r^ 1! •^ \^ Y.} A^' (IJnrnpll ICaui ^rlynnl IGibtary Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library KD 358.E73 1870a V.2 Speeches of Thomas Lord Erskine / 3 1924 021 694 488 Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation witli Cornell University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in limited quantity for your personal purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partial versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commercial purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® SPEECHES THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. EEPRINTED FROM THE FIVE VOLUME OCTAVO EDITION OF 1810. itij Pl^moxr of Pis ^ifc EDWARD WALFOED, M.A. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: EEEVES & TUENEE, 100 CHANCERY LANE, 196 STRAND. Digitized by Microsoft® PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON. Digitized by Microsoft© CONTENTS OF VOL 11. Trial op Thomas Hakdy, for High Treason — The Subject, ..... . . 1 The Indictment, ... ... 3 Speech of the Attorney-General, ...... 7 Speech for the Defence, ....... 136 Speech oe Mr Erskine in Deeekcb of-Hon. Richard Bingham, afterwards Lord Ltjcan — The Subject, ........ 225 The Spftech, ...... .225 Speech of Mr Erskine in Defence of John Hornb Tooke, Esq. — The Subject, ........ 234 The Speech, 235 Trial of the Bishop of Bangor and others, for a Riot and Assault — The Subject, ......... 301 Speech of Mr Adam for the Prosecution,. .... 302 Speech for the Defence, ....... 316 Mr Justice Heath's Summing-up, .... 332 Case of Me Ccthbll foe Publishing a Libel — The Subject, ... . . . . . .338 Speech for the Defence, ....... 3il Proceedings against Sackville, Eael of Thanbt, fob a Misdemeanour — The Subject, . . . . . . 354 The Information, ...... . 355 Speech of the Attorney- General, ...... 361 Evidence for the Crown, . . ... 368 Speech for the Defence, ... . 406 Evidence for the Defendants, ... . . 446 Attorney-General's Reply, . . . . . 469 Lord Kenyon's Charge to the Jury, . . . 479 Speech of the Earl of Thanet, ... 482 Digitized by Microsoft® IV CONTENTS. Affidavit of the Earl of Thanet, .... Speech of Mr Fergusson, ..... Affidavit of Mr Fergusson, Case of James Hadfield, foe Shooting the King — The Subject, ..... Speech for the Defence, ..... Case of Eev. George Maekham against John Fawcett — Preface, ....... Speech of Mr Erskiue for the Plaintiff, . Peocebdings of the Friends of the Libeett of the Press, PAGE 484 486 487 489 490 512 513 524 Digitized by Microsoft® SPEECHES OF LORD ERSKINE. TRIAL of Thomas Hardy, for High Treason, at the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, 28th of October to 5th of November 1794. THE SUBJECT. We have not been without considerable diiBciilties in preparing the in- troduction to Mr Erskine's speech upon this most memorable state trial. It was our original intention, as we have before stated, to have published such of Mr Erskine's speeches as we were able to collect, in the same manner as those of the Master of the Eolls in Ireland had been printed in Dublin, which led, as we have said, to the present publication — prefixing only, as in that collection, a short account of the occasions on which they were delivered. But as we advanced in the work, we found some of the speeches which we had collected so closely connected with political diiferences in our own times, that, to avoid even the appearance of partiality, or of any desire to render the work subservient to the senti- ments or views of any particular class of persons, however eminent ; — above all, to avoid the most distant appearance of entering into the imputed or supposed designs of the persons prosecuted by Government, and defended in the speeches in question, we found it advisable, because in ■ those instances practicable, to print not only the speeches for the. Crown, but the whole substance of the evidence. This could not be done upon the present occasion without printing the whole trial, which occupies three large volumes : yet, to give to Mr Erskine's speech — the publication of which is our principal design — its true spirit and effect, we found that it would be necessary to explain the nature of the arguments it opposed, and of the evidence which it appealed to, and had prepared a concise statement of the whole case. Still apprehensive, however, that we might be suspected of leaning to the side of the parties accused by Governnient, and be charged with giving a garbled publication from motives foreign to our professions, we resolved to print the entire speech of the Attorney-General, in which he detailed the whole body of the evidence, and also the law respecting high treason, as he meant to apply it against the prisoners, which, with the answer to it by Mr Erskine^ brings forward the whole outline of this interesting progeeding, VOL. II. A Digitized by Microsoft® 2 TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. Never, perhaps, ■were any persons accused of higb treason (certainly not since the government became settled at the Revolution) exposed to such great difficulties in making their defence. It will be seen by the following speeches, and by the indictment prefixed to them, that the prisoners were charged with compassing and imagining the death of the King, the overt act being a conspiracy, which, though masked under the jiretence of procuring by legal means a reform in the Commons House of Parliament, had for its real object the subversion by rebellious force of the whole frame of the constitution of the country. In support of this indictment it wUl be seen by the following speeches that the evidence for the Crown was divided into two distinct branches, viz., to estabUsh, first, that such a conspiracy existed, and, secondly, to prove that the prisoners were parties to it. This course of proceeding had been sanctioned by the opinions of the judges upon other trials, but the adoption of it upon this occasion, however legal, undoubtedly exposed the prisoners to great peril of prejudgment, because almost the whole of the evidence given by the Crown against them had been collected by both Houses of Parliament just before the trial, and printed by their authority ; and a statute* had even been passed, declaring that the treacherous con- spiracy, which constituted the first and very important branch of the evidence, did in fact exist within the kingdom. We say a very important branch of the evidence, because undoubtedly if the jury had considered that the evidence supported the truth of the preamble to the Act of Parliament, the prisoners must have been in a manner without a defence. Authority was also given to detain, .without bail, persons already in custody, on suspicion of being engaged in the above conspiracy, or who should be thereafter committed on that account. With regard to this Act of Parliament, it is impossible, on the one hand, to deny the constitutional competency of Parliament to declare the existence of a dangerous and extended conspiracy, endangering not only the safety, but the very existence of the state. On the other hand, the persons who may become obnoxious to suspicion, and be subjected to a public prosecution in consequence of such a legislative proceeding, come to a trial under seemingly insurmountable disadvantages. In the very case before us, the two Houses of Parliament had collected and arranged the greater part of the written evidence afterwards produced by the Crown against the prisoners, and in the preamble of the Act had given it the character of a detestable conspiracy to subvert the monarchy, although, as has been already stated, the inquiry of the jury was to be divided into two branches — first, whether the evidence, great part of which had been so collected and arranged in Parliament and published, substantiated the declaration made in the preamble of the bill, of the existence of such a conspiracy to subvert the Government 1 and, secondly, whether the prisoners had any, and what share in it ? Now, it is most obvious that if, in deference to the judgment of Parliament, the first part of this division had been found by the jury, and the law of high * 34th Geo. III., e. 54. The preamble to the bill states, that " whereas a treacherous and detestable conspiracy has been formed for subverting the existing laws and con- stitution, and for introducing the system of anarchy and confusion which has so lately prevailed in France," &o. Digitized by Microsoft® INDICTMENT AGAINST THOMAS HAEDY. 3 treason, as stated by tte counsel for the Crown, had been adopted, the prisoners could scarcely have had any defence, as they then must have been taken, upon the whole of the evidence, to have been privy to pro- ceedings throughout the whole kingdom, directed to the subversion of the monarchy, and destruction of the king. All that can be said upon such a case is, first, that dependence must be had upon the sacred trust of the Legislature, not without urgent necessity to adopt such a proceeding, and carefully to consider the fair result of the evidence, when made the foundation of an Act of Parliament ; and, secondly, that the British constitution provides for the safety of all who have the happiness to live under its protection, by giving to twelve men to be taken from the mass of the people, the privilege and the duty to sit in judgment upon all that the authority of Parliament may have decided to be the fact, and all that the learning of the judges may consider to be the application of the law. In that respect, whatever may be the merits of this case, and whatever, amidst the variety of judgments in a free country, may be the prevailinir opinion concerning it, the trial by jury must ever be dear to Englishmen^ The verdict of acquittal, instead of giving encouragement to whatever spirit of sedition might have existed at that period, produced an universal spirit of content and confidence in the people. Nothing indeed could more properly excite such sentiments than so memorable a proof of safety under the laws. THE INDICTMENT. Session House in the Old Bailey, , Saturday, October 25, 1794. Pkesent, — Lord Chief-Justice Eybe ; Lord Chief-Baron Macdonald ; Mr Baron Hotham ; Mr Justice Bullek ; Mr Justice Grose ; and others His Majesty's Justices, &c. Thomas Hardy, John Hoene Tookb, John Augustus Bonnet, Stewart Kyd, Jeremiah Joyce, Thomas Holcroft, John Kich- TER, John -Thelw ALL, and John Baxter, were arraigned, and severally pleaded Not guilty. The indictment charged, that the prisoners, being subjects of our Lord the King, not having the fear of God in their hearts, nor weighing the duty of their allegiance, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, as false traitors against our said Lord the King, their supreme, true, lawful, and undoubted lord, and wholly withdrawing the cordial love and true and due obedi- ence which every true and faithful subject of our said Lord the King should and of right ought to bear towards our said Lord the King, and contriving, and with all their strength intending, traitorously Digitized by Microsoft® 4 INDICTMENT AGAINST THOMAS HAEDY. to break and disturb the peace and common tranquillity of tins king- dom of Great Britain, and to stir, move, and excite insurrection, rebellion, and war against our said Lord the King within this kingdom, and to subvert and alter the legislature, rule, and govern- ment now duly and happily established in this kingdom, and to depose our said Lord the King from the royal state, title, power, and government of this kingdom, and to bring and put our said Lord the King to death, on the iirst day of March, in the thirty-third year of the reign of our sovereign Lord the now King, and on divers other days and times, maliciously and traitorously, with force and arms, &c., did amongst themselves, and together with divers other false traitors, to the said jurors unknown, conspire, compass, imagine, and intend to stir up, move, and excite insurrection, re- bellion, and war against our said Lord the King, within this king- dom of Great Britain, and to subvert and alter the legislature, rule, and government now duly and happily established within this king- dom of Great Britain, and to depose our said Lord the King from the royal state, title, power, and government of this kingdom, and to bring and put our said Lord the King to death. And that to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked trea- son and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, they, with force and arms, maliciously and traitorously did meet, conspire, consult, and agree amo4g themselves, and together with divers other false traitors, to the said jurors unknown, to cause and procure a convention and meeting of divers subjects of our said Lord the King to be assembled and held within this kingdom, with intent and in order that the persons to be assembled at such conveijtion and meeting should and might wickedly and traitorously^ without and in defiance of the authority, and against the will of the Parlia- ment of this kingdom, subvert and alter, and cause to be subverted and altered, the legislature, rule, and government now duly and happily established in this kingdom, and depose and cause to be deposed our said Lord the King from the royal state, title, power, and government thereof. And further to fulfil, perfect, and to bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, and in order the more readily and effectually to assemble such convention and meeting as aforesaid, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid, and thereby to accomplish the same purposes, they, together with divers other false traitors, to the jurors unknown, maliciously and traitorously did compose and write, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously cause to be composed and written, divers books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolutions, orders, ■ declarations, addresses, and writings, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously publish, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously cause to be published, divers other books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolutions, orders, declarations, addresses, and Digitized by Microsoft® INDICTMENT AGAINST THOMAS HAKDY. 5 writings, the said books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolu- tions, • orders, declarations, addresses, and writings so respectively composed, written, published, and cause to be composed, written, and published, purporting and containing therein, among other things, incitements, encouragements, and exhortations to move, induce, and persuade the subjects of our said Lord the King to choose, depute, and send, and cause to be chosen, deputed, and sent, persons as delegates, to compose and constitute such conven- tion and meeting as aforesaid, to be so holden as aforesaid, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, and in order the more readily and effectually to assemble such convention and meeting as aforesaid, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid, and thereby to accomplish the same purposes, they did meet, consult, and de- liberate among themselves, and together with divers other false traitors, to the said jurors unknown, of and concerning the calling and assembling such convention and meeting as aforesaid, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid, and how, when, and wher6 such con- vention and meeting should be assembled and held, and by what means the subjects of our said Lord the King should and might be induced and moved to send persons as delegates to compose and constitute the same. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable com- passings and imaginations aforesaid, and in order the more readily and effectually to assemble such convention and meeting as afore-, said, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid, and thereby to accom^ plish the same- purposes, maliciously and traitorously did consent and agree that the said Jeremiah Joyce, John Augustus Bonney, John Home Tooke, Thomas Wardle, Matthew Moore, John Thel- wall, John Baxter, Richard Hodgson, one John Lovett, one William Sharp, and one John Pearson, should meet, confer, and co-operate among themselves, and together with divers other false traitors, to the jurors unknown, for and towards the calling and assembling such convention and meeting as aforesaid, for the traitorous purposes aforesaid. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, they maliciously and traitorously did cause and procure to be made and provided, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously consent and agree to the making and providing of divers arms and offensive weapons,, to wit, guns, muskets, pikes, and axes, for the purpose of arming divers subjects of our said Lord the King, in order and to the- intent that the same subjects should and might unlawfully, forcibly, and traitorously oppose and withstand our said Lord the King in the due and lawful exercise of his royal power and authority in the execution of the laws and statutes of this realm, and should Digitized by Microsoft® 6 INDICTMENT AGAINST THOMAS HARDY. and might unlawfully, forcibly and traitorously subvert and alter, and aid and assist in subverting and altering, without and in defiance of the authority and against the will of the Parliament ot this kindom, the legislature, rule, and government now duly and happily established in this kingdom^ and depose, and aid and assist in deposing, our said Lord the King from the royal state, title, power, and government of this kingdom. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their _most_ evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, they with force and arms maliciously and traitorously did meet, conspire, consult, and agree among themselves to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war within this kingdom of (ireat Britain, against our said Lord the King. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring" to effect their most_ evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, they maliciously and traitorously did meet, conspire, consult, and agree amongst themselves, and together with divers other false traitors, to the jurors unknown, unlawfully, wickedly, and traitor- ously to subvert and alter, and cause to be subverted and altered, the legislature, rule, and government now duly and happily estab- lished in this kingdom, and to depose and cause to be deposed our said Lord the King from the royal state, title, power, and govern- ment of this kingdom. And further to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable corn- passings and imaginations aforesaid, and in order the more readily aiid effectually to bring about such subversion, alteration, and deposition as last aforesaid, they maliciously and traitorously did prepare and compose, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously cause and procure to be prepared and composed, divers books, pamphlets, letters, declarations, instructions, resolutions, orders, addresses, and writings, and did then and there maliciously and traitorously publish and disperse, and did then and there mali- ciously and traitorously cause and procure to be published and dis- ptrsed, divers other books, pamphlets, letters, declarations, instruc- tions, resolutions, orders, addresses, and writings, the said several books, pamphlets, letters, declarations, instructions, resolutions, orders, addresses, and writings so respectively prepared, composed, published, dispersed, and caused to be prepared, composed, pub- lished, and dispersed, as last aforesaid, purporting and containing therein (amongst other things) incitements, encouragements, and exhortations, to move, induce, and persuade the subjects of our said Lord and King to aid and assist in carrying into effect such traitorous subversion, alteration, and deposition as last aforesaid, and also containing therein (amongst other things) information, instructions, and directions to the subjects of our said Lord the King, liow, when, and upon what occasions the traitorous purposes last aforesaid should and might be carried into effect. And further to Digitized by Microsoft® THE ATTOBNEY-GENEEAL's SPEECH. 7 fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect their most evil and wicked treason and treasonable compassings and imaginations aforesaid, they did maliciously and traitorously consent and agree to the procuring and providing arms and offensive weapons, to wit, guns, muskets, pikes, and axes, therewith to levy and wage war, insurrection, and rebellion against our said Lord the King within this kingdom, against the duty of their allegiance, against the peace of our said Lord the now King, his crown and dignity, and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided. Mr Attorney-General stated to the Court, that he had been in- formed by the counsel for the prisoners it was their wish the prisoner^ should be tried separately. It was therefore his intention to proceed first on the trial of Thomas Hardy. At the request of the prisoner's counsel, the Court adjourned to Tuesday, the 28th October. On Tuesday, the 28th of October, the Attorn ey-Genera l opened the case for the Crown against the prisoneFTKomas Haxdy in the' Mat it please tour Lordship, and Gentlemen oy the Jury, — In the course of stating what I have to offer to your most serious attention in this great and weighty cause, affecting, as it certainly does, the dearest interests of the community, affecting, as you will remember throughout this business, every interest which can be valuable to the prisoner at the bar, I shall have frequent occasion to call that anxious attention to the different parts of the indictment which has just been opened to you. I forbear to do so at this moment, because I think that attention will be more usefully, both with respect to the public, and to the prisoner, given and required in another part of what I am to address to you. Gentlemen, the prisoner who is before you stands charged (to state the indictment generally) with the offence of compassing His Majesty's death: he was committed upon that charge by His Majesty's Privy Council. I will explain to you presently why I state this and the following facts. In consequence of the apprehen- sion of this prisoner, of several others charged by this indictment, and of others whose names do not occur in this indictment, pro- ceedings of some notoriety were had in Parliament, and an Act passed empowering his Majesty to detain such persons as he suspected were conspiring against his Government. That Act has asserted that a traitorous and a detestable conspiracy had been formed for subverting the existing laws and government of the country, and for introducing that system of anarchy and confusion which had so fatally prevailed in France. The Act, upon the spur of the emergency which it contemplated, authorised the detention. Digitized by Microsoft® '8 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL's SPEECH 6S without bail, mainprize, or discharge, of the persons then in prison tor high treason or treasonable practices, or who should afterwards be committed for high treason or treasonable practices, by warrants from the Privy Council or Secretary of State, until the 1st of February 1795. Gentlemen, this measure, which did not suspend the operation of the Habeas Corpus Act, that great palladium of English liberty, but with reference to particular persons, under particular commit- ments, for particular offences, is a measure never adopted in this country by Parliament but in cases in which it is understood, after giving all possible attention to secure the right of the subject from being broken in upon, to be of the last possible necessity, and which has been repeatedly put in force, in the best of times, in such cases where the wisdom of Parliament apprehended that it was matter of their duty to provide that the nation should part with its liberty for a while, that it might not lose it for ever. Gentlemen, appearing before you this day in discharge of that duty ^hich I have been commanded to execute, and the execution of which appears to me to be absolutely necessary, you will collect from the fact that I do appear here this day, that, according to the true constitutional meaning of such an Act of Parliament, it is not that the trial of such persons shall be delayed during the period of the suspension of the Act, but that the Act shall, with reference to the time of trial, be allowed, in the right execution of it, an operation only to that extent in which the due consideration of- the public safety, tempered with a due attention to the liberty of the individual subject, may require. Gentlemen, the proceedings of the Legislature having been such as I have stated to you, His Majesty, constitutionally advised in the exercise of his duty, as the great conservator of the public peace, directed a commission to issue to inquire whether any such treasons as the presumption of such a traitorous conspiracy must necessarily suppose to have existed, had been committed by any persons, and by whom. In the execution of the duties of that commission, a grand jury of this county, upon their oaths, have declared that there is ground of charge against the person at the bar, and against others, sufficient to call upon them, in a trial to be had before you; their country, to answer to an accusation of high treason, in com- passing his Majesty's death. Gentlemen, I have stated these circumstances that I may convey to you, in as strong terms as I can express it, this observation, that, as the proceedings of Parliament ought to have had (and I am persuaded, from the deliberation which they gave the subject, that they had) no influence upon the judicial mind of the grand in- quest, neither ought these proceedings to affect your inquiries, or to induce you to any determination which you are to make upon .the issue which you are now sworn to try. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAt OF THOMAS HAEDY. , 9 Gentlemen, there is no one circumstance of any proceedings before Parliament with reference to which you ought to suffer yourselves to be influenced in the trial of this issue. It is obvioufs that such proceedings as were had in Parliament, providing for great emergencies, may be required and authorised by the genuine spirit of the constitution, even in cases in which a grand jury might not, upon anything that could be offered to their considera- tion, be justified in finding a bill : it is much more obvious that, in a proceeding before you, a consideration of the wisdom and propriety of the acts of the Legislature is not called for. You therefore, gentlemen of the jury, will consider the prisoner as standing before you in full possession of an absolute right to the presumption of innocence, notwithstanding he is charged with guilt by this indictment, as you will hear, except so far as that presump- tion is met by the single simple fact that he has been accused by a grand jury of his country. Gentlemen, before I conclude these general observations, you will permit me to say, on the other hand, that if there has been any- thing that has fallen under your observation, by act or publication — any attempt to make any impression upon the minds of those who are this day impannelled to try this great cause, to disparage •that advice which, under the most responsible sanction, may be given you in matter of law, to work in your miads any prejudice either against the prisoner or on the prisoner's behalf ; on the one hand I am perfectly sure that your integrity will be security to the public that you will not permit any attempt of that kind to have any operation ; on the other hand, gentlemen of the jury, I am equally sure that I need not ask from an English jury that they would permit no such attempt to prejudice them against the prisoner at the bar, — no, not even an injudicious or ill-executed attempt to influence them in his favour. Gentlemen, in order to understand the law of treason, and the indictment, I shall take the liberty first to state to you the char- acter which I apprehend the King, for the protection of whose per- son and government the statute in question was made, has in the state and constitution of this country. Gentlemen, the power of the state, by which I mean the power of making laws, and enforcing the execution of them when made, is vested in the King ; enacting laws, in the one case, that is, in his legislative character, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and of the Commons in Parliament assembled, — assembled according to the law and constitutional cus- tom of England ; in the other, case, executing the laws, when made, in subservience to the laws so made, and with the advice which the law and the constitution have assigned to him in almost every in- stance in which they have called upon him to act for the benefit of the subject. The King's authority, under the check of constitu- Digitized by Microsoft® 10 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL's SPEECH ON tional and legal provisions and limitations, convenes and regulates the duration and existence of Parliament, convening those whom, according to the law and custom of the country, he is bound to convene. The King, in his Parliament, sitting in his royal politi- cal capacity, and the Lords and Commons there assembled,, form the great bpdy politic of the kingdom, by which is exercised sove- reign authority in legislation. Gentlemen, whilst the present law, the present constitution, and present government of Great Britain exist, no law can be made but by that authority ; no legislative power can be created against the will and in defiance of that authority. Whether in any or in what circumstances, an attempt to create such a power is a treason forbidden by the statute of the 25th of Edward III., I propose to examine presently. Gentlemen, as in the Kmg the power of legislation is vested, as well as the executive power of the state, to be exercised with con- sent and advice, to. be exercised according to those laws which are the birthright and inheiitance of the subject, having upon him the care and protection of the community ; to him, in return, the alle- giance of every individual is, according to the law of England, due ; that allegiance by which the subject is bound, in the lan- guage of the statutes of this country, to defend him " against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against his person, his crown, or his dignity." Gentlemen, to ascertain to whom this care and protection is committed — to ascertain to whom this allegiance is due, the breach of which, according to the venerable Lord Hale, constitutes high treason — is necessary to the peace of the community ; to ascertain and to define accurately what constitutes a breach of that allegi- ance, is essentially and absolutely necessary to the security of all that our ancestors have claimed, demanded, and insisted upon, as the ancient undoubted rights and liberties of our country. Gentlemen, the former of these objects is secured by the law and constitutional custom of England ; that law which alike secures to you every right, whether it be a right of person or of property. It lias made the crown which his Majesty wears hereditary (and I be^ your attention to that), subject to limitation by Parliament. The latter object has been most anxiously secured by the statute referred to in the indictment, which brings forward the charge the truth of which you are now to try. Gentlemen, the King having this hereditary crown, the law and constitution have also ascertained his duties — those duties which it is incumbent upon him to ex.ecute for the benefit of the subject ; in the execution of which duties they have aided him with counsel, and in consideration of which duties they have clothed him with dignity, and vested him with high prerogatives. With respect to the duties of the King, they attach upon him the instant he be- comes such ; from the moment that his title accrues, in the same Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. it instant the duty of allegiance (the breach of which is high treason) attaches to it ; he recognises these as his duties in that oath, to which, throughout this business, I must again call your attention, in that oath which he is bound to take upon him, at his coronation, to promise and swear " to govern the people of this country," — mark the words, gentlemen, — ''according to the statutes in Farliament agreed upon, and the laws and customs of the same ; that to his power he will cause law in justice and mercy to be administered ; that he will maintain the laws of God, and the true profession of religion established by law." Gentlemen, this oath, stated by that great and venerable con- stitutional Judge, Mr Justice Foster, to be a solemn and a public recognition, not only of the duties of the King, but of the fundamental rights of the people, imposeth upon him (and throughout this case it cannot be too strongly recollected that it imposeth upon him) the most sacred obligation to govern accord- ing to the laws and statutes in Farliament agreed upon, according to the laws and customs of the same, and no other. Gentlemen, addressing this Court, which is a court of law, in which you, the jury, are sworn' to make a ti'ue deliverance accord- ing to the law of England, can I impress it too strongly that it cannot be supposed by possibility — not by possibility — that the King can, consistently with his oath, and with the antecedent duty recognised in the explicit engagement, the terms of which you have heard, either act, or permit himself to act, as King, according to any rules of government, formed by any bodies of men, assuming any character, functions, or situations, those rules of government being meant to operate as laws, the statutes agreed upon in Parlia- ment, and tlie laics and customs of the same, only excepted ? Gentlemen, it seems to me to follow, as a necessary conclusion from the reasoning to be addressed to a court of law, not only that those who conspire to remove the King out of the government altogether, but that those who conspire to remove him, unless he will govern the people according to laws which are not statutes in Parliament agreed upon, and the laws and customs of the same, or as the head of a government framed and modified by any authority not derived from that Parliament, do conspire to depose him from that royal state, title, power, and government, lohich the indictment mentions, and to subvert and alter the rule and government now established in these kingdoms. He ought not so to govern— I say, he cannot so govern — he is bound to resist such a project at the hazard of all its consequences ; he must resist the attempt ; resist- ance necessarily produces deposition, it endangers his life. Gentlemen, to that King upon whom these duties attach, the law and constitution, for the better execution of them, have assigned various counsellors and responsible advisers: it has clothed him, under various constitutional checks and restrictions, with various Digitized by Microsoft® 12 THE attoekey-genekal's spefch on attributes and prerogatives, as necessary for the support and maintenance of the civil liberties of the people: it ascribes to him sovereignty, imperial dignity, and perfection : and because the rule and government, as established in this kingdom, cannot exist /or a moment without a person filling that office, and able to execute all the duties from time to time which I have now stated, it ascribes to him also that he never ceases to exist. In foreign affairs, the delegate and representative of his people, he makes war and peace, leagues and treaties : in domestic concerns, he has prerogatives, as a constituent part of the supreme legislature ; the prerogative of raising fleets and armies: he is the fountain of justice, bound to administer it to his people, because it is due to them ; the great conservator of public peace, bound to maintain and vindicate it ; everywhere present, that these duties may nowhere fail of being discharged ; the fountain of honour, office, and privilege ; the arbiter of domestic commerce, the head of the national church. _ Gentlemen, I hope I shall not be thought to misspend your time in stating thus much, because it appears to me that the fact that such is the character, that such are the duties, that such are the attributes and prerogatives of the King in this country (all exist- ing for the protection, security, and happiness of the people in an established form of government), accounts for the just anxiety j bordering upon jealousy, with which the law watches over his person — accounts for the fact that, in every indictment, the com- passing or imagining his destruction or deposition seems to be considered as necessarily co-existing with an intention to subvert the rule and government established in the country : it is a purpose to destroy and to depose him in whom the supreme power, rule, and government, under constitutional checks and limitations, is vested, and by whom, with consent and advice in some cases, and with advice in all cases, the exercise of this constitutional power is to be carried on. Gentlemen, this language, the tenor and charge of every indict- ment, is most clearly expressed by Lord Hale when he says that high treason is an offence more immediately against the ^erscwi and government of the King. I cannot state it more strongly to you, or from an authority the authenticity of which will be less questioned by those who are to defend the prisoner at the bar, than when I state to you the language of one of the counsel for Lord George Gordon upon the last trial for high treason ; indeed, it is no more than what follows the law of England, as delivered by all those great lawyers, whose authority, I am persuaded, will not be attempted to be shaken in the course of this trial, when it states this principle thus : — " To compass or imagine the death of the King, such imagination or purpose of the mind, visible only to its great Author, being manifested by some open act, an institution obviously directed not only to the security of his natural person; Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. IS tut to tbe stability of the government, the life of the Prince being so interwoven with the constitution of the state that an attempt to destroy the one is justly held to be a rebellious conspiracy against the other." Grentlemen, it will be my duty to state to you presently- what is in law an attempt against the life of the King. It seems, therefore, that when the ancient law of England (and I would beg your attention to what I am now stating to you), that when the ancient law of England was changed, which, even in the case of a subject, held the intent to kill, homicide, as well as, in the case of th0 King, the intent to kill or depose, without the fact, where a measure was taken to effectuate the intent, treason, with a differ- ence, however, as to the nature of the acts deemed sufficient, in the one case or in the other, to manifest the one or the other intent, that, to use the words of a great and venerable authority, I mean Mr Justice Foster, " it was with great propriety that the statute of treason retained the rigour of the law in its full extent in the case of the King. In the case of him," says he, " whose life must not be endangered, because it cannot be taken away by treasonable practices without involving a nation in blood and confusion : levelled at him, the stroke is levelled at the public tranquillity." Gentlemen, that it may be fully understood what it is that I have to contend for in the course of this trial, I put you in mind again that I have before stated that, as it is absolutely necessary to the security of individuals, not less necessary to the security of individuals than it is necessary to the security of the nation which they compose, that the person and government of the King should be thus defended ; on the other hand, for the security of the sub- ject, it is equally necessary that the crime of high treason should not be indeterminate, that it should not be unascertained or unde- fined, either in the law itself, or in the construction to be made of that law. Gentlemen, this necessity is not to be collected merely in. this country from reasoning, though it may obviously enough be col- lected from reasoning. The experience of your ancestors has informed you, — I admit it, and I beg to press it upon your attention, as much as any man in this Court can press it upon your atten- tion, — the experience of your ancestors has informed you, in the jupt and bitter complaints which are to be found in their annals, of the periods in which no man knew how he ought to behave himself, to do, speak, or say, for doubt of pains of treason ; — in the anxiety with which the statute of Edward III. reserved the judgment of all treasons not there expressly specified— " that the justices should tarry, without going to judgment of the treason, till the cause be showed and declared before the King and his Parliament ; " — in the expressive language which our ancestors have used when the provisions of the statute of Edward were first introduced into the Digitized by Microsoft® l4 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON code of law under which we live, and of those statutes by which treasons were brought back to the provisions of that statute. The experience of your ancestors, thus handed down to you, has demon- strated this necessity. I admit too (and my treating the subject thus in the outset may ultimately save your time), that before the statute was made upon which the indictment proceeds, the secu- rity of the subject was not sufficiently provided for. I admit that security is not sufficiently provided for now, if construction can be allowed to give an exposition to the statute which the Legislature did not intend it should receive. Gentlemen, upon each of these heads it was necessary for me to trouble you with some, and but with a few observations. That the law of treason should be determinate and certain, though clearly necessary for the security of the subject, is not more necessary for their security 'than that there should be a law of treason, and that this law should be faithfully, duly, and firmly executed. Gentlemen, every state must have some form or regimen of government ; in other words, it must determine by whom, and under what modifications, the sovereign power is to be exercised in the country ; for no government can exist unless this power is placed somewhere : and the attempt to subvert that power is, in the nature of the thing, an attempt to subvert the established government. It is of necessity that an attempt of this sort should be guarded against by severer penalties than offences which, being breaches of particular laws, do not endanger the very existence of the state itself, which do not involve, in the destruction of the state, the destruction of all laws, but which leave the law, though violated in particular cases, sufficient, in general cases, for the pro- tection of the personal security, the liberty, and happiness of the subject. Gentlemen, this is also the reasoning of that great Judge whose name I before mentioned to you, my Lord Hale. " The greatness of the offence," he says, "and the severity of the punishment, is upon these reasons: — First, because the safety, peace, and tran- quillity of the kingdom is highly concerned in the safety and pre- servation of the person, dignity, and government of the King, and tlierefore the laws of the kingdom have given all possible security to the King's person and government, and under the most severe penalties." Gentlemen, to describe this great offence with precision and accuracy was what the Legislature in Edward's time proposed when they enacted the sacred statute upon which this indictment is founded. That statute was made for the more precise definition of this crime, which, by the common law, had not beeii sufficiently extended, and " the plain unextended letter of it," — you will mark ■ the words, — " the plain unextended letter of it was thought to be a Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 15 Sufficient protection to the person and honour of the Sovereign;" but not only to the person and honour of the Sovereign, but "a« adeqiiate security to the laws committed to Ms execution." Gentlemen, in addressing a jury in a court of law, sworn to make deliverance according to that law which constitutes the Court in which they sit, there are two propositions which appear to me to be alike clear. The first is, that I ought not, that I cannot, dare to call upon you to say that there has been committed under this statute any offence, if the facts of the case to be laid before you, by plain, manifest, authorised interpretation of the statute, do not con- stitute an offence under it. If the statute should seem to any man, or to you, not to be a sufficient and adequate security to the person and honour of the Sovereign, and the due execution of the laws, it is nevertheless all the security which the law has authorised you to give them, and Grod forbid that you should think of giving more. On the other hand, you are bound by your oaths, if this law has been violated in fact, if the fact of violation is proved by evi- dence, convincing in its nature, and such in its form as the law requires (for the law in this case requires not only convincing but formal evidence), then you are bound to give to the person and honour of the Sovereign, and to the laws of your country, that pro- tection which a verdict, asserting in substance that the statute has been violated, would give, and which the statute intended should be given. Gentlemen, men of honour and of conscience, acting under the sanction of the oath they have taken, must come to the same conclusion, judging of the same facts, by the same law, whatever their principles of government may be, unless they differ upon the effect of facts laid before them. In the trial of a person whose name I shall have abundant reason to mention to you in the course of this proceeding, — I mean the author of the " Eights of Man," — charged with a libel against the monarchy of the country, it wa,s judiciously, truly, justly, and strongly admitted in effect, that if the jury had been composed (if there are twelve such men in this country) of republicans, wishing to overturn the government of the country, yet administering the law of England, in a court of Eno-iish law, — if they were convinced that the crime had, alluding to that law, been committed, no man would have the audacity to say they could be capable of that crime against the pulalic, to think for a moment of not coming to the conclusion which the facts called for, according to the law by which they were sworn to decide upon the matter before them. Gentlemen, the statute upon which this indictment proceeds is to the following effect— it states (and it states most truly), " That divers opinions had been had before this time," that is, the 2.'5th Edward III., " in what case treason should be said, and in what not ; the King, at the request of the Lords and of the Commons, Digitized by Microsoft® 16 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL's SPEECH ON hath made a declaration in the. manner as hereafter foUoweth ; that is to say, when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our Lord the King, or of our Lady his Queen, or of their eldest son and heir ; or if a man do violate the King's companion, or the King's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King's eldest pon and heir ; or if a man do levy war against our Lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere, and thereof be provably attainted " — by which words I understand be attainted by evidence that clearly and forcibly satisfies the minds and consciences of those who are to try the fact — " attainted of open deed by people of their condition." Then there is this, to which you will be bound to give your attention for the sake of the prisoner, as well as for the sake of the public, the interests of both being blended in this great cause : — " and because that many other like cases of treason may happen in time to come, which a man cannot think nor declare at this present time, it is accorded that, if any other case, supposed treason, which is not above specified, doth happen before any justices, the justices shall tarry, without any going to judgment of the treason, till the cause be showed and declared before the King and his Parliament, whether it ought to be judged treason or other felony." Gentlemen, I desire to point out here, in the most marked way in which I can state it, the anxiety with which the Parliament wished to preserve to itself the judgments of treasons, not being the specified treasons in the statute, but being like treasons, those which, by a parity of reasoning, might be said to be treason. They would not trust the subjects of the country in the hand of any court of justice upon that point. I mark the circumstance, because it appears to me to give a degree of authority to the law of England upon the subject of treason, and to the constructions which have been made upon it, and to the distinctions which have been made between like treasons, and overt acts of the same treason, that perhaps does not belong to consti'uctions and distinctions adopted in the course of judicial proceedings upon any other law in the statute-book. Gentlemen, having read the statute to you, it is not unimportant, as it seems to me, to observe that Lord Hale and Mr Justice Foster, who have stated the judicial and other expositions of this statute, have stated them, and have expounded the statute, under the weighty caution, which they most powerfully express, under the solemn protests which they most strongly state, against extending this statute by a parity of reason. This circumstance alone appears to me to give infinite authenticity to the expositions which they state of it as sound, and as being such as, according to the interpretation which the' Legislature in Edward the Third's time meant, should be put upon this statute. