CHARGE

TO THE

GRAND JURY,

AT CALCUTTA, JUNE 10, 1787.

GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY,

I SHOULD exceed the bounds of my duty, and detain you too

long from the discharge of yours, if I were to expatiate on the great variety of business, in which your diligent exertions at the present feffion may be highly beneficial to the fettlement; and, indeed, whilst I hold in my hand this terrible catalogue of grievous offences, which must come under your confideration, I have ample materials for my address to you, without enlarging on such cases, as may probably be brought before you, but have not yet been the fubject of complaint before a magistrate.

The first crime, which appears in the calendar, and of which three perfons are now accused, (the same number having been indicted last feffion) is the most atrocious, that man, as a rational creature and a member of civil fociety, can commit, Murder; but I will spare your feelings as well as my own the pain of dwelling on one of the cafes,

VOL. III.

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cafes, which you will hear but too soon; a case, so horrible, that, if it be true, scarce any punishment of the offender would be too fevere, and, if false, the perjured accufers deserve the utmost severity of our law; which, in regard to perjuries affecting life, is, in my opinion, too lenient. Another foul murder has been committed near Patna, with every aggravation of the crime both in the motive and the manner of it: but there is no direct evidence against the supposed murderer. The woman, who will repeat her fad ftory to you, actually saw her husband, a native peasant, ftabbed by one foldier, while two held him; (and how highly it imports the honour of our government, that the natives be protected from the outrages of our foldiery, muft be obvious to all) but the night was too dark for her to distinguish their faces. Circumftances only have induced a suspicion, that LA COSSE was the perpetrator of the crime; and they, it is true, may be fallacious; but, when many circumftances concur, they fometimes amount to proof at least as strong as the teftimony of witneffes: that the prisoner escaped from the guard, who were bringing him to the prefidency, he excufed, on his examination, by alledging a natural love of liberty, which, he urged, was perfectly confiftent with innocence; but, unless you believe him innocent, it seems the province of a petit jury to determine, whether all the concurrent circumstances indubitably prove him guilty. I proceed to offences far lefs dreadful in themselves, but almoft equally deferving of your ferious attention; for, if any thing ought particularly to affect our minds, and make us all extremely circumfpect in our paffage through life, it is the alarming confideration, that not only the more violent emotions of anger and hate, but even unguarded and idle words, have a tendency toward bloodfhed, and not unfrequently end in it. If this be the case with men of understanding and education, what must be expected from the uncontrolled paffions, unimproved intellects, and habitual vices of the low multitude? For this reafon principally

I never

I never think lightly of the petty complaints, as they are called, which are brought before me: I know, that wrath and malice will have a vent; that they are better spent in a court of justice than in black and filent revenge; and that, if fuch ferpents be not crushed in the egg, there can be no fecurity against the mortal effects of their venom. You will attend, therefore, I am confident, even to common affaults; (for I need not mention fuch as were made with any criminal defign) and confider no breach of the peace as trivial, the confequence of which may, poffibly at least, be the fhedding of human blood. This reafoning leads me to a fubject of the highest importance to every community; and particularly (for many weighty reasons) to the inhabitants of this populous town: I mean those offences against good morals and good order, which fpring from the diffolute manners of the populace, and branch out into all the disorders and evils, that can affect the comfort of focial beings. Exceffive luxury, with which the Afiaticks are too indiscriminately reproached in Europe, exist indeed in our fettlements, but not where it is usually supposed; not in the higher, but in the loweft, condition of men; in our fervants, in the common feamen frequenting our port, in the petty workmen and shopkeepers of our streets and markets: there live the men, who, to use the phrase of an old statute,. fleep by day and wake at night for the purposes of gaming, debauchery, and intoxication. The inebriating liquors, which are extracted from common trees, and the stupifying drugs, which are easily procured from the fields and thickets, afford fo cheap a gratification, that the lowest of mankind purchase openly, with a small part of their daily gains, enough of both to incapacitate them by degrees for any thing that is good, and render them capable of any thing that is evil; and excess in swallowing these poisons is fo general, that, if the state had really been lighted up at the higher extremity, as it certainly is at the lower, it must inevitably have been confumed. The mischiefs, which this

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this depravity occafions, it is needlefs to enumerate; but, until fome ordinance can be framed, which shall be just in itself and conformable to the spirit of our laws (both which qualities ought to characterize every regulation in the British empire) the publick has no hope of fecurity, gentlemen, but from your vigilance. Disorderly houses, and places of refort for drinking and gaming, are indictable as publick nuisances; and, though it would be the work of many feffions to eradicate the evil, yet a few examples of just punishment would have a falutary effect. You are too fenfible, I am fure, of the advantages arifing from a trial by jury in criminal cafes, to with for a power in any hands of fummary conviction, which the legiflature has not yet given, and which it always gives with reluctance; and I perfuade myself, that the gentlemen of this fettlement are too publick-fpirited to decline the trouble, which may attend the execution of any useful law, whether it be neceffary to profecute offenders by indictment, or to levy fmall penalties by action in the Court of Requests.

Since I have mentioned gaming, I must add, that it is a vice produced by laziness and avarice, and leading to distress, which aggravates, instead of palliating, the offences frequently committed in confequence of it. The most common of thofe offences, among the lowest of the people, are theft and robbery; and, if it be true, as it was sworn before me, though not by a man who seemed worthy of much credit, that even the watch-houses in this town are the haunts of unrestrained and encouraged gamefters, we we can expect little benefit from watchmen who thus difcharge their important duties. In fact if we had a well ordered watch and ward in Calcutta (and that we have not, is become a constant subject of animadverfion among the natives of higher rank) we fhould not have heard of robberies committed by ruffians masked and armed, fuch as a few

months