unto the day is the good or evil thereof. It is | sufficient for the present one, that the legality or illegality of the business has no relation to the crime that it is imputed to the prisoner. France was feel to the very soul for a nation beset by the sword of despots, and yet be a lover of his own country and its Constitution. Gentlemen, the same celebrated person, of The next matter that is alleged against the whom I have had occasion to speak Mr. Burke pub. (4.) The send authors of the Scotch Convention, and so frequently, is the best and bright-ely expressed sympathy ing of delegates the societies which supported it, is est illustration of this truth. Mr. with the Amer to France by icans though in the two Lon their having sent addresses of friend- Burke, indeed, went a great deal fur- arms against don societies. ship to the Convention of France. ther than requires to be pressed into England. These addresses are considered to be a decisive the present argument. He maintained the cause proof of republican combination, verging closely | of justice and of truth against all the perverted in themselves upon an overt act of treason. Gen-authority and rash violence of his country, and tlemen, if the dates of these addresses are attend- expressed the feelings of a Christian and a paed to, which come no lower down than Novem-triot in the very heat of the American warber, 1792, we have only to lament that they were boldly holding forth our victories as defeats, and but the acts of private subjects, and that they our successes as calamities and disgraces. "It were not sanctioned by the state itself. The is not instantly," said Mr. Burke, "that I can be French nation, about that period, un- brought to rejoice when I hear of the slaughter then at peace der their new Constitution, or under and captivity of long lists of those names which with England. their new anarchy-call it which you have been familiar to my ears from my infancy, will-were, nevertheless, most anxiously desir- and to rejoice that they have fallen under the ous of maintaining peace with this country. But sword of strangers, whose barbarous appellations the King was advised to withdraw his embassa- I scarcely know how to pronounce. The glory dor from France, upon the approaching catastro- acquired at the White Plains by Colonel Rhalle phe of its most unfortunate Prince- -an event has no charms for me; and I fairly acknowledge which, however to be deplored, was no justifia- that I have not yet learned to delight in finding ble cause of offense to Great Britain. France Fort Knyphausen in the heart of the British dodesired nothing but the regeneration of her own minions."57 If this had been said or written by government; and if she mistook the road to her Mr. Yorke at Sheffield, or by any other member prosperity, what was that to us? But it was of these societies, heated with wine at the Globe alleged against her in Parliament, that she had Tavern, it would have been trumpeted forth as introduced spies among us, and held correspond- decisive evidence of a rebellious spirit, rejoicing ence with disaffected persons, for the destruction in the downfall of his country. Yet the great of our Constitution. This was the charge of our author, from whose writings I have borrowed, minister, and it was, therefore, considered just and approved himself to be the friend of this nation necessary, for the safety of the country, to hold at that calamitous crisis, and had it pleased God France at arm's length, and to avoid the very to open the understandings of our rulers, his wiscontagion of contact with her at the risk of war. dom might have averted the storms that are now But, gentlemen, this charge against France was thickening around us. We must not, therefore, thought by many to be supported by no better be too severe in our strictures upon the opinions proofs than those against the prisoner. In the and feelings of men as they regard such mighty public correspondence of the embassador from public questions. The interests of a nation may the French King, and upon his death, as minis- often be one thing, and the interests of its govter from the Convention, with his Majesty's Sec-ernment another; but the interests of those who retary of State, documents which lie upon the table of the House of Commons, and which may be made evidence in the cause, the executive council repelled with indignation all the imputations, which to this very hour are held out as the vindications of quarrel. "If there be such persons in England," says Monsieur Chauvelin, "has not England laws to punish them? France disavows them-such men are not Frenchmen." The same correspondence conveys the most solemn assurances of friendship down to the very year 1792, a period subsequent to all the correspondence and addresses complained of. Wheth-ered, and still consider, that she had a right to er these assurances were faithful, or otherwisewhether it would have been prudent to have de pended on them, or otherwise-whether the war was advisable or unadvisable, are questions over which we have no jurisdiction. I only desire to bring to your recollection, that a man may be a friend to the rights of humanity and to the imprescriptible rights of social man, which is now a term of derision and contempt—that he may views respect without any hold government for the hour is at all times dif- signs. 57 See Mr. Burke's letter to the Sheriff of Bristol. Colonel Rhalle was a Hessian officer, who distinguished himself at the battle of White Plains, in November, 1776. A few days after, General Knyphausen, a German officer in the British service, led the way in attacking Fort Washington, on the Hudson, a little above New York; and from this circumstance, probably, his name was given to the fort by the British while it remained in their possession. choose a government for herself, and that it was contrary to the first principles of justice, and, if possible, still more repugnant to the genius of our own free Constitution, to combine with despots for her destruction. And who knows but that the external pressure upon France may have been the cause of that unheard-of state of society which we complain of? Who knows whether, driven as she has been to exertions beyond the ordinary vigor of a nation, she has not thus gained that unnatural and giant