Another Rebeccaite case that was heard during the Carmarthenshire Spring Assizes on (account from the Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser):
James Thomas and Thomas Thomas, were then placed at the bar, and charged with having, on , feloniously aided and abetted one John Jones, (Shoni Scyborfawr,) in discharging a certain loaded fire-arm, called a gun, at one Margaret Thomas, with intent to murder her, or to do her some grievous bodily harm.
[The Cambrian adds: “In other counts of the indictment the intent was varied, and also the individuals shot at.
— This case excited the greatest interest, in consequence of the respectability of the family and connexions of the former prisoner.”]
The prisoners pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Chilton addressed the jury for the prosecution, and stated that the prisoners were charged with shooting at one Margaret Thomas, with another person of the name of John Jones, called Shoni Scyborfawr, who had been convicted of Rebecca riots at the Winter Assizes.
Thomas Thomas was a most respectable man, and he was sorry to see him standing at the bar to answer the change of taking part in these disgraceful outrages.
He begged the jury to dismiss all prejudice from their minds, and give the matter full consideration; and observed that he would bring evidence before them, which would prove the guilt of the prisoners.
The prosecutor was one Evan Thomas, a weaver, at Porthyrhyd, whose house had been frequently attacked by the Rebeccaites.
On , the mob came to the house, and demanded admittance, put the muzzles of their guns through the window, and fired them into the room, at the wife and children; and a shot entered the thigh of one of the children, and it was a mercy the prisoners were not standing at that bar to be tried on the charge of murder.
The son-in-law would prove the identity of Thomas Thomas, as he knew his person and voice well, and heard him giving directions to the mob, saying, “Shoot him, shoot him.”
The women also knew his voice.
A paper of protection to Evan Thomas, written by Mrs. Thomas, wife of Thomas Thomas, the prisoner, was read.
It desired protection to him from the further molestations of ’Becca, as he expressed his contrition for anything he had done against her, and he would give up the office of constable.
[The Cambrian includes this part of the speech, which gives more details about the attack: “Were he calling the attention of the jury to a mere case of the destruction of a turnpike gate, or of a toll-house, he should feel himself called upon to offer some observations upon the awful and important responsibility of the oath which they had taken, and which called upon them to disregard all prejudices — aye, even if they considered that no very great crime was committed by pulling down a turnpike-gate or house, and so get rid of tolls… But, however much opinions might differ respecting gates and tolls, no honest man could, by any possibility, sympathize with such outrages as he should prove were committed on the night in question, under the guise of Rebeccaism.
The prosecutor in this case was a weaver and small farmer, who had also acted for a number of years as constable in the parish of Porthyrhyd, and the only offence with which he was charged was, that he honestly performed his duties as a constable, which rendered him very inimical to those who, calling themselves Rebeccaites, had resolved upon exterminating turnpike-gates.
In consequence of this, his life was in peril; he had received letter after letter containing all kinds of threats.
His house was attacked, night after night, so that it had become impossible for him longer to continue residing in it.
He had therefore left it on , his wife, son-in-law, two daughters and children remaining therein.
On , in the dead of night, after having retired to rest — they were aroused by a mob, in which were a great number of persons dressed after the fashion of Rebecca, armed with guns, pickaxes, bludgeons, and various other implements.
They demanded that Evan Thomas should be given up to them.
His daughter, alarmed as she was, got up, and assured them that Evan Thomas was not in the house.
They replied that they would have him, or destroy all who were in the house.
They then pulled down a temporary shutter — for the window had been destroyed on a previous night — and pointed three guns, which it would again appear were loaded with slugs, with their muzzles towards the half-naked woman.
This was repeated, and he should prove to the jury that some of the guns were loaded with shot; and it was almost a miracle that the prisoners had not to stand at that bar, and answer to a charge of murder — for murder it must unquestionably have been were any lives lost on that occasion.
Slugs were afterwards discovered in the furniture, and a shot had been extracted from the child’s thigh.
… He should tell them one circumstance, which showed that Thomas Thomas took part in the Rebecca disturbances, and had some influence with those people.
Attacks had been made on the house of the prosecutor, Evan Thomas, in , and he went to the residence of Thomas Thomas, with the hope of making a friend of him, and asked him for protection from the depredations of the Rebeccaites.
The prisoner promised to write him a kind of paper or petition, if he called next day.
He did so on a subsequent day, when the prisoner gave him a piece of written paper, and told him if he would get a few of the neighbours to sign it, the Beccas would leave him alone.
The paper was written in prisoner’s presence, by Mrs. Thomas, who undoubtedly, from the style of the writing, &c., was a person of respectable education.
