nd [wm 1794]

Inserenda

Observations

VI. Miscellanea

§. 45

Anonymous

7

witness that he can be either convicted put upon his trial arrested or called to account in any shape: – if he is guilty, it is much more favourable to him than it would be if the informant declared himself, because in that case conviction, as above mentioned, might take place at once, without either the trouble of looking out for further evidence, or the danger of not getting it. In what way could anonymous information be more prejudicial to him than information from a person known, or so much as equally prejudicial? No Magistrate, no Board, no Jury ever yet convicted upon such evidence as the bare allegation of an unknown informant, or of any number of unknown informants: – to ground a conviction, there must be evidence given by an individual known, examined in person, upon oath and in presence of the party charged. So sure as a Magistrate presumed presumed to convict without the concurrence of any of these requisites ( confession, which supersedes them all being here out of the question) so thereby would he himself be convicted and punished on application to the Court of King’s Bench. In every point of view it is so much the better for the party whose supposed practices or designs form the subject matter of the information, that the informant should be unknown. If the informant were known, conviction and punishment would be the probable consequence. But so long as the informant is unknown, conviction without some other evidence is impossible, and the worst that can happen to a plotter is the frustration of his plot.