THE QUEEN against SIMON BERNARD. PROCEEDINGS AT THE SPECIAL COMMISSION HELD AT THE JUSTICE HALL, OLD BAILEY, FOR THE TRIAL OF SIMON BERNARD FOR WILFUL MURDER, BEFORE LORD CAMPBELL, L.C.J., POLLOCK, C.B., ERLE AND CROWDER, JJ., MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1858, AND THE FOLLOWING DAYS. (Reported in 1 F. and F. 240.) Indictment under 9 Geo. 4. c. 3l. s. 7, charging Simon Bernard, a French refugee, with being accessory before the fact to the murder at Paris, out of the Queen”s dominions, of Nicolas Batty, one of the Gardes de Paris, killed in the Orsini plot to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III., outside the Paris Opera House on January 14th, 1858. The prisoner was also indicted as a principal under 11 & 12 Vict. C. 46. Evidence was given that the iron shells of six grenades, similar to the three exploded and to two others found on the scene of the attempt, were made in Birmingham in November 1857 to the order of one Allsop ; that about the same time the prisoner purchased in London explosive chemicals similar to those with which the two unexploded grenades were charged ; that he procured grenades resembling these two grenades, and according to some witnesses including them, to be conveyed from London to Brussels, and thence to Paris ; that he also forwarded to Paris two revolvers, afterwards found in possession of the persons who threw the grenades ; and that he was instrumental in inducing one of them, a destitute Italian, to go over from Loudon and take part in the attempt. Verdict Not Guilty. It was provided by 9 Geo. 4. c. 31. 5. 7, that "if any of His Majesty”s subjects shall be charged in this country with any murder . . . or with being accessory before the fact to any murder . . the same being committed on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the King”s dominions or without," he might be tried here under a Special Commission. Ruled by the Court, per LORD CAMPBELL, L.C.J. for the purposes of the trial (1) Alien accessory here to murder of foreigner by foreigner abroad-9 Geo. 4. c. 31. s. 7. An alien whilst in this country is a subject of the Crown within the meaning of the above statute, and bound by English law.(2) An indictment of an alien under the above statute for being accessory to the murder of an alien by an alien abroad cannot be supported by evidence of acts done by him abroad.(3) Semble that it may he supported by evidence of acts done by him here. (1) See the points which were to have been reserved for the Court for Crown Cases Reserved in the event of a conviction, below, p. 1001, and see now 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100. s. 9, cited below, p. 891n. (2) Calvin”s Case, 7 Rep. 6a; 1 hale, P.C. 92, &c.; Fost, Cr. L. 185, 6 St. Tr. N.S. 208, &c., and ef. the dictum of Turner, L.J., in Low v. Routledge, L.R. 1, Ch. 47: " Every alien coming into a British colony becomes temporarily a subject of the Crown." (3) " If any construction otherwise be possible, au Act will not be construed as applying to foreigners in respect a acts done by them outside the dominions of the sovereign lower enacting." Lord Russell, L.C.J., in Reg. v. Jameson, 1896, 2 Q.B. 425, at p. 430. This trial arose out of the attempt to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie outside the Opera House in Rue Le Peletier in Paris on January 14th, 1858. Three bombs were exploded, killing 10 persons and wounding 156, but the Emperor and Empress escaped unhurt, and proceeded to witness the performance.(a) A man arrested on suspicion a few minutes before the attempt was found in possession of a bomb. He (a) Nassau Senior, Conversations with Thiers and Guizot, vol. 2, p. 174, says that the carriage used by the Emperor was one of Louis Philippe”s, made of wrought iron, and was supposed to have contributed to his escape.was afterwards identified as an Italian named Pierri. Another Italian, afterwards identified as Rudio, was arrested the same night at the address given by Pierri. A third, afterwards identified as Gomez, was arrested shortly after the explosion in a cafe facing the Opera House. He had acted as the servant of an Englishman named Alisop stopping in the Rue Monthabor. At that address the man giving the name of Ailsop was arrested early in the morning of the 15th, and found to be suffering from a recent wound. He was identified as Felice Orsini, an Italian who had taken part in various revolutionary movements in Italy. Orsini had lately been living in England, where 889] The Queen against Simon Bernard, 1858. [890 he supported himself by lecturing ; and On February 12th the Chambre des Pierri, Radio, and Gomez also had been Mises en Accusation of the Imperial Court residing there.