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 17 Gentlemen, I think it naay also save your time, and that of the Court, if I trouble you here by reading, before I_ state to you the expositions of the statute which Lord Hale has given us, deducing them from judgments which had been actually made in the history of the country, the language which he holds, as describing the obligations which courts of justice, and men looking at this statute for the purpose of executing it, are under to construe it according to the real specified meaning, not by a parity of construction as to the reason itself, when they came to construe it. Lord Hale states it thus: — •" Although the crime of high treason is the greatest crime against faith, duty, and human society, and brings with it the greatest and most fatal dangers to the govern- ment, peace, and happiness of a kingdom or state, and therefore is deservedly branded with the highest ignominy, and subjected to the greatest penalties that the law can inflict, yet by those in- stances " — he is stating those that had occurred before the statute of Edward III., and between that and the 1st of Henry IV. — " yet by those instances, and more of this kind that might be given, it appears — first, how necessary it was that there should be some fixed and settled boundary for this great crime of treason, and of what great importance the statute of the 25th of Edward III. was in order to that end ; secondly, how dangerous it is to depart from the letter of that statute, and to multiply and enhance crimes into treason by ambiguous and general words^as accroaching of royal power, subverting of fundamental laws, and the like ; and thirdly, how dangerous it is by construction and analogy to make treasons, where the letter of the law has not done it, for such a method admits of no limits or bounds, but runs as far as the wit and in- vention of accusers, and the odiousness and detestation of persons accused, will carry men." In another passage, after having given his comment upon this statute — after having stated what are the overt acts which fall within the letter of it, and the sound interpretation of it, he says, " It has been the great wisdom and care of the Parliament to keep judges within the bounds and express limits of this Act, and not to suffer them to run out upon their own opinions into con- structive treasons, though in cases that seem to have a parity of reason {like cases of treason), but reserves them to the decision of Parliament. This is a great security as well as direction to judges, and a great safeguard even to this sacred Act itself ; and therefore, as before I observed, in the chapter of levying of war, this clause of the statute leaves a weighty memento for judges to be careful that they be not over-hasty in letting in constructive or interpreta- tive treasons, not within the letter of the law, at least in such new cases as have not been formerly expressly resolved and settled by more than one precedent." Gentlemen of the jury, I am persuaded, as those were persuaded VOL. II. ^ Digitized by Microsoft® 18 ■ TflE. attokney-genekal's speech cn who conducted the defence of Lord George Gordon, that we live in days in which the judges of the country neither have the inclina- tion nor the courage to stretch the law beyond its limits. I think myself bound to state that ; and those who dare to state the con- trary, in any -place, do not do the justice to the country which is due from every individual in it.' Gentlemen, having stated thus much to you, I now state, in order to be perfectly understood, that I do most distinctly disavow making any charge oi constructive treason; that I do most distinctly disavow stating in this indictment any like case of treason not specified in the statute ; that I do most distinctly disavow stating anything that can be called cumulative treason, or analogous treason; that I do most distinctly disavow enhancing anything, hy a parity af reason, into treason, which is not specified in that statute ; that I do most distinctly disavow enhancing crimes of any kind, or a life spent in crimes, if you choose so to put it, into treason, if it be not treason specified in the statute : and the ques- tion between us I state distinctly to be this — Whether the defendant is guilty of a treason specified in the statute ? and whether the evidence that is to be brought before you amounts to that proof that will be satisfactory to your minds and consciences, your minds and consciences being, prepared to admit no proof but what you think you ought to receive under the obligation of an oath, proof high enough that he may be provably attainted of open deed, of a treason specified in the statute ? Then, gentlemen, to state the charge to you : — The indictment charges the defendant with compassing and imagining the King's death, and with having taken measures to effectuate that purpose. Now, that it may be thoroughly understood, you will permit me to state to you here, that there is not only a manifest distinction in reason, but a settled distinction in the course of judicial practice — settled for no other cause but that it was a manifest distinction in reason — between " like cases of treason," constructive, analogous, or cumulative treasons, and various overt acts of the same treason. Gentlemen, whether the acts laid as overt acts of treasons, speci- fied in the statute, and specified in the indictment, amount, in all their circumstances, to an open deed, or deeds, by which a person may be provably attainted of the specified treason, is the question which a jury are to try. _ To explain myself upon this, I take it to be clear, and I will not, in this stage of the business at least, enter into the discussion of what I call the clear and established law of England ; because I will not, in a case of high treason, any more than I would in a dispute about the estate of any gentleman who hears me, for the purpose of arguing points, enter into discussions upon what I take to be the clear and established law of England ; and not only the security of the subject in this respect, but the security of the subject in no respect, in his person, his life, or his Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 19 property, can be taken to exist in this country, if I am not as fully authorised to state to you, with as much confidence, what the law is in case of treason, from the decisions which for centuries have been made in courts respecting it, as I am to state to you, from decisions of courts respecting property, what the law of property is. I say I take it to be clear that deposing the King, entering into measures_ for deposing the King, conspiring with foreigners and others to invade the kingdom, going to a foreign country to procure the invasion of the kingdom, or proposing to go there to that end, and taking any step in order thereto— conspiring to raise an insurrection, either to dethrone the King, imprison the King, or oblige him to alter his measures of government, or to compel him to remove evil counsellors from him, are, and have all been held, as Mr Justice Foster says, to be deeds proving an intent to do that treason which is mentioned in the statute to be overt acts of treason in compassing the King's death. It would be very extraordinary if these great Judges, Foster and Hale, after holding the language they have stated, wer^ to be re- piresented by any man as not acting themselves under the effect and influence of that weighty memento which they held out to those who were to succeed them in the seat of judgment; yet I state all this to you in the words in which these learned Judges have handed down the exposition of the statute, who would have suffered death — for they both valued the liberties of their country — before they would have charged " a like case of treason " in an indictment; and yet they have concurred (as all the judges of England have done, and the Parliament into the bargain) in the construction and exposition of the statute (and, in fact, executions have been made upon it), that all these things are overt acts of the same treason that is specified in the statute. What is the reason of it ? Because the law holds that he who does an act, meaning to do it, which may endanger the King's life, compasses and imagines the death of the King, if he does an act which may endanger his life, if, in the ordinary course of things, and. according to the common experience of mankind, the measure which he takes, in pursuance of a purpose to take it, will bring the King to his grave. This, therefore, is not raising constructive treason, it is not raising treason by analogy, it is not stating " like cases of treason " not specified in, but reserved by the statute to the judgment of Parliament ; but it is stating overt acts, which are measures taken in pursuance of treasona,ble purposes, which measures must neces- sarily be as various in their kinds as the ways and means by which, in facts and open deeds, taken in pursuance of its purposes, the human heart manifests its intent to commit some one or other of the treasons specified in the statute. Gentlemen, the reserving clause in the Act is extremely material ; and if courts apd juries have done wrong in the manner in which Digitized by Microsoft® 20 THE attoenet-genekal's speech on they have executed this statute, if the interpretations which they have made of the statute are not right, they have done it against a prohibition in the statute, which they were called upon by their oaths duly to expound, and they have done it in the presence and under the eye of that Parliament which had expressly forbidden them to do it. I say, the conclusion upon that is, that they have done it rightly. Gentlemen, the judgments of the courts of law are in this country perfectly familiar to Parliament. Acts have been made, over and over again, in order to bring back the expositions of the law tothe true construction, to the letter, which is the true construction, in a sound judicial sense — to bring it back again to the statute of Edward III. ; but we have lived to this hour without Parliament thinking that they were to make so perfectly a dead letter of the letter of the statute, as that they should say that an overt act which ex- pressed and imported the imagination of the mind to do the treason specified, should not be taken to be an act'of high treason within the statute, because the statute only mentions the thing which is to be compassed and imagined, and does not mention the ways and means by which the human heart may show and manifest that it does compass and imagine what the statute speaks of. Gentlemen, this is not all, because this is not only according to the law of England, as it is administered in courts of justice, but also to the proceedings in Parliament, which are a parliamentary exposition, if I may so state it, of the law. Proceedings in Parlia- ment have been had, where the statute has been thus construed, and where this distinction that I am stating between overt acts of the specified treason and the " like cases of treason," has been ex- pressly taken, expressly acted upon, proposed by one House of Legislature to the other House, and acted upon by the Crown in executing the sentences of that House. Gentlemen, the distinction, then, is only this — " a like case of treason " is a case of treason not specified in the statute, a case of the like mischief as a case specified in the statute ; but the identi- cal case specified in the statute must be before you, or, to avoid all dispute upon the- subject, I say, if it is a case that is not specified in the statute, it is a case that must be shown to Parliament ac- cording to the directions of the statute ; but that facts alike in their nature, that open deeds alike in their nature and tendency, however various in their circumstances, may prove the same intention to exist in the minds of those who do them, and may be measures taken in pursuance of the same purpose; and to effectuate the same thing, is a distinction that appears to my mind to be per- fectly obvious. Gentlemen, I conceive, therefore, that the question of compassing the King's death is this — Whether the jury are fully satisfied, con- Bcientiously satisfied, that they have that evidence by which they find Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 21 that the acts laid as overt acts of compassing the particular speci- fied treason mentioned in the indictment, were measures taken in pursuance of and to effectuate that treason, specified at once in the statute and in the indictment. Gentlemen, I protest for myself I am sorry to trouble you thus much at large by general reasoning, but you will find that it has an application, and a close application, to the case. This is an im- portant public cause, and therefore we should be thoroughly under- stood. I cannot understand what constructive overt acts mean, though I do understand constructive treasons. Levying war against the King, not against his person, but against his royal majesty, is constructive treason ; that is, if men assemble together without any intent to do an act which, in the natural consequence of things, will affect the King's life, such as pulling down all prisons or houses of any other description, — that is constructive treason, it being, by construction, as Mr Justice Forster says, against the King's royal majesty, not levied against his person ; not one of the acts of a more flagitious kind, wilfully done or attempted to be done, by which the King's life may be in danger, but which are levelled against his royal majesty ; these have by construction been held to be treason : but even these the Legislature has never considered as not author- ised by the letter of the statute ; these they have permitted to be proceeded upon in the country as sound decisions and constructions upon the Act of Parliament ; many have been convicted upon tliem ; execution hath followed ; and no one hath ever doubted either the law or the justice of these determinations. But as to constructive overt acts of compassing and imagining the death of the King, where the indictment lays the imagining and compassing as the offence, the overt act is not constructive ; the step taken to effectuate it must be such an act, wilfully and deliberately done, as must satisfy the conscience of a jury that there was an intention, by deposing or otherwise, to put the King in circumstances iu which, according to the ordinary experience of mankind, his life would be in danger. Gentlemen, I have before stated to you, for another purpose, various acts which are overt acts of compassing the King's death. I will repeat them shortly : — " Deposing him,— entering into mea- sures to depose him, — conspiring to imprison him,"— which you observe is an act that may be done without an actual intent to put him to death,— a man may conspire to imprison the King without an actual intent to put him to death, but you will find the reason why that is held to be compassing and imagining the death of the King, with the sanction of all times since this statute of Edward IIL, and with the sanction of every species of judicial authority which the country could give : " to get his person into the power of conspirators." Why is all this treason ? " Because," says Mr Justice Foster, " the care which the law hath taken for the per-, Digitized by Microsoft® 22 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on sonal safety of the King is not confined to actions or attempts of ft more flagitious kind, such as attempts either to assassinate or to poison, or other attempts, directly and immediately aiming at his life ; it is extended to everything, wilfully and deliberately done, or attempted, whereby his life may be endangered ; and therefore the entering into measures. for deposing or imprisoning him, or to get his person into the power of the conspirators, these offences are overt acts of treason within this branch of this statute ; for experi- ence hath shown that between the prisons and the graves of kings the distance is very small," and experience has not grown weaker upon this subject in modern times : offences which are not so per- sonal as those already mentioned have been, with great propriety, brought within the same rule, as having a tendency, though not so immediate, to the same fatal end. Lord Hale, upon this, says, " Though the conspiracy be not im- mediately, and directly, and expressly the death of the King, but the conspiracy is of something that in all probability must induce it, and the overt act is of such a thing as must induce it, this is an overt act to prove the compassing the King's death." The instance he gives, as expository of his text, is this : " If men conspire to imprison the King by force and a strong hand till he hath yielded to certain demands, and for that purpose gather company or write letters, this is an overt act to prove the compassing of the King's death." What is the reason ? He gives the same in substance, though different in the terms of it, as that which has been assigned by Mr Justice Foster : " for it is in effect to despoil him of his kingly government." These are the words of Lord Hale ; and, though the reasons given by Lord Hale and Mr Justice Foster are different in words, they are the same in substance. It may be said, with equal truth, between despoiling a king of his kingly govern- ment and the graves of kings, the distance is very small. Imprison- ment is the same as deposition, and he who compasses the deposi- tion of the King, according to all judicial construction, compasses his death ; it is the same as deposition, because it is a temporary despoiling him of his kingly government, which, according to this interpretation of the law, usually ends in death. Gentlemen, offences not so personal as those enumerated fall within the same rule, as having a tendency to the same fatal end. If foreigners are not at war with you, the offence of going into a foreign country, or proposing to go there, or taking any step thereto, in order to invite foreigners into this kingdom for a treasonable purpose, can only fall within that branch of treason of compassing the King's death : if they are at war with you, then the same act amounts to another species of treason, which is an " adhering to the King's enemies ; "and perhaps you will find that the case I have to state is not without pregnant evidence of this species of overt act. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAi OF THOMAS HARDY. 23 Gentlemen, having stated thus much to you, I proceed now to consider the indictment ; and what I have stated, before I men- tioned the substance of the indictment, I have stated to lay in my claim to full credit with you, when I say, that no man living can wish to express to you more strongly than I wish to do (we have, indeed, each of us, as great an interest in the true construction of this law as any other man can have in it), that the law of treason, in considering the charge that I have brought before you under the command that has authorised me to bring it here, must not be extended one single iota beyond what is the established law in this country, as established as the law is, that says that the property that you bought yesterday you may give to whom you please to- morrow. Gentlemen, the indictment, finding several persons, entitled to be tried separately, though indicted jointly, combined in a particular act, which I will state by and by, has charged them with com- passing the King's death : it has then proceeded — because the com- passing and imagination of the heart cannot be known to man, and there must be an overt act to manifest it — it has charged them with meeting-j among themselves to cause and procure a convention of divers subjects of the King to be held within this kingdom, and not only a convention to be held within the king- dom, but to be held luith intent and in order tliat the persons to he assembled at such convention and meeting should and might, wickedly and traitorously, without and in defiance of the authority, and against the tvill of the Parliament of this kingdom, subvert and alter the legislature, rule, and government established in it, and depose the King from the royal state, title, potver, and govern- ment thereof. It then charges them with having composed, written, and published, and caused to be composed, written, and published, divers books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolutions, orders, declarations, addresses, and writings, such books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolutions, orders, declarations, addresses, and writings, so respectively composed, written, published, and caused to be composed, written, and published, purporting and containing therein (among other things) incitements, encouragements, and exhortations, to mpve, induce, and persuade the subjects of the King to choose, depute, and send persons as delegates, to compose, not a convention, but such a convention and meeting, that is, a convention to act in the manner that the first overt act has stated it, to be holden for the traitorous purposes before mentioned. It then states, as a third overt act, consultations among them, how, when, and where such convention and meeting should be assembled and held, and by what means the subjects of the King might be induced and moved to send persons as delegates to constitute it. Digitized by Microsoft® 24 THE ATTORNEY- general's SPEECH ON It then charges that these persons did consent and agree that Mr Joyce, and several other persons named, should meet, confer, and co-operate among themselves, and with other traitors, to cause the calling and assembling svxih convention and meeting for sv/dh traitorous purposes. It then charges the providing of arms, of different descriptiops, for these purposes ; and then it charges a conspiracy to make war in the kingdom, and it charges a conspiracy to subvert and alter the legislature and government of the kingdom, and to depose' the King ; that is, as I understand it, that if you should not be satisfied that the calling such a convention as is mentioned in the first part , of the indictment was a mean to effectuate that compassing and imagination which is mentioned in the introductory part of the indictment, yet you will find in the evidence which is to be laid before you, even if you pay no attention to that circumstance of calling a convention, sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to depos4 the King. It then states again, that they published several books, and other matters of the same kind, in order to bring about the traitorous purposes last mentioned ; and charges, as a further overt act, pro- viding arms for that purpose. Now, gentlemen, having before stated to you that a conspiri-cy to depose the King — and I have not stated it to you in my own words, but in the words of the authorities I mentioned — that a conspiracy to depose the King, that a conspiracy to imprison the King, a conspiracy to procure an invasion, with steps taken to effectuate such a conspiracy (a conspiracy indeed itself being a step for that purpose), is treason, you will observe that, in 'this' indictment, a conspiracy to depose the King is expressly charged, and, I think, it will be clearly proved. If a conspiracy to depose the King be an overt act of high treason, permit me then to ask you, what can a conspiracy to subvert the monarchy of the country, including in it the deposition of the King, be, but an overt act of high treason? In the object of such a conspiracy the King is necessarily involved, and it is already shown that conspir- ing to depose him is compassing his death. Gentlemen, read as you are in the history of the country, give me leave to ask you, if measures had been taken after the Kevolution to effectuate a conspiracy to dethrone King William, and to restore King James, without all doubt, the measure taken, would have constituted the crime of high treason within the clause of compassing the King's death, although the conspirators could have been shown satisfactorily to have no more meant the actual natural death of King William, than they meant the actual natural death of King James, whom they intended to replace on the throne. But what says the law to that ? The law says you cannot mean to depose the King without meaning to endanger his Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. . 25 life; and if j-ou mean to endanger his life, you must abide 'the conRequences of it. Put it another way: If the project had been to depose the same Kmg William, and measures had been taken upon it -not with a view to bring back to the throne King James II., but merely to send back King William to his former character of Prince of Orange, and not to restore King James, but to restore a common- wealth, which is, what I think, I shall satisfy you, those who are charged by this indictment meant by " a full and fair representa- tion of the people," whether you call it " a full and fair representa- tion of the people in Parliament," or do not use the words "in Parliament," — can a lawyer be found to say, that it could be stated in law that it is not high treason ? I don't know what may not be stated. All that I mean to say at present is, that according to the best lights which I can get of the law under which I have lived, it does not appear to me to be probable that any man will so state it. ^ Far be it from me, however, to have the vanity to say that (avowing that I should certainly not think of encountering the current authorities of the country for centuries) I am, without the possibility of contradiction, stating that I am following the authorities o'f- the country for centuries ; but I am ready to say this, that I cannot conceive or imagine by what species of reason- ing, or upon what principle, or upon what authority, it is to bti contended that this would not have been high treason. Gentlemen, take it another way: If the regicides of King Charles I. had been tried for compassing the death of King Charles I., supposing they had only deposed him, instead of putting him to death, could they have contended, that though they would have been guilty of high treason if they had placed another individual upon the throne (which would have been alike to the case I have put of conspiring to put James in the place of William), could they have contended then that they were not guilty of high treason, because they deposed the King without substituting another king in his place, and because they left the government to be filled up by the commonwealth, without a king ? Give me leave to ask another thing : Suppose it had happened, after King William came to the throne, that not those events that did actually happen took place, but that any set of men in this country should have ventured to meet in a convention^ of delegates from affiliated societies, for the purpose of deposing King William, under pretence of assembling a convention of the people, having or claiming the civil and political authority of the country, and intending to have no king in the country, would it have been possible in King William's time to have contended, because they met under pretence of being a convention of the people, assuming to themselves civil and political authority, and with such meaning, that the conspiracy was not as completely a Digitized by Microsoft® 26 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on compassing the death of King William as if the conspiracy had been, by the same persons, in the case of affiliated societies, forming the like convention of delegates, to bring King James again to the throne ? If I levy war in this country against the King, with intent to bring another upon the throne, I am guilty of high treason.. If I levy war, that is an overt act of compassing the King's death. If I conspire to levy direct war, that is a compassing of the King's death, unless all the branches of the Legislature have put a man to death upon an error. If I hold a fortress against the King to put another upon his throne, I am guilty of high treason. Am I guilty of no offence if I do the same acts, not for the purpose of continuing the monarchy of the country in another person, but for the purpose of destroying the monarchy altogether ? What is this but doing an act involving in it high treason, and more ? — high treason in deposing the King ; more in bringing about all that additional anarchy which we know, which the experience of mankind proves, to be consequent upon the change, where the change is not only of the persons who administer the govern- ment, but of the government itself, if destruction can be called a cJmjige? Gentlemen, to assert, therefore, that measures taken for a total subversion of the monarchy of the country, including in it an intention to depose the King (mark the words — I state, including in it an intention to depose the King), are not overt acts of compass- ing the King's death, merely because the statute of Edward III. has not included all overt acts in words, but has left to juries to determine what are overt acts, by which they can provably attaint — to assert that the statute does not include the case, because it is compassing the death of the King, and more ; if this were to be asserted in a court of justice (what is asserted out of a court of justice no man pays much attention to), I should certainly say of it, that it was the assertion of those who had ill considered the law ; and if asserted out of a court of justice, and with a reference to what is to be done in a court of justice, I should say it deserved to have an observation of a harsher kihd made upon it. This indictment, besides charging a conspiracy to depose the King in express terms, of which I shall insist before you there is abundant evidence, charges a conspiracy to call a convention against the will, in defiance of and against the authority of Par- liament, for the purpose of deposing the King. It charges further acts, namely, that they caused to be composed and written divers books, pamphlets, letters, instructions, resolutions, orders, declara- tions, addresses, and writings, containing incitements, inducements, and exhortations, to move, seduce, and persuade the subjects of the King to send delegates to such convention; as to which I say of many of them, though I did not know their real character till I Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 27' had seen them all together, that they are both overt acts and evidence of overt acts of high treason. Now, before I state to you the particulars of the evidence, I am afraid I must, however painful it is to me to ask so great a portion of your attention, trouble you with some general observations that I think will have a tendency to render intelligible to you the com- plicated mass of evidence which I have to lay before you. Gentlemen, the convention meant to be called by those who are charged with the conspiracy in this indictment, was, as I collect from the effect of the evidence, a convention of persons who were to assume the character of a convention of the people, claiming, as such, all civil and political authority, proposing to exercise it by altering the government, otherwise than by acts of the present constituted Legislature, otherwise than, by those statutes, according to which the King has sworn at the hazard of his life to govern. Gentlemen, if this is made out, it appears to me to follow neces- sarily on the part of all who took a step to assemble it, that they are guilty of a conspiracy to depose the King, to depose him fi-om the character which he holds in the constitution of the sovereign power of this kingdom, as by law estabhshed, that law by which, I again repeat to you, he is sworn to govern. Gentlemen, if they conspire to assemble in a convention, which was of its own authority, and against the will of the Legislature, and in defiance of it, to act as an assembly to constitute a govern- ment, and to assume so far sovereign power, it is, I conceive, according to the law of England, a conspiracy to depose from the sovereignty him who, under the restraints of the constitution and Ihe law, now holds that sovereignty. There cannot be two spye- ]-eign powers in a state ; there may be a complication of authorities vested in a great variety of persons, making up one sovereign power, but there cannot be two sovereign powers in a state : it is impossible. If a meeting assembled, as a convention of the people, arrogating to themselves all civil and political authority as such, and meaning to exercise it, one or other of these consequences must follow : the King and the Parliament must be obedient to the meeting, or the meeting, assembled as a convention, must be obedient to the King and Parliament : if the meeting is to be obedient to the King and Parliament, it cannot effect its pur- poses ; it is impossible : if its pxirpose be to depose the King, I say, a conspiracy to call such a meeting is an overt act of high treason. . Gentlemen, I beg your attention to my expressions : if the meeting means to oblige the King and Parliament to be obedient to them by the exertion of open force, though it may not effect its purpose, that makes no difference ; the law must be the same. I may be wrong perhaps in stating the law, but it appears to me that the law must be the same if the meeting projects the purpose, Digitized by Microsoft® 28 THB attornet-geneeal's speech on whether the force of the meeting is sufficient to effect the purpose or not. This, I say, is a conspiracy to assume the sovereign power ; it is a conspiracy therefore of necessity meant to depose the existing power, and of necessity to depose the King. I say, meant to depose ; for, I repeat it, that whether the conspiracy is successful or not is immaterial. Grentlemen, though the particular fact of calling such a conven- tion, now alleged as an overt act of treason, may be represented to be new in the history of this country, it is not therefore, and because it is new, only inasmuch as it is more than ordinarily audacious, less an overt act of compassing the death or deposition of the King, if the intent of it was to subvert the sovereign ruling power. Gentlemen, there is another distinction which I would beg your attention to. It is of no consequence whether the first meeting proposed to be assembled was designed to be a convention that should assume all civil and political authority, or wa^ only to devise the means of forming a constituent assembly, a body ivhich should assume it; for any act taken towards assuming it against the will, in defiance of and against the authority of the King and Parliament, and removing him from that situation in the character of sovereign which he has in this country — any act taken towards the formation of a body which was to assume such authority, is an act of conspiring the deposition of the King ; any act towards con- vening a national assembly, to act with sovereign power, not formed by the Legislature, is an act done towards deposing the King, who now has, under the restraints of the constitution, and the provisions and limitations of the law, the sovereign power vested in him. You cannot set about organising a body which is thus to act, without meaning to depose the King, without meaning to form a body that is to usurp the powers of government. Gentlemen, I think the evidence that I shall lay before jou will most abundantly satisfy you that the convention which the persons charged conspired to form, was a convention to alter the whole form of the sovereign power of this country ; that it was to form, or to devise the means of forming, a representative govern- ment — to vest in a body, founded upon universal suffrage and the alleged inalienable, and, as they are called, imprescriptible rights of man, all the legislative and executive government of the country. That a conspiracy to this end would be an overt act of high treason, I presume cannot be disputed : it deposes the King in the destruc- tion of the regal office in the constitution of the state. Gentlemen, I go further: If it had been intended to have retained the name and office of the King in the country, and to have retained it in the person of the present King, creating, how- ever, by the authority of the intended convention, a new legis- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAKDV. 29 lature, to act with him, provided they would allow him to act with such new legislature, and thus calling upon him to act against the express obligations of his coronation oath, if he could forget it, it still would have been a conspiracy to depose him from his royal authority, as now established : if he refused to act, he must neces- sarily be deposed from that authority ; if he did accept, he was not the King of England as he is established by law the King of England. But he could not. accept ; he could not so govern ; he is sworn not so to govern ; he must refuse, must resist, and, in conse- quence of resisting, his life must be in danger. Take it either way, that persons conspired to form a convention to assume all civil and political authority, as pretending to be a convention of the people (I care not with how much audacity they pretend to be a convention of the people), or to devise the means of constituting such a convention, in order, and with the intent, and against the authority of Parliament, that there should be no King, or in order to the erecting, by their own authority, a new legislature to act together with a King, and together with the King, if they permitted the present to be the King, I submit that such a conspiracy is an overt act in the true construction of law, and high treason in compassing the King's death. The King must be deposed while such a new constitution was framing ; he could not treat with such a convention till he had been deposed ; it could be those only that had sovereign authority that could frame a constitution : then he is surely, by this, despoiled of his kingly government, even as in a case of temporary imprisonment. I repeat again, that he could not, consistently with his coronation oath, do otherwise than reject it when framed: it must be taken for granted he would reject it; his life, therefore, could not but be in danger. To suppose that such a meeting, which proposed a new constitution, would depart quietly home, and not act, if it was not accepted, is out of the reach of all human credulity ; it is not according to the ordinary course and experience of mankind to suppose that they should meet in numbers, and make no use of their numbers, if the show of them did not produce the effect intended : this is not according to the ordinary course and experi- ence of mankind. Gentlemen, the King in his Parliament could not be the sove- reign power the moment the meeting could act as a national con- stituting assembly, or could direct, with effect, such an assembly to meet. The power so to act, or to organise with effect such a meeting that should so act, must pi-o tempore depose every other power. This is the character of a convention of the people, I think, as given in the evidence I have to lay before you. With respect to the defendant, I think I shall satisfy you he conspired to call such- a convention ; and that he said that the convention which I am to call is irresistible, it is unlimited, it is uncontrolr Digitized by Microsoft® so THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL's SPEECH ON lable, and that by such a convention my full and fair representa- tion of the people, or a full and fair representation in Parliament (if yon choose to take that expression, for it is not mere expression that determines what men mean), is to be accomplished. Grentlemen, in the country in which I am speaking, when a vacant throne was given (I am now alluding to the time of King William) by those who, as they are stated in the Bill of Eights, represented all the estates of the people of this realm, to King William and Queen Mary, they who gave it ceased to have or to exercise the power of sovereignty : in that instant, as every lawyer must speak of it, in that instant the sovereign power of this country bec'ame vested in the King and Queen upon the throne, to be exercised in legislation, undoubtedly with the advice and consent of Parliament, formed according to the law and custom of the country — incapable of being exercised otherwise, and, as to the executive authority, exercised under the control of provisions and limitations of the law and constitution, and with the advice which, in every act which the King does, makes somebody responsible. I insist that the design of conspiring to assemble the people who were to act as a convention of the people, claiming all civil and political authority, or claiming power to alter, against its will, the constituted Legislature, or a meeting to form the means of bringing together such a convention so to act, is an attempt to create a power subversive of the authority of the King and Parlia- ment, a power which he is bound by oath to resist at all hazards. But it will not rest here : this will be sufficiently proved ; but evidence will likewise be offered to you as satisfactory to prove that the express object of calling this convention, the express object of appointing a committee of conference and co-operation, which was to devise the means of constituting such a convention, was ulti- mately, and finally, and in their respect, tlie deposition of the King. Gentlemen, beyond this, and supposing it not to be proved, the indictment has charged as overt acts, a conspiracy, without the mean of a convention, and not through that medium, to depose the King. If that conspiracy is made out by other acts, though neither a convention assuming all political authority, nor a meet- ing to devise the means of calling a convention which should assume all political authority, was intended, yet the indictment is made good. Grentlemen, the indictment further charges as an overt act of compassing ' the King's death, which without question it is, the conspiracy to levy war. I do not mean constructive war. This I state, without question, to be an overt act of compassing the King's death. A rising te oblige the King to alter his measures of government amounts to levying war within the statute. A con- spiracy to levy war for this purpose is an overt act of compassing the King's death. If they conspired to form a representative Digitized by Microsoft® . THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAKDY. 31 government, excluding the King entirely, which I say is the fact' or if they conspired not to form a representative government ex- cluding the King entirely, but yet to compel him, by their own strength and force, to govei'n with others, and withoTit those which he chose to remain with him, by whose advice and consent alone he is sworn and bound to govern, I mean the great council of the nation, the Lords in Parliament assembled, the Commons in Parliament assembled, according to the constitution of the country, and to substitute, against his will, and against the will of the present constituted authority of the country, another authority, formed on the principles of universal suffrage and annual represen- tation, and so formed without the authority of Parliament I must submit to the Court, and to you, that conspiring to do this would be an overt act of treason of deposing the King, and therefore of compassing his death. Gentlemen, you will also observe the indictment has charged, and proof will be offered to you to make it out, that these objects were meant to be carried by force — by actual force. ., Gentlemen, the case, as I have hitherto represented it, is not a case aiming merely at intimidating the Legislature, and inducing it by an act done, which was, according to the forms of the consti° tution, to bury the constitution- in its grave, to new-mould the sovereign power ; the case goes far beyond tliis. Application in any shape to Parliament was not only disavowed, but the very compe- tency of Parliament, if applied to, to make a law to new-model the government was disputed, and denied : the idea of that compe- tency was held to be irreconcilable to the very principle upon which these persons assembled. I must, however, insist, and I mean to do it with the full concurrence of iny humble opinion, that a conspiracy to compel the King, by force, against his will, to give his assent to an Act obtained from the Houses of Parliament in order to alter the government and frame of the constitution of the coun- try, whether it was obtained from the two Houses of Parliament, or either of them, by overawing them, or not overawing them, — that a conspiracy, by force, to compel the King, in the exercise of the highest and most essential act of the sovereignty of this coun- try, in the act of giving his consent to such an Act, — to compel him by force to do that, is unquestionably an overt act of treason in de- posing him, and in compassing his death. It is neither more nor less, to explain it in a word, than to substitute the will of those who conspired to force him, in the room of that royal will, in which, and by which alone, the laws of this country, and the con- stitution of this country, have said that a bill (however obtained before it comes to him) shall receive the authority of a statute. Gentlemen, I have thought it necessary to state thus much before I come to state the circumstances of the case, and I will state to you in a word why. It is not to be expected by persons who exe- Digitized by Microsoft® 32 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech ox cute the great and important duty, in the great and important station, the functions of which you are now called upon to execute, that counsel at the bar shall be able to state to you law that no man can question the soundness of : nay, gentlemen, it is not to be expected by you that counsel at the bar should be able to state to you in all cases, law, which men of grave character and excellent understandings, of great reason and great experience in their profession, may not dispute the soundness of. It is the duty of counsel — more particularly it is the duty of that counsel who ought to remember that, if, in prosecuting the subject, he presses him unfairly, he betrays in the most essential point the duty which he owes to the sovereign, — it is his duty to endeavour faithfully and honestly to explain and expound the law ; that is, to apply to the facts of the particular case, reasoning upon the law, according as he is able to do it, in the exercise of painful industry, exerted under the reflection that he is under much obligation at least to endeavour to represent the law truly. Gentlemen, I have thought it my duty, in a prosecution the principles of which interest the civil happiness of all mankind, to mention distinctly and fairly what are tlie principles upon which I proceed. I have no doubt in my own mind but that I have stated these doctrines as the law of England would state them ; and I claim from you and from the public that, in the fair exercise of my duty, conducted under such a sense and understanding of that duty as I have now explained to you, you and they will do me the credit at least to think, that the principles which I have stated are such as I believe to be sanctioned by the law of England. Gentlemen, I shall presume for a moment, after having read to you the indictment, and given you that exposition of it which I humbly offer to your attention, that the law has (at least, accord- ing to my judgment, it certainly has) been complied with in these respects ; namely, the indictment has told you with sufficient cer- tainty what it is that is meant to be imputed as an overt act of compassing the King's death. It is not necessary to be disputing that now, because, if I have failed in the due execution of my duty in that respect, the prisoner cannot be injured by it. Gentlemen, I have before said to you, that, in a case of high treason, the evidence must not only be convincing, but it must be formal ; and though the object of the security of the person and government of the King is the highest object that the law has looked to, yet I must, at the same time, inform you, that the law for the security of the public, which is in truth part of the object involved in the object of the security of the person and government of the King, is essentially united with it, and inseparable from it : the law has required not only that you shall have one witness, if he were the most credible man in the world, to give convincing evidence of the fact, but that that convincing evidence must be Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 33 rendered yet more conclusive by the testimony of two witnesses ; that you should at least have one witness to one overt act, and another to another overt act of the same species of treason. Gentlemen, having stated to you the project, in a general way, to which I apprehend this indictment applies, I presume that you may possibly reason thus : — When this indictment charges that these persons compassed the death of the King and to depose him, — that they conspired to assemble a convention in defiance of the authority of Parliament, — to subvert the rule and government of the kingdom, against the will and in defiance of the Legislature, — to dethrone the monarch, reigning in the hearts of a great majority of his people, — ^you will naturally ask. By what process was it that such persons as these could effectuate such a purpose ? When the indictment charges that they composed a great variety of books, containing incitements to choose persons as delegates to compose a convention for such traitorous purposes, — in what language, you will naturally ask, could such incitements to such a momentous project have been conveyed, and to whom could that language have been addressed ? When it charges that they met and de- liberated among themselves, together with divers other false traitors, — at what time, in what manner, and in what place, it may be asked, have these people met to deliberate upon that project, for the accomplishment of which so many persons must be engaged ? — by what means were they to bring together the subjects of the country, to send delegates to such a traitorous convention, to assume such sovereign power ? This sort of question may be pur- sued. I shall not pursue it by observations upon every overt act in this indictment. Now, gentlemen, my answer to this is a short one. I think it will be proved to your satisfaction, that, as they meant, in the words of the Act of Parliament, to introduce that system of misery and anarchy which prevailed in France, they meant to introduce it by the same means,— to proceed upon the same principles to the same end, — and by the same acts to execute the same purposes. Gentlemen, if the experience of Europe had not manifested what has passed in France (and this project might perhaps be brought from France into Great Britain by but an individual or two), if that experience had not sho,wn us what has passed in France, to the destruction of its old government — to the destruction alike of that government which they substituted in the room of its old government, and which, in the last act of its power, protested against the existence of clubs, as incompatible with the security of any country,— I say, till the subversion of government in France took place, and upon principles to a blind admiration of which in this country, — a country which, under the peculiar favour of Providence, is alike in its blessings, as it is in its situation, " toto VOL. II. c Digitized by Microsoft® 34 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on divisos orbe Britannos," but in which we have found a disposition to sacrifice all those hlessings, — it could not, perhaps, have entered into the heart of man to conceive that a project so extensive should have been set on foot by persons in number so few; — that a project, existing almost everywhere, should yet be visible nowhere ; — that a project should be so deeply combined and complicated, — should exist to such an almost inconceivable extent, — should be formed with so much piolitical craft ; — it could not enter into the heart of man to conceive that it should have existed in any country, much less that it was possible that it should exist in this country of Great Britain to the extent to which I am sure, what- ever your verdict may say upon the guilt of the prisoner, you will be satisfied it has existed in this country. But the law of England does not require that any such case as this should be proved before you. If you are satisfied that what the indictment charges was imagined, and that a step was taken to effectuate that intent, it is enough. It is not the extent in which the project was proceeded upon, — it is not the extent to which the project was ruinous, — it is not necessary to prove that the means were as competent to the end proposed as they were thought to be by those who used them. No, gentlemen ; the provi- dence of the law steps in upon their first Qiotion, whether they furnish themselves with means adequate or inadequate to their purposes. The 'law steps in then, conceiving its providence at that moment to be necessary for the safety of the King and the security of the subject. The project, the general character of which I shall give you, proving it by the particular facts, and applying the particular facts (for I have no right to give you the general project unless I can so apply the particular facts) to the person now accused, seems to me to have been this : — Imported from France in the latter end of the year 1791 or 1792 — by whom brought hither it does not much matter — the intent was to constitute in London, with affiliated societies in the country, clubs which were to govern this country upon the principles of the French Government, the alleged in- alienable, imprescriptible rights of man, such as they are stated to be, inconsistent, in the very nature of them, with the being of a King or of Lords in a government ; deposing, therefore, the moment they come into execution, in ^he act of creating a sovereign power, either mediately or immediately, the King, and introducing a republican government with a right of eternal reform, and, there- fore, with a prospect of eternal revolution. Gentlemen, we have all heard of a club called the Jacobin Club at Paris. This, with its affiliated societies, — however impossible it was thought that it should effect such things, — however wild the man would have been thought into whose head such an imagina- tion could have entered as that it could eff'ect them, — first overset Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HATlDY. 