Note 8 — STATEMENT, &c.

A striking instance occurs, on the very spot where Mr. Elsee has been insulted and plundered, of the extremity to which outrage can be carried, when the poor only are concerned. About the 1st of September, 1811, Mr. Elsee expected a few friends at his house on a shooting party, and had ordered a gun to be brought from Havering Park farm to his house at Chigwell Row. One of his servants was taking the gun, in pursuance of this order, in company with another who was driving home a team of horses. While these men were thus proceeding in their lawful business, on the public road, and in the light of day, they were shot at, without any offence, without any warning, and without seeing the lurking assassins, who thought fit to sport in this way with human life, and who turned out to be John Laver, his majesty’s woodward, and John Giffin, well known on the forest as Black Jack, an under-keeper. The servant who was driving the horses was dreadfully wounded; his hand, thigh, and leg were torn by slugs and dog-shot, many of which had lodged in the flesh; and the cowardly keepers, thinking this poor fellow had suffered enough, permitted him to crawl home; but they seized the man who carried the gun, and carried him a prisoner to Hog-hill House. Mr. Elsee, after directing the man’s wounds to be dressed, procured the liberation of his other servant, and obtained a warrant against the two keepers, who were brought before the Rev. Mr. Layton for examination. The fellows admitted the servants were walking quietly along the road; but they said they had heard a gun fired about that part, an hour and a half before; a most admirable reason, it must be confessed, for shooting his majesty’s subjects in the high road! Laver admitted also that he had never seen the men before; and when the magistrate expressed some surprize at his conduct, his majesty’s woodward, who was the person who had fired the gun, coolly answered, that he knew very well when to shoot!—Laver was committed for further examination, and as there was no proof that Giffin was aiding and abetting in the murderous transaction, he was discharged. So far all was in the ordinary course of business; but the next examination was attended by Admiral Harvey, M.P. for the county, and one of the Verdurers of the Forest, who insisted upon it that the offence was bailable; and although this was pointedly denied by the Rev. Mr. Layton, his brother magistrate, the superior authority of that sapient member of the legislature prevailed, and the blood-thirsty woodward was actually bailed, and bailed too in the paltry sum of fifty pounds, to appear and take his trial for a capital offence. Here began the mockery of the law, and the conclusion was worthy of such a beginning. At the next assizes a bill was preferred before the grand jury, upon Lord Ellenborough’s act, and Admiral Harvey, being a member of the grand jury, undertook the disposal of the affair. He began by asking the man who had been wounded, and his fellow-servant, whether they had a hundred a year? The poor fellows were day labourers, and of course were obliged to answer the impartial and enlightened questioner in the negative. Upon this, the bill was thrown out, as if cutting and maiming day labourers was no sort of offence in this land of freedom; and leaving it to be inferred, by the admiring inhabitants of Hainault Forest, that persons not possessed of a hundred a year, were as fair game to the king’s woodward, and the keepers, as the vermin of the forest itself.