(a) of Paris made an arrgt de renvoi, sending (a) On its appearing that the plot had been prepared in England, Count Walewski. the French Foreign Minister, in a dispatch to M. de Persigny, the Ambassador in London, made representations that the right of asylum ought not to be allowed to protect the preparation of such conspiracies on British soil, and suggested that the law should, if necessary, be strengthened to deal with them. About the same time the terms of M. de Persigny”s reply to an address of congratulation from the citizens of London, and the threatening language against this country made use of in the addresses presented to the Emperor by various sections of ; the French army, and printed (by inadvertence, it was afterwards explained) in the official Moniteur, aroused a strong feeling of resentment in England. (See Irving, Annals of Our Time, under Jan. 20, 1858.) The British Government did not at once send a written reply to Count Walewaki”s dispatch, but on February 8th Lord Palmerston moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law with regard to conspiring to murder. The Bill made conspiracy to murder a felony punishable with seven years” penal servitude, both in England, where it had till then been only a misdemeanor, and in Ireland, where it had been a capital offence. In the debate on the second reading on February 19th, the Attorney General (Sir Richard Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury, L.C.) observed (Hansard, vol. 148, p. 1821) "that the state of the English law is this, that foreigners are able to do in this country that which your own subjects are unable to do, and that which would be a crime in natural-born British subjects is a matter of impunity in foreigners . . . By the 9th Geo. 4. British subjects committing a crime abroad murder, for instance are amenable to English law, and may be tried as if the murder was committed in this country ; but that statute is confined entirely to natural-born British subjects. Anterior to that statute even British subjects might have committed murder abroad (see, however, Reg. v. Azzopardi, 6 St. Tr. N.S. 21), and, inasmuch as the crime was committed abroad and not within the peace of the Queen, it was not punishable and could not he tried in our courts. Accordingly that Act was passed by which British natural-born subjects, if they commit the crime of murder abroad, are amenable at once to the law of this country. I But what is the case with regard to foreigners ? If” half-a-dozen of them came to England and concerted a murder here, and then went abroad to commit it, and afterwards came back again for refuge to this country, they would not, according to our law, be punishable in the courts of this country. I believe the state of the law at present may be thus accurately stated : Supposing two or more foreigners conspire in this country to commit a crime abroad, although the thing which they conspire to do is a crime, yet, if it be committed abroad it would not be punishable by the law of this country." A conspiracy to murder the Sovereign of a foreign country himself, he said, might be an offence against the amity of the Sovereign at common law (see the form of the indictment against Bernard for conspiracy, below, p. 897), but that principle did not extend beyond the person of the ruler to an attempt against the Empress anterior to the birth of the young Prince. On February 19th the Bill was rejected by the House of Commons on the second reading, after a debate in which the Government were accused of undue subservience to France. Lord Palmerston thereupon resigned, and Lord Derby was commissioned to form a Ministry. On February 22nd Lord Campbell stated in the House of Lords (Hans. vol. 148, p. 185), in answer to Lord Lyndhurst, that the above statement of Sir Richard Bethel: had astonished and distressed him. . . . He had read with astonishment a statement that it was doubtful whether a conspiracy in this country to murder the Empress of the French at the time when she was on the eve of giving birth to an heir to the throne would he an offence against the law of the land. Anyone who conspired to effect a thing malum in se was liable to be tried as a conspirator in this country, whether the offender was a foreigner or not. (See also, Lord Campbell”s statement in Reg. v. 7”ckorzewski, below, App. A, p. 1095.) On February 26th Sir Richard Bethell, re- plying to these criticisms in the House of Commons (Hans. vol. 149, p. 4), reiterated his contentions that an alien could not be indicted for conspiring here to commit a crime abroad, and was not within 9 Geo. 4. c. 31. s. 7 (see the text above) making British subjects triable here for murders committed abroad. All doubts as to conspiracies in this country to commit murdets abroad were removed three years later by 24 & 25 Vict. c. s. 4, which I passed without opposition, though embodying provisions almost identical with those of the Conspiracy to Murder Bill on which Lord Palmerston was defeated. It provides that. "all persons who shall conspire, confederate, or agree to murder any person, whether he be a subject of Her Majesty...