35 the old constitution, then introduced another, which could not exist upon the principles which gave it birth, and has finally introduced government after government, till it has at last left the country in that indescribable state of things in which we now see it. Gentlemen, the great end of the persons concerned in this project, though not altogether visible, or not much disclosed upori its first formation, was, when they had sufficiently diffused their principles through this country, by artifice, by union, by combination, by affiliation, by fraternisation (those who formed the project, whoever they were, endeavouring to force it into execution by means which perhaps would shock the minds of men that are not always dwelling upon political subjects), to assemble a convention of delegates from clubs, to assume the power of the people, supported in the assumption and exercise of that power by the individual members of the affiliated societies, and by their combined strength. Gentlemen, we have no occasion in this cause to be disputing upon abstract questions as to the power of the people to change their government. I state to you that the intention was to assemble a convention of delegates from those clubs, to assume the powers of government. The people, the infinite majority of the people, adverse to any change, distinguishing between abuses in the administration of the government, and vices in the form of the government administered, — nay, ardently attached to the old government, ^must have been averse to have been subdued by a convention of the delegates from these societies, who meant to have assumed the representation of the people, and to have exercised the powers which they stated to be inherent in those whom they pro- fessed to represent. Gentlemen, it is not difficult to conceive, after what has happened in fact in France, how it should happen that the opinion of these fraternising societies should have the force of the will of a majority of the nation, though they constituted a vast and infinite minority indeed. You will find, in the evidence to be laid before you, that it was perfectly understood how this might be by those who are named in this indictment. The great bulk of the community, engaged in different pursuits, are therefore incapable of being combined in opposition to the execution of a purpose which is to be brought about by great bodies of men that are combined. I need not give you a stronger instance of it than this. It is within the memory of most of us living, that a few thousand men in St George's Fields, combined in one purpose, reduced this metropolis to an absolute state of anarchy, a state in which no government existed. If any man had been asked, a fortnight before the event to which I am uow alluding. Is it possible for four or five thousand men to assemble in St George's Fields, and Digitized by Microsoft® 36 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on to rob and plunder everybody they choose in London and ten miles round it? — that would have been thought utterly impossible; but yet it happened — why ? because a combination of the few will subdue the many who are not combined, and with great facility ; and combined bodies of men have had, as you will find, an existence in this country to an extent which few men had any idea of. You will find them organised, — prepared for emergencies and exigencies, — relying upon their own strength, — determined to act upon their combined strength, in a system of acting together ; in some instances acting with a secrecy calculated to elude obser- vation ; in other instances, proceeding by directly contrary means to the same end, — representing their numbers as greater than they were, and therefore increasing their number by the very operation of the influence of the appearance of strength upon the minds of others, without a possibility that that misrepresentation should be set right. You will find them inflaming the ignorant, under pre- tence of enlightening them ; — debauching their principles towards their country, under pretence of infusing political knowledge into them; — addressing themselves principally to those whose rights, whose interests are, in the eye of the law and constitution of England, as valuable as those of any men, but whosq education does not enable them immediately to distinguish between political truth and the misrepresentations held out to them, — working upon the passions of men, whom Providence hath placed in the lower, but useful and highly respectable situations of life, to irritate them against all whom its bounty hath blessed by assigning to them .situations of rank and property, — -representing them as their oppressors, as their enemies, as their plunderers, as those whom they should not suffer to exist ; — and in order, at the same time, to shut out the possibility of correcting original error, or rectifying the opinions of those whom they had so inflamed, misinformed, debauched, and misled, not admitting them into these affiliated societies till they had subscribed tests, the principles of which they were not to examine after they had been admitted, but the principles of which they were to carry into execution when as- sembled in a convention — to carry into execution those principles, as acting for the people, by a great majority of whom they were held in utter detestation. Gentlemen, to say that an act done was meant to be done as a means taken in the execution of such a project as this is, till the person who takes it thinks the scheme practicable, I admit is not reasonable, but undoubtedly he may think it practicable long before it is really so. Now, you will_ be abundantly satisfied that these conspirators thought that the time was now come, — that the time for a convention, which had been the object of anxious ex- pectation, doubting for a year or two whether it would ever be Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAKDY. S7 gratified, that that time was now come, and the measures taken were taken upon that supposition — that the opportunity had arrived, which, if not laid hold of now, would be lost for ever. Gentlemen, the people of this country have in general a rooted attachment to its government. The public opinion of government is in this country, as well as in every other, its principal support : and therefore it became necessary to infuse, where so much could be safely suggested, where the mind was prepared for it, an opinion that the form of the British Government was radically vicious — that it was founded on principles of oppression — ^that it was founded on the destruction of natural, imprescriptible, and inalienable rights. With others, you will find they thought it necessary to use a little more caution — not to alarm them, but to humour their attachment to the form of the constitution, by taking advantage of well-mean- ing ignorance, under pretence of instructing it, to enlist them also alike in the project of destroying that constitution to which they were attached. To them, therefore, the form of the government was not spoken of in terms which they might understand to be a condemnation of it, though they were really such, but by making use of general expressions, such as obtaining " a full and fair repre- sentation of the people in Parliament " — " a full representation of the people," — sometimes without mention of Parliament, never with actual mention of the King and Lords, as coexisting together with Parliament, — by using terms which certainly may mean what it may be contended in the defence they did mean ; but terms the same in their expression, certainly the same in their import, as those which were used in every act which passed in this country during the time of the Commonwealth, when we neither had King nor Lords — that may signify a government existing without Lords or King, by declaring the obtaining such a representation of the people as necessary to the natural, inalienable, imprescriptible rights of man, as stated by Mr Paine. By these means and artifices they attempted to engage in their service the physical strength of men who might not and did not discover the real nature of the plan which that strength was to be employed in executing — who had not information enough to discover what the representation was meant finally to do or to execute. But you will find the persons mentioned in this indictment had no doubt about it. I mark these circumstances to you, because, in the evidence that is to be laid before you (and I am now stating the general character of the evidence, and not the principles upon which the charge is made) — in the evidence to be laid before you of the plan for the execution of these purposes, some very remarkable particulars occur ; and when you come to decide upon this case, I humbly beg your attention to those particulars;— some very remarkable particulars will occur. You will find that the leading clubs, by which I mean the Con- Digitized by Microsoft® 38 THE ATTOKNET-GENEKAL'S SP.EECH OK stitiitional Society, judging of its conduct for the purpose of this cause, though in some other cases we must go further back, but, for the purpose of this cause, judging of its conduct from about the beginning of the year 1792; and the London Corresponding Society, which was formed, — whether created, I will not say, — but which was modelled by some leading members of the Constitutional Society, and received its corporate existence, if I may use the term, as it will be proved, under their own handwriting — most distinctly from the handwriting of some who yet belong, and some who have ceased to belong, to the Constitutional Society ; — these leading societies, you will find enlisting into their affiliation many societies in the country, composed of men who expressed their doubts as to the views of these societies in London, — who expressed their fears as well as their doubts about those views, — who required information as to the purposes of those societies in London — some of these societies in the country professing one set of principles, 'some another ; but all assistance is taken that is offered. Accordingly, you will see that the London societies enlist persons who profess " that they ought to submit to no power but what they have themselves immediately constituted." To these they give answers, couched in dark, cautious, prudent, but satisfactory and intelligible terms. Those who profess still to have attachments to the monarchy of the country, and who express apprehensions about its safety from the principles of the London societies, and the conflicting principles of various country societies, they sooth into fraternisation, by telling them that all would be set right " by a full and fair representation of the people in Parliament," — a name which was given to the Commons under Cromwell, as well as to the legitimate Parliaments of this country at different periods, — without telling them either what these words meant, or how that Parliament was to operate to reconcile these differences, which you will find amounted only to the differences between an attach- ment to an absolute republic, and an attachment to a limited monarchy. They enlist alike those who expressed a wish to know whether they proposed to reform the House of Commons, and those who wished to know whether they intend to rip up monarchy by the roots. Their answers were calculated to satisfy each of them, to satisfy whatever might be the disposition, of those who address the questions to iihem, requiring information upon subjects so totally different. Gentlemen, this is not all. You will find, again, that for these purposes, publications upon the government of the country, which are alluded to in this indictment, and which will be given to you in evidence, — that publications upon the government of the country were adopted by those societies as their own, and circulated, if I may so express myself, in a mass round the country, circulated in Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 39 a manner that totally destroys the liberty of the press in this country. The liberty of the press in this country never ought to be under an undue correction of the law, but it must always be, for the sake of the people, subject to the correction of the law. You will find that these publications are either brought into the world with such a secrecy as baffles all prosecution,— published without names of authors or of printers, — published by contrivance, — I am sorry to say by contrivance,— published in the dead of night (though they are the works of men who have talents to state them to open day, if fit to be stated to open day), — and published in quantities which make the application of the wholesome provisions of the law utterly incompetent to the purpose of allowing the correction of the law to be as frequent as the commission of the offences against it. Gentlemen, with respect to many of these publications I may take notice of what has happened in the history of this country ; and though no man wishes less to talk of himself than I do, yet I am speaking in the presence of many who have heard me both in court and in Parliament respecting those publications to which I allude (and which will be offered to you in evidence), express the difficulty that my mind laboured under to concede that such a publication as the "Address to the Addressers" was not, according to law, an overt act of high treason. It did appear to me that the publication of the book called the "Address to the Addressers" was an overt act of high treason, for the purpose of deposing the King ; at least I thought it required an ingenuity and subtlety, much beyond that which belonged to my mind, to state satisfactory reasons why it was not so ; but there were reasons satisfactory to those who can judge better than I can, and therefore that book was treated only as a libel ; — but when I come to see it, as connected with the mass of publications alluded to in this indictment, as con- nected with measures that I have to state to you in the course of opening this cause, and as connected with the project which this indictment imputes to depose the King, I say it is either most distinct evidence of an overt act of high treason, or it is an overt ■ act of high treason itself Gentlemen, you will also not fail to observe (and I state it as a gene- ral feature and character of the evidence that I have to lay before you) the malignant art, and, if I may so express myself, the industrious malignity with which discontent has been spread by these two societies in London ; and the means of spreading it have been studi- ously and anxiously taught from society to society, — the means of spreading sedition, fresh as from London, in every town, all with reference (for they are not material if you do not find they had such a reference) to the final accomplishment of the same purpose. You will not fail to observe how the passions and interests of individuals have been assailed, and the method of assailing them taught accord- Digitized by Microsoft® 40 THE attoenet-geneeal's speech on ing to their stations in life, — not merely upon Government, but, for the purpose of subverting Grovernment, upon tithes, corn-bills, taxes, game-laws, impress service, anything that could be represented as a grievance, as well as the Government itself ; and to this intent, that, in aid and assistance of each other, societies, as they expressed it, " might overspread the whole face of the island," and " that the island might become free" — you will mark their expressions—" by the same means by which France became so." Gentlemen, in stating to you the character of the evidence, it is necessary for me to make one observation, and it is the last I shall trouble you with : it is with respect to the principles upon which construction is to be given to the written evidence that will be adduced in this cause. Now, I desire to state this to your minds, as a principle perfectly reasonable in the administration of justice towards men who are called upon to answer for offences, that the language which they use ought to be considered according to its obvious sense. If the language admits, and naturally admits, of a double interpretation, it must then be considered according to the nature of the principle which that language is calculated to carry into execution ; each paper must be considered with reference to the context of the same paper, and with reference to the contents of all other papers that form the evidence of the same system which the paper produced is meant to prove. Now, if you should find that in detailing the objects of this society, in detailing what they meant to do, and in detailing how they meant to execute what they purposed, they should in fact have stated that they meant neither that which was legal, nor that which was constitutional, nor that which was other than treason ; it will be in vain that they have thought fit (for the greater prudence, the greater care, and the greater caution, which you will have most abundant evidence to prove they exercised occasionally, but add to the guilt by increasing the danger) to assert at other times, when they have used general language, that what they meant to effect was legal, and that they meant to effect it in a legal and constitu- tional manner. It will become those who have the defence upon their hands to state to you how, in a legal and constitutional manner, those things could be done which were intended to be done, and which this indictment states were intended to be done, if I prove to your satisfaction that they were intended to be done by the means and instruments which the indictment refers to. Gentlemen of the jury, their principle, as you will find, was, that equal active citizenship is the right of all men, and that, upon this principle, their representation of the people was to be asked for. Now, it requires no reasoning to state that a representation of the ])eopie founded upon the principle of equal active citizenship of all men, must form a Parliament into which no King nor Lords could enter. There is an end of equal active citizenship the moment that Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 41 either of them exists, according to my construction of equal active citizenship, and according to their construction of it ; for they state that the effect of it is a representative government. But it is not enough for _ me to tell you that; in reasoning, this is the conse- quence ; it is a circumstance to be taken into your consideration. But 1 say I shall satisfy you, if I am bound to go further, that the application of the principle of equal active citizenship, according to thern, was to be the foundation of a representative government, re- jecting the King and Lords out of the system. The principles were the principles upon which the constitution of France, in the year 1791, was formed. The principles of that constitution were the principles of equal active citizenship ; they attempted, indeed, to preserve a King in the constitution, and to form what I may call a royal democracy. But I shall prove to demonstration, that the leaders of these clubs in London knew that that constitution could not exist, that their principles led them to a distinct knowledge that that constitution could not exist. It was in the month of August 1792 entirely overturned ; and you will find from the trans- actions of this society in the months of October and November 1792, unless I mistake the efi'ect of the evidence, the clearest demonstra- tion that these societies meant, in applying those principles, which they themselves state had destroyed the existence of a King in France, because they must destroy the existence of a King in any country,— you will find that, from October 1792 at least, these socie- ties meant to destroy the King in this country, and that this was the natural effect of their own principles as they understood them. Gentlemen, you will now give me leave to state to you, as well as I can, and as intelligibly as I can, the mass of evidence, and the case which I have to lay before you. The particular act, the nature of which will be to be explained by all the rest of the evidence, which has led to the including these particular persons in one indictment, arose out of a letter, dated the 27th of March 1794, which was written by the prisoner, then the secretary to the London Corresponding Society, to the Society for Constitutional Information. The words of it are these : — " I am directed by the London Corresponding Society to transmit the following resolutions to the Society for Constitutional Informa- tion, and to request the sentiments of that society respecting the important measures which the present juncture of affairs seems to require. The London Corresponding Society conceives that the moment is arrived " — mark the words ; for, in the rest of what I have to state, you will frequently hear of the time to which that alludes — " when a full and explicit declaration is necessary from all the friendsof freedom, whether the late illegal and unheard of prosecutions and sentences shall determine us to abandon our cause, or shall excite us to pursue a radical reform with an ardour proportionate to the magnitude of the object, and with a zeal as Digitized by Microsoft® 42 THE attoeney-genkkal's speech on distinguished on our part as the treachery of others in the same glorious cause is notorious. The Society for Constitutional Infor- mation is therefore required to determine whether or no they will he ready, when called upon, to act in conjunction with this and . other societies to obtain a fair representation of the people." G-entlemen, give me your attention presently to what they conceive to be a fair representation of the people, when I come to state the resolutions which they transmit. " Whether they concur with us in seeing the necessity of a speedy convention for the purpose of obtaining " (then they used the words) " in a constitutional and legal method " — of the effect of which you will judge presently, for the method will not be the more constitutional and legal for their calling it so, if the method is in fact unconstitutional and illegal — " a redress of those grievances under which we at present labour, and which can only be effectually removed by a full and fair repre- sentation of the people of Great Britain. The London Correspond- ing Society cannot but remind their friends that the present crisis demands all the prudence, unanimity, and vigour, that ever may or can be exerted by men or Britons ; nor do they doubt but that manly firmness and consistency will finally, and they believe shortly, terminate in the full accomplishment of all their wishes." They then resolve, and these resolutions are enclosed — "1st, That dear as justice and liberty are to Britons, yet the value of them is comparatively small without a dependency on their per- manency, and there can be no security for the continuance of any rights but in equal laws. " 2d, That equal laws can never be expected but by a full and fair representation of the people ; to obtain which, in the way pointed out by the constitution " — you will see what that is in the third resolution — " has been and is the sole object of this society : for this we are ready to hazard everything, and never but with our lives will we relinquish an object which involves the happiness, or even the political existence, of ourselves and posterity. " 3d, That it is the decided opinion of this society, that, to secure ourselves from the future illegal and scandalous prosecutions, to prevent a repetition of wicked and unjust sentences, and to recall those wise and wholesome laws which have been wrested from us, and of which scarcely a vestige remains " — Gentlemen, you will permit me to call your attention to what the objects were which were to be accomplished — "there ought to be immediately" — what ? — "a convention of the people hy delegates deputed for that purpose from the different societies of the friends of freedom." And what are the purposes which this convention, which they themselves represent as a convention of the people, are to execute ? Why they, the delegates, forming a convention of the people, are to recall those wise, wholesome laws, which they say have Ijeen wrested from them. Before I have done, I shall prove distinctly Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAKDY. 43 that this is the meaning of the passage, and the meaning of the passage will be to be collected from the whole of the evidence un- doubtedly, not from this particular part of it. The Constitutional Society, there being present at that time six of the persons mentioned in this indictment, without any delibera- tion whatever upon a proposition so material as this is — and therefore it must be left to you, upon the whole of the evidence, whether it is fairly to be inferred or not, that this, like a great many other papers of the London Corresponding Society, really came from the Con- stitutional Society, — they immediately ordered that their secretary shall acquaint the London Corresponding Society that they had received their communication; that they heartily concur with them in the objects they have in view ; and that, for that view, and for the purpose of a more speedy and effectual co-operation, they in- vite them to send to this society, next Friday evening, a delegation of some of their members. Without now going into the particulars of what followed iapon this, give me leave to state, that some members of the society in- cluded in this indictment were named to compose that delegation ; that there was named at the same time a committee of corre- spondence of six members of this society; that afterwards the London Corresponding Society formed another committee ;, that the two committees met ; that the two committees meeting, came to a determination that this project of calling a convention of the people should be carried into effect ; and then, that a joint-com- mittee of co-operation of both societies was formed by resolutions of both. Having stated what happened upon the 27th of March 1794, and connecting it, as I shall do presently, with the very singular facts which you will find also happened in that year, you will give me leave, in order to show what the true construction of this ' act is, as well as to state the grounds upon which the indictment, even without this act, charges a conspiracy to depose the King. You will give me leave to state the transactions of these societies from the month of March 1792. Gentlemen, in or about the month of March 1792, — whether before that time the London Corresponding Society had existed or not, seems to me to be dubious, and therefore I will make no asser- tion of that one way or other ; but supposing it to have existed, it will be made extremely clear that this society existed at that time without a constitution, as they call it, and was indebted to a gentleman of the name of Tooke for the constitution under which the society was modified, and was indebted, I think, to a gentleman of the name of Vaughan for his assistance in the composition of the code of its laws. The first correspondence that I find between the Constitutional Spciety and the London Corresponding Society, which I have to Digitized by Microsoft® 44 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on state to you, is iij the communication of the principles of the Corresponding Society, sent with a letter signed by the prisoner at the bar, which letter is in the foUowingwords : — " I am ordered by the committee to send to the Society for Constitutional Informa- tion in London, a copy of our motives for associating, and the i-esolutions we have come to. We mean to persevere in the cause we have embarked in, that is, to have (if possible) an equal re- presentation of the people of this nation in Parliament." I observe here for a moment that you will not be surprised, when I get to the conclusion of this business, that this cautious language was used in the outset : it will be for you to judge whether a studied caution is fairly imputable to the language. It proceeds thus: — " We should be exceedingly happy to enter into a correspondence with that society, if it is not too much presumption in us to expect such an honour ; but, as our cause is one, we hope that they will deign to take some notice of us, who are now entering upon a matter of such vast importance." This is extremely condescending language on the part of Mr Hardy to the Constitutional Society : it accompanies the resolu- tions of that society, which resolutions purported to be signed " Thomas Hardy, Secretary." It happened, by an accident not very easy to be accounted for at present, and, notwithstanding which, I shall prove distinctly to you that the resolutions are the act of Mr Hardy, that this signature — " Thomas Hardy, Secretary" — is a signature, as I am instructed, in the handwriting of Mr Home Tooke ; that is, Mr Hardy, in the London Corresponding Society, sends the resolutions of the London Corresponding Society (apologising extremely for the liberty he takes in presuming to send them) to the Constitutional Society, the signature to those resolutions bearing the name of Thomas Hardy in the handwriting of Mr Tooke. Whether those resolutions were finally settled by that gentleman or not I do not know, but you will find that there exists a paper which contains, I think, distinct evidence upon the face of it, that those resolutions have been settled, with a good deal of deliberation, by the same gentleman whose handwriting occurs in the signature which I have been stating. Gentlemen, before these resolutions were sent, and before I state the matter of them to you, you will allow me to mention that there had been a correspondence between other societies and the Society for Constitutional Information, of such a nature as, in order to make this case intelligible, will require some observations from me, and some attention from you ; it is the correspondence of other societies, but which correspondence I shall connect in such a manner with the London Corresponding Society as in fact to make the acts of the other societies the acts of that society. Upon the 23d of March 1792, with a view to show you what were the principles of this Constitutional Society, I must state that they Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDT. 45 come to a resolution, " That the thanks of this society be given to Mr Thomas Paine for his most masterly book entitled ' The Rights of Man,' in which not only the malevolent sophistries of hireling scribblers are detected, and exposed to merited ridicule, but many of the most important and beneficial political truths are stated so irresistibly convincing as to promise the acceleration of that not very distant period, when usurping borough-sellers and profligate borough-buyers shall be deprived of what they impudently dare to call their property — the choice of the representatives of the people. The Constitutional Society cannot help expressing their satisfaction that so valuable a publication has proceeded from a member of that society, and they sincerely hope that the people of England will give that attention to the subjects discussed in Mr Paine's treatise which their manifest importance so justly deserves." Then they resolved,— for what purpose you will judge of when I come to state to you the subsequent evidence in this business, — " That the foregoing resolutions, and all future proceedings of this society, be regularly transmitted by the secretary to all our Corresponding Constitutional Societies in England, Scotland, and France." Now, gentlemen, as I shall prove what the book was to which this resolution alluded, I shall take the liberty at present to state in a few words to you, as far as they affect the existence of a King in this country, those subjects which, according to the language of this resolution, the Constitutional Society sincerely hope that the people of England would give attention to, as discussed in Mr Paine's first book. In that book these doctrines, with respect to Great Britain, are laid down : — " A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact ; it has not an ideal, but a real existence." And you will find this extremely important, because in the result of the whole evidence that I have to lay before you, it will appear that they did not only distinctly disavow making any application to Parliament, but the competence of Parliament to do anything by way of reform, because the country had as yet no constitution formed by the people. Mr Paine proceeds : " Can Mr Burke pro- duce the English constitution ? If he_ cannot, we may fairly con- clude that no such thing as a constitution exists." After stating that the Septennial Bill showed that there was no such thing as a constitution in England, the book states a further fact, not immaterial, that the bill, which Mr Pitt brought into Parliament some years ago to reform Parliament, was upon the same erroneous principle ; that is, upon the principle that Parliament was able to reform itself. With respect to other subjects, to which the attention of the people of England was called, you will find that this book, speaking of modes of government (and this is also extremely material with reference to the construction of what is afterwards to be stated to you), represents that "the two modes of Digitized by Microsoft® 46 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on government which prevail in the world are, first, governments by- election and representation ; secondly, governments by hereditary succession : the former is generally known by the name of republi- can, the latter by that of monarchy and aristocracy." He divides government into government by election and re- presentation ; a representation founded upon election, and election founded upon universal suffrage ; and government by hereditajy succession. He then states that, from the revolutions of America and France, and the symptoms that have appeared in other countries, it is evident the opinion of the world is changing with respect to government, and that revolutions are not within the progress of political calculation ; and that the British government, not existing upon the principles he recommends, is not a govern- ment existing upon such principles that a nation ought to submit to it ; and that the Parliament of the country is not able to form a government that will exist upon those principles. Gentlemen, it is a very remarkable circumstance, as it strikes me, that, though various societies had existed in other parts of Great Britain, till about the time of the formation of the London Corresponding Society, none of these societies had asked or invited the affiliation with the London Constitutional Society which you will find they all ask and all invite about March 1792, whether by management or not, I do not pretend to determine — it will be for you to judge ; but they all ask and all invite affiliation with the Constitutional and Corresponding Societies, us soon as the latter is formed. Upon the 16th of March 1792, you will find a resolution of the Society for Constitutional Information which states and returns thanks for a communication from Manchester, signed " Thomas Walker, President," and "Samuel Jackson, Secretary;" in which "they, return the thanks of the society to Mr Thomas Paine," who appears to have been a member, a visitor of this Constitutional Society, " for the publication of his ' Second Part of the Eights of Man, combining Principle and Practice.' " I shall endeavour to state to you in a few words what is the combination of the practice stated in the Second Part of the ' Rights of Man ' with the principle in the First Part, " a work," they say, " of the highest importance to every nation under heaven, but particularly to this, as containino- excellent and practicable plans for an immediate and considerable reduction of the public expenditure, for the prevention of wars, for the extension of our manufactures and commerce, for the education of the young, for the comfortable support of the aged, for the better maintenance of the poor of every description, and finally, for lessen- ing greatly, and without delay, the enormous load of taxes under which this country at present labours. " That this society congratulate their country at large on the influence which Mr Paine's publications appear to have had in Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 47 procuring the repeal of some oppressive taxes in the present session of Parliament ; and they hope that this adoption of a small part of Mr Paine' s ideas will be followed by the most strenuous exertions to accomplish a complete reform in the present inadequate state of the representation of the people, and that the other great plans of public benefit which Mr Paine has so powerfully recommended will be speedily carried into effect." Now, gentlemen, as Mr Paine's plan for the remedy of the present inadequate state of the representation of the people was alluded to, and this book was alluded to, which combined "principle" and "practice," and as it is stated that the other great plans of public benefit which he had so powerfully recommended would be speedily carried into effect, it will be necessary to show you, from this letter, what were those plans for the remedy of the inadequate state of the representation of the people, and other plans of public benefit, which this society, receiving the thanks of the Constitutional Society, hoped would be carried into effect. Gentlemen, I do not take up your time in stating the passages to you, but represent to you the substance of that book ; that it is a book distinctly and clearly recommending the deposition of the King : if the passages in that book do not prove that assertion, there is no evidence that can prove any assertion. It is a book, moreover, which not only puts the King out of the system of the government of the country, but, according to which, if a perfect lepresentation of the people is to be formed, it is to be formed not by a Parliament existing in a country — in which that gentleman states that no constitution exists — not by that Parliament, which he states to be totally and absolutely inadequate to the great work of forming the constitution upon the rights of man and equal active citizenship, which he recommends : it is a work which calls upon the people of England to do themselves justice in another way of proceeding, and to form a constitution for themselves before they can have any government, which is to exist upon true principles. There is then, I say, in the beginning of this thing, a development of these purposes ; and I say, beyond that, that if I understand the effect of evidence at all, I shall satisfy you that those who voted this resolution of thanks knew that the principles there referred to were principles that would have this operation, and meant that they should have this effect. The next thing I have to state, which I shall not go through very particularly, is contained in a resolution of the Constitutional Society (some of the members of which, I shall prove to you, began to leave the Society about this time, stating distinctly that they understood its principles to be now different from the principles it had formerly acted upon, and to be such principles as I have stated), entered into upon the 23d of March 1792. They resolved that another communication, which is from Sheffield, should be Digitized by Microsoft® 48 THE ATTORNEY- GENEBAL'S SPEECH ON published in the Morning Chronicle, and in several other news- papers, which they mention. With respect to the communication from Sheffield — (and it is a remarkable thing that from Sheffield and from Norwich they should be writing on the same day for the same purpose — that the societies of Sheffield and Norwich might be affiliated with the London Constitutional Society; and the Sheffield people were so anxious about it, if it were their own act and deed, that they wrote more than one letter in order to ask it) — it is to this effect : — " It is now about four months since this society first formed itself into a regular body ; they were then but very few in number; the enclosed will inform you of their increase, and, which is most probable, will soon become very numerous ; and not only this large and populous town, but the whole neighbourhood for many miles round about, have an attentive eye upon us : most of the towns and villages indeed are forming themselves into similar associations, and strictly adhere to the mode of copying after us. You will easily conceive the necessity for the leading members of this body to pay strict attention to good order and regularity, and the need we have of consulting and communicating with those who are sincere friends and able advocates for the same cause. For these reasons we took the liberty to write to Mr Home Tooke, that worthy friend and patriot for the rights of the people, informing him of our earnest desire of entering into connexion with the society of the same denomination of ours in London ; his very obliging and affectionate answer favours us with your address ; in consequence, we have taken the liberty herewith to transmit to you some resolves, which were passed at our last meetings by the whole body, and the committee was charged with the despatch of printing and forward- ing them to you accordingly, for the purpose of submitting them to the consideration of your society, and to make use of them as they think most prudent. You will also notice the Belpar address. They applied to us about two months ago for instructions as to our mode of conducting, &c., had not then formed themselves into any regular association. Belpar is nearly thirty miles from this place, in Derbyshire, and eight or ten miles from DeVby. " If the Society for Constitutional Information in London should vouchsafe so far to notice us as to enter into a connexion and cor- respondence with us, it cannot fail of promoting honour, and adding strength to our feeble endeavours, and to the common cause, which is the entire motive we have in view." They then, upon the 14th of March 1792, knowing that there was a connexion between the London Constitutional and London Corresponding Society (and that they should know that fact on the 14th of March, which is sixteen days before the 30th, when Mr Hardy sent to Mr Tooke the resolutions which were signed in the name of Mr Hardy by Mr Tooke, as a communication to him that Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OP THOMAS HAEDY. 