THE STATE TRIALS in the Annual Register of last year presented the most solemn and most dignified phase of the Irish Insurrection, in the trial and condemnation of the principal offenders in that discreditable and abortive move ment, and the volume closed with the solemn and impressive words of the Judges who sentenced those unhappy gentlemen to the punishment of their follies and their crimes. To a Sovereign who bore her sceptre so mildly, and to a Government and a public opinion so little vindictive, the prisoners, condemned to capital punishment by the course of the law only, might have safely trusted for the compassion which would certainly have shrunk from the infliction of death in such a case, and would have been satisfied with any degree of vindication sufficient to prevent the recurrence of similar scenes. With that strange perversity and insensate defiance which had characterized their conduct throughout this unhappy affair, these misguided men adopted a different course, and, instigated either by a morbid love of notoriety, or stimulated by the worthless cry of the so-called patriots, they preferred attempting to evade the sentence these vapourings had proved inadequate to avert. They resolved by a series of legal technicalities to protract the punishment which they must have felt conscious was all but inevitable, and to trust to the chapter of accinents, which had so well served

some of their minor associates, for escape. Whatever their motives, they were entirely disappointed; the public, tired of the long-vaunted schemes of the rebels, and satisfied that the law had been brought to its due conclusion, troubled themselves little about the subsequent proceedings. Thus the scene of the Irish rebellion resembled an ill-constructed drama, where the catastrophe of the piece occurs in the fourth act, and the audience care very little what the dramatis persona do or say in the fifth, or on what tableau the curtain finally drops.

The first of these appellants to a new contest was Mr. John Martin, whose conviction for felony under the 11th Vict., cap. 12, will be found in the preceding volume, p. 385. The prisoner sued out a writ of error, which was duly argued before the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland. Of the nature of the grounds assigned, and of the arguments by which they were supported, a sufficient account is given in the judgment.

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, (IRELAND.)

November 18, 1849. Before the Full Court. JOHN MARTIN in Error, v. THE QUEEN. Judgment.

BLACKBURNE, C. J.-In considering the different grounds of

error which have been assigned in this case, I shall take them in the order adopted in the arguments at the bar.

The first is the caption of the the indictment, which is contended to be defective in not stating where and before whom the grand jury was sworn; in not stating that they were sworn and charged to inquire for our lady the Queen, and the body of the county of the city of Dublin; and in not stating that the indictment was found by twelve good and lawful men of the city. It is to be observed that the caption is not a pleading nor any part of the indictment. It is a statement of the proceedings, and should describe the Court where the indictment was found, the time and place it was found, and the jurors by whom it was found, with sufficient certainty. The Crown contends that this caption does so, and such is our opinion. It states an adjournment of a commission of Oyer and Terminer; that it was held on the 8th of August, at Green-street, in the county of the city of Dublin, before commissioners appointed by commission under the great seal, and that at that adjournment it was presented on the oaths of good and lawful men of the said county of the city, naming twenty-three, that Martin committed the felonies of which he was afterwards convicted. The question is, does this caption afford the required certainty? First, it states a presentment on oath, in Court that day, and before these commissioners, so that this oath must have been there and then administered and taken, and the supposition suggested that it might have been administered by some other Court, on some other day, is absolutely repugnant to the

plain meaning of these words. Next, it is objected that the words "sworn and charged," which are used in the common form, are here omitted. In support of the objection, many cases, most of them in the reign of Charles II., have been cited and relied on. Were we constrained by their authority we should act on it with reluctance, considering, as I have said, that the caption is not a pleading, but a copy of the entry of the proceedings made by the officer of the Court, and also considering that we have here a presentment on oath by a jury of the county of the city, of a crime committed in the county of the city. But the formality of this caption, which is in accordance with the precedent in the case of The King v. Weldon, in this very same commission Court, is supported by three distinct authorities. In the case of The King v. Morgan (1 Lord Raym. 710), there was an indictment for riot removed into the Queen's Bench, and afterwards tried at the assizes. There was a motion of arrest of judgment, and there, where the ground of that motion was the omission of the words " sworn and charged" in the caption, Holt, C. J., says, that the whole Court was of opinion that it was good, although the words "sworn and charged" were omitted. And the case of The King v. Greycox (Sir Thomas Jones, 180), was on a motion to quash an indictment for the omission, in the caption of the word jurati, and the Court held it supplied by the words supra sacramentum. And in 2 Keble, p. 59, The King v. Ambler, the case came before the Court on a writ of error, and the indictment was there supra sacramentum, and it was objected that it was not onerati et jurati, and it was there held to be