Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/515

 MARY TURNER. 401 In the present day this would be considered a peculiar 1789 letter for a judge to write to a juryman. It was evidently An obliging written in a most obliging spirit. CoUins was under the impression that Campbell wished to prosecute the woman for reasons of his own, and although the judge could not see any ground for a prosecution himself, he was willing to oblige the would-be prosecutor by indicting her at the next sitting of the Criminal Court, to be held a few days after- wards. To appreciate the state of things disclosed in this letter, we should have to imagine a case occurring in the Exempli present day, in which a judge, acting also as a Crown Pro- secutor, having satisfied himself that there was no founda- tion for a charge of perjury against a woman who had given evidence at a recent trial before him, had notwithstanding written a letter to a juryman offering to lay an information and to have her tried before himself at the next sittings, of his Court — ^with his friend in the jury-box. If we- imagine, further, that such a letter had not only been written but published in the newspapers, there would be no difficulty in understanding the impression it would have made on PubUc the public with respect to the administration of justice. It ®^*^^°* is quite clear that the Mary Turner of 1789 was as much entitled to the protection of the English laws as any Mary Turner of the present day would be, in a similar case. But it is equally clear that, in the eye of the law as adminis- tered by her judges, she was not entitled to any more pro- tection than might suit their own view of the matter. The Judge-Advocate's letter to Captain Campbell pro- voked a very different sort of reply from that which he expected. So far from reciprocating his kindly offer and expressing his grateful sense of the judge's condescension, the captain lost his temper and sent back a letter on the An indig- same day, as deliberately insulting as he could make SSl ^' it:— In answer to your letter of this day, I have to say that I per- Campbell to fectly well remember, at the last Criminal Court held in this °''"" island, when Mary Turner was ordered to withdraw from the 2 c Digitized by Google