49 there was such a body as the London Corresponding Society, is a circumstance that affords observation), they then add, " We have taken the liberty of enclosing a parcel for Mr Hardy, in answer to a letter from him to this society, requesting some information con- cerning our method of conducting the business we had embarked in, &c., also informing us there are in London a number of mechanics, shopkeepers, &c., forming themselves into a society on the hroad basis of the rights of man. You will be so obliging as to let the packet remain with you until he call for it, as by this post I have wrote him thereof. We have given him our manner of proceeding from our setting out to this time, and hope it may be of some use. The improvement we are about to adopt is certainly the best for managing large bodies, as in great and populous towns, viz., dividing them into small bodies or meetings of ten persons each, and these ten to appoint a delegate ; ten of these delegates form another meeting, and so on, delegating from one to another, till at last they are reduced to a proper number for con- stituting the Committee or Grand Council." There is another letter, of the same date, which has a remark- able circumstance about it. It is addressed to the Constitutional society. Gentlemen, it states that "this society," that is, the same Sheffield society, "feeling, as they do, the grievous effects of the present state defects and abuse of our country" — (the word originally in this letter was constitution, but the word constitution not being that which was liked, by some very odd accident in the letter from Sheffield, the word country, in the handwriting of Mr Tooke, is substituted for constitution) — "the great and heavy oppressions which the common people labour under, as the natural consequence of that corruption, and at the time being sensible to a degree of certainty that the public minds and the general senti- ments of the people are determined to obtain a radical reform of the country," — you will mark these words, — "as soon as prudence and discretion will permit, believes it their duty to make use of every prudent means, as far as their abilities can be extended, to obtain so salutary and desirable an object as a thorough reforma- tion of our country," — the word country being again in the hand- writing of Mr Tooke, — " established upon that system which is con- sistent with the rights of man." For these reasons they state their forming into clubs, as the former letter did, and they conclude thus — • "that being thus strengthened, the society may be better enabled to govern itself with more propriety, and to render assistance to their fellow-citizens in this neighbourhood, and in parts more remote, that they in their turn may extend useful knowledge still further from town to village, and from village to town, until the whole nation be sufficiently enlightened and united in the same cause, which cannot fail of being the case wherever the most excel- lent works of Mr Thomas Paine find residence." VOL. II. v Digitized by Microsoft® 50 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on These works are the works which have held an hereditary mon- archy, however limited, to be inconsistent with the rights of man, ; which have held the constitution of Parliament in this country to be inconsistent with the rights of man ; and those works, upon the principles of that inconsistency, have held even the Parliament itself incompetent to reform any abuses in government. The paper they transmit states as a fact, that the mimber of members at Sheffield were, in March 1792, two thousand. That the Constitutional Society in London and the Constitutional Society at Sheffield, thus numerous, should have had no connexion by affiliation till the 14th of March 1792, though on that 14th of March 1792 it appears that the Sheffield society had had corres- pondence, and had become connected with the London Correspond- ing Society, prior to the London Corresponding Society sending the paper, I before stated, to the Constitutional Society, is some- what remarkable. The paper proceeds thus : " This society, composed chiefly of the manufacturers of Sheffield, began about four months ago, and is already increased to nearly two thousand members." In this letter, dated March 14, 1792, they state it to have amounted to two thousand, exclusive of neighbouring towns and villages, who were forming themselves into similar societies. They then state the principles upon which the societies are formed, and that " they have derived more true knowledge from the two works of Mr Thomas Paine, entitled 'Eights of Man,' Part the First and Second, than from any other author on the subject. The practice as well as tlie principle of government is laid down in those works in a manner so clear and irresistibly convincing, that this society do hereby resolve to give their thanks to Mr Paine for his two said publications entitled 'Eights of Man.'" Gentlemen, I beg your pardon for addressing you so much at length on this case, but I feel it my bounden duty to the public, to you, and. to the prisoner at the bar, to warn you fully of the whole of. it. There is nothing which, I am sure, would more cer- tainly happen, than that I should go, not only out of this court, but to my grave, with pain, if I should have stated to you, in a proceeding of this nature, the doctrines of Mr Paine otherwise than as I think of them. If that is meant to be intimated, that we may have no dispute about them, and that we may not misunderstand what is that principle and that practice to which the passage I have now read alludes, you will allow me to read a few passages out of this Second Part of the "Eights of Man," said to contain both the principle and practice of government ; and then I ask you what those must have intended, with respect to the government of this country, who meant to take any step in order to make a change in it, in such a way as the principle and practice laid down in that book would require them to make it, recollecting that the govern- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY, 51 meht of this country is a gorernment consisting in a King, Laving an hereditaiy crown, together with Lords and Commons, forming a Parliament according to the laws and constitution of England ? Now, that author, in the first place, expresses a great deal of what possibly may be differently thought of by other persons, but what I cannot call good-will to the people of England ; for he says — " That during the time of the American war, he was strongly impressed with the idea, that if he could get over to England witli- out being known, and only remain in safety till he could get out a publication, that he could open the eyes of the country with respect to the madness and stupidity of its Government." Let us see in what that madness consisted according to him. Having stated in his former book that a Government ought to exist in no country, but according to the principles of the rights of man , he repeats again the distinction he had stated in his former book, between what he calls the two systems : he says — " That the one now called the old is hereditary, either in whole or in part," — which is that of England; "and the new is entirely represen- tative,"-^that is, a Government consisting of a Commons House, if you choose so to call it. We know that in 1649 the ruling Govern- ment in this country was called a Parliament, called a Commons House, and it was then enacted, that if any persons should attempt to put a King into this country, they should be deemed traitors, with much less of an overt act manifested than is necessary at this day. Again it is stated — " An heritable crown, or an heritable throne, or by whatever fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heri- table property. To inherit a government is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds." " Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most ridiculous light by presenting it as an office which any child or idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic, but to be a King requires only the animal figure of man, a sort of breathing automaton. This sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it cannot long resist the awakened reason and interest of man;" then "in whatever manner the separate parts of a constitution may be arranged, there is one general principle that distinguishes freedom from slavery, which is, that all hereditary government over a people is to them a species of slavery, and representative government is freedom ;" tiien, speaking of the crown of England, that crown, in whicli, according to the law and constitution of this country, according to its principle and prafctice, is vested the sovereignty in the manner in which I' have stated it, he says, "having thus glanced at somo of the defects of the two Houses of Parliament, I proceed to what is called the Crown, upon which I shall be very concise. " It signifies a nominal office of a million sterling a year ; "-^ Digitized by Microsoft® 52 THE attoeney-genekal's speech on ngain, gentlemen, give me leave to observe that this, which has been so often detailed for the worst of purposes, cannot but be known to those who know anything of the constitution of the country — (I charge nobody else — those who know anything of the constitution — I charge not those who do not know it) — to be in substance a gross misrepresentation ; — " the business of which con- sists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. Every minister acts upon the same idea that Mr Burke writes, namely, that the people must be hoodwinked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other ; and what is called the Crown answers this purpose, and therefore it answers all the purposes to be expected from it." Gentlemen, in another part of this work you will find that Mr Paine was very well aware of what these Sheffield correspondents were aware of, if they were the composers of the letter to which I have alluded ; that the principles laid down in the constitution of France, which these two books were to recommend, and the prin- ciples stated in Paine's first book, were absolutely inconsistent with the constitution itself of France, as it existed at that moment ; and Paine prophetically (he would not have had common sense if he had stated it otherwise), even in the beginning of 1792, when he publishes this book, foretells that the Government of France, with a King a part of it, upon his principles, and the principles professed by the constitution of France, could not exist : he foresaw that in August 1792, and I will prove that those persons, who were thus approving the principles and practice of Paine, knew that a King could not exist consistently with those principles, and they adopted them therefore, as we insist, in order that a King should not exist in this country. Gentlemen, these resolutions being received, perhaps from Sheffield, a step is taken upon them in the Constitutional Society, and a step which gives an authenticity to the book I have in my hand, namely, the book of their proceedings, which is re- markable enough ; for in this society's book there are these resolu- tions, which are supposed' to be received from Sheffield, wafered to the book, and then, with a view of a publication of them in the Morning Chronicle , World, Post, Times, Argus, English Chronicle, and General Evening Post, for the purpose of circulating the prin- ciples of Mr Thomas Paine, and for the purpose of circulating the i-epresentation which is made in these resolutions. There is first of all in Mr Tooke's handwriting, — " Society for Constitutional Information, London, March 23, 1792. This society having ]-eceived the following and other communications from Sheffield, viz.," — his handwriting — then, "March 14, 1792," — his hand- writing — then the words " two thousand memhers," scored under, I cannot say by him, but by somebody, I suppose for the purpose Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OP THOMAS HABDY, 53 of being printed in italics; and there is at the conclusion of this minnte, in the handwriting of Mr Tooke,— " That the secretary do return the thanks of this society to the Society for Constitutional Information established at Sheffield, and that he express to them with what friendship and affection this society embraces them, aw brothers and fellow-labourers in the same cause;"— of principle and practice I suppose. " That he do assure them of our entire concurrence with their opinion, viz., that the people of this country are not, as Mr Burke terms them, swine ; " — the writer of this raust^ have known very well the sense in which an improper word, I readily admit, was used by the person to whom he now alludes, — " but rational beings, better qualified to separate truth from error than himself, possessing more honesty and less craft." " Kesolved that this society will, on Friday next, March 31, ballot for the twelve associated members recommended by the Sheffield committee, and approved at this meeting." Then this paper is thus ordered to be published, for the primary purpose, I submit, of recommending that principle and practice which makes tlie Sheffieldpeople "fellow-labourers" with the Constitutional Society in the same cause of principle and practice, and which, both in the principle and practice, was aimed at the destruction of the Govern- ment of the country — of that hereditary monarchy which Paine represents as tyranny — of that limited monarchy which he re- presents as tyranny ; and for the purpose of recommending that representative government which, I say, is the true sense of all tlie words which these people use. But this is not all. You will observe that this paper of resolutions was accompanied by a letter, in which letter there is also the handwriting of Mr Tooke, and that the paper states that two thousand members belong to the society at Sheffield, and that this number is to be stated by publication ns the number of persons belonging to the society at Sheffield. In another publication they are stated to amount to two thousand foui' hundred. In November 1793, it is stated that they were many thousands. Now 3'ou will see from the witnesses, some of these correspondents, these able men, who are so little corrupt, in the course of examination. You will see, unless I am mistaken in the effect of the evidence I have to offer, the truth of an observa- tion that I made, that mankind were to be misled, and societies were to be invited to be created, by the misrepresentation of numbers, and by giving to existing societies a colour in that respect which did not belong to them ; for to this hour, after all the pains which have been taken with the Sheffield people (and what pains you will hear) , those persons who were two thousand, have yet arrived to but about six hundred. Gentlemen, this society having in this letter expressed nn inclination that they should have some associated members in the Constitutional Society, that affiliation begins in the Constitutional Digitized by Microsoft® .'5 f THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON Suciety in London which I have alluded to ; and, accordingly, you will find that, upon the 31st of March, twelve persons were balloted for as from the Sheffield society, and became associated members of this society. You observe that this letter had stated i'rom Sheffield that they had received before a communication irom Mr Tooke, and Mr Tooke afterwards writes a draught of a letter which is sent to them, in which he states, " I am directed by Ihe Society for Constitutional Information to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and to express to you that very great pleasure find satisfaction which they received from your communication. The society have unanimously elected twelve " (here follow the names of the persons), "as associated members of this society;" — lliese persons being certainly gentlemen, extremely respectable men as subjects of Great Britain, but. at the same time men that o:ie wonders a little should, upon such a purpose as this, without a little more instruction being infused into their minds, have been associated as members into this society; — "and we flatter ourselves, that when any business or other occasion shall lead any of those gentlemen to London, they will be kind enough to honour the society by their presence, and give us an opportunity of cementing that friendship between us, which all the zealous friends of public freedom and the happiness of mankind ought to feel and exercise towards each other. " P.S. — I am desired by Mr Home Tooke to request each of the associated members to honour him with the acceptance of the books which accompany this letter ;" — which were, I apprehend, it appears, so many parts of the " Eights of Man." Gentlemen, upon the 24th of March 1792, a paper appears to liave been sent to the Constitutional Society from a nest of socie- ties, the United Constitutional Societies at Norwich. This was the 2ith of March 1792 ; and it appears, as I am instructed, that the words " 24th March 1792" are also in the handwriting of Mr Tooke. " At a meeting of the delegates of the United Constitutional Societies, held the 24th March 1792, at the Wheel of Fortune, St Edmund's, in the city of Norwich, it was unanimously agreed to communicate to the gentlemen of the London Society for Constitu- tional Information the following resolutions : — " First, We are happy to see the success of the Sheffield Society for Constitutional Eeform, and approve of the delegations which you and they have made in order to form a plan of general infor- ination. We humbly beg that you would grant to us the same favour ; and it is our wish that all the societies of a similar kind in England were only as so many members strongly and indis- Kolubly united in one political body. " Secondly, We believe that instructing the people in political knowledge, and in their natural and inherent rights as men, is the Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAKDY. 55 6nly effectual way to obtain the grand object of reform; for men need only be made acquainted with the abuses of government, and they will readily join in every lawful means to obtain redress. We have the pleasure to inform you that our societies consist of some hundreds, and new societies are frequently forming, which, by delegates, preserve a mutual intercourse with each other, for mutual instruction and information ; and the greatest care has been taken to preserve order and regularity at our meetings, 1o convince the world that riot and disorder are no parts of our political creed. " Thirdly, We believe, and are firmly persuaded" (and if any man thought so, he had a right to say so if he pleased), " that Mr Burke, the, once friend of liberty, has traduced the greatest and most glorious revolution ever recorded in the annals of history. We thank Mr Burke for the political discussion provoked, and by which he has opened unto us the dawn of a glorious day. " Fourthly, To Mr Thomas Paine ourthanks are especially due for the First and Second Parts of the ' Eights of Man,' and we sincerely wish that he may live to see his labours " — that is, the destruction of hereditary government and limited monarchy, and consequently the Grovernment of England — " crowned with success in the general diffusion of liberty and happiness among mankind." Gentlemen, this letter does not appear (though the words the " 24th of March " are in the handwriting of Mr Tooke) to have been read in the Constitutional Society till the 14th of May 17,92, when they read this letter, and also another, which I will now state to you, from the society called the Norwich Eevolution Society. " The Norwich Eevolution Society wishes to open a communica-< tion with you at this time, when corruption has acquired a publicity in the senate which exacts from the honour of the British nation renewed exertions for parliamentary reform. Without prejudging the probable event " (this is a material passage, when you connect it with what is found in other subsequent papers) _" even of such an application to the Legislature, the society is willing to circulate the information, and to co-operate in the measures that may seem best adapted to further so desirable and so important an end : it is willing to hope the redress of every existing grievance at the hands of a Government resulting from an extraordinary Convoca- tion in 1688— an extraordinary Convention of all who had at any preceding time been elected representatives of the people, assisted by the hereditary counsellors of the nation, and a peculiar deputa- tion from the metropolis; which national constituting assembly cashiered for misconduct a King of the House of Stuart." The opinions and principles of this society are best explained by an appeal to their literary representative—" To James Mackintosh, author of the" ' Vindiciffi Gallicae,' the society offers the tribute of Digitized by Microsoft® 56 THE attoeney-genekal's speech on its approbation and gratitude for the knowledge, the eloquence, and the philosophical spirit with which he has explained, defended, and commented on the revolution of France. It hesitates to assent to this only of his opinions : that there are but two interests in society — those of the rich, and those of the poor ; — if so, what chance have the latter ? Surely the interests of all the industrious, from the richest merchant to the poorest mechanic, are, in every community, the same — to lessen the numbers of the unproductive, to whose maintenance they contribute, and to do away such institutions and imposts as abridge the means of maintenance, by resisting the demand for labour, or by sharing in reward. As the means most conducive to this comprehensive end, the Norwich Kevolution Society desires an equitable representation of the people. " The ' Eights of Man ' by Thomas Paine, and the ' Advice to the Privileged Orders ' by Joel Barlow," — a book which I shall give in evidence, and therefore shall state some passages from presently, — " have also been read with attention and circulated with avidity." Kow Barlow's book, you will find, is, in the plainest and most un- equivocal language, as I understand it, an exhortation to all people to get rid of kingly government, and addressed more particularly to the two societies I have mentioned, as containing the substance of the business in which they are interested, as you will see when I come to state the transactions of October 1792. " The ' Eights of Man ' by Thomas Paine, and the ' Address to the Privileged Orders ' by Joel Barlow, have also been read with attention and circulated with avidity : they point out with clearness most of the abuses which have accumulated under the British Government ; they attack with energy most of the prejudices which have tended to perpetuate them." Now, how any man living could thank these people without in- forming them that, if they really meant well to their country, they must be ignorant in the extreme, or something worse, if they could reconcile either the " Eights of Man " or Joel Barlow's book on the privileged orders with the principles of that Convention in 1688 which is the foundation of the liberties of this country, is to me quite inexplicable. But, after stating the constitution of this country, in a letter fabricated with great art, there follow the ■ twelve names of the intended associated members from Norwich, and the description of some of these twelve happens also, from a singular circumstance, to be in the handwriting of Mr Tooke, Then this society returns thanks to the societies at Sheffield and Norwich for these communications. The resolutions of the London Corresponding Society, which I told you were sent on the 30th of March, are to this effect : — " Eesolved, That every individual has a right to share in the government of that society of which he is a member, unless inca- pacitated. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OP THOMAS HARDY, 57 " Eesolved, That nothing but nonage, or privation of reason, or an offence against the general rules of society, can incapacitate him. _ '' Eesolved, That it is not less the right than the duty of every citizen to keep a watchful eye on the government of this country, that the laws, by being multiplied, do not degenerate into oppres- sion, and that those who are intrusted with the government do not substitute private interest for public advantage. " Eesolved, That the people of Great Britain are not properly represented in Parliament. " Eesolved, That in consequence of a partial, unequal, and in- adequate representation, together with the corrupt method in which representatives are elected, oppressive taxes, unjust laws, restric- tions of liberty, and wasting of the public money, have ensued. " Eesolved, That the only remedy to those evils is a fair and impartial representation of the people in Parliament. " Eesolved, That a fair and impartial representation can never take place until partial privileges are abolished, and the strong tempta- tions held out to electors afford a presumptive proof that the repre- sentatives of this country seldom procure a seat in Pai'liament from the unbought suffrages of a free people. " Eesolved, That this society do express their abhorrence of tumult and violence ; and that, as they aim at reform, not anarchy, — reason, firmness, and unanimity be the only arms they employ, or persuade their fellow-citizens to exert against abuse of power." Gentlemen, in this which I have now read to you, I am willing, if you please, that you should construe every word of it — though certainly it is not consistent with the principles of the British Go- vernment — upon this principle, that those who sent that paper to the Constitutional Society, if it even was sent there at all, really under- ktood it to be consistent with the principles of the British Govern- ment ; and I claim no credit for the veracity with which I assert that this conspiracy has existed, unless I show you by subsequent acts of this society, that, at this moment, they meant what Mr Paine says, in principle and practice, is the only rational thing — a representative government ; the direct contrary of the government which is established here. You will find, by what I shall lay before you, that there was a society in Southwark. To this society the London Corresponding Society, in a letter which I have to read to you presently, stated their adoption of all Mr Paine's principles, with a view, as I think, to the practice recommended in his works. This society also received the thanks of the Constitutional Society for a communication which I am about to state to you ; and the London Corresponding Society afterwards entered, as it seems to me, into a combination with them, upon the principles stated in that communication. I say it is impossible, attending to these facts, for any man who Digitized by Microsoft® 58 THE. attobney-geneeal's speech on reasons fairly, to doubt that the principle of the London Corre- sponding Society and of the Constitutional Society was to form a representative government in this country. A declaration from a society in South wark was read : — " Re- solved, that the thanks of this society be given to the' Southwark society for the following communication, and that it be published in the newspapers : — ""'April 19, 1792,— At the Three Tuns Tavern, Southwark— Eesolved, That we do now form ourselves into a society for the diffusion of political knowledge. " ' Eesolved, That the society be denominated the ' Friends of the People.' " ' Resolved, That the following be the declaration of this society'" —which is the preamble to the constitution in France in the year 1791. " ' Considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of men, are the sole causes of public grievances, and the corruption of government, this society, formed for the purpose of investigating and asserting those rights, and of uniting our efforts with others of our fellow-pitizens for correcting national abuses, and restraining unnecessary and exorbitant taxation, do hereby declare, — " ' First, That the great end of civil society is general happiness. " ' Secondly, That no form of government is good any further than it secures that object. " ' Thirdly, That all civil and political authority is derived from the people ' " — that people of whom they were afterwards to form a convention. "'Fourthly, That equal active citizenship is the inalienable right of all men ; minors, criminals, and insane persons ex- cepted.'" Now, will my friend dispute with me what these principles, ac- cording to the ideas of those who state them, lead to ? " ' Fifthly, That the exercise of that right, in appointing an ade- quate representative government " — that is, the government which Mr Paine tells you rejects everything that is hereditary — is what ? — '" the wisest device of human policy;'" not only that, but it is " 'the only security of national freedom.'" Then, is not that a direct assertion that the British Government exists, upon principles not reconcilable with the principles of a Government that can have any security, or such a security as it ought to have for general freedom ? The Society for Constitutional Information return their, thanks upon that also, and then those persons who write this letter say farther in the same paper, — " ,We call upon our fellow-citizens, of all descriptions, to insti- tute societies for the same great purpose,"-^ that is, the purpose of Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 59- introducing representative government, — " and we recommend a "_ general correspondence with each other," — but attached and riveted to the Constitutional Society,^" and with the Society for Constitutional Information in London, as the best means of cement- ing the common union, and of directing with greater energy our united efforts to the same common objects." What were the objects of this society ? You will find that the objects of this society were the objects of the Constitutional Society; and you will find presently that they were the objects of the Cor- responding Society. The Constitutional Society resolved, " That every society desiring an union or correspondence with this, and which doth not profess any principles destructive to truth or justice " — now this gives occasion for the first remark I have to make upon language — " or subversive to the liberties of our coun- try ; but which, on the contrary, seeks, as we do, the removal of corruption from the Legislature and abuses from the government, ought to be, and we hope will be, embraced with the most brotherly affection and patriotic friendship by this society." I observe upon this, that all this handsome language is perfectly consistent with this principle in the minds of those who write it, and they do not venture to explain it, because I think they durst not explain it, with this idea in their minds, that those principles were destructive of truth and justice, were subversive of the liberties of the country, which were principles in opposition to those of Mr Paine ; and that all practice that was in opposition to the practice he recommends was subversive of the liberties of the country. I come now to a circumstance or two, which lead me to state shortly what will be proved to be the original constitution of the London Corresponding Society. The plan (the efficacy of which had been tried in France, and which men who came from that country were probably well acquainted with) was to unite first small bodies of men ; as soon as they came to a greater number, to divide them into smaller parties, and so to spread themselves by degrees (as you will find in the letters was the purpose of these societies), from town to town, froni village to village, from hamlet to hamlet, till, as they explain it, there should not be an unenlightened man in the country. The constitution of the London Corresponding Society was fornied upon this principle. It will appear from the written evidence which will be produced to you, that a gentleman of the name, I think, of Felix Vaughan, was appointed a delegate upon the 30th of April, for No. 63 ; that Mr Hardy consulted him ; and being also ap- pointed to form a constitutional code of laws for the London Oor- i-esponding Society, Mr Hardy consulted him upon that subject. The preamble to the resolutions which formed their constitution was this : " Whereas it is notorious that very numerous burden- some and unnecessary taxes are laid, on the persons and families of Digitized by Microsoft® 60 THE, attoeney-genebal's speech on us and others the industrious inhabitants of Great Britain, an ex- ceedingly great majority of whom are, notwithstanding, excluded from all representation in Parliament ; and as, upon inquiry into the cause of this grievance, which is at once an obstruction to our industry, and a diminution of our property, we find that the con- stitution of our country, which was purchased for us at the expense of the lives of our ancestors, has, by the violence and intrigue of criminal and designing men, iDcen injured and undermined in its most essential and important parts, but particularly in the House of Commons, where the whole of the supposed representation of the people is neither more nor less than an usurped power ; " — I hope, gentlemen, it cannot be required that I should contend against such an assertion in this place, if a court of law in this country has not lost all the character that belongs to law. How that usurped power was ever to be employed as an organ in the constitution of that new representative body that this society aimed at, consistent with their own principles, remains to this moment unintelligible to me ; — " arising either from abuses in the mode of election and duration of Parliaments, or from a corrupt property in certain decayed corporations, by means of which the liberties of this nation are basely bartered away for the bribed profit of the members of Parliament. And as it further appears to us that, until this source of corruption shall be cleansed by the determination, perse- verance, firmness, and union of the people at large, we are robbed of the inheritance so acquired for us by our forefathers, and that our taxes, instead of being lessened, will go on increasing, as they will furnish more bribes, places, and pensions, to ministers and members of Parliament : we, therefore, having resolved to unite ourselves into one firm and permanent body, for the purpose of informing ourselves and others of the exact state of the present parliamentary representation, for obtaining a peaceable but ade- quate remedy to this intolerable grievance, and for corresponding and co-operating with other societies, united for the same objects, have unanimously adopted the following regulations for the inter- nal order and government of our society." They then state their regulations ; and their constitution having been thus formed, they publish it afterwards in the month of May. What observations they state to the public upon it in the month of May, I shall have occasion to represent presently. You will see the manner of pro- ceeding with respect to the election of their delegates, by the production of a particular paper. On the 13th of April, a person, whom you have heard much of, Mr Margarot, is appointed a dele- gate. Upon the 30th of April, Mr Vaughan was, as far as the paper is evidence of the fact, appointed delegate for No. 63. Mr Kichter, a party named in this indictment, and Mr Martin, another party against whom the grand jury have found a bill, but who is not named in this indictment, are also appointed delegates. Mr Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 61 Hardy is not only secretary, but he is appointed, upon the 13th of April, a delegate ; and there is a choice of delegates for the whole of these bodies. You will find they afterwards met, from time to time, to pursue the great purposes of their incorporation, at an alehouse, I think the Bell, in Exeter Street, in the Strand, from which place some of the correspondence I am about to state to you comes. Grentlemen, the Society for Constitutional Information having affiliated several societies very suddenly with themselves — whether Mr Paine remained in this country or not I cannot tell — they felt an inclination to affiliate with another society, which is to be, as it appears to me, in justice to them, very strongly distinguished in- deed with respect to the principles upon which they acted, — I mean the society calling itself the " Friends of the People," meeting at Freemasons' Tavern. With what prudence or discretion that society formed itself, is a subject which I shall not discuss ; but it is a most important fact that, in the first attempt which the Society for Con- stitutional Information made (and it ought to be known in justice to the Friends of the People), the first attempt they made to affi- liate themselves with the Society of the Friends of the People, that society, in correspondence that will be read to you, acts as some individual members of the Constitutional Society had done, they say, " No, we discover your design from what you are doing ; you tell us, from your approbation of resolutions entered into at Man- chester, signed by Mr Walker and Mr Jackson, that you approve the sort of schemes Mr Paine has set forth ; that you approve pro- jects of giving, in loose and indefinite terms, the full extent of what you call the rights of the people to the people. That is not our in- tent. We think " — and, gentlemen, many a man may very honestly think it, but he must go about the execution of his thoughts in a legal way if he does so think, if he means to reduce his thoughts into practice — " we think that Parliament is not adequate to all the ends for which it is instituted as a body, through which is to be spoken, as far as the constitution requires, the will of the people^ but we do not mean what you mean : we mean to preserve the forms of the constitution, which it is clear you do not ; we mean," says Lord John Eussell, in a letter which will be read, " ' to pre- serve the forms of the constitution, and therefore must decline all correspondence with you." Gentlemen, it happens — it belongs to societies of this nature, and I desire to be understood, therefore, in stating it, only as stating a circumstance which in its nature does belong to those societies, and which will happen — that it was thought necessary, for the great purpose of doing that which was eventually to be done, that a society which had rejected co-operation with the So- ciety for Constitutional Information, should still be kept, for the purposes of the Society for Constitutional Information, in fact and Digitized by Microsoft® 62 THE. ATTOENJiY-GENERAL'S SPEECH ON effect corresponding and connected with it. Accordingly j-ou -will find that this Society of the Friends of the People, rejecting upon principle the plan which they thought abandoned the forms of the constitution, that this society retained in its own bosom, according to the account I have of it, many members who happened to belong to the other society, and the work of both societies went on by the same instruments ; they were thus, therefore, connected in fact, •though they did not choose as a body to have one society in con- nexion with the other. Gentlemen, having stated that, you will allow me now to men- tion, though it is a little out of date, but it also connects itself with and illustrates the last observations I made, that the society at Sheffield, which had connected itself by affiliation with the So- ciety for Constitutional Information, and you will also find, with the London Corresponding Society, had received, about the 24th of May, intelligence from the Society of the Friends of the People, which stated to them very correctly what their objects were, the means by which they meant to accomplish them, and the attention which they meant to pay to the forms of the constitution. You will now see what the Society for Constitutional Information understood to be the objects of the Sheffield Society, and what the Sheffield society understood to be the objects of the Society for Constitutional Information. The Sheffield society (though I do not know that they kept their word) distinctly disavowed, in a letter of the 26th May to the Constitutional Society, having anything more to do with that society called the Friends of the People, which meant to preserve the forms of the constitution ; represented that they had totally misunderstood them, and would have nothing more to do with them, but to the extent to which the Society for Constitu- tional Information permitted. You will find in a letter from Sheffield, of the 26th May, and this corrected by Mr Tooke, that they thank the Constitutional Society for accepting their members. They then state that they had increased to two thousand four hundred. " On Saturday last, the 19th instant, we received a packet of printed addresses, resolu- tions, &c., from the society (Freemasons' Tavern), which, on ma- ture consideration, we find ourselves not so well reconciled to the ideas they convey to us as we could wish, if they had appeared in a different point of view ; nor do they afford us such a flattering pro- spect, as we were apprehensive might be expected from an associa- tion of so respectable a body, under the high denomination of the Friends of the People. In our opinion, their answer of the 12th instant to your letter of the 27th ultimo is no ways com- patible with that appellation. From the known respectability of many names which appear amongst them, we had entertained great hopes of their real use " — mark the words, gentlemen — " in obtain- ing a thorough reform" — now mind what that reform is — " in obtain- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY.. '63 ing a thorougli reform upon the principles of the rights of man,"— that IS, a representative government, rejecting the King, and re- jecting every other part of the constitution of this country, except so far as it was consistent (indeed it is not consistent with any part of it) with the principles of the rights of man,—" which can never be accomplished until ever man enjoys his lawful and just privileges. " Previous to the reception of this packet, we did communicate to them by letter the pleasing hopes it reflected on us on looking forward, viewing such respectable characters signalising themselves in support of the people's rights, agreeable to the above princples, and the denomination by which they have entitled themselves, &c. In due course they would receive our letter last Thursday seven- night ; and in consequence, we apprehend the packet was forwarded to us on the same day, but without any written communication. We shall not attempt any further communication with them, until we are favoured with your sentiments upon the subject, or until matters of doubt which are at present entertained be removed." Then there is a note, which shows the necessity of this fostering care of the Constitutional Society : they say, " Birmingham, in particular, claims all the assistance from established societies which possibly can be administered." Having written to the Constitutional Society upon the 26th of May, they find it expedient, for the same purpose, to trouble their correspondents of the London Corresponding Society : " We were favoured with yoiir very affectionate letter of the 7th ultimo, and communication, in due course ; and I am directed by this society to inform you, that it is with infinite satisfaction they receive the information that your firm and laudable endeavours are directed to that effectual and necessary purpose of opening and enlightening the public mind, and disseminating useful knowledge amongst the general mass of the people ; by an orderly proceeding in a firm pur- suit of truth and equity, there cannot be a doubt but that our joint endeavours will in due time be crowned with success. " As brothers and fellow-labourers, we congratulate you on the rapid progress of useful and I'eal knowledge in the various parts of this nation, which sufficiently indicates that the time cannot be far distant when truth will be more predominant, equity more gene- rally administered, and sound wisdom more universally sought after. When pride, ambition, and ignorance give place to these virtues, when oppression ceases and charity abounds, when men in principle and practice verify the necessity and advantage of doing to others as they wish to be done by ; then, and not till then, can any people or nation be said to be happy. " We have herewith enclosed our rules, &c. Should have writ- ten you much sooner, but on account of a disappointment in the printing of our articles, &c. Digitized by Microsoft® 64 THE attoenet-geneeal's speech on " Our numbers continue to increase, both here and in the adjacent towns and villages ; a general concurrence prevails as to the neces- sity of the business, and the measures adopted by this society for obtaining our object. It will be of great importance to the cause we are engaged in, that a more frequent communication be main- taioed amongst all the similar institutions ; for which reason we beg the favour of your correspondence at every convenient oppor- tunity, which will be highly obliging to this society, who in return pledge themselves to observe the same rule." Gentlemen, having stated to you now what it was that the So- ciety of the Friends of the People discovered to be the object of the Constitutional Society, and I agreeing with them in thinking their discovery upon that subject was accurate and right, you will find it necessary to go. back, and to proceed in the order of time to the 7th of April. Mr Hardy sent from the London Corresponding Society a copy of their resolutions to the Society for Constitutional Infor- mation, which was established at Manchester, and desired also to have correspondence with them, as they were all engaged in one common cause ; that Manchester Society, you will recollect, which hoped that the other great benefits which Mr Paine had stated would be carried into effect. He says, " We began this society about ten weeks ago ; it is composed chiefly of tradesmen and shopkeepers. The enclosed will inform you of the principles we set out upon. When we first associated, we flattered ourselves that no other societies in the nation were formed upon the same principles ; but in two or three weeks afterwards we were most agreeably informed of our brethren at Shefi&eld having taken the lead in so glorious a cause ; we imme- diately wrote to them, and were answered without delay, express- ing a wish to unite with us, for promoting the ends we have in view, and we are assured of success, by persevering prudently, and with unanimity." Upon the 18th of April 1792, in furtherance of this plan, you will find Mr Hardy writes a letter to the president of the society in the Borough. Now that is the society, the principles of which I have so distinctly stated before as leading to representative government, as the only security for liberty in the country. It appears that their declarations had also been sent to the London Corresponding Society ; and Mr Hardy, upon the 18th of April 1792, says, I am ordered by the London Corresponding Society to send a copy of their resolutions to the society that meets at the Three Tuns Tavern, in the Borough, established on purpose for restoring the rights of election, or, in other words, to obtain an equal representation of the people of this nation in Parlia- ment," Now they had avowed, and avowed in their declaration, that their object of a representation of the people in Parliament was Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 65 precisely that more extended one in its principle which obtained at the time of the Commonwealth in England, namely, a repre- sentation of the people in Parliament, termed a Parliament, but without King or Lords, a representative government : — " We should be very happy to enter into a correspondence with your society, as we are all engaged in the same grand and important cause, there is an absolute necessity for us to unite together, and communicate with each other, that our sentiments and determinations may centre in one point, viz., to have the rights of man re-established, espe- cially in this nation ; but our views of the rights of man are not confined solely to this small island, but are extended to the whole human race, black or white, high or low, rich or poor. I give you the following as my own opinion — perhaps you may think it a singular sentiment." And then an opinion is given, which it is my duty to state, though I do not understand it. " That the King and the nobles, as much as the peasant and ignoble, are equally deprived of their rights. Our society meets every Monday night." Gentlemen, there is an answer to this, from a person of the name, I think, of Favell, who is chairman of the Friends of the People in Southwark. He says, " I duly received your letter, containing the resolutions of the London Corresponding Society, which I have communicated to our society in the Borough ; and I am directed to return them the thanks of that society, and to assure them they shall cordially unite with them, and all similar 'societies through- out the kingdom, in endeavouring to effect those great objects for which they are associated, namely, to engage the attention of their fellow-citizens to examine the general abuses of Grovernment, and to exercise their deliberative wisdom in a calm but intrepid manner in applying those remedies." This is in April ; and in August they expressly tell you that there was to be no remedy from Parliament. " In applying those remedies which the country at large may ulti- mately require ; and they sincerely agree with you in hoping that the long-neglected rights of man will be restored, not only in this country, but in every part of the globe where man may dwell. We shall very soon transmit you a copy of our declaration, and hope for your further correspondence." A letter and resolutions from the Bevolution and Constitutional Societies at Norwich, dated 26th of April 1792, were read at the meeting of the Society for Constitutional Information on the 4th of May following. They distinctly state that Mr Paine's books were to be the medium through which the prejudices that had grown up under the British Grovernment were to be got rid of, and the Constitutional Society return them their thanks in these words : — " This society receives the above communication with the most heartfelt satisfaction, and desires earnestly to concur and co-operate with those societies in their laudable objects ; that the secretary do inform them of the same, and that this society has unanimously VOL. II. E Digitized by Microsoft® 66 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on elected the twelve members of the Norwich societies, to be associated members of this society." Upon the 11th of May 1792, the Constitutional Society resolved that there should be a communication from that society with the Society of the Friends of the Constitution at Paris, known by the name of Jacobins. They send an address to them, which is in these words : — " Brothers and fellow-citizens of the world, — The cordial and affectionate reception with which you have honoured our worthy countrymen, Mr Thomas Cooper, and Mr James Watt, members of the Society of Manchester, and united with our society, has been communicated to us by the correspondence of those gentlemen. " In offering you our congratulations on the glorious revolution which your nation has accomplished, we speak a language which only sincerity can dictate. " The formality of courts affords no example to us. To do our thoughts justice, we give to the heart the liberty it delights in, and hail you as brothers. "It is not among the least of the revolutions which time is unfolding to an astonished world, that two nations, nursed by some wretched craft in reciprocal hatred, should so suddenly break their common odious chain, and rush into amity.- " The principle that can produce such an effect is the offspring of no earthly court ; and whilst it exhibits to us the expensive in- iquity of former politics, it enables us with bold felicity to say we have done with them. " In contemplating the political condition of nations, we cannot conceive a more diabolical system of government than that which has been generally practised over the world, to feed the avarice and gratify the wickedness of ambition ; the fraternity of the human race has been destroyed, as if the several nations of the earth had been created by rival gods ; man has not considered man as the work of one Creator. " The pohtical institutions under which he has lived have been counter to whatever religion he professed. " Instead of that universal benevolence which the morality of every known religion declares, he has been politically bred to con- sider his species as his natural enemy, and* to describe virtues and vices by a geographical chart. " The principles we now declare are not peculiar to the society that addresses you ; they are extending themselves with accumu- lating force through every part of our country, and derive strength from an union of causes which no other principles admit. " The religious friend of man, of every denomination, records them as his own ; they animate the lover of rational liberty, and they cherish the heart of the poor, now bending under an oppression of taxes, by a prospect of relief. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 67 " We have against us only that same enemy which is the enemy of justice in all countries, a herd of courtiers fattening on the spoil of the public. " It would have given an additional triumph to our congratula- tions, if the equal rights of man, which are the foundation of your de- claration of rights, had been recognised by the governments around you, and tranquillity established in all ; but if despotisms be still reserved to exhibit, by conspiracy and combination, a further example of infamy to future ages, that Power that disposes of events best knows the means of making that example finally bene- ficial to his creatures. " We have beheld your peaceable principles insulted by despotic ignorance ; we have seen the right hand of fellowship, which you hold out to the world, rejected by those who riot on its plunder ; we now behold you a nation provoked into defence, and ive can see no mode of defence equal to that of establishing the general freedom of Europe. " In this best of causes we wish you success ; our hearts go with you ; and in saying this, we believe we utter the voice of millions." Gentlemen, this address was signed by the chairman of the Con- stitutional Society, and transmitted to Mr Watt, at Paris ; and, upon the 28th of May 1792, was ordered to be published. After this, the principles of Mr Paine, which, you observe, contain the doctrines that I have been stating to you, were carried further in a third book (I mean in that book called, " The Address to the Addressers," which I shall also be able to give in evidence to you). Mr Paine having there gone the length of asserting the folly, absurdity, and wickedness of the Government under which we live ; not only of asserting the incompetency of government, as it is con- stituted, to change itself, but having asserted that a conventionary representation of the people, in that sense in which we speak of it, must do this work, he proceeds to the extent of stating the plan and form of an organisation, of that sort, upon which the convention was to be framed. Gentlemen, it was impossible not to apply to the justice of the law against the attack made upon our Government by the person who went to the extent I am now stating, with the approbation, published over and over again, of these societies, who, in their cor- porate character, if I may so speak, could not be prosecuted for doing it — it became necessary to ask a jury of this country whether these doctrines were to be tolerated ? What is the consequence of that ? It is, that these societies immediately enter into subscrip- tions for the support of Mr Paine, and they consider themselves as engaged in propagating his works in that way, in which no work ever was propagated, — to the intent to produce that convention without which the nation, in no organisation of its government. Digitized by Microsoft® 68 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on could be said, according to them, to exist in a state of freedom as a nation. Gentlemen, you will not be surprised if it also appears that, in going on progressively to the execution of the mischief that was intended, they became more mischievous ; and you will find mem- bers parting from the society, expressly telling them that they meant to destroy the Government of the country ; that they cannot, therefore, stay among them ; and to which members, as far as appears from any information that I have had, they did not conde- scend to explain themselves ; to say, No, you have mistaken our object, this is not what we mean ; but they leave them unanswered, and go on to execute the purposes they were about. Having come to those resolutions in order to support Mr Paine in these prosecutions, they publish the resolutions, they publish the books of Mr Paine ; they publish these resolutions in the various newspapers (the editors of these newspapers insuring, if I may so say, themselves against the hazards of the law, some for more, some for less, and they risk the hazard of propagating the doctrines, pro- vided the consideration paid is ample enough as a premium for the risk) ; and then these publications are sent down to the country to various places in hundreds and thousands — I am sorry to say, to persons of all professions — to distribute ; I am sorry to say, to some of the most sacred professions, whose names will appear to you when they come to be read — and this mode of propagating these doctrines is adapted to the utter impossibility of detection, and for the very purpose of having that effect — to make the law of the country unequal to the mischief which it was to meet. At this time a proclamation was issued by the executive govern- ment of the country, in order to restrain these publications ; and both the societies, you will find, cloaking themselves under the words, " a full and fair representation of the people," which words they have never condescended to explain, which words never do exist in any text of any writing of theirs, as I can find, with the mention of a King, or other house of legislature ; they vilify the proclamation, and make the very means the executive government took to suppress the mischief a mean by which they should spread the effect of the mischief more widely and diffusely than otherwise they oould have done. Upon the 24th of May 1792, there is a letter sent from Mr Hardy, I believe not in his own handwriting, but I believe in the handwriting of Mr Vaughan, whom I before named to you, in which he states that, by the direction of the London Corresponding Society, he had the honour of enclosing to them a .copy of their address and regulations, which he requests they will communicate to the Constitutional Society. The thanks of the society were given to them for this ; and that is a publication more guarded than another you will find published upon the 6th of August 1792. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAX OF THOMAS HAEDT. 69 After stating their constitution, which I hefore mentioned to you, it says : — " But as Providence has furnished men in every station with faculties necessary for judging of what concerns them- selves, shall we, the multitude, suffer a few, with no better right than ourselves, to usurp the power of governing us without control ? Surely not : let us rather unite in one common cause to cast away our bondage, being assured that in so doing we are protected by a jury of our countrymen, while we are discharging a duty to our- selves, to our country, and to mankind." Gentlemen, you will find, from a paper of the 6th of August, that that which they supposed was to meet with protection from a jury of the country, was a combination to reform the government of the country by means other than application to Parliament — which binds together, with the King, as the great political body of the country, the whole system under which we live. Gentlemen, the London Corresponding Society, as to the King's proclamation, followed the example of the Constitutional Society, and on the 31st of May 1792, in a paper that will be read to you, they vilify the proclamation ; and this paper having been communi- cated by the London Corresponding Society to the Constitutional Society, they, aware of the nature of it, order that that paper should be published in such newspapers as will receive the advertisements of this society. They were pretty well aware that they were of such a nature as made it somewhat hazardous to publish them. You wiU find a letter, dated the 14th of June 1792, from certain persons styling themselves the editors of the Patriot (who they are I am not able to state to you, but who, for the purposes of these societies, thought it necessary to conceal their names), in which they desire the Corresponding Society to take an opportunity of enlightening the public mind by publications, by advertisements, by circulating those papers in villages to country farmers, desiring, as I stated, to conceal their name, but requesting that the papers might be sent to a person who holds an important situation in a sub- sequent part of this business — a Mr Gale, a bookseller at Sheffield. Gentlemen, there will be laid before you various parts of the proceedings of the Constitutional Society which relate to Mr Paine, which I shall now pass over, except for the purpose of calling your attention to another publication of his upon the 6th of June 1792, and which was addressed to Mr Dundas. You will likewise find that that book, which will be given you in evidence, distinctly dis- avows all hereditary government — all monarchy, under whatever qualifications ; and then, for the purpose of circulating this doc- trine, as they had before circulated the doctrines in other works of this gentleman, they order, " that twelve thousand copies of that letter shall be printed for the society, for the purpose of being transmitted to our correspondents throughout Great Britain, and that a committee be appointed to direct the same." Digitized by Microsoft® 70 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on Gentlemen, I pass on now to the 6tli of August 1792, at which time there appears to me to have been an extremely important transaction in the London Corresponding Society ; it is the propa- gation of an address of that date, which first develops, as it_ seems to me, though in somewhat of covert langiiage, the determination of these societies to work what they call a reform without any communication whatever with that Parliament which they held to be incompetent to bring about the business. You will find that, upon the 8th of August, Mr Hardy wrote a letter to Mr Tooke ; that he sent him, a proof copy of this address ; that he hoped it would merit his attention and his approbation ; that he should be exceedingly happy to be favoured with his opinion of it before it was printed. The address, after stating what they considered as the grievances of the country, states this : — " Such being the forlorn situation of three-fourths of the nation, how are Britons to obtain information and redress ? Will the Court, will Ministry afford either ? Will Parliament grant them ? Will the nobles or the clergy ease the people's sufferings ? No. Experience tells us, and proclamations confirm it, that the interest and the intention of power are com- bined to keep the nation in torpid ignorance." It then states the only resource to be in these societies ; it then states various detailed reasons, which you will hear, and then pro- ceeds to this effect: — " Numerous other reforms would undoubtedly take place, even in the first session of Parliament so elected, dependent only on their electors, the people ; untorn therefore by faction, undivided by party, uncorrupted by Ministry, and uninfluenced but by the public good. Every transaction would tend to reform, and a strict economy, its natural consequence, might soon enable us to reduce our taxes ; and by the integrity of Parliament, that reduction would light upon such objects as best might relieve the poor ; this to the people would prove an advantageous and a novel session, and to an honest Parliament not a tiresome one. " Therefore, Britons, friends, and fellow-citizens, with hand and heart unite, claim what is your right, persevere and be free, for who shall dare withstand our just demands ? Oppression, already trembling at the voice of individuals, wiU shrink away and dis- appear for ever, when the nation united shall assert its privileges and demand their restoration." G-entlemen, the address you will find was circulated with infinite industry to every corresponding society in the kingdom, conveyed through every possible channel, the doctrine adopted by all the affiliating societies ; and the plan, which they went upon from this 6th of August 1792, appears to have been a plan to redress them- selves by their own power and by their own strength, and not by application to that Parliament which alone can act in legislation : Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDT. 71 it seems to me to be impossible that you can mistake what is meant by this paper, if you will give your more particular attention to a paper which was received from a society at Stockport, and found in the possession of Mr Hardy upon the 27th of November 1792. This, after adverting to those numerous grievances stated in the address of the 6th of August 1792, is to this effect : — " In obedience to the wishes of the society here, I have the pleasure of acknowledging the honour of your letter, and the packet which the kindness of our brothers of the London Cor- responding Society so opportunely presented us with. " It is doubly deserving our thanks, as it shows your kindness, and as it will be useful in the formation of our infant society ; we stand much iu need of your experience in this particular, and we doubt not of your best assistance ; we are surrounded by a majority, a formidable one indeed in power, abilities, and numbers, but we are not dismayed. " We have carefully perused the addresses, and I am to observe upon their contents in general, that the sentiments hardly arise to that height which we expect ^om men sensible to their full claims to absolute and uncontrollable liberty, i.e., unaccountable to any power wJiich they have not immediately constituted and appointed. " These are our sentiments, whatever may be yours ; though, in the present state of political knowledge, it may be prudent not to avow them openly. We desire your sentiments on the means of accomplishing that object, which we presume you have in view in common with us ; we think it expedient that we should perfectly understand each other in the beginning, lest the appearance of disunion might furnish matter of triumph to our enemies ; we observe one expression," — you will take notice that Mr Hardy at this time was a member both of the London Corresponding and the Constitutional Societies, — " we observe one expression, which says, ' numerous other reforms would take place,' &c. &c. ; but we ask how. is that Parliament to be chosen ? Can we expect it from the present order of things ? Would not all the evil be done away at once by the people assembling in convention f Does it appear probable that the odious laws which we complain of will be abolished any other way ? Can the grievances arising from aristo- cracy be redressed while the • retains its present authority in the legislature ?" — whether this blank is to be filled up with Crown or the House of Lords, is for you to judge, — " retains its pre- sent authority in the legislature? Is the universal right of conscience ever to be attained while the B maintain their seats on the " Your thoughts on those important points we most earnestly desire may be transmitted to us as soon as possible, not directed as the last," — and this you will find often occurs : letters sent under a feigned direction, — " we fear it will excite suspicion." Digitized by Microsoft® 72 THE attoeney-general's speech on The Stockport society say 0/ the address of the 6th of August 1792, sent to them, that they think it hardly amounts to sentiments such as theirs, namely, that they must have absolute and uncon- trollable liberty, unaccountable to any power which they have not immediately constituted. That could not be the King and Parlia- ment of Great Britain. They say, " we presume you have the same view in common with us, and we desire to have your sentiments upon the means of accomplishing that object." What object ? The object of putting themselves in a situation of being unaccount- able to any power which they themselves had not immediately constituted and appointed. How was that to be done ? — was it to be done by Parliament ? The address of the 6th of August had disavowed that it was to be done by Parliament. Is it to be done while the other parts of the legislature hold their situation in the legislature ? We presume you have the same object : tell us what you think upon this occasion. This was the occasion upon which the address of the 6th of August ought to have been ex- plained, if they meant to disavow that they had any such object. But what is the answer ? The answer in effect is : That full and fair representation of the people, that we are aiming at, is that which is to be the mediate or immediate instrument of removing all the grievances we labour under, though prudence does not permit us to speak all we think upon the subject. " With infinite satisfaction the London Corresponding Society's Committee perused your letter; they are happy to learn your steady determination, in spite of all obstacles, to pursue that sole means of political felicity, a perfect representation of the people." 1 Now, what was the sole means of this political felicity — a per- fect representation of the people ? Why, the formation of a power by the people, making themselves unaccountable to any other power, to any power but that which they had immediately them- selves constituted, namely, an assembly by a convention of the people. Then, why don't they speak out ? They say, " With regard to our publications, our sentiments are expressed in as strong terms as prudence wUl permit, yet plain enough to convince the public that, while we expect everything from an honest and an annual Parliament," — a body might exist under the term Parlia- ment in a commonwealth, as well as under a King — " nothing short of such a senate, chosen by the whole nation, will satisfy us " True generodty, the characteristic of this nation, and of all un- perverted men throughout the globe, calling upon us to counte- nance at this juncture the arduous struggle of the French nation against despotism and aristocracy, those foes to the human race, we have resolved upon addressing the French National Convention." You will permit me to observe, this was upon the 11th of October 1792. The King of France was deposed in effect upon the 10th of August 1792. This passage, in the Transactions of this society, Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAliDY. 73 appears to me to be peculiarly worthy your attention : — " Without entering into the probable eifects of such a measure, — effects which your society will not fail to discover, — we invite you to join us; and, to that end, herewith you have a copy of our intended address. It you approve the idea, and will concur in sending it, be pleased to return us, without delay, a copy signed by your president ; we will then associate your body with ours, and with some others who have already assented to the measure. If, on the contrary, you disap- prove that mark of zeal towards the only nation that has hitherto undertaken to restore to mankind its just rights, please to commu- nicate to us your objections." This was upon the 11th of October 1792. Upon the 6th of October 1792, Mr Barlow (whose name occurs before with respect to his publication relative to the privi- leged orders) writes a letter to the Society for Constitutional Infor- mation, accompanied with a book called " Advice to the National Convention of France ; " and you will be pleased to observe that Mr Barlow, and a Mr Frost, afterwards, in the month of November, were sent with an address from the Constitutional Society to Paris, as their delegates for that purpose. The letter of Mr Barlow is in these words : — " I have lately published a small treatise, under the title of ' A Letter to the National Convention of France on the Defects of the Constitution of 1791, and the Extent of the Amendments which . ought to be applied.' Although the observations contained in this letter are more particularly applicable to the French nation in the present crisis of its government, yet, as the true principles of society are everywhere the same, their examination cannot be unseasonable in any nation, or at any time ; believing, therefore, that the subject of this treatise will not be thought foreign to the great object of your association, I present a copy of it to you, with the same con- fidence as I have done to the National Convention, and to the Constitutional Society at London, a confidence arising from the full persuasion that the work is founded in truth and reason. I take the liberty, at the same time, to send you a copy of another publi- cation, entitled ' Advice to Privileged Orders.' The present dispo- sition in Europe towards a general revolution in the principles of government is founded in the current of opinion, too powerful to be resisted, as well as too sacred to be treated with neglect ; and it is the duty of every individual to assist, not only in removing the obstructions that are found in the way of this revolution, but in ascertaining, with as much precision as possible, the nature of the object to be aimed at, and the consequence to be expected from the attainment. It is above all things to be desired, that the convic- tions to be acquired from national discussion should precede and preclude those which must result from physical exertion." Now, you will give me leave to state to you what the doctrine is in this book for which the Society for Constitutional Information— Digitized by Microsoft® 74 THE. attokney-geneeal's speech on Mr Hardy then a member of it — thank Mr Barlow, make him an honorary member, and afterwards depute him to the National Con- vention of France. Gentlemen, the doctrine — I can explain it to you generally, with- out troubling you by reading particular passages — amounts to this : Mr Barlow, after stating the principles of equal active citizenship, which found their way into the constitution of France in 1791, and which constitution had made the King a part of the system of that government, informs them of the glorious victory of the 10th of August, as the papers, which I have to adduce presently, represent it ; that it had accomplished finally the effect of those principles, which he understands to be the principles of those to whom he was writing ; that it is impossible they should consist with this senti- ment, that a king could be retained irif a government ; that the constitution was at variance with itself ; that those who made it had not discovered tha^, or, having discovered it, they thought the time was not yet come when they could reduce the constitution to that pure government which was the object of these societies ; he then tells you, that in government, the maxim being, that a king can do no wrong, the maxim ought to be, that he can do no good. This gentleman, so stating his doctrine as an explanation of the principles upon which they are acting, is voted by them an honorary member, and afterwards sent to Paris with the papers which I am about to read to you. A great deal of evidence will be laid before you, to prove that they had beat up all the country for letters and addresses to express the same principles to France, not on account of the cause of France, but of the cause of England, and with a view to introduce the same effects into England. I shall state but two of these addresses, because they seem to contain the effect of all the rest that were. actually sent. The London Corresponding Society first of all communicated to the Constitutional Society, in the month of October 1792, their intention of sending an address to France. The Constitutional Society fully approve the purpose ; they see the end that it aims at, and they determine not to concur in the same address, but to send a separate address ; and in their paper you may see the principles of both to be principles which were expressed for the very purpose of aiding the co-operation of the societies in excluding the King from the government of the country, and of raising a republic. This is the letter : — " Frenchmen, while foreign robbers are ravaging your territories under the specious pretext of justice, cruelty and desolation leading on their van, perfidy and treachery bringing up the rear, yet mercy and friendship impudently held forth to the world as the sole motive of their incursions ; the oppressed part of mankind " — that is. Great Britain — " forgetting for a while their own sufferings, feel only for yours, and with an anxious eye watch the event, fer- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 75 vently supplicating the Almighty Euler of the universe to be favourable to your cause, so intimately blended with their own " — that cause which, upon the 10th of August, had excluded the King from the government of the country. " Frowned upon by an oppres- sive system of control, whose gradual but continued encroachments have deprived this nation of nearly all its boasted liberty, and brought us almost to that abject state of slavery from which you have so emerged, five thousand British citizens, indignant, manfully step forth to rescue their country from the opprobrium brought upon it by the supine conduct of those in power ; they conceive it to be the duty of Britons to countenance and assist, to the utmost of their power, the champions of human happiness, and to swear to a pation, proceeding on the plan you have adopted, an inviolable friendship. Sacred from this day be that friendship between us, and may vengeance to the utmost overtake the man who hereafter shall attempt to cause a rupture ! " Though we appear so few at present, be assured. Frenchmen, that our number increases daily. - It is true that the stern uplifted arm of authority at present keeps back the timid ; that busily cir- culated impostures hourly mislead the credulous ; and that court intimacy with avowed French, traitors has some effect on the un- wary and on the ambitious ; but with certainty we can inform you, friends and freemen, that information makes a rapid progress among us ; curiosity has taken possession of the public mind ; the conjoint reign of ignorance and despotism passes away ; men now ask each other, What is freedom ? what are our rights ? Frenchmen, you are already free, and Britons are preparing to become so ; casting far from us the criminal prejudices artfully inculcated by evil- minded men and wily courtiers, we, instead of natural enemies, at length discover in Frenchmen our fellow-citizens of the world, and our brethren by the same Heavenly Father, who created us for the purpose of loving and mutually assisting each other, but not to hate, and to be ever ready to cut each other's throats at the command of weak and ambitious kings and corrupt ministers ; seeking our real enemies, we find them in our bosoms, we feel ourselves inwardly torn by and ever the victim of a restless and all-Consuming aristo- cracy, hitherto the bane of every nation under the sun. Wisely have you acted in expelling it from France. " Warm as our wishes are for your success, eager as we are to behold freedom triumphant, and man everywhere restored to the enjoyment of his just rights, a sense of our duty, as orderly citizens, forbids our flying in arms to your assistance. Our Government has pledged the national faith to remain neutral in a struggle of liberty against despotism. Britons remain neutral ! shame ! But we have trusted our King with discretionary powers ; we, therefore, must obey. Our hands are bound, but our hearts are free, and they are with you. Digitized by Microsoft® 76 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on " Let German despots act as they please, we shall rejoice at their fall ; compassionating, however, their enslaved subjects, we hope this tyranny of their masters will prove the means of reinstating in the full enjoyment of their rights and liberties millions of our fellow- creatures. " With unconcern, therefore, we view the Elector of Hanover "— that is, the King of Great Britain — "join his troops to traitors and robbers ; but the King of Great Britain will do well to remember that this country is not Hanover. Should he forget this distinc- tion, we will not. " While you enjoy the envied glory of being the unaided de- fenders of freedom, we fondly anticipate in idea the numerous blessings mankind will enjoy ; if you succeed, as we ardently wish, the triple alliance (not of crowns, but) of the people of America, France, and Britain, will give freedom to Europe, and peace to the whole world. Dear friends, you combat for the advantage of the human race ; how well purchased will be, though at the expense of much blood, the glorious unprecedented privilege of saying, — Man- kind is free : tyrants and tyranny are no more : peace reigns on the earth, and this is the work of Frenchmen ! " Gentlemen, this address, which was sent by that society, was fol- lowed by another from the Society for Constitutional Information, upon the 9th of November 1792, which seems likewise to state their principles. " Servants of a sovereign people, and benefactors of mankind, — We rejoice that your revolution has arrived at that point of perfection which will permit us to address you by this title " — Servants of a sovereign people, that is not the character of a British government'; this is the principle of the Southwark resolutions — " it is the only one which can accord with the character of true legislators. Every successive epoch in your affairs has added something to the triumphs of liberty, and the glorious victory of the lOth of August has finally prepared the way for a constitution which, we trust, you will establish on the basis of reason and nature." Mr Barlow had in effect said (and they had made him an honorary member, and had transmitted their address by his hands), that no constitution could reform upon the basis of reason and nature, that left a king in the government, however the government was modified. They proceed thus in their address — " Considering the mass of delusion accumulated on mankind to obscure their understandings, you cannot be astonished at the opposition that you have met both from tyrants and from slaves ; the instrument used against you by each of these classes is the same : for, in the genealogy of human miseries, ignorance is at once the parent of oppression and the child of submission. " The events of every day are proving that your cause is Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAKDY. 77 cherished by the people in all your continental vicinity ; that a majority of each of those nations are your real friends, whose governments have tutored them into apparent foes ; and that they only wait to be delivered by your arms from the dreadful necessity of fighting against them. " The condition of Englishmen is less to be deplored ; here the hand of oppression has not yet ventured completely to ravish the pen from us, nor openly to point the sword at you." They then go on to say : — " From bosoms burning with ardour in your cause, we tender you our warmest wishes for the full extent of its progress and success ; it is indeed a sacred cause ; we cherish it as the pledge of your happiness, our natural and nearest friends, and we rely upon it as the bond of fraternal union to the human race, in which union our own nation will surely be one of the first to concur. " Our government has still the power, and perhaps the inclina- tion, to employ hirelings to contradict us; but it is our real opinion, that we now speak the sentiments of a great majority of the English nation. The people here are wearied with imposture, and worn out with war ; they have learned to reflect that both the one and the other are the offspring of unnatural combinations in society, as relative to systems of government, not the result of the natural temper of nations as relative to each other's happiness. " Go on, legislators, in the work of human happiness ; the bene- fit will in part be ours, but the glory shall be all your own ; it is the reward of your perseverance, it is the prize of virtue, the sparks of liberty preserved in England for ages, like the corruscations of the northern aurora, serving but to show the darkness in the rest of Europe. The lustre of the American republic, like an effulgent morn, arose with increasing vigour, but still too distant to enlighten our hemisphere, till the splendour of the French Eevolution burst forth upon the nations in the full fervour of a meridian sun, and displayed " — attend to the words — " in the midst of the European world the practical result of principles which philosophy had sought in the shade of speculation, and which experience must everywhere confirm," — the principles of Mr Paine, who went over to form one in that Convention, the existence of which shows the practical result of those principles which philosophy had sought, and which experience was to confirm — "it dispels the clouds of prejudice fi-om all people, reveals the secrets of all despotism, and creates a new character in man. " In this career of improvement your example will be soon fol- lowed ; for nations, rising from their lethargy, _ will reclaim the rights of man with a voice which man cannot resist." G-entlemen, it will not be matter of surprise to you, that letters, such as these to the National Convention in France, should have produced opinions in that country respecting the attachment of Digitized by Microsoft® 78 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on individuals in this to their government. It is not therefore very extraordinary that, upon the 19th of November 1792, that famous decree passed of fraternisation with all subjects in all countries, who choose to resist the governments under which they live ; but I think you will be surprised that any man could receive in this country, and read with approbation, and enter upon their proceed- ings, the answers which these addresses brought from France, and which were read in the presence of the prisoner at the bar, without being astonished that they did not at least take some means to reject from them the imputation that they meant, in their own country, all that these answers suppose they mean, and all that these answers promise to assist them in accomplishing. -You will find, upon the 14th of December 1792, that ar letter from the Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality, sitting at Laon, the head of the department of the Aisne, to the Patriotic Society of Londonj called the Society for Constitutional Informa- tion, is read, and referred to their committee of correspondence : it is in these words : — " The Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality sitting at Laon, the head of the department of the Aisne, to the Patriotic Society of London, called the Society for Constitu- tional Information. — Generous republicans, the philanthropic gift that you have presented to the warriors of France " — they had sent some shoes, and were at that time thinking of giving them some arms — " announces with energy the great interest that you take in the sacred cause which they are defending. Accept the thanks of a society that does honour to itself in esteeming you. The time perhaps is not far distant when the soldiers of our liberty shall be able to testify their gratitude to you : then their arms, their blood itself, shall be at the service of all your fellow-citizens, who, like you, acknowledge no rights but the rights of man ; then France a,nd England shall form together a treaty of union as lasting as the course of the Seine and the Thames ; then there, as here, there shall exist no other reign but that of liberty, equality, and friend- ship. May this day of felicity and glory soon shine upon the horizon of two nations formed to admire each other ! " Gentlemen, they then enter upon the minutes of the society another letter from another fraternising society, — whether one of those societies which they speak of in the beginning of 1792, as affiliating societies in France, or not, I do not know ; — whether they had been assisting to reduce their principles into practice I do not know ; but it is clear that the affiliating society in France ' offered them their assistance for that purpose. Accordingly, you will find that the Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality, established at Macon, write to the Constitutional Society at London, adverting to what they had said in their address to the nation about the glorious victory of the 10th August 1792, the circumstances of which shall be described to you in evidence, be- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OP THOMAS HAEDY. 79 cause you will find that some of the persons who are charged in this indictment (and whose conduct in this conspiracy will, upon the clearest principles of law, affect all of them) were then present in Paris. They write thus : — " Yes, citizens, our brethren and friends, the 10th of August 1792 shall be distinguished " — what, in the annals of France? — " distinguished in the annals of the world, as the day of the triumph of liberty. Our first revolution" — (Mr Joel Barlow or Mr Paine, one should have thought, had wrote it) — " our first revolution did but show to us the salutary principles of the imprescriptible rights of man : all, except the faithless and the enemies of humanity, adopted them with enthusiasm. It was then that we formed ourselves into a society, in order the better to impress them upon ourselves, and afterwards to teach them to our fellow-citizens. " Our first constitution had consecrated them, but had not always taken them for its base : the dominion of the passions, the force of habit, the impression of prejudices, and the power of the intrigues employed in our constituent assembly, found the secret to preserve sufficient authority to our tyrants, to extinguish at some time the sacred rights of nature, and to re-establish despotism on its throne of iron. " But royalty, thus preserved, was not content with the victory secured to it by a set of men, the greatest part of whom it had corrupted. It was impatient to reap the fruits that it appeared to promise itself ; but its too great eagerness has hastened its ruin, and secured the triumph of reason. " The French, proud of their own existence, soon perceived the fruit of their first legislature ; became sensible of the imperfections of their first laws, saw that they made a surrender of the rights of liberty and equality which they had embraced ; they roused them- selves anew to demand at length laws impartial and humane. "From thence the necessary day of the 10th of August 1792, from thence a second revolution, but a revolution which is only the com- pletion of the first, which has received our vows and our oaths, and • which we will bless for ever, if it leads us, as we hope it will, to the happiness of the nation, to the constant maintenance of liberty and equality. " Let intriguers, fools, and tyrants, calumniate us ; we despise them too much to condescend to answer them, and seek for their esteem. " That which flatters us is the interest that you take in our labours : your attention has contributed to the success of our arms. We desire your esteem, we are proud of your approbation. "We smile at the expression of the sentiments that you mani- fested to our representatives. We behold a nation of brethren rouse itself to support the cause of humanity ; we behold the brave English adopt our principles, become our friends : we say to each Digitized by Microsoft® 80 THE ATTOKNET-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON other with pleasure, soon will they become our allies ; and, uniting our efforts, we shall go on to deliver the universe from the yoke of tyrants, to restore the nations to reason and nature. That day is not far distant, if we may rely on our own courage, and the hope of your alliance. In the meantime, receive our thanks, and corre- spond with brethren who set a high value on your esteem." Gentlemen, on the I7th of December 1792, the popular and republican society of another department at the mouth of the Ehone wrote them this letter: — "The Popular and Kepublican Society of Apt, department of the Mouths of the Ehone, to the Popular Society sitting at London. Live free or die. Citizens, brethren, and friends, — When two great nations, acquainted with their rights, approximated by their commercial connexions and their national situation, formed to live and to act in concert with each other, begin to form the glorious project of uniting them- selves for the regeneration of the human race, one may then say with reason that kings are ripe and ready to fall. How glorious it will be for France and England to have formed alone a con- federacy destructive of tyrants, and to have purchased at the price of their blood the liberty of Europe ; we may say more of the whole universe ! Courage, brethren and friends ! It is for you to follow in the glorious and hazardous career of the revolution of the world ; can you any longer groan under the yoke^of a govern- ment that has nothing of liberty but the name ? for, although your land was inhabited before ours by freemen, can you, without delusion, consider your government as such ? Will you content yourselves with a partial freedom ? Will the English be satisfied with principles ? Will that bold nation, that has produced philo- sophers the most profound, and that first of all perceived the sparkling rays of freedom, remain a spectatrix in so noble a cause? No, brethren and friends, no; you will soon lift yourselves up against that perfidious Court of St James's, whose infernal policy, like that which found its doom in the Tuilleries, has made so many victims in our two nations, and does disunite them per- petually to rule over them. Your love for liberty has fixed your attention upon the wants of our defenders ; your generosity towards them has a title to the acknowledgment of the republic ; we are impatient to furnish you the same advantages : the Popular Societies of France desire ardently the epoch that shall permit them to address their voice to the National Assembly of Great Britain, and to offer to the soldiers of liberty of your nation, arms, bayonets, and pikes." This is the private porrespondence between the societies and the Society for Constitutional Information ; but some of the persons named in this indictment were present at the scenes I am now going to state, at the bar of the National Convention in France others of them delivering these sentiments by their ambassador. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 81 Mr Bavlow, whose principles you have seen, and Mr Frost, of whom I must state it, because I shall prove it, that he has been convicted in this country of coming from that country with the doctrine of No King. They offer these addresses to the National Convention of France in terms the substance of which I will state to you, as far as I understand it to be, and I believe it is an accu- rate translation. " Mr Barlow and Mr Frost, English citizens, being admitted to the bar, one of them pronounced the following address." Gentle- men, the actual fact of his pronouncing it will be given in evidence. The date is the 28th of November 1792, nine days after the decree of the National Convention which had promised fraternal assist- ance to the subjects of any country that found themselves oppressed by any of their casts and privileged orders. " Citizens of France, we are deputed from the Society for Con- stitutional Information in London, to present to you their con- gratulations on the triumphs of liberty. This society had laboured long in the cause with little prospect of success, previous to the commencement of your revolution : conceive, theuj their exulta- tions and gratitude when, by the astonishing efforts of your nation, they beheld the reign of reason acquiring an extension- and solidity which promised to reward the labour of all good men, by securing the happiness of their fellow-creatures^ Innumerable societies of a similar nature are now forming in every part of England, Scotland, and Ireland. They excite a spirit of universal inquiry into the complicated abuses of government, and the simple means of a reform. After the example which France has given, the science of revolutions will be rendered ea.sy, and the progress of reason will be rapid. It would not be strange if, in a period far short of what we should venture to predict, addresses of felicitation should cross the seas to a National Convention in England. We are also commissioned to inform the Convention, that the society which we represent has sent to the soldiers of liberty a patriotic donation of a thousand pairs of shoes, which are by this time arrived at Calais ; and the society will continue sending a thou- sand pairs a week for at least six weeks to come ; we only wish to know to whose care they ought to be addressed." Why, gentlemen, am I to be told, then, that in the month of November 1792, those who, in August 1792; had said they could apply with no effect to Parliament, had no idea of such a National Convention in England as that National Convention in France which they were addressing, and from which they were expecting to receive addresses ? Am I to be told that they had no idea of such a convention as should overturn the constitution of this country ? It is impossible to put such a construction upon such proceedings. Gentlemen, you will likewise find that the president of the Con- VOL. II. F Digitized by Microsoft® 82 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on vention thought it necessary to give an answer to this address. I will state the substance of it : it will be read in evidence ; there- fore I shall not take up time in looking for it. The president, considering them as generous republicans (and well he might after what had passed), makes an address to them, expressing much the same sentiments as those in which they had addressed him, and then he concludes by saying — " Without doubt the time approaches when we shall soon send congratulations to the National Convention of Englamd." G-entlemen, you will likewise find that the London Correspond- ing Society, and the Constitutional Society, endeavoured to excite persons in all parts of this kingdom to send these addresses ; that, in point of fact, there are various other addresses sent, of similar import, at the instigation of these societies, and the intent of them, 1 think, cannot possibly be misunderstood. But take the intent of them to be what you will, let my learned friend tell you, as he will, that there as yet was no war between Great Britain and France, you will allow me to say that there is evidence of a distinct intent that there should be a National Convention in England, and that the French soldiers of liberty should assist, what they would call the soldiers of our liberty, whether there should be a war between Great Britain and France or not ; and you will allow me to say that, in that very month of November 1792, a passage occurs in which France does in effect declare war against all nations that did not adopt her principles, and allow the people to put them into execution. In a conspiracy, as widely extended as this is, I shall un- doubtedly insist, before you and the Court, that the acts of individuals, and particularly the acts of persons sent to present addresses to a foreign country, that what they do in reference to these acts, is evidence against all of them ; and likewise, that letters, which the persons write relative to the same addresses, are evidence against each of them, whether written by the particular individual or no, as being in the prosecution of the same purpose. Upon the 20th of September 1792, Mr Frost, who was then at Paris, states his notions, in a letter to Mr Tooke, of the real effect of this transaction of the 10th of August 1792, about which time Mr Paine made his first appearance in the National Convention : — " Without the affair of the 10th of August, liberty was over. We dine to-day with Petion. Paine has entered his name on the roll of Parliament, and went through the forms of office with a great deal of nonchalance. We are well lodged, and beside our bedrooms have an entertaining room for members to be shown into, and several have called upon us this morning." Then you will find that there being a project to send shoes to the soldiers of France, and arms and muskets — with respect to which project the prisoner was a contributor — for the purpose of Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 83 having this present from England to France properly distributed in France, the following letter is written to the Mayor of Paris :— ." Sir, you are in no want of friends in England, who ardently wish to be useful to French liberty ; but we wish to know some one of your friends who resides in London, in whom you have an entire confidence, and to whom we may give our money, in the assurance that it will be remitted to you without delay and with- out fraud. Mr Frost, to whom I intrust this letter, is going to set out immediately with Mr Paine for Paris, and allows me no time for ceremony, if it were necessary. I request you to send me the name of some Frenchman in London, merchant, or other, for the purpose above mentioned. We can now begin the public contribution towards our patriotic gift with a thousand pounds ster- ling, and I have no doubt but it will amount in time to several thousands. If you consider this step in the same point of view that we do, you will see in it much use to the common cause in England and France. I entreat you to give me your sentiments upon the subject, and to point out to me the means by which I may be useful to you." This is answered, upon the 1st of October, by Petion, thus: " You cannot, sir, doubt of my eagerness to second views so useful, which will for ever merit our gratitude, will rivet the links of fraternity between us, and must produce the greatest advantages to England and France. I shall have the honour, sir, of sending you, without delay, the name of the person in whose hands you may place the funds which you destine to the support of a cause which, in truth, is that of all people who cherish liberty." G-entlemen, it may be in the recollection of perhaps most who now hear me, that circumstances of this sort, which were supposed to be in existence, but which, in fact, were not capable of being proved to be in existence, had excited in this country considerable alarm in the minds of many persons who live in it. This alarm, it seems to have been thought necessary, both in the Constitutional Society, and also in the London Corresponding Society, in some degree to lay asleep, as far as it affected them ; they thought it necessary, therefore, to give some declaration, as they call it, of their principles, and I will state to you shortly what that was ; but the explanation which the London Corresponding Society gave was thought so little safe, though it was given for the purpose of laying asleep alarms, that it will be distinctly proved to you, that being written, as I am instructed to state to you — (and I do it because I am instructed, and it is my duty) — being written by Mr Vaughan, it was agreed to be stuclc up round the town at mid- night ; that accordingly, a person of the name of Carter, a bill- sticker, was employed for that purpose ; that some mistake happened between him and his employers ; that having made that mistake, he was not thought a proper person to be employed Digitized by Microsoft® 84 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on in considerable business in the society afterwards. This person was taken up in the act of sticking the bills round this town, which contains this address. He was prosecuted, he was convicted, and lay six months in a gaol in consequence of that conviction ; and this was the fate that attended the issuing into the world an address which was to appear, not originally by daylight, but by midnight. With respect to the address of the Constitutional Society, I think I shall not be thought to make an unfair observation upon it when I say this — that if I had not read to you what I have already read, you would have found it impossible to say what it was, upon reading that paper, that they meant to say, who published it ; but after what I have read to you, I think you can have no difficulty to determine that the paper they published, and the paper of the Corresponding Society, were by no means such as were calculated in any manner to disavow those principles, which I think I have shown you satisfactorily, from March 1792, were the principles they acted upon and adopted. Gentlemen, the address of the London Corresponding Society is in these words : — " Friends and fellow-countrymen, unless we are greatly deceived, the time is approaching when the object for which we struggle is likely to come within our reach. That a nation, like Britons, should be free, it is requisite only that Britons should will it to become so " — that is a passage borrowed from Mr Paine ; — " that such should be their will, the abuses of our original consti- tution, and the alarms of our aristocratic enemies, sufficiently witness. Confident in the purity of our motives, and in the justice of our cause, let us meet falsehood with proofs, and hypocrisy with plain- ness ; let us persevere in declaring our principles, and misrepresent- ation will meet its due reward — contempt. " In this view the artifices of a late aristocratic association, formed on the 20th instant, call for a few remarks on account of the declarations they have published relative to other clubs and societies formed in this nation. It is true that this meeting of gentlemen (for so they style themselves) have mentioned no names, instanced no facts, quoted no authorities " — it was a little difficult to do it, unless they had the means of seeing all the correspondences at home and abroad, — " but they take upon themselves to assert that bodies of their countrymen have been associated, professing opinions favourable to the rights of man, to liberty and equality " — mark these expressions, — " and, moreover, that these opinions are conveyed in the terms, No King, No Parliament." Gentlemen, what I have been endeavouring to state to you is this, that it is necessarily to be inferred from their principles that they did mean to assert, when they were ripe for it, No King, No Parliament. It is not my imputation — I do not know whose it was, to which this alludes — that they did express their opinion in the Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OP THOMAS HAjRDY. 85 language, iVo King, No Parliament ; but I say that they expressed their opinions in language which, when accurately looked at, as forcibly import the ideas, as if they had used the words No King, No Parliament. — "If this be intended to include the societies to which we respectively belong, we here, in the most solemn manner, deny the latter part of the charge." What is the latter part of the charge ?