The Learned Counsel then read the document; it was to the following effect:— ‘The undersigned, Evan Thomas, begs to inform those who call themselves Beccaites, that he is heartily sorry if he has done anything to injure any one, and sincerely hopes they will allow his family and self to rest in peace from henceforth.
He sincerely promises never again to act as constable in this or any other parish, as he is told that is one great objection you have to him, but will from hence endeavour to become a comfort to his family, and regain the friendship of the country, which he finds he has entirely lost.’ ”]
After the examination of the witness, his lordship directed the jury to return a verdict of “Not guilty” of that charge.
The Cambrian is almost as vague. Apparently the prosecution presented one witness — George Thomas — who, in the Cambrian’s words, testified “in nearly the same words as given in the following charge of misdemeanor against the same defendants” but apparently didn’t give enough substantiation to the felony charge. The judge seems to have ruled that if the defendants had actually had the intent to shoot to kill or wound the unarmed woman trapped like an animal in a cage, they would have probably actually hit the mark, and so the prosecutor was going to have too high a bar to meet.
So the prosecutor went with Plan B: misdemeanour charges.
The same persons were again put on their trial, and charged with having, on , riotously and tumultuously assembled together, at Porthyrhyd, in the parish of Llanddarog, in this county, and then and there made a great noise, riot, and disturbance, and then and there divers of her Majesty’s liege subjects put in bodily fear, against the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, &c.
The prisoners were acquitted.
Here, again, the Cambrian gives more detail, with the testimony for the defense and prosecution.
I am the son-in-law of the prosecutor, Evan Thomas, who was a constable in , and lived at Porthyrhyd, in a cottage adjoining the road.
My wife, self, and child, slept in his house on .
Mary Thomas, Elizabeth Thomas, and Evan Thomas’s wife were in the house.
We had retired about ten o’clock.
Soon after retiring, we heard great noises of blowing of horns, &c. The mob were passing in the direction from Llanddarog to Swansea.
We heard firing.
In a short time after, when they were returning, I also heard firing.
The mob were calling for Evan Thomas.
Witness lighted a candle, when he saw three guns pointed between a board of the window and the wall.
The board was then pulled down, when witness perceived that it was a fine moonlight night.
I saw a large crowd of disguised persons; there were from thirty to fifty people outside.
After my mother-in-law opened the window, she said, “I know you, old fellow.”
They called his wife to come out, and go on her knees before them.
She said she would not, if she were torn to pieces.
Witness then went to the door, and the mob called on him to bring out Evan Thomas, or he should suffer instead of him.
They then commenced shooting at the house.
I saw the defendant, Thomas Thomas, there — I am sure he was there; had known him for two years, and seen him often before.
I went up to the defendant, about ten days before, to ask a favour, on part of my father, about Rebecca.
Defendant said, if he asked the favour for himself he would do it, but that all the country was angry to his father for being a constable.
Cross-examined by Mr. Wilson: Thomas Thomas wore a white gown down to his knees.
He wore a straw hat.
I well knew his voice.
He told them to shoot my wife.
He spoke English.
Witness could not speak English.
He spoke English, and said, “shoot him.”
(Laughter).
This took place on .
I cannot say when I gave the information.
I think it was a week before the Winter Assizes.
I have always been confident that he was there.
I never told Elizabeth Jones that it was impossible to recognize one of the parties, in consequence of the smoke.
I do not remember seeing her, in company with two others, by a school-room, when I told her, “I die if I knew one of them.
I could not, in consequence of the smoke.”
I never told her so.
I know David Jones, Llwynmor.
I might have told him that I knew none of them, as I suspected his servant was there.
I never told Margaret Roberts that the devil would not know them.
I never told David Davies, Pontfaen, on the evening after the disturbance, that “I could not know one of them, as I should answer judgment, because the house was so full of smoke.”
— Witness was cross-examined at considerable length as to his hiving told several people, in conversation with them, that he could not recognize them.
Reference was made to conversations with about a dozen, people.
I told some people, said witness, that I knew them, and to others that I did not, because I was afraid of them, and suspected that either they or their connexions were present.
Mr. Hall cross-examined witness on behalf of James Thomas:– The examination was principally directed to prove that, in conversation, witness had contradicted statements given by him in evidence.
Margaret Thomas, the last witness’s wife, next gave evidence:— She positively identified, first, John Jones, alias Shoni Scyborfawr.
She said to James Thomas, “Ah! old fellow, who gave you permission to come in here?”
He then smiled, and turned round.
I have known him, said witness, from a child; have spoken with him hundreds of times.
Could not identify Thomas Thomas’s person, but was sure of his voice.
He was at a distance, and had a white shirt and a straw hat about him.
