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knowledge of t he pu b'ld catdon of the article \Ja S r eceived from Hr . Walter Grieve,
and that Mr. Ambro se Shea a lso s poke to him of the ruraoz- a ga inst th", plaintiff .
(
The plaintiff swore that he was not t.he writer of t.be arti cl e , that he had dda-,
chimed the eut.hor-sbfp of the sa me , a nd t hat he had
been dd amfsee d from the office
of Fina nc i a l Se cretary on a cc ount of t he ho stil i t y produ ced by the article 1n
question . He a l so testified that his \life corresponded with he r s i s t e r vho lived
in Par is, ve s married to a Mr. Hewitt , and that Fa t her Pr out and Mrs . Hewitt knev
each other.
For the defence the Han . John Kent,
the then Prime l-Uni s t er and Colonial
Secretar y vas called, and score that the plai nt i f f had not been dismissed from
office in con se quence of t he article in questionk but on ecccunt- of other libels
t hat had been publish ed by him on the administration of justice.
Very consddereb'le int erest vas cre ated by this trial, and
it vou Id appear
frC7U the perusal of contemporary literature , as ve H
a s from the 18\.1 reports , that
v er y vdde upr e a d c oncer n va s manifested in t he ca se . As a matter of f a ct, from t he
evidence it a ppeared that a public meeting , at vhfch 2 , OOlYper~on5 had a 8~led
had been he Id previous t o the trial, a t vhfch Resol utions 'Were pa s sed condemnat.cc-y
of the action of the plaintiff, and in su pport of the "Nevfcundkander-" and the
articl e in that paper.
A ludicrous bit of evidence came out at the trial. It vee show t ha t 8 pre-,
limi nar y meeting to arrange f or the public meeting had been he Ld at Mr . P . J or dan ' s ,
water St ree t , the night be f ore t he public me e t i ng , an d thR,t some person, as 8 lark,
had stolen all the hats, and t.he Colonial Secr-e t .ery, Hr . Kent , had to bor-r-ow ft
" vi.de awake" to go home . Robinson char-g ed t.he jury i n .the case . The jury r etired
at 9 o tcfoc k, e nd not bfo:inp; ebIe to 8.,;re p. at U:)O, ver-e l ocked up for the nir-ht .
l'ext morning a t 11 o !cloc k , the jury stil l differing ver-e dfscbn r-ged , This ended