. Wakley

had heard with very deep regret, the remarks of the hon. Under-Secretary of the Home Department, and he thought the mode of punishing political offenders at present adopted, extremely likely to produce great alarm in the public mind. It was one of the most serious questions, in his opinion, which could occupy the attention of that House, and he regretted that its consideration should have come on at so late an hour at night; and he, for one, would join in keeping up the discussion night after night, until the evil was remedied. He thought that the House could not reflect upon the position of these prisoners without pain and agony of mind. He should like to know whether the same line of treatment would be adopted with regard to any noble Lord, in the event of his being imprisoned. There was a right hon. Baronet now on the Treasury Bench—a Cabinet Minister, who, some time ago, had made use of expressions more intemperate than those of Mr. Vincent, and had been subjected to imprisonment; but was be subjected also to the species of torture which Mr. Vincent had: suffered? What was the language of the right hon. Baronet? It went to suggest, "What was there to prevent the people of England from going down to that House, and taking the Members by their ears—their long ears he presumed—and throwing them into the Thames, and then locking the doors of the House?" He took it that that was exciting language, and the right hon. Baronet was sent to prison, but how was he treated there? Was he set to stitch small-clothes, and make waistcoats? No, if he had been so, the Government would have heard of it to this day, and the right hon. Gentleman would never have rested until he had had his revenge. In twenty years what a change had taken place, and how different was the treatment of Mr. Vincent to that which had been experienced by the right hon. Gentleman. He was not surprised that the noble Marquess, the Secretary for the Home Department, should shrink from adopting a lenient course in this case, considering the effects produced to him by his excessive leniency in the sister country: but he trusted that the noble Marquess would find persons in that House who would fortify him in adopting a less harsh line of proceeding than that which had been now carried on. He trusted that the hon. Under Secretary of State would give the House some hope that the prisoner should be removed to Monmouth gaol, considering the expectations held out to him by the judge at the trial, and more especially considering the injustice of inflicting on him, an inexperienced young man, these hardships, after similar offences committed by persons of experience, had been punished in such a different manner.

Mr. Aglionhy

conceived, that the species of imprisonment adopted in this case would create a popular sympathy much more dangerous than any of the writings of Mr. Vincent could possibly produce.

Lord John Russell

thought his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, had hardly been understood by several Gentlemen who had followed in the course of the debate. With, regard to Vincent, his hon. Friend had said, that having been concerned for several months in various parts of the country in exciting the people by speeches which were considered of so seditious a nature as to appear intended to excite the people to tumult and insurrection, a prosecution was resolved on, and sentence was passed upon him. The judge had conveyed an opinion, that he did not see that there ought to be in the execution of the sentence any undue harshness or severity. After that he (Lord John Russell) had communicated with some of the magistrates with regard to the treatment which the prisoner ought to receive, amongst other matters, as to the use of books; and with respect to that there did not appear to be any complaint of the treatment of the prisoner in Monmouth gaol. The ground of his being removed to the Penitentiary was not any thing done by him in Monmouth gaol, but that his presence there was used to keep up excitement and agitation among the people. When the insurrection took place, one of the objects held forth to the people was the liberation of Vincent. With respect to the question of his removal, the Secretary of State had by law the power to remove a prisoner from one gaol to another. There would have been an objection to remove a prisoner who was charged upon one county to another county, so as to become a charge upon that county, and therefore Vincent was removed to the Penitentiary. The rules of the Penitentiary certainly made the punishment more harsh and severe than the judge who pronounced the sentence, or the magistrates who carried it into execution at Monmouth, or the Secretary of State contemplated. That was certainly a reason for making some change. His noble Friend (Lord Normanby) proposed to bring in a measure to alter the law, which was at present very strict with regard to the punishment of prisoners in the Penitentiary, and gave power to relax rules in certain cases. That appeared to him, on the whole, the best way of treating the case. It was acknowledged the prisoner could not well be removed back to Mon-mouth, and he did not know any other gaol to which he could well be removed. With regard to the present motion for carrying an address to the Throne for the remission of part of the punishment, he must give his decided negative to the proposition. In doing so, he did not say that towards the end of the imprisonment, when the advisers of the Crown considered the whole imprisonment which had been undergone, and the part of it which had taken place in the Penitentiary, that that might not be a reason for advising the Crown to remit some part of the duration of the punishment. That might be a question for so advising the Crown, but not a reason for agreeing to an address, which would interfere with the prerogative.

Mr. Sergeant Talfourd

said, if he rightly understood his noble Friend, that there was reasonable expectation that the additional suffering which the prisoner had undergone, from reasons of necessity, would be considered with regard to the duration of the imprisonment, he should not give the House the trouble of dividing, considering that the object of his motion would be sufficiently attained.

Sir R. Peel

must express his regret that the noble Lord had made any condition whatever. He had staid to offer his decided opposition to the motion. He had always said that he would resist any attempt of the House of Commons to interfere with the prerogative of the Crown with regard to mercy. He thought that the grace of remitting punishment ought to be left with the Crown, and he was certain that if the House of Commons established a precedent of interfering with the administration of that branch of the prerogative, that the position of the Crown would become most disagreeable and most odious. A popular assembly would be too glad to avail itself of such a precedent for the purpose of leaving to the Crown all the harshness accompanying the administration of justice, and taking to itself all the grace of remitting punishment. He did not say a word to prevent the Crown from exercising its discretion. Let the Crown exercise its full privilege of remitting punishment; but he was sorry that the noble Lord, for the purpose of inducing the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his motion, should have distinctly held out an engagement on the subject.

Lord J. Russell

begged to explain: He did not propose in any way that the House should interfere with the prerogative of mercy. But in stating the whole case, he was obliged to take into consideration what had been admitted by his hon. Friend, that the sentence was carried into effect with a severity which was not intended either by the judge or the Secretary of State, and that this severity arose from considerations affecting the public peace, and not from any fault of the individual. He said that, taking the whole case into consideration, the advisers of the Crown might properly consider this circumstance in reference to the duration of the imprisonment. In touching upon the question at all, he could not avoid that part of it, but he regretted that he should be supposed to have given any engagement to the hon. Gentleman who had brought forward the motion, which might interfere with the prerogative.

Motion withdrawn.