6th Geo. iv. c. 5, disqualified a person to serve convicted of any capital offence, except free pardoned.
7th & 8th Geo. iv. c. 28. sec. 13, gave to a conditional pardon under the sign manual the same effect as great seal.
In cases not capital, service had the effect of free pardon: 9th Geo. iv. c. 32. sec. 3.
All the laws of England were adopted by the Act of 1828: thus the disqualification for jurors, in cases capital, was taken away.
Judge Forbes stated, that in civil issues the juries had some difficulty in comprehending the distinction between law and fact: ad questionem facti respondent juratores, ad questionem legis judices.
[194] The original Simon Stukely was a quaker, who went to Turkey with an intention of converting the Grand Turk: he narrowly escaped decapitation, by the interposition of the English ambassador. He was afterwards confined in an asylum: in answer to inquiries how he came there, he replied—"I said the world was mad, and the world said I was mad; and they out-voted me."
[195] Passed, 5th November, 1834.
SECTION XVI
The True Colonist newspaper was published daily during 1835: the editor, Mr. Gilbert Robertson, filled its columns with strictures on government, and in a style which might be termed heroic, if inspired by truth. The rashness of his imputations was never surpassed. He heaped on the governor, and the members of his administration, charges of misdemeanour and felony. One day he denounced them at the police-office, and the next printed his accusations verbatim. He libelled the governor (whom he accused of altering a deed after its enrolment) in a paper, headed "a fearful discovery;" and declared him not less deserving than others of a capital conviction. Robertson charged an overseer of Arthur with feloniously receiving hay for the governor's use, and with his connivance. His nephews, Captains Forster and Montagu, were each accused of a felonious appropriation of property belonging to the crown. For these imputations, Robertson suffered fine and imprisonment;[196] in part remitted by the clemency of Arthur. Such charges were a buckler to the governor against the current scandal of the time. They were transmitted to the colonial-office: they destroyed the moral weight of the press, and cast suspicion on just complaints, yet emanating from a community which tolerated such extravagance.