belong to your Majesty’s service, Mr Goulburn considers that a coinage of them for general use could not take place without a particular signification of your Majesty’s pleasure.
Mr Goulburn therefore humbly submits for your Majesty’s gracious consideration the signification of your Majesty’s pleasure as to the issue of such a coinage.
Sir James Graham to Queen Victoria.
Whitehall, 13th May 1845.
Sir James Graham, with humble duty, begs to lay before your Majesty the enclosed Memorial.
The proceedings in Newgate on the occasion of the last condemned sermon and on the morning of the execution have been fully investigated;[1] and the report established the necessity of legislative interference to prevent the recurrence of scenes so disgraceful and demoralising. The policy of depriving capital executions of their present publicity is well worthy of careful revision; and Sir James Graham, in obedience to your Majesty’s desire, will bring the subject under the notice of his colleagues. He is disposed to think that the sentence might be carried into execution in the presence of a Jury to be summoned by the Sheriff with good effect; and that the great body of idle spectators might be excluded, without diminishing the salutary terror and awful warning which this extreme punishment is intended to produce on the public mind. In dealing, however, with a matter in which the community has so deep an interest, it is prudent not to violate public opinion, and caution is necessary before a change of the long-established usage is proposed.[2]
Sir James Graham deeply regrets the part taken by the newspapers in seeking to indulge the general curiosity with respect to all details of the conduct, habits, and demeanour of these wretched criminals in their last moments; but he fears that the license of the Press cannot be checked by any act of authority; if the public be excluded from witnessing the executions, they will probably become still more anxious to obtain a printed report of all that has taken place; and Sir James Graham is so thoroughly convinced that the punishment of death in certain cases must be maintained, that he would consider any course inexpedient which was likely to
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