CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY, AT CALCUTTA, DEC. 4, 1788. GENTLEMEN, IF the unremitted vigilance of magistrates, the diligent attention of jurors, the approved excellence of our criminal laws, and the due infliction of adequate punishments, could prevent the commiffion of crimes in this great and increasing capital, I should not hold in my hand so long a catalogue of terrible offences, which are believed to have been committed within the last fix months by perfons under our jurifdiction; offences, which comprize nearly all, that can be committed against the publick justice, tranquillity, convenience, and trade, or against the perfons, houses and property of individuals, in protecting which the publick is effentially interested. To difcourfe at large on each of those heads, as they occur to me on infpecting the calendar, would certainly be fuperfluous; but it would ill become me to pass them over in filence; for the principles of our criminal jurifprudence, and the cafes, in which they are applied, may not be fresh in your memories; and it cannot be reasonably expected, that you should study, as lawyers, the reports and treatifes, however excellent, of KELYNG and HALE, FOSTER and BLACKSTONE, or the voluminous works, however accurate, of modern compilers: I will take, therefore, a middle course, and confine myself to short observations on those crimes only, of which the prisoners are specifically accused, so as to assist your recollection, and guide your judgement in finding or rejecting the feveral bills, that will, I know, be presented to you. It gives me, in the first place, inexpreffible pain, to see no fewer than four persons charged with fo abominable an offence as corrupt perjury, or the fubornation of it; and one of them, I observe with horror, is an Armenian by birth, and, in name, at least, a Chriftian: now, if all laws, human and divine, if all religions, the many falfe and the one true, be thus openly defied, we must abandon all hope of adminiftering juftice perfectly; and, as much as I blame fevere corporal punishments, especially those which mutilate the offender's body, I must recommend a degree of feverity, if the wickedness of man cannot be otherwife reftrained. The cruel mutilations, practifed by the native powers, are not only shocking to humanity, but wholly inconfiftent with the mildness of our fyftem; nor do they conduce even to the end proposed by them; fince it is the certainty, not the cruelty, of punishment, that can operate on the fears of thofe, who fear nothing elfe: the old Hindu courts, from a fanciful notion of punishing the offending part, and depriving it of power to offend any more, would have cut out the tongue of a perjured man and amputated the hand of a thief or a forger; while the Mohammedan punishments, inflicted at this day in the Afiatick dominions of Britain, are not lefs horrid, but have lefs appearance of reafon. Happily we can fee no fuch horrors in Calcutta; but, as our house of correction, either through neglect or through want of laborious employment, would, I fear, be a house of laziness, as tranfportation is out of the queftion, and as the pillory alone would hardly be thought shameful to thofe, who have no sense of shame, it will be advisable to indict perjured men on the ftatute of ELIZABETH; fince, befides imprisonment for fix months, it inflicts, on default of paying a confiderable fine, the punishment of having both ears nailed to the pillory, which, though painful at the time and perpe tually ignominious, neither cruelly mangles the human frame, nor deprives the offender, fhould he repent and be induftrious, of gaining a fubfiftence by honeft labour. Such indictments will be the less exceptionable, because, if any cafe, fhould happen to be out of the ftatute, there may be a conviction, I prefume, and confequently a fentence, as at common law. Whatever be the caufe, I cannot but believe, fince it has been fworn before me by an Englishman, who demanded fecurity for the peace, that there are streets in this populous town, and one especially near the Faujdàr's house, through which it is extremely perilous for quiet men to pass after funfet: they are inhabited, I am told, by low European tavern-keepers of all nations, and one of them, STEFANO an Italian, will be accused before you of a violent affault in his own tavern, of which the probable confequence might have been the death of an unoffending man. By the common law, which is always clearer and generally wifer than any ftatute, the keepers of taverns, who permit frequent disorders in them, or harbour perfons of bad repute, may be indicted and fined as for a common nuisance, and open gaming-houses are equally offenfive in the eye of law, as the haunts of profligate mifcreants and a temptation to pernicious vices; yet both are now fo numerous, that a peaceable native can hardly fleep without disturbance from brawls or affrays, and dread of nocturnal robberies. Venerable fathers of families have lately complained to me with extreme anguish, that their fons had been ruined in thofe feminaries of wickedness; yet so relaxed are the principles even of the richer natives, that actions have been brought by an opulent Hindu for money advanced folely to fupport a common gaming-house, in the profits of which he had a confiderable fhare; and the transaction was avowed by him with as much confidence, as if it had been perfectly juftifiable by our laws and by his own. From whatever cause those disorders proceed, whether from illicit gains accruing to unauthorized licencers and protectors, or from wilful negligence in the low fervants of thofe, who are intrusted with the office of high constables, they are deftructive of individuals, injurious to the publick, and deferving of your serious investigation. Cheats, of which two or three appear next in the calendar, are ufually reckoned offences against publick trade: to this head are alfo referred thofe deceitful practices and artful contrivances, by which even a wary individual may be defrauded of his money or goods; but you will confider fome kind of artifice or device as effential to the criminality of a fraud; fince a |