Witness said, “If I have done anything wrong, send the law towards me.”
One of the mob said, “The law is is now nearly all in the hands of ’Becca and her daughters.”
Witness was examined at considerable length by Mr. Hall, who put in evidence the witness’s deposition, taken before the committing Magistrates.
Mary Thomas, sister of the last witness, slept in her father’s house on the night it was attacked by the mob.
Heard a person crying out, “Shoot, shoot him.”
I will swear it was Thomas Thomas’s voice.
Cross-examined:— I will swear I slept in my father’s house that night.
I did not sleep with Martha Vaughan on that night.
I had slept with her a week before.
I never told David Rees that I had that night slept with Martha Vaughan.
Elizabeth Thomas, the wife of Evan Thomas, was examined, to prove that the last witness slept in the house on that night.
Evan Thomas (the celebrated Porthyrhyd lion), was next examined:– is 56 years of age.
Has acted 16 or 17 years as a constable.
My house was attacked in .
I met Thos. Thomas and his wife on the road.
I told his wife that I wished to have quiet with the ’Beccas — that they destroyed my things.
Mrs. Thomas said the only objection the country had to witness was, that he was a constable, and she added, that he must give that office up, and they would leave him alone.
She also asked him to come to the house, and she would give him a paper.
He said he could not that day, but if they wished assistance at the hay-harvest, he would give it.
He went there, and worked a day.
In the evening, Thomas Thomas told him that he would give him a paper.
His wife called me in, and commenced writing.
She gave me a paper to protect me from ’Becca.
I have got the paper.
[Witness then produced the written paper, which is given in the Learned Counsel’s opening statement.]
Mr. Wilson now addressed the jury on behalf of the defendant, Mr. Thomas Thomas.
The jury had heard from his Learned Friend, Mr. Chilton, that his client, Mr. Thomas, was a man of respectable station in society, had borne an irreproachable character, and, in addition to being a considerable farmer and freeholder himself, he was the son of as respectable a freeholder as any in the county, and, therefore, the most unlikely to be connected with the outrageous attack which undoubtedly had been committed on the house of the poor man, Evan Thomas on the night in question.
The Learned Counsel read nearly the whole of the evidence, making comments thereon, and contending that the witnesses must either have been mistaken, or grossly perjured, in swearing so positively to the identity of the prisoner.
Mr. Lloyd Hall then addressed the jury for the defendant, James Thomas, contending that the statements and manners of the witnesses for the prosecution were not such as to entitle their evidence to the belief of the jury.
He then proceeded to state that James Thomas was a lime-burner, in the employ of R.M. Philipps, Esq., and that, on the night in question, he was engaged at his work at a distance off at the time of the riot.
Elizabeth Jones, servant to the defendant, Thomas Thomas, was then called.
She remembered the night of the riot at Evan Thomas’s house.
Saw the defendant and his wife shut the bedroom door.
She slept next door to Mr. Thomas.
No person could go out of the house without her knowing it.
He did not go out that night.
Cross-examined by Mr. Chilton:— She generally slept so lightly, that she could hear a cat go out of the room.
There was a seamstress and another person in the room.
By the Court:– got up about the same time the morning before and the morning after the riot.
I got up the previous morning at five, and retired at twelve.
The seamstress was called to prove that she slept with the last witness.
Remembers Mr. and Mrs. Thomas going to bed, about twelve o’clock.
Heard great noise of horns and shooting before Mr. and Mrs. Thomas came into the house — neither did go out afterwards.
Elizabeth Jones, David Jones, Margaret Williams, David Davies, David Jenkins, Esther Jones, Thomas Davies, John Thomas, John John, and others, were called as witnesses, to prove that various statements had been made by George Thomas and other witnesses, contradictory of the evidence given by them in Court, such as saying, “The devil himself could not know the people there, as they were so disguised” — “if I was to answer judgment at this moment, I could not recognize one, as they were so disguised,[”] — and that George Thomas said, “that he was ready to swear, before God and man, that he knew no person.”
John Thomas, father of the prisoner, James Thomas, was called to prove a similar statement.
Remembered he had a job about , which required the repairing of some tools, and that his son brought them to him at such a time, that he must have been engaged in repairing them on the night of the riot.
Mrs. Evans, wife of the Rev. Stephen Evans, Curate of some parish in Carmarthenshire, gave evidence relative to a conversation, during which Evan Thomas declared he did not know any person at the riot.
Several witnesses were then called to sustain the alibi on behalf of James Thomas.
Margaret Vaughan and David Rees swore — the former that Mary Thomas, one of the witnesses for the prosecution, had slept with her on the night of the riot; and the latter, that she informed him that she had slept at the woman Vaughan’s house.
