In 1775 the East India company sent out Lord Pigot with instructions to restore the Rajah of Tanjore to his Madras territories. These had been annexed in 1773 by the Nawob of the Carnatic. In fact the Nawob was a puppet; the employees of the East India company were the real powers in Madras and Bengal. One of the principal persons in this regard was Paul Benfield (1740-1810). Benfield was nominally answerable to the Court of Directors of the East India company: in reality he was more powerful than his employers. The unlucky Lord Pigot was thrown into a dungeon by company troops (by order of Benfield) where he died in 1775. Benfield amassed one of the largest fortunes ever brought home from India. He was recalled in 1781 as a result of the Pigot scandal and successfully petitioned to return to his position in India. The vote in his favour in the Court of Proprietors of the East India company was 368 to 302. Edmund Burke had purchased a shareholding in the East India company in order to block Benfield’s reinstatement. One of his “Heads of Objections” read;
“That the immense Magnitude of the Sums alleged by him to be due to the said Paul Benfield, furnishes a just Cause to doubt, whether the Money (if really advanced as pretended) could be acquired by lawful means, considering Mr. Benfield’s Rank in the Service, the nature of his Trade, and the time of his residence in India.” Paul Benfield was a man of the world. The shareholders of the East India company were also beneficiaries of the extortion and theft practised in India and if appearances could be maintained, they would not and did not change the status quo.

In 8 A.D. the Emperor Augustus condemned the poet Ovid to live in Tomis in Moesia.

Tomis was at the edge of the Roman Empire on the Black Sea, near the mouths of the Danube, a mere 450 miles or so from a bend in the Volga where Stalingrad would later be sited.

Ovid’s trial was held in camera before the Emperor. His ostensible offence was the writing of the Ars Amatoria. Eight years had passed since its publication: the Emperor’s real motivation lay in the discovery of the wanton life of his daughter Julia and he was in search of a scapegoat.

Ovid was that scapegoat.

This truth, or context, deprived Ovid of the chance to address the Emperor’s motivation in condemning him to exile, as he wrote from Tomis to his friends and public in Rome.

In the face of power, formally judicial or otherwise, it is necessary to be circumspect.

As Ovid discovered, and told his Roman readers, the Danube and even the Black Sea would freeze over in winter. He expressed his anguish in the recollection of his last moments in Rome;

Iamque quiescebant voces hominumque canumque,
Lunaque nocturnos alta regebat equos.

At last all noise of men and dogs was still,
The moon was driving high o’er heaven’s hill.”

His life in Tomis is recalled and examined in “An Imaginary Life” by David Malouf. Malouf’s book, a sustained work of imagination, is a reflection on what it is to be human. Ovid’s humanity, in the loneliness of his exile, is counterpointed by the strange example of a feral boy found by the inhabitants of Tomis and brought in from the barbarous wastes of the steppe.

Abuse of power is very old. King David arranged the death of Uriah to conceal the King’s rape of Bathseba.

Gordon Brown and his Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith say they want pre-charge detention of terror suspects to be extended from 28 to 42 days. The BBC reported the Home Secretary thus:

Ms Smith told the BBC there was a “serious and consistent threat from terrorism”.

She added: “In order to ensure we prosecute people who want to cause murder and mayhem on our streets, we may well need to hold them longer to do that.”

Ms Smith also said: “We need to legislate now for the exceptional circumstances that there might be in the future.”

We now know that there is and was no basis in fact for making these claims. The only support has come from Alex Carlile, a government appointee and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, a man himself in need of political support and friends.

The proposal is a recipe for injustice. They are saying that they want to imprison people for up to 42 days while they search for evidence upon which they could charge them with an offence.

The claimed justification is an operational one. The preferring of charges is central to the operations.

The preferring of charges is the job of the Director of Prosecutions (“DPP�?). The man with that job is Sir Ken Macdonald QC.

Sir Ken not only disagrees with Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith, he actually opposes them. He has no difficulty preferring charges within 28 days, the current limit and nobody, he says, has been held for longer than 14 days in the nine months prior to April 2008.

It is rumoured the Brown-Smith position is simply to draw a “favourable�? contrast between the Labour position on “security�? and the Conservative position.

Are there any standards by which to judge Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith?

Yes, and they are not moral. Jurisdiction aside, would they not be guilty of a breach of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a), which makes it a crime for a person to “knowingly and willfully�?:

• falsify, conceal, or cover up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

• make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

• make or use any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry

�?in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States.�?

The punishment for violating section 1001 is a fine, imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both.