Brief for the Prosecution against Henry Seekamp (Seditious libel)
VPRS 30/P Unit 40, Case no.23, Criminal Sessions M
This document contains 5 pages.
Overview
Henry Seekamp, the editor of the Ballarat Times, was arrested on 4 December 1854, the day after the Stockade, and charged with seditious libel. The following prosecution brief contains the evidence assembled against him for his trial. He was tried and convicted by a Melbourne jury on 23 January 1855 and, after a series of appeals, sentenced to six months imprisonment on 23 March. Extracts from the Ballarat Reform League Charter are reproduced. We can surmise that the printing of the Charter in the Times was its major method of circulation on the goldfields.
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Page 1
In the Supreme Court
Of
The Colony of Victoria
The Queen
v.
Henry Seekamp
Charles Jeffries Carter on his oath saith
I am a Sub Inspector of Police. I arrested defendant on the 4th instant in the Office of the Ballarat Times in consequence of certain articles which have appeared in his paper and which seditious and calculated to excite disturbances on the diggings. I produce the papers referred to. The articles are marked and the defendant is the Editor as appears by the Publication. The papers are dated the 18th and 25th of November and 2nd of December.
Sworn 9 December 1854
At Ballarat before
E.P S. Sturt P.M
The Defendant by his Counsel admits the 3 newspapers produced to be respectively printed and published by him and by the advice of his Counsel declines to make any statement.
The following is one of the Articles alluded to
“There is something strange and to the Government of this Country (meaning the Colony of Victoria) something not quite comprehensible in this League (the Reform League). For the first time in the Southern Hemisphere a reform league is to be inaugerated. There is something ominous in this. The word League in a time of such feverish excitement as the present is big with immense purport. Indeed it would ill become the “Times” meaning the above newspaper) to wince (?) in matter of such weighty importance. This league is nothing more or less than the Germ of Australian Independence.