Richard Rees, Esq., County Treasurer, and Eliezer Wiliams, Esq., Surgeon, gave the prisoner Thomas Thomas a good character, but admitted in cross-examination that latterly he had been a reputed Rebeccaite.
Mr. Chilton, Q.C., then replied to the evidence adduced for the defence, in a very able and energetic speech.
His Lordship then summed up the evidence, observing, that with respect to the first question for the consideration of the jury — whether any riot had taken place on the night in question — there could be no kind of doubt.
The next point was, whether the prisoner, or either of them, was present.
His Lordship observed, that there was nothing either in the evidence or manner of the witnesses for the prosecution, to induce an opinion that they had perjured themselves; but if the witnesses for the defence were believed, the jury must come to that conclusion as to some points.
With respect to the evidence of the witness Vaughan, she might have been mistaken as to the night on which Mary Thomas slept with her; but if it was on the night of the riot, the latter must have perjured herself.
His Lordship then pointed out the various points of evidence given in defence, rather corroborative than otherwise, of the prosecution.
His Lordship most carefully recapitulated the whole of the evidence bearing upon the case, and offered some observations relating to alibis.
After his Lordship had concluded the jury retired, and returned in less than ten minutes, with a verdict of Not Guilty for both defendants.
Back to the Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser:
The following prisoners were then placed at the bar to receive the sentence of the court:
John Harries [Harris?], Isaac Charles, Job Evans, John Lewis, David Williams, and David Thomas, convicted of riot at the Carmarthen Workhouse, on , the former of whom was sentenced to 12 calendar months’ hard labour, and the others to eight calendar months’ each.
[The Cambrian adds these remarks from the judge: “The case of the defendant Harris showed, that there were to be found persons somewhat above the lowest grade in the ranks of the Rebeccaites, though he thought that there never had arisen a popular agitation produced by such gross ignorance.
As Harries ought, from his station in society, to have known his duty better than to allow himself to become the ringleader and instigator of this proceeding, some distinction must be made between the punishment awarded him and that awarded the other defendants.”]
Jonathan Jones, Howell Lewis, David Lewis, David Davies, and Jonathan Lewis, convicted of a riot at Talog, were sentenced to 8 calendar months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
The Cambrian adds another case here: of Thomas Hughes, John Jones, and Benjamin Jones, “convicted of a riot, and the destruction of Pontileche Gate” The judge said they had been convicted of a misdemeanor but were probably guilty of a felony, but hadn’t been charged with a felony because this would mean trying them before a common jury, which might have led to jury nullification — “It was a shocking thing to think that there were grounds for imagining that there were some persons of a disposition to sympathise with such depredations, even of the stations in society of persons eligible to serve on juries, who were bound by their oaths to support and vindicate the laws of their country,” he said, perhaps reflecting on the case decided that day. He sentenced them to twelve months of hard labor apiece.
David Thomas, Thomas Powell, John Thomas, John James, Thomas Thomas, John Thomas, Evan Davies, and David Evans, convicted of burglary and robbery at Pantyfen, in the parish of Llanfihangel-ar-arth, were called on, and the first was sentenced to 20 years’ transportation, for being an accessory before the fact, and the instigator to this disgraceful outrage; and all the others were sentenced to 10 years transportation.
His lordship, in addressing the prisoners, observed that they had been found guilty of an offence of the greatest magnitude; that they had taken advantage of the disturbances which unhappily prevailed in this and the adjoining counties, to serve their own private and wicked purposes; but it would be shewn to them that they would not be allowed to trample upon the laws of the country with impunity, and he would send them to a country where they would have no opportunity of committing such a disgraceful & cruel outrage again.
The scene which took place in the court, after the sentences were delivered on the latter prisoners, baffles all description.
[?!]
Quite the lazy reporter. Here is how the Cambrian described the scene: “Immediately after the last sentence had been pronounced, the scene in Court became most affecting — perhaps awful would be more expressive of the effect produced upon the minds of the spectators. Nearly all the prisoners — who, though they had before shewn no carelessness or disregard, yet had manifested no great concern at their situation — now burst into fits of inconsolable agony, while in different parts of the Court, women were seen in hysterical fits, and others of both sexes gave vent to their grief in loud cries, and, in some instances, in terrific yells. The officers had some difficulty in removing the prisoners. A sentence of such severity was apparently quite unexpected, both by the prisoners and their friends.”
After the prisoners had been removed, his lordship observed that the persons charged with destroying a turnpike gate near Llanddarog [Thomas Davies, Phillip Thomas, and Joseph Clement] would be admitted to bail, until the next assize; and the civil causes not tried or settled out of court, would be left as remanents.