— that they do not mean to have a King or Parliament ? No ; but that the opinions are conveyed in the terms. No King, No Parliament. " Whoever shall attribute to us the expressions of No King, No Parliament, or any design of invading the property of other men, is guilty of a wilful, an impudent, and a malicious false- hood ; " — and then this paper, stating a great deal more, which, in justice to the paper itself, shall be read to you, concludes thus : " Let us wait and watch the ensuing session of Parliament, from whom we have much to hope and little to fear. The House of Commons may have been the source of our calamity, it may prove that of our deliverance ; should it not, we trust we shall not prove unworthy of our forefathers, whose exertions in the cause of man- kind so well deserve our imitation." Now, gentlemen, I ask, after concluding this letter, what this means, " if Parliament should not do it." If we are ready to admit that Parliament is formed upon principles that make it competent to do the thing, if it please to do it, it is all well ; but if it won't — then we will not prove unworthy of our forefathers, whose exertions in the cause of mankind so well deserve our imitation. And refer- ring you back to the correspondence between the Norwich and the London Corresponding Society, to the declaration of the 6th of August 1792, which said they had nothing to look for from Parlia- ment — to the correspondence with the National Convention of France — to the conduct which, in the presence of their delegates, was permitted, and never repudiated by any act of the London Corresponding Society ; and referring you, moreover, to the sub- sequent evidence, which I have to offer to you ; I think you will find that the sentiment 'which is expressed by the author of this paper, upon the 19th of November 1792, was a sentiment which, if followed up by those who continue to hold it, meant that, if Parliament did not give them redress, they would have it by their own force. With respect to the Constitutional Society, all it thinks proper to say upon the subject is this: " That the object of this society, from its first institution to the present moment of alarm, has uni- formly been to promote the welfare of the people " — I beg your attention to these words, — " has uniformly been to promote the welfare of the people by all constitutional means." Now, if I were to stop here, with a view to show you what you are to under- stand by the words " all constitutional means,'' are the means I have been stating constitutional means ? Will it make the Digitized by Microsoft® 86 THE attoeney-genekal's speech on means more constitutional than they really are because they choose to call them so ?— " And to expose in their true light the abuses which have imperceptibly crept in, and at last grown to such a height as to raise the most serious apprehensions in every true friend of the constitution. " Kesolved, 2dly, That this society disclaims the idea of wishing to effect a change in the present system of things by violence and public commotion; but that it trusts to the good sense of the people " —you will find, before I have done, that in April 1793, it could not trust to the good sense of the people, — " when they shall be fully enlightened on the subject, to procure, without disturbing the public tranquillity, an effectual and permanent reform. " Kesolved, 3dly, That the intentions of this and similar societies have of late been grossly calumniated by those who are interested to perpetuate abuses, and their agents, who have been industrious to represent the members of such societies as men of dangerous principles, wishing to destroy all social order, disturb the state of property, and introduce anarchy and confusion instead of regular government. " Kesolved, 4thly, That, in order to counteract the pperation of such gross aspersions, and to prevent them from checking the pro- gress of Uberal inquiry, it is at this time peculiarly expedient that this and similar societies should publicly assert the rectitude of their principles. " Resolved, That the said resolutions be adopted, in order for printing in the newspapers." Now, I desire any person to read that paper through again, and then; gentlemen of the jury, if it is relied upon, be so good as to ask yourselves what is the definite meaning in any one passage in it ? About the same time there is an address from the Manchester society, dated the 14th of December 1792, which appears to have been read in the Constitutional Society, in the presence of the pri- soner, and which address has some very particular circumstances about it, for you will find that there was a resolution upon the 14th of December 1792, in these words : — " Read a printed address from Manchester. Resolved, that the said address be approved for pub- lishing in the newspapers." It appears by a paper, which I shall produce to you, that the words, Bead a printed address from Manchester, are in the hand- writing of Mr Tooke ; that the address itself is in the handwriting of Mr Tooke. Whether it was a copy of any address at Manchester or not I do not know. This address appears afterwards to be in. print ; it is sent for publication. And with a view to show to the public what extent the distribution of libels has arisen to in the progress of a treasonable purpose in London, this address was ordered to be printed, and that a hundred thousand copies of it Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 87 should be distributed to their correspondents in Great Britain and Ireland. The report that was made upon it was, that it had been offered to the Morning Chronicle and Morning Post, and that the paper itself, though drawn by a masterly hand, was such that they durst not venture to print it. I believe it was, however, printed in London. You will occasionally see papers printed in the countt-y, at Manchester, if London will not do it ; or if the law of England has reached as far as this side of the Tweed, so as to check the publication of a libel, then it is carried over the Tweed, in order to be published in Scotland, where it might be more safely done. Now in this paper, which bears date upon the 14th of December 1792, and recollecting, as I hope you will do, what I have already stated to you of the principles of those who were concerned in this transaction, as these principles had been manifested in all the other transactions I have stated to you, you will find there is this passage : he says, " To gull the poor with the insolent falsehood, that the laws are the same for the poor as the rich, or with idle panegyrics on a rotten constitution, which you have not examined, and of which you feel not the benefit. The real friends of the people hear with pity and bear with patience the hourly calumnies to which they are exposed ; they entertain, however, no personal enmities, no aversion but to the enemies of the -people, and no disrespect to the constitution but where it is hostile to the rights of the people." Now, why it is said to be hostile to the rights of the people, T think, can be pretty well understood, after what I have stated to you about these communications with France ; but it need not be left there, for you will find that this is more distinctly stated in the draught of an answer to a letter which was likewise read and entered among the minutes of this society upon the 26th of October 1792. The draught of the answer seems to have been prepared on the 2d November 1792 ; it was to be sent to the editors of the Patriot. The editors of the Patriot were persons who were living at Sheffield ; and it will appear by the papers, the substance of which I have not really bodily strength enough to state to you, were affiliated at the same time with the London Corresponding Society, and also with the Constitutional Society, in the propaga- tion of their principles, and this to an extent which no language can do justice to, which it is impossible to describe to you without reading a particular letter, in which they themselves state their mode of proceeding, and which, for the purpose of informing you in this respect, shall be presently read to you. To one of them the following is an answer, and I beg your attention to it, of the 2d of November 1792 :— , ^ ^, " We rejoice with you in the increase of the members of the societies of freedom ; our bosoms glow with the sentiments— we are Digitized by Microsoft® 88 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on brothers in affection with you and with the freemen of Stockport " (who wrote that letter which I before observed upon, which states that nothing can do but a convention, and that their object is a government immediately constituted by the people ; that that can- not be while the Crown or the Lords, as you choose to construe the letter, retain their authority). They add, " Freedom, though an infant, makes Herculean eSbrts." Now, they meant nothing in the world to the prejudice of the monarchy, they meant nothing in the world but a full representation of the people in a Parliament co-existing with King and Lords. They add, " The vipers, aris- tocracy " — that is, persons who have got coats upon their backs — " and monarchy " — we have it yet in England, gentlemen — " are panting and writhing under its grasp : may success, peace, and happiness attend those efforts ! " That letter, so prepared, will be produced to you, with the corrections of Mr Home Tooke, in his own hand. Gentlemen, I have now gone through, as well as I am able — and I hope you will keep in view the case I have stated — the principles and practices of these societies, with all their affiliations. I ought to mention to you, that you will find in the evidence, as it is laid before you, most uncommon industry in picking up fresh con- nexions. If a paper appeared in the country, stating that a society of any sort was formed, yau will find immediate industry to con- nect them, and affiliate them with the London Corresponding and Constitutional Societies. If these societies professed — as, for in- stance, the Stockport Society professed— that they would have nothing but a government constituted immediately by themselves, they contrive to give an answer satisfactory to them. If the socie- ties professed attachment to the monarchy, and desired explanation whether they meant Mr Pitt's plan, which Mr Paine laughs at— or whether they meant the Duke of Eichmond's plan — or whether they meant, as a letter you will hear by and by says, to rip up monarchy by the roots, you will find they satisfied them all suffi- ciently to enlist them all for that purpose, which, from their own transactions, I state to be neither more nor less than to do what Mr Paine did in his book — to combine the principles which they stated, when the times were ripe for it, with the practices which were cor- respondent with those principles ; to apply those principles, which were alike the principles of these societies and of the French consti- tution of 1791, and which Mr Paine, Mr Barlow, and those addresses to the Convention, receiving such answers from the Convention in 1792, declared had produced a constitution in France upon the 10th of August 1792 ; to apply them not to form that, which in ite nature is an absurdity, a royal democracy, but that which upon principle is consistent, though it is a wretched bad government, a representative government, to be exchanged here in lieu of our limited monarchy, in lieu of our government, under Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 89 which I state it, with a defiance to the world to tell me that I do not state it truly, that a people never did enjoy, since the providence of God made us a people (you may talk about theories as you please), that they never did enjoy, for so long a time together, such a quantum of actual private happiness and private prosperity, public happiness and public prosperity, under any constitution, as we have enjoyed under the constitution, to the destruction or the support of which it is for you to judge whether such means as I have been stating to you were designed to be employed. The next thiag that was to be done was to go on in strengthen- ing themselves by affiliation : and you will find accordingly that they have connexions at Norwich, Shefiield, Leeds, and other places : indeed, there was hardly a county in which they had not affiliated societies, and, if you believe them, in great numbers. The next step they took was, not that they should have it accomplished — their principles would not let them accomplish it — but it was for the purpose of attaching more and more affiliated societies, that they began now to think, in the year 1793, of making applications to Parliament. Gentlemen, in the course of that year 1793, whilst they are to make applications to Par- liament, you will find that they distinctly discuss the utility of doing so. The London Corresponding Society, it will be proved to you, take the opinion of the societies in the country with respect to three distinct propositions. Mark this. Now, gentlemen, in September 1792, the Stockport society told the London Corresponding Society that there was no hope of doing anything but in a convention ; the London Corresponding Society give the answer that I have before stated. They began to think of this thing called a Convention in the beginning of the year 1793, and they propose having communication, on the other hand, from the country societies. They state three propositions. What is it we are to do ? Are we to make an application to Parliament ? Are we to make an application to the King ? That would have been, to make application to the King, that he would be graciously pleased, according to the oath which he takes upon his coronation, to give his consent to measures which were to destroy the govern- ment of the country as it exists, and of himself as a part of it ! Or are we to have a convention ? You will find, when the whole_ of the evidence is laid before you, there is a vast deal of discussion about this measure of a convention, there is a vast deal of discus- sion about applying to Parliament. The application to the King is thought futile without more debate ; but they come to this deter- mination, that things are not yet ripe, but that the application to Parliament, however, may be one means of ripening that which is not yet mature ; and then soliciting petitions from all parts of the kingdom, telling those from whom they ask them, that they do not mean that they should have any effect, that they are all waste Digitized by Microsoft® 90 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech ok paper ; canvassing all parts of the kingdom, and getting signatures in the way you will find, they send the petitions to Parliament, which, for myself and my posterity, I thank God Parliament did not attend to; I mean petitions to introduce a change in the government upon the principle of annual suffrage and universal representation. They determined for the present that they would content them- selves with petitions; that this would occasion a great deal of debate ; that that would give them a vast variety of opportunities of discussing the point they had had in agitation since 1792 ; and, if the public mind was not ripe for a convention in 1793, the pro- ceedings and transactions of 1793 had a natural and obvious tendency, when these transactions were made a proper use of, to bring to maturity the project, not yet come to maturity. Tou will find, therefore, that both the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information keep this object in view. The Norwich society, upon the 5th of March 1793, write thus to the Society for Constitutional Information, and which you will see had held correspondence also with the London Corresponding Society upon the subject of the same proposition: — "It is with peculiar satisfaction that we are favoured with your correspond- ence," — they first say, — "We wish to find out a method of redress; at present we see a great propriety in universal suffrage and annual elections ; but we beg you will be obliging enough to inform us of what you have collected of the sense of the people by your corre- spondence. We have to inform you that our worthy Corresponding Societies of London have recently submitted three propositions for our investigation ; first, whether a ■petition to Parliament, or an address to the King, or a convention." When I find here the word convention, I think I may address this question to you as men of common sense : If, in August 1792, the London Corresponding Society, by the address which I have read to you, have told you distinctly that they cannot get any redress from Parliament, is it not marvellous how it is to be made out in argument, that^ in March 1793, they were to have a convention in order to get it from Parliament, and more particularly to get it from that Parliament which, upon their own principles, was not competent to give it, if they had a mind to take it from Parliament ? " Permit us briefly to state our views for your revisal ; and with respect to the first, we behold we are a conquered people ; we have tamely submitted to the galling yoke, and resistance, in tlie present circumstances, is vain ; we cannot, we cannot act the man ; and, as necessity has no law, we think ourselves under that degrading necessity to state our grievances to the House of Commons, with a request for redress; and should they refuse" — which they did — Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 91 " to grant our reasonable petition, we have still got (no thanks to them) " — here is an accurate, a short description of the affiliated societies — " a formidable engine, that will convey the insult to the remotest parts of the kingdom. As to the propriety of the second, we wish to submit to your superior judgment, and should esteem it a_ favour to be informed of the result; for at present we are dubious of its good consequences. Lastly, a convention; and oh ! that the period were arrived ; but in the present state of affairs, alas ! it is impracticable ; yet this is the object we pursue, and esteem any other means only in subordination to, and as having a tendency to accomplish that desirable end. " We wish to be in unison with our brethren and fellow- labourers, and should be glad of any information, as soon as it is convenient; and we beg your advice whether it is necessary, as soon as possible, to collect signatures to a petition for a real representation of the people ? " This letter, of the 5th of March 1793, having been received from Norwich, you will find that Mr Frost, who had then lately come from France, and was about that time, I believe, talking of No King in this country, in which it is not yet quite lawful to say so, was thought an extremely proper person to draw up a letter in answer to this ; and accordingly it is stated upon the books of the society, that Mr Frost was ordered to prepare that answer. However, it got into abler hands ; for, unless I am again misinstructed, it was settled by counsel, and the substance I will now read to you. It is dated the 16th of April 1793. "From the secretary of the Society for Constitutional Information to the secretary of the United Political Societies at Norwich. We have to acknowledge with great satisfaction the letter which you favoured us with, dated the 5th instant, relative to the most desirable of all other objects, the reform of a parliamentary representation. The honour you do us in supposing that we are better fitted than yourselves for the promotion of political knowledge, we must disclaim, because we observe, with the greatest pleasure, that our country correspondents have too much zeal and information to want success in their public endeavours, whether at Norwich, at Sheffield, at Manchester, or elsewhere, throughout the nation. In our sincerity for the good of our country we trust that we are all equal, and, as such, we doubt not of our ultimate success. " We see with sorrow the existence of those evils which you so justly represent as the streams of corruption overflowing this once free and prosperous country. We see with surprise and abhor- rence that men are to be found both able and willing to support those corruptions. It is, however, no small consolation to find that others are not wanting, in every point of the nation, of an opposite character, who are ready to remedy, by all laudable and honourable means, the defect in our representation, the usurped Digitized by Microsoft® 92 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on extension of the duration of Parliaments, and other grievances, such as you notice in your letter. " That the constitution of England has no more of that character it once possessed ; that the supposed democracy of the country has become a matter of property and privilege, and that we have therefore no longer that mixed government which our adversaries are praising, when they know it is no longer in our possession, are facts notorious and indisputable. Where, then, are we to look for remedy?" Most assuredly those who had said on the 6th of August 1792, they would not look to Parliament, would not be so inconsistent as to say that they would look to it in April 1793. " To that Parliament of which we complain ? to the executive power, which is implicitly obeyed, if not anticipated, in that Parlia- ment ? or to ourselves ? " Now, who are ourselves? Why, those affiliated societies ! — "Our- selves represented in some meeting of delegates for the extensive purpose of reform, which we suppose you understand by the term convention." The Norwich Society writes to the Constitutional Society, and it proposes a convention as the only means of doing this business. The Constitutional Society states that it is to be done only in a convention. Of what ? — of themselves. Why, then, I say, upon the 16th of April 1793, the Constitutional Society construed the acts of the 20th of January 1794, which I shall allude to presently, and the 27th of March 1794, because the Constitutional Society said that a convention was a convention of themselves, represented in some meeting of delegates. And for what purpose ? — for the extensive purposes of reform. How ? — by applying to Parliament? No. Why, this passage states ex- pressly that the reason why they would have a convention was, because they would not apply to Parliament. And can I impute to men of understanding, that are employed in this business — for there are men of understanding enough employed in this business'; whether that understanding is properly -employed in this business, it is not for me to say anything about, — can limpute anything so absurd to men of understanding as that they meant to form a convention, which convention should carry their petition to Parliament ? "It is the «nd of each of these propositions that we ought to look to ; and, as success in a good cause must be the effect of perseverance and the rising season of the time, let us determine with coolness, but let us persevere with decision. As to u conven- tion, we regard it as a plan the most desirable and most practi- cable." When ? — so soon as the great body of the people shall be virtuous enough to join us in the attempt ? No ; but " so soon as the great body of the people shall be courageows and virtuous enough to join us in the attempt." You will see whether the interpretation which I give of the word " courageous" by the manner in which I mean to express it, is due to it or not, by what I have to state to you. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 93 Gentlemen of the jury, witli a view to explain this thing called a convention, as contradistinguished from Parliament, give me leave to carry back your attention for a moment to January 25, 1793. In this society, which, in November 1792, had the cor- respondence with France, which I stated in January 1793, when we were on the eve of a war, and upon the eve of a war which had been produced by the principles which brought fraternisation into this country, and took place soon after that decree of November 1792, you will find that these resolutions were come to : " That Citizen St Andre, a member of the National Convention of France," — that convention which had deposed a king, as that which could not exist in a government formed upon the principles of the rights of man, as disclosed by Mr Paine, his fellow-member in that convention, — " as one of the most judicious and enlightened friends of human liberty, be admitted an associated honorary member of this society. " Eesolved, That Citizen Barrere, a member of the National Convention of France, being considered by us as one of the most judicious and enlightened friends of human liberty, be admitted an associated honorary member of this society. " Eesolved, That Citizen Eoland, being also considered by us as one of the most judicious and enlightened friends of human liberty, be admitted an associated honorary member. "That the speeches" — Gentlemen, I particularly request your attention to this — " that the speeches of Citizen St Andre and Citizen Barrere, associated honorary members of this society, as given in the Gazette Nationale, ou Moniteur Universel of Paris, on the 4th, 6th, and 7th of January 1793, be inserted in the books of this society ;" — and, as far as this society could effectuate it, they endeavoured also to have these resolutions published in the news- papers, and it will be in proof to you that, in the books of the society, it is resolved that each of these resolutions should be so published. Now, gentlemen, I shall prove to you, by evidence completely effectual for that purpose, what these speeches were, and then, if you will be so good as to ask yourselves what the Constitutional Society, which in January and February ordered these speeches to be published, meant by a convention in that letter of the Itith of April 1793, you will judge whether that convention was to be the means (because they would neither apply to the King, the executive power, nor to the Parliament), was to be the means of handing their application to Parliament ; or whether, on the other hand, it was to be the means of introducing, by its own force, a representative government in this country ; that assembly, which, you will find they insist, would for the time absorb all the powers of government, which, if it did exist, would delegate its legislative power only so long as they choose to delegate it, a body competent to create a legislature, and possessing within itself an eternal Digitized by Microsoft® 94 THE attokney-geneeal's speech Olf power of reform, an eternal source of revolution. With respect to St Andre, speaking to the convention, he says, "Your right to decide the fate of kings arises from your being a revolutionary assembly, created by the nation " — a revolutionary assembly created by the nation, in such a state, is at least that thing which I think no good Englishman ever will wish to exist, to see — " a revolutionary assembly created by the nation in a state of insurrection." Spealdng of the trial of the King of France, they say, " This proceeding is of the highest importance to public order, absolutely necessary to the existence of liberty, and connected with whatever is held most sacred by the nation. " The people of Paris " — this is upon the question whether the person of the King be inviolable, a maxim unquestionably true in the constitution of this country, a maxim perfectly consistent with the civil liberties of the people, because, though the King's person is inviolable, he has advisers, who are violable as to every act that he does. " The people of Paris, by making a holy insurrection against the King on the 10th of August," — that 10th of August which, in Mr Frost's letter to Mr Tooke, was absolutely necessary to the existence of liberty in France — " deprived him of his char- acter of inviolability. The people of the other departments ap- plauded this insurrection, and adopted the consequence of it. The people have therefore formally interposed to destroy this royal in- violability. The tacit consent of the people rendered the person of the King inviolable ; the act of insurrection " — I pray Heaven de- fend us from the operation of such principles in this country — " the act of insurrection was a tacit repeal of that consent, and was founded on the same grounds of law as the consent itself : the King's person is inviolable only with relation to the other branches of the legislature, but not with relation to the people." Now, I ask, what did those gentlemen who ordered this speech to be published, that the King's person was inviolable only with relation to the other branches of the legislature, when they were talking of conventions, mean ? I am sorry to say that my mind is drawn to the conclusion that they thought the King's person was not inviolable with relation to the people, a convention of whom was to be formed, and was to be formed because an application to Parliament was useless. Now, let us see the description of a convention. " A convention differs from an ordinary legislature in this respect : a legislature is only a species of superintending magistracy, a moderator of the powers of Government : a convention is a perfect representation of the Sovereign : the members of the Legislative Assembly acted in August upon these principles, in summoning the convention ; they declare " — precisely as is declared in the letter I have been reading to you — " that they saw but one measure which could save France, namely, to have recourse to the supreme will of the people, and to Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 95 invite the people to exercise immediately that inalienable right of sovereignty which the constitution had acknowledged, and which it could not subject to any restriction. The public interest required that the people should manifest their will by the election of a national convention, formed of representatives invested by the people with unlimited powers. The people did manifest their will by the election of that convention. The convention being assembled, is itself that sovereign will, which ought to prevail. It would be contrary to every principle to suppose that the conven- tion is not alone exclusively the expression of the general will. " The powers of the convention must, from the very nature of the assembly, be unlimited with respect to every measure of general safety, such as the execution of a tyrant. It is no longer a con- vention if it has not power to judge the King : a convention is a constituent body, i.e., a body that is to make a constitution for the people ; a legislature makes laws under an established constitution, and in conformity to it. It is despotism when, in the ordinary and permanent establishment of a state, there is no separation of powers ; but it is of the very essence of a constituent body to con- centre for the time all authority ; it is the very nature of a national convention to be the temporary image of the nation, to unite in itself all the powers of the state, to employ them against the enemies of liberty, and to distribute them in a new social compact called a constitution." Gentlemen, after I have stated that to you, I think I cannot possibly be mistaken when I conceive that you can do no otherwise than put the same construction upon this letter which I did. I will now take the liberty of calling your attention to a letter of the 17th of May 1793, and the answer of the 26th of May 1793, passing over a great many letters, the substance of which you will inform yourselves of by having them read, namely, letters that prove affiliations solicited and granted to Leeds, Tewkesbury, Coventry, and many places in the kingdom, more numerous than I apprehend you will believe, till you see what the number of them is by evi- dence actually before you. Gentlemen, I beg leave now to call your attention, in order of time, to a letter of the 17th May 1793, for it begins a correspond- ence most excessively material with that part of the country in which the convention has been already held ; I mean Scotland ; — a convention which, I think I shall satisfy you, did, for the time, act upon the principles that I have stated to you, from the speech of Barrere, as far as it could act, and in which I think, at the moment that I address you, if it had not been stopped in the execution of its purposes, but had been joined by those whose acts we are considering this .day, you might have seen, in the speeches of a National Convention in Great Britain, a repetition of the language of Barrere, instead of hearing it from me in a court of justice. Digitized by Microsoft® 96 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on Gentlemen, I hold it, in the office that I fill, to be due to the administration of the justice of this country to say distinctly, if I understand the case upon which certain persons were tried for the acts which they did in Scotland, that, if they had been tried for high treason, they would have had no right to complain ; no right to complain if the question upon their conduct had been agitated in that shape before a jury of the country. Gentlemen, upon the 17th of May, a Mr Urquhart going from London, Mr Hardy, and a person of the name of Margarot, cele- brated in the future history of this business, join and write a letter. Parliament had, as they expected it would, and as they meant it should, rejected their petition. " The London Corresponding Society eagerly seizes the opportunity of Mr Urquhart going baqk to Edinburgh, to request of your society a renewal of correspond- ence, and a more intimate co-operation in that which both societies alike seek, viz., a reform in the parliamentary representation. We are very sensible that no society can by itself bring about that desirable end ; let us therefore unite as much as possible, not only with each other, but with every other society throughout the nation. Our petitions, you will have learned, have been all of them unsuc- cessful : our attention must now, therefore, be turned to some more effectual means ; from your society we would willingly learn them, and you, on your part, may depend upon our adopting the firmest measures, provided they are constitutional, and we hope the coun- try will not be behindhand with us." Now, by " constitutional measures " it is clear that they meant that a convention, as contradistinguished from a Parliament, would be constitutional: it is clear they mean it, because they have said it. Then Mr Skirving writes thus : " Mr Urquhart did me the plea- sure to call on Thursday afternoon, and delivered your letter of the 17th inst. I am much pleased with the contents of it, and shall lay it before the first meeting of our societies here, which, however, does not take' place till Monday sevennight. I would have acknow- ledged the receipt of your favour hy yesterday's post, but was too much employed in removing our household to another lodging to attend to anything else." Now, I beg your attention to this, because you will see in the transactions of the people in convention in Edinburgh, that they looked to what they were to do in case of a rebellion as well as any other. " If either you in England or we in Scotland should attempt separately the reform which we, I trust, seek to obtain, we should, by so doing, only expose our weakness, and manifest our ignorance of the corruption which opposes our important undertaking. If we sought only the extirpation of one set of interested men from the management of national affairs, that place might be given to another set, without affecting the vitals adverse to the system of reform, these might be easily accomplished ; but to cut up deep and Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 97 wide-rooted prejudices, to give effectual energy to the dictates of truth in favour of public virtue and national prosperity, in opposi- tion to self and all its interested habits, and to withstand and over- awe the final efforts of the powers of darkness, is the work of the whole, and not of a part ; a work to which mankind till this awful period were never adequate, because never till now disposed to fraternise, not merely or only, I trust, from the sense of the common danger to which we are exposed, but from the ennobling principle of universal benevolence. " I know no greater service that I can do my country than to promote the union you so wisely desire ; and I am happy to assure you that I have hitherto discovered no sentiment in our association adverse to the most intimate and brotherly union with the associations in England, " I think the minds of all must, in the nature of things, be now turned to more effectual means of reform. Not one person was con- vinced of the necessity of it by the most convincing arguments of reason, together with the most unequivocal expressions of universal desire. What then is to be hoped for from repetition ? I am only afraid that the bow in England against reform was so contracted that in returning it may break. You would willingly learn, you say, from us. I own that we ought to be forward in this : we have at once in great wisdom perfected our plan of organisation ; and if we were in the same independent state of mind as the people of England, we would be able to take the lead.. The associations with you are no more, I fear — excuse my freedom — than an aristocracy for the good of the people : they are indeed moderate, firm, and virtuous, and better cannot be ; but we are the people themselves, and we are the first to show that the people can both judge and resolve, if undirected by faction, with both wisdom and moderation. " I have not a higher wish, in the present exertions for reform, than to see the people universally and regularly associated ; because I am persuaded that the present disastrous engagements will issue in ruin, and the people must then provide for themselves ; and it would be unhappy, when we should be ready to act with unanimity, to be occupied about orgaaisation, without which, however, anarchy must ensue. We will not need but to be prepared for the event — to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Let us therefore take the hint given us by our opposers ; let us begin in earnest to make up our minds relative to the extent of reform which we ought to seek, be prepared to justify it, and to controvert objections : let us model the whole in the public mind ; let us provide every stake and stay of the tabernacle which we would erect, so that, when the tabernacles of oppression in the palaces of ambition are broken down, under the madness and folly of their supporters, we may then, without anarchy and all dangerous delay, erect at once our tabernacle of righteousness, and may the Lord himself be in it." VOL. II. G Digitized by Microsoft® 98 THE attobnet-geneeal's speech on Gentlemen, these are things all very easy to be understood. " How hurtful to the feelings of a reflecting mind, to look back to the wretched state in which the Eoman monarchy, enfeebled and broken by its own corruptions, left the nations which it subjected, like sheep without a shepherd ; they soon became a prey to every invader, because there was none to gather and unite them. Had they, foreseeing the evil, associated for mutual defence, no robber would have been able to enslave them ; they would have given laws to all parties, as well as to themselves ; all separate colonies and nations would have sought their alliance ; but not having virtue to associate, and heal the divisions, and root out the selfish spirit, which ambition-fostering governments procure to their subjects, they fell under oppressions, from under whose iron sceptre they have never yet been able to deliver themselves. " We may suppose an event which we deprecate ; nay, should we not be prepared for every possible issue of the present unprece- dented divisions of mankind. We have a right to be apprehensive of the abilities of our own managers, who are so afraid to depart from precedent that, like men of detail, they may be inadequate to the task of preserving the vessel from shipwreck, now grappling with danger not only great, but new and uncommon. If the pre- sent Ministry fail, who after them shall be trusted ? It requires little penetration to see the anarchy and discord which will follow ; it will be such that nothing short of a general union among the people themselves will be able to heal. Haste therefore to associate, at least to be ready to associate. If, then, such a broken state of things should take place, the civil broils that would necessarily ensue would soon subside before the united irresistible voice of the whole. Do not, I entreat you, hesitate, thinking such a work pre- mature as yet," — this is written in May 1793, — " but a month, and then it may be too late ; a malignant party may be already formed, and only waiting for the halting of the present managers ; it will then be too late to seek to subject to deliberation, after a party has dared the act of rebellion. If you go no further than separate meetings in different towns, we will not be able to confide in your confraternity, because, while in such a state, you may be but the tools of a faction : we could have all confidence, and unite with all affection, in one assembly of commissioners from all the countries of the world." Gentlemen, observe that .expression. This letter, in the beginning of it, speaking with reference to the war, does not know but the palaces of ambition may be all overset; the pillai-s will tumble with their supporters. Then it says, " We could have all confi- dence, and unite with all affection, in one assembly of com- missioners from all countries of the world, — if we knew they were chosen by the unbiassed voice of the people, because they would come up with the same disinterested views and desires as ourselves. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 99 having all agreed to a common centre of union and interest ; but we could not confide in fellow-citizens who kept aloof from such union, and would not previously affiliate in one 'great and indi- visible family." Gentlemen, I have before told you that there was a society at Birmingham. Upon the 10th of June 1793, the London Corre- sponding Society writes to that society in these terms : — " It is with singular satisfaction the committee of the London Corresponding Society received your letter ; they are very glad to see the spirit of freedom springing up in Birmingham, and they make no doubt but that the zeal of your society, and the increase of your numbers, will soon do away the stigma thrown on your town by the un- justifiable behaviour of a Church-and-King mob. We are en- tirely of your opinion with regard to the necessity of a general union; and we believe, as you do, that when once the country shall have so united," — what then ? — " fhe Neroes of the day will be forced to yield to the just demand of a long and sore oppressed people." Gentlemen, the Political Societies at Norwich also write to the London Corresponding Society with respect to this convention upon the 2.5th of June 1793, in which they say, "We also received your friendly letter, prior to that wherein you stated three proposi- tions : First, a petition to his Majesty, or to Parliament, or a National Convention ; and ordered one of your committee to answer it ; should be glad if you will inform me whether it was attended to. I gave my opinion on the subject to the Consti- tutional Society of London, and found their ideas congenial to my own," — that alludes to the letter they wrote him, — " viz., an address to the King — futile ; a petition to Parliament (as a conquered people) — tolerable ; a National Convention (if circumstances admitted), best of all." Gentlemen, you will find that, upon the 28th of June 1793, whilst these societies were holding so much correspondence with respect to this national convention as the only eff'ectual means, it was thought an address to the nation should be prepared. That is not immaterial, because you will find afterwards that the project of a national convention in Scotland was thought by many of the members of it, and many of the members of those bodies, to have failed for want of such a previous address to the nation ; and upon this occasion two gentlemen are brought together — I do not know whether one of them at that time was a member of the society or not— but two members are brought together, Mr Home Tooke and a person of the name of Yorke, who, you will find, was a delegate to the convention in Scotland, and who, you will find, has acted a considerable part in other parts of this country, were to be em- ployed in preparing that address. Upon the 6th of July 1793, a letter having been received from Digitized by Microsoft® 100 THE ATTOKNEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON the Political Societies at Norwich, the answer, signed by the prisoner at the bar, is given in these terms : — " Fellow-citizens, — The London Corresponding Society have re- ceived, and read with pleasure, your letter of the 25th of June ; but the answer which you mention to have been made to our three questions has not yet come to hand : we shall be glad to be in- formed by your next whether it was ever put in the post-office. " With regard to the questions themselves, however individuals may have made up their minds on them, the pubHc seemed most to approve the mode of petitioning Parliament." Then it states the effect of the petitions. "Exhorting you therefore to throw aside all unavailing complaint, we wish you to occupy yourselves in instructing the people, in introducing and maintaining order and regularity in your own society, and in forming a junction with all others associated for the same purpose throughout the nation, by keeping up a constant correspondence with them; but, above all, orderly and courageously preparing yourself for the event," — now mark the event, — "for, as it is natural to suppose that those who now prey on the public will, not willingly yield up their enjoyments, nor repossess us of our rights without a struggle, whicfi by their behaviour in Ireland," — that alludes to the bill in Ireland to prevent a convention, — " we have some reason to think they are meditating, and perhaps may intend to effect by means of those very foreign mercenaries who are now paid by the sweat of our brow, and whom, iinder some plausible pretence, it would be no difficult matter to land on our shore ; it may be more advantageous to humanity to show them at first that their opponents are neither mob nor rabble, but an indig- nant, oppressed people, in whom is not yet entirely extinct the valour of their forefathers." Gentlemen, in a letter to Hertford, which is written by the same Corresponding Society, upon the 31st of July 1793, and which society at Hertford had desired to know their principles, they state themselves in the same manner : — " We receive with pleasure your assurance of co-operating with us for a reform in Parliament, an object to which all our endeavours tend, and on which our hearts are invariably fixed. But as your declaration that you will not pledge yourselves to demand universal suffrage and annual Parlia- ments is followed by no specific plan of reform of your own, we are under some difficulty how to conclude. Perhaps, as strangers, you write to us tuith that prudent reserve which is sometimes necessary, and that idea receives strength from your appearing afterwards convinced that the common object of the two societies is the same, which we readily admit. But, as mutual confidence is the basis of union, and the only rational pledge and support for co-operative exertion, we trust your next will do away every difficulty. "With respect to universal suffrage and annual Parliaments, a Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 101 mature conviction of their justice and necessity for the preservation of Klierty and prosperity to the great body of the people, and for securing the independence of Parliament, was our primary induce- ment to associate. We therefore candidly assure you, that these our principles, as already announced to the public, remain immut- able, unconnected with any party whatever ; we can consider no reform radical but such as will enable every individual of the community to enjoy the advantages thereof equally with ourselves ; for, if ignorance of the nature of government, or the merits of the candidates, be an argument against universal suffrage, as our opponents pretend, the same reasons would equally incapacitate a great majority of those who now enjoy that privilege, to the exclusion of very many thousands much better informed than themselves ; not to mention that, imder a more equalised mode of government, the people would be at once induced and empowered to improve themselves in useful knowledge. In a word, we know no principle, consistent with justice or reason, by which we could exclude conscientiously any part of the community from an equality of rights and privileges, which every member of society, as he con- tributes to its support, ought equally to enjoy. " With respect to annual Parliaments, we will just remark, that good members may be re-elected, whilst twelve months we think fully sufficient for the welfare of millions to remain at the mercy of a bad representative. Having thus unequivocally stated our principles, we shall conclude by observing, that the bill just passed in Ireland is of a nature to awaken the jealousy of every friend to freedom and humanity — will render every exertion justifiable, should a similar attack upon constitutional freedom be attempted here." In October 1793, the Scotch convention having met, of which we have all of us heard so much out of this place, you will find that a letter had been received from a Mr Sinclair, together with an .address from Skirving, who was secretary to the Convention and Friends of the People in Scotland, by the London Constitutional Society ; an extraordinary meeting of the society was therefore called, at the " Crown and Anchor," to consider the utility and pro- priety of sending delegates to a convention of delegates of the different societies in Great Britain, at Edinburgh, for the purpose of obtaining a parliamentary reform. Upon the 28th of October 1793, this society came to a resolution to send delegates to that convention, and the two persons elected were Mr Sinclair and Mr Yorke ; and perhaps one cannot state a more striking instance of the extraordinary power of a small_ society, affiliating itself with societies spread all over the whole kingdom, than by stating that Sinclair, who was deputed from this society, meeting with other delegates in Scotland, had no_ difficulty of assuming with others the title of a delegate to the British Conven- Digitized by Microsoft® 102 THE attoeney-genekal's speech on tion, to assert their right to do acts in contradiction to the legis- lature — than by .telling you that this Yorke and Sinclair were deputed from this society by a poll, in which he, who had the majority, had seventeen votes only. Mr Yorke and Mr Sinclair are accordingly sent down, and they go with all the delegation of the power of the people which this Constitutional Society, thus affiliated, could give them ; and what they thought it was you will see presently. The London Corresponding Society was not to be backwai'd in forming this convention in Scotland; and, accordingly, you will see in the evidence which I have to state to you a con- siderable deal of contrivance on the part of the prisoner at the bar in order to bring about that convention in Scotland ; for, gentle- men, he writes a letter to the Norwich Constitutional Society, which deserves your very serious attention, in which he expresses himself thus: — "We have to acknowledge, at once, your favours of the 3d of September and 14th instant. Multiplicity of business prevented my answering your first, but will now inform you that the spirit shown in it gave great satisfaction to our society at large. The rejoicings for the capture of Valenciennes were not confined to Norwich alone. The ignorant everywhere else through- out the nation betrayed their imbecility on the occasion — the taking of a town, the slaughtering of thousands of human beings, the laying waste whole provinces, or the enslaving a nation (however great evils they may be), can only retard for a small space of time the progress of truth and reason. Be not disheartened, therefore ; pursue your plan, instruct mankind, and constitutionally set your faces against existing abuses. Be assured that many are our friends who only wait a favourable opportunity to openly join us, while our enemies have much enfeebled themselves and their cause by their arbitrary exertions. Despotism is at its last gasp — one or two cam- paigns more will terminate its existence. " We are glad to see that you begin to make a proper use of delegation. Where bodies of men are too numerous to be convened easily on every occasion, delegation is the best, and indeed the only way to obtain the general opinion. Scotland, improving on the idea, have not only summoned their own delegates, but also invite those of every other society to attend a kind of convention " (as if Mr Hardy knew nothing about it), " which is to be held at Edin- burgh on the 23th instant. The enclosed paper, which I, previous to the communicating your letter to our committee (which will meet only to-morrow), make haste to transmit to you, will show you that your society is included in the general invitation to send delegates to that meeting, which we exhort you to do, if you possibly can ; I firmly believe our society will not miss the opportunity of doing the same." Now you will find that, upon the 5th of October 1793, Hardy, who wrote this letter upon the 17th, wrote to Skirving in this way : Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 103 — " With pleasure I peruse your favour of the second instant, but, as yet, have seen nor heard nothing of the two copies of Mr Muir's trial which you mention as being sent to the society and to my- self. Be kind enough, notwithstanding, to return that gentleman thanks for his polite attention, and assure him that we view him in the light of a martyr to freedom, as well as Mr Palmer, and that our warmest hopes are, that the oppressors of mankind will either be ashamed or afraid of carrying their revengeful malice into execution. " The general convention, which you mention, appears to Mr Margaret (to whom alone I have communicated your letter) and myself to be a very excellent measure, and as such, I could wish you, without delay, to communicate it officially to our society, tvith- out any loays mentioning that yon had written to mejprivately. If in your official letter you should require us to send a deputation to that meeting, I have no doubt but our society would, with pleasure, accept the invitation ; and I am persuaded it may do much good. Our freedom, as you justly observe, depends entirely upon our- selves, and upon our availing ourselves of this opportunity, which, once lost, may not be recovered so soon. I am glad to discover by your testimony that I was by no ways mistaken in the high opinion I always had of Lord Daer's patriotism. A title may be a bar to disinterested patriotism, but it seems he has evinced it not to be an insuperable one. " You are right, it is true, that we have had another general meeting, at which a hastily-composed and suddenly-produced address to the King was read, applauded, and agreed to be pre- sented ; but on a cool revisal, the said address being found to be more ill-natured than spirited, more dangerous in its language than advantageous in its object, besides being too long, the com- mittee, with the approbation of the majority of the society, have adopted another, much safer, more apposite, and relating solely to the war. Enclosed you have a copy of it ; but you was misinformed when you was told we passed any resolutions at that meeting, for we only came to one, and that rather of a private nature, namely, that the conduct of Sir James Sanderson, in preventing the meeting of the London Corresponding Society, at the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street, was of such a nature as to place him below our censure." G-entlemen, the London Constitutional Society gave their dele- gates, Mr Yorke and Mr Sinclair, certain instructions ; and I ought here to tell you, by way of explaining the effect of what I am now to state, that the manner of keeping the books of the London Con- stitutional Society, as I understand it, was this : The_ resolutions made upon one night were taken upon loose minutes, either by the secretary or by other persons, who acted in his absence or in his presencewhen he was not doing that duty himself: they were entered, before the subsequent night of meeting, regularly in the book, and Digitized by Microsoft® 104 THE attoeney-geneeal's speech on the first thing done upon the sulasequent night of meeting was to read the resolutions which were made upon the former night, and to see that they were correct. Now, it will naturally occur that the minutes may explain the hook, and the book may explain the minutes. Now, when they come to draw the minutes, which you will have, for the instruction of their delegates at a convention which was to be held in Scotland, the first idea was to instruct those delegates to petition Parliament ; but they seem to have recollected that that was a measure which had been abandoned some months before by all the societies with whom they were affili- ated : they therefore struck out of their minutes the purpose of applying to Parliament, and they send instructions in these words: — " The delegates are instructed, on the part of the society, to assist in bringing foi'ward and supporting any constitutional measures for procuring a real representation of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament ; that, in specifying the redress to be demanded of existing abuses, the delegates ought never to lose sight of the two essential principles, general suffrage and annual representation, together with the inalienable right in the people to reform, and that a reasonable and known compensation ought to be made to the representatives of the nation bya national contribution." What they meant by the representatives of the nation, after what I have already read to you, I think you cannot possibly mistake. The London Corresponding Society are somewhat bolder in the instructions which they send with their delegates to the convention in Scotland. You will find these instructions are to the following effect : — By article the 1st, the delegate is instructed " that he shall on no account depart from the original object and principle of this society ; namely, the obtaining annual Parliaments and universal suffrage by rational and lawful means. " 2d, To support the opinions that representatives in Parliament ought to be paid by their constituents. "7th, That it is the duty of the people" — now, gentlemen, I beg your attention to this ; it is the principle upon which the con- vention of Scotland was formed, and upon which it acted, — " That it is the duty of the people to resist any Act of Parliament repug- nant to the original principles of the constitution, as would be every attempt to prohibit associations for the purpose of reform." Grentlemen, there is no government in this country, if this prin- ciple is to be acted upon, because nobody can tell to what extent it will go ; and, accordingly, you will see that these delegates, who went into Scotland with this authority in their hands, carried the authority far beyond the resistance which they were authorised to make according to the principles here laid down, and they state a great variety of cases, all approved afterwards both by the London Corresponding and the Constitutional Society, in which the people, and the convention of the people, were to resist Parliament. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 105 Gentlemen, these societies having sent delegates to the conven- tion in Scotland, I proceed now to state that the acts of that convention, to the extent at least to which the delegates from this country were authorised to act, are evidence against those who sent them, and therefore against the persons here indicted. But, further, they communicated to the societies here, particularly to the prisoner at the bar, their acts ; and the societies here, in distinct re- solutions, acting upon consideration, approved their whole conduct: they therefore made that conduct of their delegates in the conven- tion in Scotland, whether it was agreeable to the original authority which was given them or not, their own ; they adopted it by giving it their subsequent approbation. Gentlemen, you will find, first of all, that they received a letter from the Sheffield society, affiliating with them, in which it was proposed to determine like Englishmen. After receiving a great deal of other correspondence, which I will not trouble you with reading, the societies here prepare to send delegates to Scotland. Mr Skirving sent a circular letter upon the arrival of the English delegates to the delegates of all the associations in Scotland, which were extremely numerous and very widely extended ; and I think the delegates of these different societies came together to the number of one hundred and eighty. After sitting some time, Mr Margarot, you will find, who was the delegate of the London Corresponding Society, represents to the body there met — " That the societies in London were very numer- ous, though sometimes fluctuating ; that in some parts of England whole towns are reformers ; that in Sheffield and the environs there are fifty thousand ; that in Norwich there are thirty societies in one ; that if they could get a convention of England and Scotland called, they might represent six or seven hundred thousand males, which is a majority of all the adults in the kingdom." You will find Mr Margarot moves that, previous to publish- ing an address to the public, a committee should be appointed to consider the means, and draw up a plan of general union and co- operation — between what ? Not between any societies in the two nations, but a plan of general union and co-operation between the two nations. In their constitutional pursuit of a theory of parlia- mentary reform, they style themselves a convention ; and this, gen- tlemen, is extremely material for you to attend to : they style them- selves, '" The British Convention of the Delegates of the People,^ associated to obtain Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments." Then I ask what is a convention of the people according to these societies ? According to the proceedings in Scotland, a convention of the people is a convention of the delegates from these societies in England and Scotland. They assert that the people have in them all civil and political authority ; and they repeatedly, again and again, from the moment Digitized by Microsoft® 106 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAX'S SPEECH ON that this convention was formed in Scotland to the moment of its dispersion, more especially at the time of its dispersion, more especially still from the time of its dispersion till the time of a meeting on the 20th of January, at the Globe Tavern ; and on the 27th of March, when another convention was proposed, as I stated at the outset, they repeatedly and in the most pressing terms state that now or never was the time when the people were to meet, when they were to act by their own force, when they were courageously to prepare themselves for the event, and to show those whom they called their oppressors and plunderers that they were a brave people, in whom valour was not extinct. Having thus met together, upon the principles of the French system, which took place upon the 10th of August 1792, they pro- ceed directly to the French practices, which took place then in the National Assembly of France, — took place then, because the people of France were understood to be represented by a convention. These delegates, taking upon themselves also to be a convention of the people, they instituted primary societies, they divided the country into departments, they appointed provincial assemblies, they have committees of union, they thank for patriotic donations, they assume an epocJi, they appoint a secret committee to be called to- gether upon extraordinary emergencies ; and upon the 28th of November 1793 they come to a resolution to which I must beg your most serious attention. Gentlemen of the jury, you will remember that they went with authorities, which stated to them that it was the duty of the people — which people they had taken upon themselves to represent — to resist any Act of Parliament that should be made for a particular pur- pose. It is hardly, I think, to be contended that the great bulk of the people of this country, happy in their political existence, as undoubtedly they are remaining happy in their political exist- ence, because they do not feel grievances (till they are taught by malignant industry to believe that they exist), I mean, to such a degree as to call for measures of this sort, could believe that the legislature of the country, doing justice to the subjects whom it is bound to protect, would permit a proceeding of this kind to go OH ; yet, gentlemen, confiding so much as these persons did in the supposed state of their number in that country, and of those who were to be connected with them in this, you will find that, upon the 28th of November 1793, one of the persons belonging to that convention. Citizen Sinclair, I think, the members all standing up upon their feet for the greater solemnity of the thing, proposes this resolution : " Kesolved, that the following declarations and resolu- tions be inserted at the end of our minutes : — ' That this conven- tion ' " — now, if it be possible to say that any convention means to act as a convention of the people, it is that which sets itself above the legislature in the act it is doing — " ' that this convention, con- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 107 sidering the calamitous consequences of any Act of the legislature which may tend to deprive the whole or any part of the people of their undoubted right to meet, either by themselves or by delegation, to discuss any matter relative to their common interest, whether of a public or private nature, and holding the same to be totally inconsistent with the first principles and safety of society, and also subversive of our known and acknowledged constitutional liberties.' " Gentlemen, permit me to call your attention to this — that this declaration, in its principles, follows the instructions that they had received, that, if any attempt was made to bring in a Convention Bill, they were then to do so and so. They then proceed thus — " ' Do declare before G-od and the world, that we shall follow the wholesome example of former times, by paying no regard to any Act which shall militate against the constitution of our country.' " That is saying that the will of the legislature is not a better judge of what is an Act against the constitution of the country than the affiliated clubs at Edinburgh ; — " ' and shall continue to assemble and consider of the best means by which we can accomplish a real representation of the people,'" — is that a Parliament? — "'and annual election until'" — what? — '" until compelled to desist by superior force. "'And we do resolve that the first notice given'" — The first notice — Parliament is not even to discuss the thing : but, if an in- timation of it is made in Parliament — " ' that the first notice given for the introduction of a Convention Bill, or any bill of a similar tendency to that passed in Ireland in the last session of their Parliament, or any bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, or the Act for preventing wrongous imprisonment, and against undue delays in trials in North Britain, or in case of an invasion.' " Gentlemen, I call back to your recollection the letter of Skirving — I call back to your recollection not only the letter of Skirving, but that the troops of liberty were promised to be sent with bayo- nets and pikes from that country, which at this moment was likely to invade us — " ' or the admission of any foreign troops whatsoever into Great Britain or Ireland.' " If the Parliament of this country, for the purpose of protecting itself against that foreign invasion, had brought these foreign troops into Great Britain or Ireland, not being the troops of a nation with which we were at war, this con- vention of the people was to act upon the introduction of such foreign troops in the same manner as they would act in case of an invasion by those who were at war with us. What is the construc- tion that follows upon that ? That, even if foreign troops, to^meet the exigence of an invasion, were introduced — What then ?— " ' all or any one of these calamitous circumstances' " — Why calamitous? they might be necessary for the very existence of the country— " ' shall be a signal to the several delegates to repair to such place as Digitized by Microsoft® 108 THE ATTORNEY- general's SPEECH ON the secret committee of this convention shall appoint, and the first seven members shall have power ' " — to do what ? — to do that exactly which a national convention in France would do — " ' to declare the sittings permanent.' " Why ? Because the duly-con- stituted legislature of the country had dared not to do an act, but to entertain a deliberation upon doing an act. The first notice was to call together this convention, and, being called together, their sittings were to he permanent. Grentlemen, are the parties to this convention in Scotland such men as would think of bringing themselves together to declare their sittings permanent upon such a ground as they state here, namely, the legislature of a great country acting in the execution of the great duties which belong to the legislature of that country, with- out supposing, by that solemn declaration, that they could make their meeting effectual by the acts which were to be carried on for the purpose of preventing that legislature from deliberating upon such duties ? By what acts could it be done but by exertions, as they style them, in the manner of their forefathers — by force ? By affiliated societies exerting their physical strength, that physical exertion which Mr Barlow observes is to be preceded or precluded by spreading useful knowledge, and that useful knowledge being that which is to beat down the existing authority of King, Lords, and Commons. " ' The convention therefore resolve that each delegate, immedi- ately on his return home, do convene his constituents, and explain to them the necessity of electing a delegate or delegates, and of estab- lishing a fund without delay against any of these emergencies, for his or their expense, and that they do instruct the said delegate or delegates to hold themselves ready.' " Gentlemen, you see what they expected from the legislature ; they knew that what they were doing ought to provoke the legisla- ture to do what they meant to forbid the legislature to do ; and they instruct their delegate or delegates to hold themselves ready " ' to depart at one hour's warning.' " Well might Mr Skirving say that a month's delay, and the whole was lost. Well might Mr Hardy say, what he says in letters I shall produce presently, that if the opportunity is lost now, it is lost for ever — we must act now, or we never can. Having some reason to suppose that this conven- tion would be dispersed, they then with great solemnity come to another resolution : — " That the moment of any illegal dispersion of the British con- vention shall be considered as a summons to the delegates to repair to the place of meeting appointed for the convention of emergency by the secret committee, and that the secret committee be instructed without delay to proceed to fix the place of meeting." Gentlemen, after these resolutions it became necessary to do a little more, that is, to declare upon what principles this convention existed. Now, Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 109 mark the principles, and do your country justice. Apply so much of the observations that I have made to you as are worthy your attention, to what I have before stated as the necessary con- nexion between the principle and practice of Mr Paine, and of these societies. Gentlemen, these principles brought together the French Con- vention. What is the practice, then, that flows out of the prin- ciple ? Why, it is the assembling of a convention upon principles obliging it to sit for the purpose of declaring that the legislature shall do nothing but what they liked : that is to all intents and purposes a national convention ; if not a convention for an eternal reform, at least a convention that prohibits the legislature to do anything but what is agreeable to them. Then, having met for the execution of the practice, they proceed immediately to the de- claration of the principle, but they do not proceed to a declaration of the principle till they have done that strong and solemn act which I have stated. Then they resolve " That a committee be appointed to draw up a declaration." This is France exactly. It is the Southwark society in 1792 — " a declaration of the natural imprescriptible rights of man, and that the same be prefixed to an address to the people of Great Britain. That a committee of observation " — that is, for the better effectuating the purpose that they had before declared — " be appointed in London to give the earliest intimation of any motion of the kind mentioned in the fore- going resolutions to the different societies." You will then find that they met in a place which they call Convention Hall, under the name of the British Convention, and then they are informed that the London Corresponding Society would undertake to be that committee of observation which they say ought to exist. And then you will find that the members men- tioned that they had thousands of their constituents in London, Sheffield, Norwich, Leeds, &c., and that the convention was to look at itself as in its true nature a committee of the people, — that there- fore it was necessary to have, as they have in France, primary societies, who shall be consulted,— in other words, that this com- mittee of the people at Edinburgh, which was to overrule the legis- lature, was itself to be overruled by these primary societies, these primary societies themselves being overruled by the leadersof the great clubs, from which they emanated, and so forming in this country a government under the power of a Jacobin club, and that government destroying the present existing legislature of the kingdom. You will also find that, before these persons parted, Mr Margaret communicated to his constituents the proceedings of this body, which he styles always the Convention of the People, associated to obtain annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. There are letters which I shall lay before you, without detailing Digitized by Microsoft® 110 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON them, stating that they looked up to the London Corresponding Society, and the Society for Constitutional Information — that their active exertions were necessary for the accomplishing the projects which they sitting in Edinburgh were to execute ; and then the two delegates of the London Corresponding Society write to Mr Hardy, as the secretary of that society, an account of their proceedings — they give him an account of that solemn motion, and of the manner of making it, which I have just been detailing to you. They state to him that they had determined to assemble in convention in any such case — that the appointment of the place — which is a circumstance I beg your most serious attention to — was left, to a secret committee ; but then they send to him an account of the motion, informing him in the letter that " letters convey but very imperfectly, and with no great degree of safety, what we might wish to inform each other of." Now, what do you think it is that they do not inform him of in this letter ? They do not inform him in this letter, because letters will not convey everything safely, that the convention was to meet in case of invasion ; that was a secret which durst not be trusted to correspondence by letter ; and because it existed in that motion which was made, every other part of it being communicated even in a letter, they consider it of such a nature that they determine not to insert it even in their own minutes. This secret committee having been appointed in the Scotch convention, the fact being communicated to the London Cor- responding Society by their delegates, you will likewise find that Mr Sinclair, the delegate from the Constitutional Society to the society at Edinburgh, was not behindhand in the communication of it : he communicates the proceedings, and desires that a secret committee may be appointed in that society. It was not long after this that the wisely-exerted power of the magistracy of that country dispersed that convention. The dispersion of that conven- tion, which, from what I have before stated to you, was conceived to be a body that must then do its work, or its work never would be done, suggested to the societies of this country the necessity of undertaking the same business, of undertaking it at the same hazard, knowing that the project must either then be accomplished, or that it never could thereafter be attempted — for that no govern- ment could permit such a convention as this to meet, when its nature was really understood, without taking some means to protect itself against the consequences of the existence of such a convention. Gentlemen, you will therefore find that, after they had been dispersed, and after, in consequence of that dispersion, some of them had been punished in Scotland, by sentences which were pronounced upon offences, not stated in the records of that court in so aggravated a way against them as they might, in my humble Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. Ill opinion, have been stated, that it then became necessary that some step should be taken immediately to prevent the mischief which was meditated ; for you will find in the evidence proposi- tions in these societies about a rescue, which failed ; but you will find in their correspondence from Scotland, and their correspond- ence from those ships in which the members of the Scotch con- vention were, before they sailed in execution of their sentences, not only the strongest invitations to do some strong acts in this country, to both societies, but, on the other hand, the strongest and most unequivocal declaration, by both societies, that these strong acts must be done. Grentlemen, you will find that before they left Scotland, upon the 11th of December 1793, there is a letter from Mr Margaret to Mr Hardy to this effect — " We received your letter and re- mittance yesterday, and shall be glad to receive another such without delay. " The convention, you will see, has declared itself permanent ; they are to sit in some other part of the country, which is not yet declared." Gentlemen, Mr Sinclair, the delegate of the Constitutional Society, came to London. I have before observed to you, from a letter of G-erald and Margaret, that there were some things that could not safely be conveyed by letter. Margarot writes a letter from Edinburgh to the prisoner, in which he says — " My col- league G-erald also proposes to leave this place the latter end of this, or the beginning of the next week : he will explain himself to you : pray send him money for this journey, &c. He_ is now gone to Perth on very urgent business. Since Sinclair's departure nothing new has occurred, except the formation of a society somewhere about the Grampian Hills" — this shows the spirit of fraternisation ; — " they have already made a subscription towards it : again we are interrupted, and likely to lose the post, unless I despatch this immediately." Upon the 22d of December 1793, another letter is written to Mr Hardy by the same gentleman, which probably led, in some degree, to the transactions that I have to state, as having passed in January 1794 ; for, after stating what had happened to himself in Scotland, he says — " Sheffield has on this occasion exhibited a most manly spirit." The Sheffield society had at that time sent out some excessively strong resolutions, which I shall give you in evidence in the course of this business. " I am extremely mortified to find so great a difference between them and the London Corre- sponding Society ; it is not, however, too late. For God's sake, send forth some very strong resolutions ; and above all, talk of im- peachments, and of petitioning the King to remove from their offices those persons who have thus violated the laws of the realm." Digitized by Microsoft® 112 THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH OK You will find from a letter of the 24th of December that Mar- garet, a delegate from the London society, a delegate of Norwich, and a Mr Brown, who was the delegate from Sheffield, had gone to attend a general meeting of the Society of the Friends of Freedom, in East Lothian, and then the expression is — " The time is come that we must show ourselves worthy of liberty, or deservedly lose it. The opposition of our adversaries is demonstration of the propriety and efficacy of the means which we have employed to obtain it." Upon the 27th of December 1793, you will find Mr Margarot states that Mr Gerald was gone to Perth ; that he himself had been in East Lothian ; that they had been well employed ; that they must send out spirited resolutions ; and you will find that, upon the 11th of January 1794, Mr Hardy writes a letter to Norwich relative to the proceedings I have now been stating, the Constitu- tional Society first, and the London Corresponding Society after- wards, having in their public acts approved everything that this convention had done. Mr Hardy's letter runs thus : — " I have just received a letter from Citizen Margarot, at Edin- burgh, with some of the Edinburgh Gazetteers, where you will see that Citizen Skirving is found guilty, and sentenced for fourteen years' transportation to Botany Bay. Margaret's trial comes next ; he meets it with great firmness and resolution. I have no time to make my comments on the proceedings, but I think our opponents are cutting their own throats as fast as they can. Now is the time for us to do something worthy of men; the brave defenders of liberty, south of the English Channel, are performing wonders, driving their enemies before them like chaff before the whirlwind. Margarot tells me that he has not time to write to you just now, but he hopes to have time very soon, when his trial is over, and immured in a prison. The London Corresponding Society is to have a general meeting and an anniversary dinner on Monday the 20th instant, at the Globe Tavern, Strand." Gentlemen, you will find that Mr Margarot, this delegate, with whom Mr Hardy is thus in correspondence, writes to the Norwich United Societies : " This morning ten ships of war have left Spit- head for the Channel ; and it is here reported that the Brest fleet is out. Kumour, always magnifying things, says there are seventy sail of the French at sea ; if so, there must be a number of trans- ports among them, and a descent may probably be the consequence. For God's sake, my loorthy friends, do not relax in the cause of freedom'.' — Now, what connexion had a descent with the cause of freedom ? — " Continue as you have begun ; consolidate your own societies — unite with others — persevere, and make no doubt but, sooner or later, your endeavours will be crowned with success." Gentlemen, I come now to state to you the proceedings of the year 1794, as far as they depend upon written evidence ; and it Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 113 must be a satisfaction to the miud of every man who hears me, that, in the course of this business, whatever observations may- arise upon the parole evidence that will be given you, I think you will find so strong a confirmation of all you are to hear in the written evidence that is to be laid before you, that these observa- tions cannot possibly mislead you from coming to the true conclu- sion upon the whole of the evidence, whatever that may be. . Gentlemen, the Constitutional Society having sent their dele- gate to the Scotch convention, you will find that, at a meeting of the 17th of January 1794, the following resolutions were come to, to which I must desire your particular attention, more especially as there are some circumstances belonging to the composition of those resolutions which appear to me to be worthy of attention. I have before told you that these resolutions were usually drawn from minutes — the original minutes still exist, and perhaps they show that discretion, with which men are sometimes able to state, in different ways, precisely the same thing : I say, that these resolu- tions of the 17th of January 1794, were meant to excite the subjects of this country to resistance : — " Resolved, That law ceases to be an object of obedience when- ever it becomes an instrument of oppression. " Eesolved, That we recall to mind, with the deepest satisfaction, the merited fate of the infamous Jefi'eries, once Lord Chief- Justice of England, who, at the era of the glorious revolution, for the many iniquitous sentences which he had passed, was torn to pieces by a brave and injured people." This is applied to the judges of Scotland, who executed the law upon such facts as I have been stating. " That those who imitate his example deserved his fate." This sort of imitation might have a tendency — I hope it had not — to put in any peril those who did, in the regular course, and in the due course of their judicial duties, pass those sentences to which these resolutions allude. " That the Tweed, though it may divide countries, ought not, and does not, make a separation between those principles of com- mon severity in which Englishmen and Scotchmen are equally interested; that injustice in Scotland is injustice in England; and that the safety of Englishmen is endangered whenever their brethren in Scotland, for a conduct which entitles them to the approbation of all wise, and the support of all hrave men, are sen- tenced to Botany Bay, a punishment hitherto inflicted only on felons. " That we see with regret, but we see without fear, that the period is fast approaching when the liberties of Britons " — ^this was in January — " must depend, not upon reason, to which they have long appealed, nor on their powers of expressing it, but on their firm and undaunted resolution to oppose tyranny by the same means by which it is exercised," Now what is the tyranny ? The VOL. II. H Digitized by Microsoft® 114 THE ATTOENET-GBNEEAL'S SPEECH ON exercise of the regular government of the country. What is the means by which it is exercised ? The application of the force of the country in support of the Government of the country. What is this resolution then ? Why, that the means which the Govern- ment takes, in the regular exercise of its functions, ought now to be resisted — " We see it with regret, but do not see it with any fear." That a breach of allegiance was contemplated you can have no doubt, for you will see in the original of this that it stood thus : that, " as allegiance and protection are reciprocal, law ceases to be an object of obedience whenever it becomes an instrument of oppression." Couple that, as it stood originally, with the third resolution, and what is it ? Why, it is — That the protection, which was due from him to whom allegiance is due, has not been afforded : therefore allegiance is no longer due. " We see with regret, but we see without fear, that the period is fast approaching when the liberties of Britons must depend, not upon reason, to which they have long appealed, nor on their powers of expressing it, but on their firm and undaunted resolution to oppose tyranny by the same means by which it is exercised." You will also find that it stood, " That Englishmen feel the oppression of Scotchmen, which they are determined to resist at the hazard of their lives." You will find the last resolution in the minutes, comparing the genuine representatives of this country in the House of Commons, with this convention in Scotland, which convention in Scotland had taken upon itself to resolve upon resistance to even a motion, in either House of Parliament of this country, in the execution of their duty, thus : — "That we approve of the conduct of the British convention, who, though assailed by force, have not been answered by argu- ments, and who, unlike the members of a certain assembly, have no interest distinct from the common body of the people." The words originally stood — who " being the incorrupt representatives of many thousands, have spoken the language of truth and firm- ness." Can I make this Court the instrument of conveying to the public, what I confess I do most anxiously wish to make it the instrument of conveying to the public, as far as it is fit, in the execution of the duty that I am now discharging, that they may understand what it is that men, when they are scattering these libels through the country, mean ? " This convention, assailed by force, have not been answered by arguments." How was it pos- sible to answer those by arguments, who were coming to solemn and sacred resolutions which they did not even dare to put upon the face of their own minutes ? How were we to answer those by argument, who were working underground till they had blown up the Government, and then say, You cannot point out that we have been acting ill, because we won't tell you how we have been acting ? Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 115 Upon the IGtli, Mr Margarot writes again, leaving them to pur- sue what sort of conduct they please. Then there is a letter of some importance of the 28th of January, which is written to the person who stands at the bar : — " We have just received notice from the Sheriff to hdd ourselves ready to de- part at an hour's warning : we go by night, w& imagine to Newgate : look out for us." G-entlemen, you will likewise find a letter from Mr Margarot to Mr Hardy of great consequence, as it explains many of the passages in the evidence between the 20th of January 1794, and the time that those persons were apprehended. Margarot writes from Edin- burgh in this manner : — " Armed associations are,. I perceive, now set on foot by the rich ; wherefore should not the poor do the same ? Are you to wait patiently till twenty thousand Hessians and Hano- verians come to cut your throats ? And will you stretch forth your necks like lambs to the butcher's knife, and like lambs, content yourselves with bleating ? Pray let me hear from you soon, Eemember me to Moffatt, Muir, and Palmer, and all suffering brethren." Gentlemen, upon the 20th of January 1794, there was a meeting at the Grlobe Tavern ; that meeting which, you will permit me to observe, Hardy mentioned in his letter of the 11th of January 1794, which I before have spoken of, when he said the London Corresponding Society were to have a general meeting and an anniversary dinner. Gentlemen, the proceedings of that day will deserve your very particular attention. " At a general meeting of the London Corresponding Society, held at the Globe Tavern, Strand, on Monday,, the 20th day of January 1794, citizen John Martin in the chair," — when I state this to you, I ought to say that I shall prove the prisoner to have been present, or to have been connected with all the transactions that I have been stating, — " the following address to the people of Great Britain and Ireland was read and agreed to : — " ' Citizens, we find the nation involved in a war, by which, in the course of one campaign, immense numbers of our countrymen have been slaughtered ; a vast expense has been incurred ; our trade, commerce, and manufactories are almost destroyed ; and many of our manufacturers and artists are ruined, and their families starving. " ' To add to our affliction, we have reason to expect that other taxes will soon be added to the intolerable load of imposts and impositions with which we are already overwhelmed, for the pur- pose of defraying the expenses which have been incurred in a fruit- less crusade to re-estabhsh the odious despotism of France. " ' When we contemplate the principles of this war, we confess ourselves to be unable to approve of it as a measure either of justice or discretion : and if we are to form our calculation of the resullj Digitized by Microsoft® 116 THE ATTOKNEY-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON from what has already passed, we can only look forward to defeat, and the eternal disgrace of the British name. " ' While we are thus engaged in an extensive and ruinous foreign war, our state at home is not less deplorable. " ' We are every day told by those persons who are interested in supporting the corruption list, and an innumerable host of sinecure placemen, that the constitution of England is the perfection of human wisdom ; that our laws (we should rather say their laws) are the perfection of justice ; and that their administration of those laws is so impartial and so ready, as to afford an equal remedy both to the rich and to the poor, by means of which we are said to be placed in a state of absolute freedom.' " The paper then goes on, and reasons upon the state of the law in this country, under an exposition of Magna Charta, which gives as nearly the true meaning of it as a man would give who had never seen it. " ' If we look to Ireland, we find that acknowledged privilege of the people to meet for the support and protection of their rights and liberties, is attempted, by terror, to be taken away, by a late infamous Act of Parliament.' " That was an Act to prevent conven- tion by delegates with dangerous objects. " ' Whilst titles of honour —no — but of dishonour, are lavished, and new sources of corrup- tion opened, to gratify the greedy prostitution of those who are the instruments of this oppression. " ' In Scotland, the wicked hand of power has been impudently exerted without even the wretched formality of an Act of Parlia- ment.' " A piece of parchment Justice they call an act in the con- vention of Scotland. " ' Magistrates have forcibly intruded into the peaceful and lawful meetings of freemen, and by force (not only without law, but against law) have, under colour of magis- terial ofiice, interrupted their deliberations, and prevented their association, " ' The wisdom and good conduct of the British convention in Edinburgh has been such as to defy their bitterest enemies to name the law which they have broken ; notwithstanding which their papers have been seized and made use of as evidence against them, and many virtuous and meritorious individuals have been as cruelly, as unjustly, for their virtuous actions, disgraced and destroyed by infamous and illegal sentences of transportation ; and these unjust and wicked judgments have been executed with a rancour and malignity never before known in this land ; our respectable and beloved fellow -citizens have been cast fettered into dungeons, amongst felons in the hulks, to which they were not sentenced. " ' Citizens, we all approve the sentiments, and are daily repeat- ing the words, for which these our respectable and valuable brethren are thus unjustlyand inhumanlysuffering. We do associate'" — mark the expression — " ' in order to obtain a fair, free, and full repre- sentation of the people in a house of real national representatives.' " Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 1 17 Now, did the convention at Edinburgh then associate for the pur- pose to obtain a fair, free, and full representation of the people in a house of real national representatives ? If they did, they associated to form that house of real representatives upon this principle : that they were, as MrSkirving calls them, the people in Scotland ; that they were to affiliate, and to associate themselves with societies in England ; and that, in that state of affiliation and association, hold- ing a convention, as they call it, of the people, from delegates of these societies, and not from the people — to do what ? — why, to meet as an assembly, which assembly was to control the operations of Parliament, of that Parliament which must be the representa- tives of the commons of the nation ; an expression which, by the way, they never used, adopting, generally, terms of a different im- port, " real national representatives."^ " ' Are we also willing to be treated as felons for claiming this our inherent right, which we are determined never to forego but with our lives, and which none but thieves and traitors ' " — that is, persons acting in the regular execution of the functions of magis- tracy — " ' can wish to withhold from us ? Consider, it is one and the same corrupt and corrupting influence which at this time domi- neers in Ireland, Scotland, and England. Can you believe that those who send virtuous Irishmen and Scotchmen fettered with felons to Botany Bay, do not meditate, and will not attempt to seize the first moment to send us after them ? Or, if we had not Just cause to apprehend the same inhuman treatment, if, instead of the most imminent danger, we were in perfect safety from it, should we not disdain to enjoy any liberty or privilege whatever in which our honest Irish and Scotch brethren did not equally and fully partici- pate with us ? Their cause, then, and ours is the same, and it is both our duty and our interest to stand or fall together.' " Gentlemen, recollect the expressions that I read to you from Skirving's letter : " Will you wait till barracks are erected in every village, and till subsidised Hessians and Hanoverians are upon us ? " You will now see from the proceedings I am stating to you that the time was come that they were not only virtuous but courageous enough to do an act which, in 1792 and 1793, though they were virtuous enough to do, they were not courageous enough to do. " ' You may ask, perhaps, by what means shall we seek redress ? We answer, that men in a state of civilised society are bound to seek redress of the grievances from the laws, as long as any redress can be obtained by the laws ; but our common Master, whom we serve (whose law is a law of liberty, and whose service is perfect freedom), has taught us not to expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles : tve must have redress from our own laivs.' " Were they to be a convention of the people, then, without making laws ? They approve the whole conduct of the British Convention, Digitized by Microsoft® 118 THE ATTORNEy-GENEEAL'S SPEECH ON that would not let others make laws; and yet were they not to make laws ? " ' We must have redress from our own latos,' " and not from other laws. The laws of Great Britain are thus described : " ' The laivs of our plunderers, enemies, and oppressors.' " Indeed, if the legislature of their country were their plunderers, enemies, and oppressors, in their notions, it would be very difficult to suppose that they were to have redress from the laws of that legislature ; but then it follows, of course, that they meant to have redress from laws made by some other body that had authority to make laws ; and what that other body is, but the convention which they deter- mine upon, must be left for those to say who can find it out. They go on then to say : — " ' There is no redress for a nation circumstanced as we are, but in a fair, free, and full representation of the people.