The following table shows the number of votes polled in each town in the State of Rhode Island, on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of December, 1841, for the people's constitution. Votes in the City of Providence. LEAVING for a time the desultory history of affairs in Rhode Island, we will return to Mr. Dorr. As has been shown, he left Chepatchet in the evening of the 27th of June, 1842. He well knew that a spirit of deadly hostility had been excited against him, and supposed that his enemies, emboldened by his flight, would cry aloud for blood. In this he was not mistaken. As soon as it was ascertained that he had left the state, Governor King issued his proclamation, offering a re-. ward of five thousand dollars for his apprehension; but the chief magistrates of the neighboring states protected him from the fury of his mercenary pursuers. The Hon. Henry Hubbard, then governor of the State of New Hampshire, gave the exiled patriot a cordial welcome. Here Mr. Dorr found a safe asylum from the fury of his mad pursuers. The bosom of that illustrious chief magistrate glowed with true patriotic firehis purpose was firm as his own granite hills, and his heart as pure as the snowy mantle which covered their sides unborn generations will bless his memory for the noble deed. Democracy had fallen in Rhode Island; the fundamental principles upon which the American governments are based had been publicly violated, and the power of an oligarchy established by the bayonet. Mr. Dorr remained a voluntary exile, hoping that the camp fires of his exulting enemies would at length be extinguished, and peace and quiet be so far restored as to allow him to return unmolested to his native state, and the bosom of his anxious friends. Confiding too much in the honor and magnanimity of his conquerors, after an absence of nearly one and a half years, he concluded to return to his native city. Accordingly, on the last day of October, 1843, in the capacity of a quiet citizen, he arrived in Providence, and entered his name at the City Hotel. Soon after this, Mr. Dorr was arrested by an officer upon the charge of treason against the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and thrust into jail in Providence, where he was kept in close confinement until Thursday, the 29th of February, 1844, when he was removed to the jail at Newport, in which county it had been decided that his trial should take place. Contrary to the common law of England and the United States, and in violation of every principle of justice and humanity, the Supreme Court of the State of Rhode Island decreed that the prisoner should be tried in a county in which he was a stranger, where it was known that almost every man was his avowed enemy, away from all his friends and his witnesses, and contrary to the earnest solicitation of the prisoner and his counsel. We would not rashly impugn the motives of a high judicial tribunal, or seek to strip its incumbents of their consecrated ermine; yet experience has taught us that the frailties and passions common to all men - the same love and the same hate the same motives of interest and the same feelings of revenge -- may find their way to the forum, and sit ensconced beneath the judicial robe. We would not be too uncharitable, but leave every reader to form his own opinion of the justice of the proceedings against Mr. Dorr. On the 26th of April, 1844, nearly two years after the alleged offence was committed after a written constitution had been adopted, and a government quietly organized under it--when nothing at home or abroad threatened to disturb the peace of the stateMr. Dorr was taken from the prison at Newport, and brought before the Supreme Court to be tried for treason. He pleaded not guilty to the charge, and Samuel Y. Atwell and George Turner, Esqrs., were engaged as his counsel. The first motion which his counsel made to the court was for a compulsory process for witnesses for the respondent, as Mr. Dorr had already exhausted all his own means, and was unable to pay the witnesses he wished to summon. But the court refused to grant the application in the following words: "The accused possesses the means to employ counsel; it is to be presumed that he is also able to pay his witnesses for their attendance; the motion therefore cannot be granted." Mr. Dorr stood before the court penniless and a stranger, his friends and witnesses were far away, and yet the court refused to grant him a privilege that is always allowed to the vilest malefactor. |