The Establishment wins again. Charles Abbott was notoriously spineless.
THE KING v. HATCHARD. –
This was an indictment against the defendant, Mr. John Hatchard, an eminent and respectable bookseller in Piccadilly, for a libel contained in the tenth report of the Directors of the African Society, stated to be with an attempted to defame the characters of certain Gentleman (7 in number) who were Colonial Aides-de-Camp to Sir J. Leith, Governor of the Leeward Caribee Islands in the West Indies, & Commander in Chief.
The African Society, was our readers may perhaps know, is an association of many very eminent characters, for the purpose of furthering the abolition of the slave trade; and the defendant, Mr. Hatchard, is the publisher of their Reports. In their Tenth Annual Report, read at their last meeting, is the following passage, which was the libel complained of: –
The Directors are also informed, that about a year ago the following circumstance took place: – A gentleman who held the situation of Aide-de-Camp to the Governor, Sir James Leith, having severely cartwhipped a negro woman of his own, who was pregnant, she laid her complaint before the Governor, who humanely attended to her story, and dismissed her with some money for herself and a note to her owner. Instead, however, of taking his Excellency’s interference in good part, the gentleman gave the unfortunate woman an additional number of lashes, and dispatched a note to Sir James Leith, who, in consequence, ordered his Secretary to inform the writer, that Sir James had no further occasion for his services. On the receipt of this information, the gentleman dressed up one of his negro boys in his own uniform, and mounting him upon an ass, dispatched him with an insolent note to the Governor. He was afterwards indicted for cruelty, at the express order of the Governor, but the Grand Jury refused to find the bill.
Mr. Justice Abbott, in summing up, desired the Jury to find specially, whether they thought that by thus charging an un-named Aide-de-Camp, the libel meant to bring all the body into disrepute! And secondly, whether they thought that by saying the Grand Jury threw out the bill they meant to impeach their conduct in the administration of the criminal justice of the Island. He further added, that as he was bound by the Libel Bill to give them his opinion, which, however, they were not bound to adopt, he gave it them, that the libel did tend to calumniate the whole body, and that it was meant to impeach the Grand Jury in the administration of the criminal justice of the Island.
The Jury, without hesitation, said they adopted the opinion of his Lordship, and found the Defendant Guilty of the first and last counts of the indictment.
The Observer, 2 March 1817
This was a big case and the verbatim report of the trial was published afterwards.
This report does not state it but the reported incident took place in Antigua.
Mr. Serjeant Best, who declared himself opposed to slavery in his opening address, conducted the prosecution. His argument was that this libel, if unchallenged, would flag up to slaves that they had no protection under British justice, and that the chances that they would rebel and create a republic along the lines of Haiti, which had been established after a slave rebellion in 1804, would be increased, because the white inhabitants would be proved to have no protection from the English courts.
Hatchard refused to say who the writer of the offending passage was and referred the prosecutors to the African Society, who declined to reveal him. He offered no defence and after he was found guilty was fined £100, which he paid on the spot.
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