^ " Now, here again I ask, what is that fair, full, and free representation of the people, not mentioned to be in Pariiament ? — ^but if it was, it would be precisely the same phrase as occurred at the time of the Com- monwealth. But they take upon them to approve of the British Convention, and to unite the two nations of England and Scotland, to be a British convention formed by delegates from the different societies in this country, and professing to act as a convention of the people ; I say, that it is that species of convention which, in their opinion, was & fair, free, and full representation of the people, in which, and which alone, they hoped for that redress which they could not hope for from the Parliament of Great Britain, those who were their plunderers, their enemies, and oppressors ? Could it be possible for them to suppose that they could make Parliament the willing or unwilling organ of bringing about this representation of the people, to subsist by annual suffrage and universal representa- tion ? Could it have entered into their imagination that those whom they call their plunderers, enemies, and oppressors, would ever become the voluntary or involuntary instrument of doing that which was the object of all these societies, from March 1791 till they were checked in the execution of their purposes ? Then follows a resolution that will require likewise your very par- ticular attention : — " ' Kesolved, That during the ensuing session of Parliament, the general committee of this society do meet daily, for the purpose of watching the proceedings of the Parliament and of the administration of the government of this country.' " This was to he published ; they do not, therefore, venture to insert totidem verbis that resolution which I have stated to you was so solemnly made, and so sacredly sworn to in the Scotch convention ; but they resolve, " ' That upon the first introduction of any bill or motion inimical to the liberties of the people, such as for landing foreign troops in G-reat Britain or Ireland, for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, for proclaiming martial law, or for preventing the Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 119 people from meeting in societies for constitutional information.' " What the meaning of the term constitutional is, we can judge by this time ; that upon any express motion of this nature, " ' or any other innovation of a similar nature; that on any of these emer- gencies the general committee shall issue summonses to the dele- gates of each division, and also to the secretaries of the different societies affiliated and corresponding with this society, forthwith to call a general convention of the people, to be held at such place and in such a manner as shall be specified in the summons, for the pur- pose of taking such measures into their consideration.' " They omit the case of invasion in this publication. But what is this, suppos- ing nothing had passed in Scotland of what I have stated to you ? What ! Is the legislature, is the rule and government in this great country, reduced to this state, that it shall find no protection in the administration of the law of the country against persons associating and affiliating themselves for the purposes which they declare here ? Is no motion to be made in Parliament for any purpose which these societies choose to comprehend under the terms " any other inno- vation," without explaining what it means ? — but what ? — but that bodies of men are to come together, claiming to themselves the civil and political authority which exists in the natural and physical qualities of the people, and then to contend that they have got a convention of the people ! Now, do they convene the people ? In fact, it will be said, nothing like it. But they call themselves a convention of the people in the very terms that they use. The summonses are to go to the delegates of each meeting, and also the secretaries of the different Societies corresponding with this societ}', and nowhere else. For what purpose ? To call a general convention of the people ! Then, what is the meaning of all that, taking it with its context ? It is this : from your laws — the laws of you, our plunderers, enemies, and op- pressors — we can expect no relief We do not mean to come to you for any ; but we will watch you, and if you dare to propose an inno- vation of any sort, we shall call & fair, free, and full representation of the people. Composed, pray how ? By delegates from our socie- ties, to seek, as a general convention of the people, redress from our own laws. It appears to me that the reasoning upon this paper is so whole and entire, that it is out of the power of human ingenuity to touch it. Then they resolve, " That a hundred thousand copies of the ' Address to the People of Great Britain and Ireland ' shall be printed." Then they follow this up with the publication of a great many toasts ; and really when one mentions such a thing as toasts in the trial of a great national cause, such as this undoubtedly is, one is afraid of its sinking into insignificance ; and yet this is a great feature in this cause. You will find that, previously to one of the most seditious meetings which was ever held in this country, Digitized by Microsoft® 120 THE attokney-general's speech on it was thought of importance enough that they should meet once, twice, or thrice in committees, in order to frame toasts which were best calculated to inflame their minds, and to urge those forward who were already engaged in these projects : " The rights of man ; " " The British Convention ; " " Success to the arms of free- dom, against whomsoever directed." This is during the war : against whom were the arms of freedom directed in the opinion of these persons ? You remember they said, that " the Elector of Hanover may join his troops to traitors and robbers ; but the King of G-reat Britain will do well to remember that this country is not Hanover ; should he forget the distinction, we will not." They corresponded with the French in October ; and, in November 1792, they state to you that the principles of their resolutions are those upon which they meant to act ; that Great Britain was now engaged in a war which they condemned, in which the arms of freedom, as they said, had never been engaged on the part of Great Britain. Then the meaning of the toast is obvious. Another toast was, " The virtuous and spirited citizens now in confinement for mat- ters of opinion." Now, these matters of opinion are acts all done in the long tissue and detail of a conspiracy to subvert the monarchi- cal government of this country, under its present legal provisions and limitations. The name of Mr Frost being mentioned — I mean him no disre- spect in saying this — but it is to the purpose .of this business to take notice of it. That gentleman was prosecuted in this country for this doctrine : " No King, none in England ; I am for liberty and equality everywhere." What was the consequence of that ? The judgment of the law of England upon him was, that he was guilty of an offence. He was punished. He has suffered that punishment, and made an atonement to the law. But these gentlemen, who sent Mr Frost with Mr Barlow to state such doctrine to France, and bring such doctrine back from France, you find that they have a formal resolution that they will sustain this Mr Frost in all his persecutions and prosecutions. Does that mean nothing ? If Mr Frost is persecuted for holding doctrines in the country which were to put the King out of the system, is it no evidence of intention with respect to those who engaged in such projects as I have men- tioned, that they do come to a resolution in which they declare that the law questioning the propriety of declarations of that kind amounts to a persecution, and that he ought to be sustained against it ? Gentlemen, you will hear from witnesses who were present what the proceedings on the 20th of January, and the general complexion and nature of them were. Mr Martin being in the chair, and Mr Hardy being present, who was a member of both these societies, an attending member in both of them, I will give you Martin's account of the proceedings on the 22d of January 1794, in a letter in his Digitized by Microsoft® THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 121 own handwriting, sent to Maurice Margaret, at Edinburgh, who had advised, you will recollect, the London Corresponding Society to come to some strong resolutions ; who had urged that now is the time, that two montJis in Scotland loould do the business, provided they did their duty in England. " My dear Sir, — I dare say you think I have forgot you from my not having written to you, but you know my sentiments so well that it was unnecessary for me, and would probably have been im- proper, to say much on the subject of your mission." Then he states something about private business. " We had a meeting on Monday ; I was in the chair. The news- paper gives our numbers at 500 ; but we were nearer 1500. Every- thing was well conducted, that is to say, regularly, and the proceed- ings were tolerably bold. Mr Hardy, I dare say, has sent you a copy of the address and resolution. " Your conduct receives universal approbation ; and though I at one time dreaded the want of money, yet that is now over. Those who opposed the subscription at first are now putting their hands to the very bottom of their pockets, and swear by God you shall be supported with the last guinea. We must have another general meeting in a chapel, or some large place, and declare the purpose of a subscription, and I think we shall get plenty of the needful for that and other purposes. Have you read my letter to Lord ? Do you incline to try the writ of error ? What do the Scotch lawyers think of it ? and what do you think of the legal know- ledge' of my countrymen ? I firmly believe that the law is the only science of which they know nothing. " The King went yesterday to meet his Parliament ;" — so now we have got no Parliament of ours, the people of this country — " they sat till six o'clock this morning. The papers are not out ; but I am told only twelve members were for peace. I am glad the Minister has so great a majority within doors for the war, and that the people have a greater majority without doors against the war. The swinish rogues had the impudence to write, ' No war,' on all the doors and corners of the Houses of Lords and Commons, and they had even the audacity to groan and hiss while his Most Sacred Majesty was passing to and from the House. Nay, I am told, a woman, moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, and trai- torously intending, &c., did, in St James's Park, take off her patten, and threw it with all her force at his Majesty, whereby the glass of the state-coach was broken, and his Majesty put in fear. God save the King, for if, &c., as Gerald says " — there he leaves it. " The society is increasing rapidly, both in spirit and in numbers, and the rich now begin to come among us, and to sit down with pleasure among the honest men with the leathern aprons. " I could write to you strange things, but I know not but this may be read by somebody before it comes to your hands." Digitized by Microsoft® 122 THE attoenby-general's speech on Gentlemen, after this had passed, you will find that that letter was written by the Corresponding Society to the Society for Con- stitutional Information which I first mentioned to you, upon the 27th of March 1794 ; and now, with your leave, I will read a part of it to you again. " I am directed by the London Corresponding Society to trans- mit the following resolutions to the Society for Constitutional Information." I should tell you first, in the order of time, that the Society for Constitutional Information distinctly adopt that paper of the London Corresponding Society of the 20th of January 1794 as their own, and order it to be entered upon their books ; they approve of the manly sentiments of it, and they fully take it to themselves, to all intents and purposes, as if it had been a conjunct meeting of them both. Then the London Corresponding Society having held this language respecting the convention, and upon the 24th of January the Constitutional Society having adopted the project of a convention, stated in the address of the London Corresponding Society of the 20th, and the nature of that convention being a con- vention from the affiliated societies, to take upon themselves the character of a convention of the people, it would be surprising in- deed, if the convention which they speak of on the 27th of March should be a convention of a different nature from that which they had both agreed to on the 20th and 24th of January ; and with that observation I come again to this letter of the 27th of March. " I am directed by the London Corresponding Society to trans- mit the following resolutions to the Society for Constitutional Information, and to request the sentiments of that society respecting the important measures which the present juncture of affairs seems to require. The London Corresponding Society conceives that the moment is arrived" — throughout the years 1791, 1792, and 1793, they thought it was not arrived — " when a full and explicit declara- tion is necessary from all the friends of freedom — whether the late illegal and unheard-of prosecutions and sentences shall determine us to abandon our cause, or shall excite us to pursue a radical reform with an ardour proportioned to the magnitude of the object, and with a zeal as distinguished on our parts as the treachery of others in the same glorious cause is notorious ? The Society for Constitutional Information is, therefore, required to determine whether or no they will be ready when called upon to act in con- junction with this and other societies, to obtain a fair representa- tion of the people ; whether they concur with us in seeing the necessity of a speedy convention, for the purpose of obtaining, in a constitutional and legal method, a redress of those grievances under which we at present labour." Now, in the first place, with respect to the words " constitutional and legal method," these persons have not much to claim upon the score of the effect and force of the words " constitutional and legal Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY, 123 metliod," which appear through all their transactions of the years 1792 and 1793, and more particularly through the transactions of 1793, as they apply to the British convention in Scotland, to be thought consistent with the existence of a convention of such a character as that had ; and if it was their purpose to have a con- vention of the people by summonses to affiliated societies, that convention to take upon itself the power of the people, it is in vain that they talk of legal and constitutional methods ; it is in vain, if the thing they mean to do, and the manner of doing it, is not legal or constitutional. Upon this letter, I apprehend, after what has passed, there can be no doubt what is meant by a convention. But it is not left there ; for in the third resolution they state, that " there ought to be immediately a convention of the people by dele- gates" — mark the words — " deputed for that purpose from the different societies of the Friends of Freedom assembled in the various parts of this nation." Then here is a convention of the same character, of the same name, and the same constitution, as that mentioned in the resolu- tion of the 20th of January 1794. Now, to whom is this proposed ? It is proposed to that Constitutional Society which had adopted the address of the 20th of January 1794, and which had also said, by approving that address, that they were of opinion that redress was not to be obtained by the laws of England, but that they were to have redress against their oppressors, plunderers, and enemies, by their own laws — by that sort of representation- of the people which is formed by a convention of the people summoned from those associated societies. Then what follows upon it ? Though the thing is couched in phrases that are a little ambiguous, yet no human being, judging honestly, can doubt the meaning of it. It is that there shall be this convention, to act as a convention of the people, with the power of the people, having all civil and political authority. The prisoner is sufficiently involved already if such a convention never had been thought of ; but then the two societies form a committee of correspondence and co-operation for the pur- pose of bringing together that convention, which they had said was the only mean by which Britons could enjoy their liberties or pro- tect themselves against the legitimate government of the country, including in it their plunderers, enemies, and oppressors. Gentlemen, when I lay this evidence before you, if I stopped here I should be glad to learn why this is not a step taken for the execution of such a purpose as I have before stated — a _ step taken for constituting a body, or a step taken towards devising the means of constituting, a body, which was, like the conven- tion mentioned in the speech of Barrere, to supersede the legisla- ture, to depose the King, to suffer him to have no existence but what their good-will and pleasure would allow him, against the will, as the language of the indictment states it, and in defiance of Digitized by Microsoft® 124 THE attoknet-gbnekal's speech on the authority of the Parliament — to depose the King ; — for if these people have the sovereign power — and they must have the sovereign power upon their own principles — the King of England cannot have it in the manner in which it is vested in him now. He was bound to resist such a project as this ; he owed it to every good subject in his country to resist it ; he was sworn to do it by the solemn obligation of his coronation oath : you cannot therefore con- template a case of his acting otherwise — the King being bound to resistance for the security of the subject, and for the sake of observ- ing his oath — for the sake of continuing to reign according to the terms of that oath, according to the statutes agreed upon in Parlia- ment assembled and the laws and customs of the same. But, gentlemen, I do not stop here. You will find also that there was a meeting at Chalk Farm, the particulars of which I will not state further than to say, that when they are read, you will see that that meeting at Chalk Farm was a step taken in the further prose- cution of the functions of that committee of co-operation — that it was a measure taken for the express purpose of trying the temper of the people, of seeing what they could do by numbers. That meeting was held in April 1794 ; and it is very remarkable that it appears there were meetings in other parts of this kingdom ; more particularly it appears, from a letter found in the possession of this prisoner, that as there was a meeting in the open air at Chalk Farm, so there were meetings elsewhere. It required vigilance — it required the interposition of some strong hand, by Parliament or other- wise — to preserve you in the situation in which you now are. If it be the will of these persons that you shall not remain in it, it is, at least, the duty of those who are to watch over the country as long as it can exist, that it shall not be destroyed by any fault of theirs ; but you will find there were meetings in the open air at Leeds, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Bradford, Birstall, and at various other places. This project of a convention had been communicated to many parts of the country, and too many of them had assented to it ; not only assented to it, but it will be proved that the prisoner sent a circular letter to the remotest parts of this kingdom (which I will now read) for the purpose of assembling this convention — for the purpose of carrying into effect the project of this British con- vention, the body of which had been dissipated, but which was still carrying on its purposes by measures precisely the same as those which had existed in this part of the island. You will find that the prisoner writes this circular letter to all those societies ; and the addressing this circular letter to all the societies shows that the convention that was to be called was not to be a convention of the people at large, but a convention of dele- gates summoned from these societies, to usurp the character of " a convention of the people." "The critical moment is arrived." Mark the difference of language: in 1793 the time i§ not yet come, Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 125 men are not virtuous nor courageous enougTi; in 1792 they expected nothing from Parliament; in 1793 they expected everything from the societies in due time; and now they assert that the due time is come, that the fulness of time is come. " The critical moment is arrived, and Britons must either assert with zeal and firmness their claims to liberty, or yield without resistance to the chains that ministerial usurpation is forging for them. Will you co-operate with us in the only peaceable measure "—a very peaceable measure a convention of this sort 1 — " that now presents itself with any prospect of suc- cess ? We need not intimate to you that, notwithstanding the un- paralleled audacity of a corrupt and overbearing faction " — now this corrupt andoverbearing faction is the King, Lords, and Commons of Great Britain — " which at present tramples on the rights and liberties of the people, our meetings cannot, in England, be inter- rupted without the previous adoption of a Convention Bill." A Convention Bill ! this shows the reason for their resolutions in Scot- land about permanent sittings and the meeting of another British convention, and for their language which they held upon the 20th of January 1794 : " a measure it is our duty to anticipate" — mark these words — " our duty to anticipate, that the ties of union may be more firmly drawn, and the sentiments and views of the different societies throughout the nation be compared." What was their object in this circular letter ? If, when tlie British convention in Edinburgh sat, there had been a motion for a Convention Bill in the Parliament of Great Britain, why their object was then, we per- ceive, that of being ready at an hour's warning, communicating in all parts of the kingdom to their delegates that solemn resolution, which had been made in the British convention upon the 6 th of November ; they were instantly, before the project of such a bill could in Parliament ripen out of notice of a motion into a bill once read, to be assembled in Edinburgh to prevent any such bill pass- ing ; they solemnly vowed to each other, hand in hand, and standing up, to give the greater solemnity to the declaration, " that the moment such a bill as that was introduced into Parliament, they would resist it at the hazard of their lives." Then what did they mean in this circular letter ? They meant that, while as yet the bare expectation of a Convention Bill might exist, while, as yet, no notice of such a motion was given or heard of in Parliament, that it was their duty to anticipate what Parliament might possibly think of. How to anticipate it ? To anticipate it by means of a convention assuming the character of a British convention of the people, but delegated from these societies, to sit, not at Edinburgh, but to sit at a place, as you will find, which they durst not name, and for the purpose of conducting this project with more security, as you find by this letter, to sit at a place that was to be kept secret in order that the purpose might not be disappointed. "A measure," they proceed, speaking of a Convention Bill, " it is our duty to anticipate, Digitized by Microsoft® 12G THE ATTOENEY-GENEEAIi'S SPEECK ON" that the ties of union may be more firmly drawn, and the sentiments and views of the different societies throughout the nation be com- pared while it is yet in our power, so as to guide and direct the future operations of the friends of freedom. Kouse then to one exertion more, and let us show our consciousness of this important truth. If we are to be beaten down with threats, prosecutions, and illegal sentences, we are unworthy, we are incapable of liberty. We must, hoiuever, he expeditious. Hessians and Austrians" — here is the idea that came from Scotland again — " are already among us, and if we tamely submit, a cloud of these armed barbarians may shortly be poured in upon us." The introduction of sick men into this country for the humane purpose of giving them that air which they could not obtain while on board a ship, is made the pretext of this letter for stating that " Hessians and Austrians are already among us, and if we tamely submit, a cloud of these armed barbarians may be poured in upon us. Let us form then another British convention." What was that convention ? They expressly state it to be a convention of the people, and a convention which is to assume controlling powers over the legislature. " We have a central situation in our view, which we believe would be most convenient for the whole island, but which we forbear to mention (entreating your confidence in this particular) till we have the answer of " — whom ? — " of the societies with which we are in correspondence." What ! is that a conven- tion of the people ? or of the societies assuming the character of a convention of the people ? " Let us have your answer then." Now, give me leave to observe how nearly this project was to being car- ried into effect : " Let us have your answer, then, by the 20th at furthest, earlier if possible, whether you approve of the measure, and how many delegates you can send, with the number also, if possible, of your societies." Gentlemen, this will be proved to you to have travelled as far as Strathaven, to have been received there, and delegates to have been appointed in consequence of the solicitation. And then, as in the British convention in the month of November 1793, this great project of calling together a b'ody which was to put an end finally to the existence of Parliament, was to be conducted by a secret committee ; because its operations, its assembling, and the means which were to be taken for it, could not be committed to numbers, a secret committee was then appointed. This letter ends : " For the management of this business we have appointed a secret com- mittee. You will judge how far it is necessary for you to do the same." Gentlemen, the next proceedings were at Chalk Farm. In these proceedings, it appears they have stated to the society called " The Friends of the People," this measure of a convention ; that measure " The Friends of the People " refused to agree in. You will find Digitized by Microsoft® THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 127 that, refusing to agree in that measure at the meeting at Chalk Farm, when it was stated that the Society of the Friends of the People would not agree in it— indeed, agree in it they could not— you will find what was the reception which the communication of that information met with — an universal groan from a large body of men, amounting, I believe, to a couple of thousand, there assembled. Gentlemen, this committee of correspondence and co-operation, you will find, met ; you will find that there is in the handwriting of the prisoner, in a very short note, an account of what was done when they met ; that one of the first steps towards the accomplish- ment of their purposes was a communication of the correspondences of the country societies to those who were to be the delegates of the Constitutional Society ; but the meeting was broken up by the appre- hension of the prisoner and others, which has led, as I before stated, to this prosecution. Gentlemen, I have before told you that I conceived it was com- petent for me — as indeed I apprehend, without question, it is — after proving the conspiracy, to show the conduct of the persons who were parties in that conspiracy, in furtherance of the conspiracy, when it is proved. You will find that one of the persons who attended the meeting of the 20th of January 1794, and who was a very active member of the London Corresponding Society, and like- wise one of the committee of correspondence and co-operation, which I have alluded to as the final act of this business, gives himself this account of the transactions of the 20th of January 1794, and of other circumstances : this is Mr Thelwall. " It is with infinite satisfaction that at last I received a letter from you ; it was brought this morning by Citizen Lee, and has been delayed, I understand, this fortnight at Eotherhithe by some accident. " I am too well acquainted with mankind to be surprised, too much of a philosopher to be angry, at the abuse and misrepresenta- tion of mistaken men ; but I shall endeavour, as I wish to preserve the good opinion of a man whom I remember with esteem, to send you such printed documents as will prove to you that, instea,d of having deserted the cause of liberty, I have redoubled my zeal, and that there is not at this time in England a man that goes bolder lengths, and exposes himself to more danger, in the cause of liberty than myself. I have been for four or five months past almost the sole labourer upon whom the fatigue, the danger, and the exertions of the London Corresponding Societies, the only avowed sans culottes in the metropolis, have rested ; and have been otherwise so active in the cause, as scarcely to have passed a week without threats and conspiracies from the Government and its purblind adherents. Ever since the famous or infamous, call it which you will, proclamation of November 1792, I have been frequenting all public meetings Digitized by Microsoft® ] 28 THE attoenet-geneeal's speech on where anything could be done or expected, have been urging and stimulating high and low, and endeavouring to rally and encourage the friends of freedom. I have been constantly sacrificing interest and security, offending every personally advantageous connexion, till ministerialists, oppositionists, and moderees, hate me with equal cordiality, and, if I may judge by their conduct, fear me as much as they hate. " For these four months, I have been giving political lectures and printing, and appropriating the whole receipts, till the last fortnight, to the support of our delegates to the British conven- tion ; for the history of which I must refer you to Citizen Talbot, whom I have not seen, but whom I hope to see before he leaves England." He then gives an account of the meetings I have been stating to you, and of his lectures. Then he says — " Adieu. I will collect together what political papers I can to send to you when I can find leisure. Do write to me ; let me know something about the state of politics and society in America. I fear you are somewhat short of the true sans culotte liberty ; that you have too much veneration for property, too much religion, and too much law." " I fear you are somewhat short of the true sans culotte liberty." Now, that is, that you have too much veneration for property, too much religion, and too much law. Gentlemen, having now gone through the written evidence, I am to state to you some other circumstances. I have not, indeed, stated all the written evidence, because you will have Written evidence laid before you of stimulations, under singular pretexts, to these socie- ties to arm themselves. You will find, for instance, that if a debate happened in that Parliament, where they meant hereafter to suffer no debate, about the Hessians and Hanoverians, they circu- lated among them papers — and it will be brought home to those with respect to whom it is stated — to this effect : " The Ins tell us we are in danger of invasion from the French ; the Outs tell us that we are in danger from the Hessians and Hanoverians. In either case, we should arm ourselves. G-et arms, and learn how to use them." You will likewise find, upon this part of the case, that, after the dispersion of the British convention in Edinburgh, after it was seen that the law of this country was strong enough to beat down a con- spiracy of that kind, acting by their mere naked numbers, that it became then, in their opinion, necessary to the accomplishment of their purpose to act with arms. Now, gentlemen, where a general conspiracy of this sort, among affiliated societies, existed in Scotland, Sheffield, Norwich, Man- chester, and various parts of the kingdom, all aiming at the same end, all acting upon the same principle, all involved in the same Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 129 project of having a convention from the different parts of the united kingdoms, it is natural that they should think of arms : but if the conspiracy did not exist, it would seem a very odd thing that it should happen in fact that, in these different parts of the king- dom, in Scotland, in Sheffield, and in London, we should find per- sons preparing arms of a sort, and of a denomination, which of late years we have not heard of in this country, except as existing in France, and except as stated in a letter from France, which I have read to you. But, gentlemen, you will find, from the evidence I have to offer — and indeed it is not surprising that you should sofind, after I shall tell you that, in the pocket of one of the parties in this conspiracy, and distributed also in divisions in the London Corresponding Society, were papers importing that, upon the 1st of April 1794, was to be performed, "The Guillotine, or George's Head in a Basket," — papers in which the sacred person of the King is so spoken of, and in which all orders of men, under ludicrous repre- sentations of them to their country, were doomed to lamp-irons and to suspension ; — after I shall tell you, that I am instructed that Mr Thelwall could, when retiring from Chalk Farm, take a pot of porter in his hand, with a knife take off the head, and say, " Thus I would serve all kings ;" if you should find such language used, I am persuaded you will not be surprised to find pikes in the hands of these men and their associates — to find muskets in the hands of these men and their associates. Do not, gentlemen, let us be mis- led by the great doctrine of the Bill of Eights,, that every man has a right to arms for his own protection. He has without question a right to convenient arms for his own defence ;. but the point before a jury will be, for what purpose had he the arms ? If he attempts to say that he had them for his own defence, if he had them in fact for a worse purpose, the attempt to. colour the fact makes the fact more criminal. Gentlemen of the jury, you will find that Mr Yorke, in the month of November 1793, will be proved to have been at one of the divisions of the London Corresponding Society, stating, that he was going among the sons of liberty in Belgium, to bring into this country the true friends of liberty. You will find that he was a member of the London Corresponding Society, and constituted a delegate of the Constitutional Society to Scotland ; that he has been propagating at Shefiield the same doctrine as his brother associates were propagating in London ; that he was there directing the form in which pikes should be made to persons who were to make such instruments ; that the persons at Shefiield enter into a correspondence with the prisoner at the bar ; that they inform him that these pikes are made ; that he delivers the direction to per- sons of the Corresponding Society, in order that they may furnish themselves with these instruments ; and that they were to be fur- voL. ir. I Digitized by Microsoft® 130 THE attorney-general's speech on nished from Sheffield to a place here, I think, the Parrot, in G-reen Arbour Alley, or some other place in this town ; and that, if the apprehension of these persons here, and at Sheffield, had not put an end to the further execution of the project, there would have been a large importation of these pikes into this part of the kingdom. Gentlemen, you will find that this idea of arms was carried fur- ther. You will find that, for.the use of this society, a plate with figures, showing the manner of learning the military exercise, was engraved by a Mr Worship, a member of this society. You will find that there was a military society in Lambeth, and another in Turnstile, Holborn. They were small^in their beginnings, I admit ; but these things must be so in their beginnings. And you will find that the prisoner at the bar gave to a witness of the name of Edwards, a direction of whom to obtain pikes at Sheffield. Mr Williams, another witness, who will be called to you, who is a gun- engraver in the Tower, made muskets for the use of these societies in Lambeth and in Turnstile, with an express protest that he should not be employed, unless he himself became a member of the societies. You will find accordingly that he did become a member of them. You will find that they drilled at particular places. G-entlemen, I give you this outline of this part of the evidence, because I do not wish to enter more into the particulars than to give you a general impression of the nature of the case which I have to lay before you. You wUl likewise see, what is natural enough to happen, when you find in the book of the Society for Constitutional Information that Mr Home Tooke could think of giving notice, that he would move " that two books should be opened, one of them (bound in black) in which should be entered all the enormities of those who deserve the censure ; and in the other, the merits of those who de- serve the gratitude of the society." You will not be surprised if you should find persons in these affiliated societies of lower descrip- tions holding -conversations about seizing the most august persons in the nation ; if you should hear of their holding conversations about the situation of persons in the House of Commons, and the means by which they could know their persons. Upon the whole, gentlemen of the jury, I shall now lay the testimony before you, submitting this written evidence to you, call- ing witnesses, above all exception, to a great part of the case ; call- ing some witnesses whom, I now avow to you, you will find were persons employed by Government to watch over the proceedings of these societies, and who therefore became informed, in consequence of such employment, of some of their transactions ; and Government would have been wanting to itself, and would have been wanting to a degree of criminality which no man can describe, if this country had at this moment been in the state in which it would have been, if these pikes had been brought into actual exertion. Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. 131 At Sheffield, indeed, I am told they had got to the length of forming iron instruments which were to disable horse, which they called night-cats, and which would immediately insert themselves into the hoofs of horses' feet I say, if with these projects going on in the country, a secretary of state, or any other person in the exe- cutive government, had hesitated a moment to procure information, these parties might have been able to put into execution the projects they were meditating, and he would have been answerable for it. Gentlemen, it is the great province of a British jury — and God forbid these prisoners should not have the benefit of the reflection — that British juries are able to protect us all — are able to sift the characters of witnesses — to determine what credit is due to them — listening to men of good character without any impression against their evidence — listening to men such as I have stated with a strong impression against their evidence ; that impression, however, to be beat down by the concurrent unsuspicious testimony arising out of the rest of the case, if, upon the whole, you should find the case to be made out as I have stated it to you. Gentlemen, I forgot to mention to you, that you will likewise find, about the time that this convention was talked of, that there was a new constitution framed for the Corresponding Society, in which they speak of a royalist as an enemy to the- liberties of his country, of a democrat as a friend to the liberties of his country ; and you will find, that in a constitution again revised, the whole was thrown into a scheme, and into a system, which was to add physical strength to the purposes of that convention, which was, I submit to you, to assume all civil and political authority. If you find all these things, and if under the direction of that wisdom that presides here — with respect to which, gentlemen, let me say again, that the situation of this country is indeed reduced to a most miserable one, if the respect which is due to the adminis- tration of the law is suffered to be weakened in any manner — if the respect which is due to the administration of the law, that admin- istration which perhaps is the best feature of the constitution under which we live, is destroyed, miserable indeed must be the situation of your country ! — if you find, under that direction, that the case being proved in fact, is also made out in law, you will do that on behalf of the public which is due to yourselves, to the public, to your posterity, and theirs. But on the other hand, if after hearing this case fully stated, and attempted to be fully proved, you should be of opinion that it is not proved, or you should be finally of opinion that the offence is not made out, according to the hallowed interpretation of the statute of Edward III. ; I say, then, in the conclusion, I join from my heart in the prayer which the law makes on behalf of the prisoner, — God send the prisoner a safe deliverance ! Digitized by Microsoft® 132 THE TKIAL OF THOMAS HARDY. Before Mr Erskine's speech for the prisoner, we think it right to introduce a remarkable circumstance that attended this trial, namely, that it being impracticable to bring the evidence within the compass of the longest possible sitting, it became necessary, from day to day, to adjourn the Court ; and the following extract from the proceedings will show to what disadvantages, even with the indulgence of the Court and jury, the prisoner's counsel were subjected. The trial began on Tuesday, the 28th of October, and the Court sat till a late hour on that day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, assembling at nine every morning. It is plain that not a moment's time was afforded for considering and arranging the various matters to be observed upon in the defence. When the Court, therefore, was about to adjourn at two in the morning of Saturday (being the fourth day of the trial), and the evidence for the Crown being about to close, which would have rendered it necessary for Mr Erskine to open the case of the prisoner at nine the same morning, the following dialogue took place : — Mr Erskine. My Lords, this is the fourth day that my friend Mr Gibbs and myself have stood in a very anxious situation. There has been a most voluminous body of written evidence, all of which has not been printed — copies of that part which is unprinted have not as yet reached me ; there have been two days spent in hearing parole evidence ; and we (being but two) assigned as counsel for the prisoner, have been obliged to be constantly engaged in Court, in cross-examining the witnesses for the Crown ; and your Lordships very well know, that the cross-examination of the witnesses presents an important feature of our case on the part of the prisoner, a great deal of which has fallen upon me. Your Lordships must be sen- sible that it was impossible I could, at the time of cross-examining a witness, take any particular note of what he had said. When the evidence for the Crown was near closing, I humbly requested of your Lordships the indulgence of an hour or two to look over the papers. Tour Lordships were pleased to grant my request, which I considered as a personal civility to myself,; but I was prevented, by extreme sickness, from availing myself of those two hours, for I was indeed so ill, that nothing less than a case of this magnitude could have brought me into Court. Since that time I have not had natural rest, not having got home till between two and three o'clock in the morning, and having been here again at nine ; so that I can say with a safe conscience, I have not had an opportunity of even casting my eye upon any part of the evidence, though I trust I have something of the general result of it in my mind. I should hope, under these circumstances, that the prisoner might be in- dulged with some Qpportunity for my friend Mr Gibbs and myself to arrange our papers, and consider them together as counsel for the prisoner, before we are called upon to make our defence. It is necessary to do this, not for my address to the jury only, but that when I do address them, I may present to them properly the pri- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 133 soner's case, which depends much upon the arrangement of the evidence. I feel myself in no condition to do this, either in a man- ner respectful to the Court or for the safety of the prisoner. I do not wish to propose any particular time, but merely to leave it to the indulgence and justice of the Court, perfectly sure that when I leave it there, I leave it in a safe place. LoKD Chief-Justice Eyrk 1 feel the weight of your observa- tions, of the difficulty under which you labour, in an extraordinary case, which can hardly be judged of by the common rules on which we proceed in cases of this nature. The Court are of a disposition to give you all the indulgence they possibly can, because there is a vast mass of evidenca The case arises out of the evidence, and it is fit the case should be thoroughly canvassed. At the same time, it is certainly notorious that the great bulk of that evidence has been in print a great while, and I cannot believe that it has not been very well considered as far as it has been in print, — I am sure that must be understood. Now I will tell you very fairly, if the question was only the personal accommodation of yourself and Mr Gibbs, at the expense of the personal convenience of myself my Lord, and my brothers, I am ^uite sure we should have no difficulty ui the sacrifice of our personal convenience ; — but there is a great deal more in the case. We have a jury who have been thrown into the most arduous service that ever I saw a jury engaged in ; they have borne it in a manner that does them infinite honour ; and I have no doubt but that, as far as it is necessary that they should continue in the situation they are in, they will bear it cheerfully. I have seen such a speci- men of their behaviour, that I cannot entertain a doubt of that. But that we could give you an absolute suspension of the business, in the situation that we are in, upon the terms of keeping the jury in the situation in which they must be kept, is a thing that it is perfectly impossible for us to think of Now this occurs to me, — my brothers will consider of it — I merely throw it out for their con- sideration : — You are men of honour, you will tell us whether you really do mean to call witnesses, or to take the case upon the ground upon which it is already made. If you mean to call witnesses, you may call them to-morrow ; you may go on with the case as far as it will be necessary for you to go on, to fill up all the time that ought to be filled up, leaving only a part of _ Sunday, the common interval of rest, without our keeping the jury in a situation to do nothing. If you do not mean to call witnesses, but mean to leave the case, with the observations which arise upon the evidence that is before the Court, we will go as far as we can ; — but if witnesses are to be called, and you desire not to address the jury immediately, you must immediately begin to examine your witnesses, as soon as they have closed on the part of the Crown, and fill up the time that will intervene between that time and the time when you will be ready to go on with your address to the jury. In that Digitized by Microsoft® 1S4 THE TRIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. way I think we shall put the jury under no unnecessary hardships, because, whether they hear the witnesses before or after the speech, is a matter of no importance to them. Mr Erskine. I should be afraid to take upon myself the ex- periment of trying a cause, particularly of this magnitude, in a manner totally different from any that has ever occurred in the annals of this country. I should be afraid to begin an experiment of that sort, more especially when counsel in a capital case ; because evidence comes with infinitely more weight, by which I mean the proper weight evidence ought to have, from the bearing of it upon the case when it is first stated by the counsel, who is to support his cause by it : much of the effect of evidence is lost, and much of it distorted by the cross-examination of counsel, until the true bearing of it has been explained. I do not propose what can be properly termed a suspension of the trial, or which can throw any sort of inconvenience upon the jury, which would, I am sure, give me as much pain as anybody in the world. But your Lordships will recollect that the Attorney-G-eneral in opening his case — (I am sure I think as highly as is possible of his ability, and of the manner in which he performed his duty) — but he found it necessary to spend nine hours in the opening of his case ; the prisoner most unquestion- ably may expect an equal time, if it were necessary, for his counsel to take the same course in opening his ; — and if I were thrown upon it in the present moment, not having a sufficient recollection of the great points of the evidence, if I were put upon speaking to the jury at this moment, I must take that course of reading at great length great numbers of papers ; whereas, if I had the op- portunity of a few hours more, which is the nature of my applica- tion, merely to arrange my papers, and to select such as, in the judgment of my learned friend and myself, we shall think sufficient for our defence, it would save time. Lord Chief- Justice Eyre. I dread the explanation of a few hours. Mr Attorney-General, what further evidence have you to produce ? Mr Attgeney-Gteneeal. I think my evidence will not take up more than forty minutes. Mr Erskine. I do not know whether your Lordships mean to sit on Sunday ? Lord Chief-Justice Eyre. I shall sit late on Saturday night ; I say nothing of Sunday. Mr Erskine. I am literally at this moment, and have been all day yesterday and to-day, so extremely unwell, that I do not think, if I were called upon to speak for any length of time, I could possibly support it. Lord Chief- Justice Eyre. I can easily think that to be the case, and it is a circumstance I am extremely sorry for ; on the other hand, I cannot hazard the situation of the jury. Mr Erskine. I should be sorry to put the jury to any incon- Digitized by Microsoft® THE TEIAL OF THOMAS HAEDY. 135 venience. I do not shrink from the business, I am extremely- willing to endure anything ; but I assure your Lordship that my health is extremely suffering by it. LoED Chief-Justice Eyre. What is it you ask for ? Mr Eeskine. As I stated before, the Attorney-General found it necessary to consume nine hours. I shall not consume half that time — I think, at least, I shall not consume half that time — if I have an opportunity of doing that which I humbly request of the Court, that is, of arranging the materials in such a manner that I should be able to make only those observations which occur to me to be the fittest to be made, as counsel for the prisoner., LoED Chief-Justice Eyeb. We have offered you an expedient ; neither of you say to us whether you can accept it. Mr GiBBS. With respect to that expedient, I have no doubt to say that it is utterly impossible for Mr Erskine and myself, in the situation in which we are, respecting ourselves, respecting the Court, and respecting the public and the jury, — it is utterly impossible for us to think of that, because, if anything adverse should happen when we have taken such a line, the imputation will lie upon us. LoED Chief-Justice Eteb. That it may not be in your judg- ment a desirable thing, is very well ; but. that there is any other objection to it, I cannot agree to. Whether the case is taken upon the summing-up of the evidence, or whether it is taken upon the opening of the evidence, is, as to all legal purpose, the same ; I can see no difference. It may make a vast difference in your judgment as to what is the best manner and the best method of laying your case before the jury. Undoubtedly we are assisting the prisoner by putting the counsel in a situation to do his business in the best manner, by proposing it thus ; whereas, if they were put upon doing it in the ordinary course, they would lie under a peculiar difficulty and disadvantage. Mr Erskine has not yet told us what he asks. Mr Eeskine. Since it is put expressly to me, I shall propose, unless the jury profess it to be a very serious inconvenience to them, that instead of coming in the morning at the time we gene- rally come, our coming should be at twelve o'clock, so that the Attorney-General can finish at one. Mr Gibbs will have the goodness to take a note of the few facts stated by the witnesses, and I shall be able by that time to come. LoED Chief-Justice Eyre. Then suppose we adjourn to eleven o'clock. Mr Gibbs. We conceive your Lordships will permit Mr Erskine to open the case of Mr Hardy; then our witnesses will be exa- mined, and then I shall be heard after our witnesses. LoED Chief- Justice Eyeb. You will conduct your case in the manner you think best for the interest of your client. Mr Eeskine. I should be glad if your Lordships would allow another hour. Digitized by Microsoft® 136 SPEECH FOR THOMAS HAEDT. Lord Chief-Justice Eyre. I feel so much for the situation of the jury, that on their account I cannot think of it. Mr Erskine. My Lord, I never was placed in such a situation in the whole course of my practice hefore, with so many gentlemen on the other side ; however, I don't shrink from it. One of the Jury. My Lord, we are extremely willing to allow Mr Erskine another hour, if your Lordship thinks proper. Lord Chief- Justice Eyre. As the jury ask it for you, I will not refuse you. It now being half-past one o'clock on Saturday morning, the Court adjourned till twelve o'clock of the same day. The Court having adjourned to twelve o'clock instead of nine, as above mentioned, and two hours being spent in finishing the evi- dence for the €rown, Mr Erskine came mto court, and addressed the jury as follows : — Gentlemen of the Jury, — Before I proceed to the performance j of the momentous duty which is at length cast upon me, I desire . in the first place to return my thanks to the judges, for the indul- / gence I have received in the opportunity of addressing you at this I later period of the day than the ordinary sitting of the Court, when I have had the refreshment which nature but too much I required, and a few hours' retirement to arrange a little in my ' mind that immense matter, the result of which I must now en- I deavour to lay before you. I have to thank you also, gentlemen, ' for the very condescending and obliging manner in which you so 1 readily consented to this accommodation. The Court could only ' speak for itself, referring me to you, whose rest aad comforts had I been so long interrupted. I shall always remember your kindness. ' Before I advance to the regular