strength which threatens the authors of it with perdition? These are melancholy considerations, but they may reasonably and, at all events, lawfully be entertained. We owe obedience to government in our actions, but surely our opinions are free. for a conven tion in Ea which the present juncture of affairs seems to require. "The London Corresponding Society conceives that the moment is arrived when a full and explicit declaration is necessary from all the friends of freedom-whether the late illegal and unheardof prosecutions and sentences shall determine us to abandon our cause, or shall excite us to pursue a radical reform, with an ardor proportioned to the magnitude of the object, and with a zeal as distinguished on our own parts as the treach ery 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 conjunction with this and other societies to obtain a fair representation of the peoplewhether they concur with us in seeing the ne cessity 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 labor, and which can only be effectually removed by a full and fair representation of the people of Great Britain. The London Corresponding Society can not but remind their friends that the present crisis demands all the prudence, unanimity, and vigor, that may or can be exert Gentlemen, pursuing the order of time, we are (5.) Proposal arrived at length at the proposition to hold another convention, which, with gland. the supposed support of it by force, are the only overt acts of high treason charged upon this record. For, strange as it may appear, there is no charge whatever before you of any one of those acts or writings, the evidence of which consumed so many days in reading, and which has already nearly consumed my strength in only passing them in review before you. If every line and letter of all the writings I have beened by MEN and BRITONS; nor do they doubt but commenting upon were admitted to be traitorous machinations, and if the convention in Scotland was an open rebellion, it is conceded to be foreign to the present purpose, unless as such criminality in them might show the views and objects of the persons engaged in them. On that principle only the court has over and over again decided the evidence of them to be admissible; and on the same principle I have illustrated them in their order as they happened, that I might lead the prisoner in your view up to the very point and moment when the treason is supposed to have burst forth into the overt act for which he is arraigned before you. The transaction respecting this second convention, which constitutes the principal, to be found here, or, more properly, the only overt act in the indictment, lies in the narrow Afl the treason if any where. est compass, and is clouded with no ambiguity. I admit freely every act which is imputed to the prisoner, and listen not so much with fear as with curiosity and wonder to the treason sought to be connected with it. Hardy's letter tional Society. You will recollect, that the first motion toward the holding of a second convention to the Constitu- originated in a letter to the prisoner from a country correspondent, in which the legality of the former was vindicated, and its dispersion lamented. This letter was answered on the 27th of March, 1794, and was read to you in the Crown's evidence in these words: "March 27, 1794. that manly firmness and consistency will finally, "(In my humble measure), "(Signed) A friend to the rights of man, the continuance of any right but in equality of The object of the was the same as of the former convent which was Can ond convention, the first thing to be sonable. British Convention, and it describes the same objects as the first. Compare all the papers for the calling this second convention with those for assembling the first, and you will find no differ “CITIZEN,—I am directed by the London ence, except that they mixed with them extraCorresponding Society to transmit the follow-neous and libelous matter arising obviously from ing resolutions to the Society for Constitutional the irritation produced by the sailing of the transInformation, and to request the sentiments of ports with their brethren condemned to exile. that society respecting the important measures 68 Those of Muir and others, mentioned above. Conference be These gentlemen met at the house of Mr. Thelwall, on the 11th of April, 1794, and there published the resolutions already commented on, in conformity with the general objects of the two societies, expressed in the letter of the 27th of March, and agreed to continue to meet on Mondays and Thursdays for further conference on the subject. The first Monday was the 14th of April, of which we pifficulty of have heard so much, and no meeting bringing it about was held on that day. The first Thursday was the 17th of April, but there was no meeting; the 21st of April was the second Monday, but there was still no meeting; the 24th of April was the second Thursday, when the five of the Corre These papers have already been considered, and I was thrown out. separated, as they ought to be, from the charge. I will now lay before you all the remaining operations of this formidable conspirtween the two acy, up to the prisoner's imprisonment societies. in the Tower. Mr. Hardy having received the letter just adverted to regarding a second convention, the Corresponding Society wrote the letter of the 27th of March, and which was found in his handwriting, and is published in the first Report, page 11. This letter, inclosing the resolutions they had come to upon the subject, was considered by the Constitutional Society on the next day, the 28th of March, the ordinary day for their meeting, when they sent an answer to the Corresponding Society, inform-sponding Society attended, but, nobody coming ing them that they had received their communication that they heartily concurred with them in the objects they had in view, and invited them to send a delegation of their members to confer with them on the subject. to meet them from the other, nothing, of course, Now what were the objects they concurred in, The objects of and what was to be the subject of their conference. conference between the societies by their delegates? Look at the letter, which distinctly expresses its objects and the means by which they sought to effect them. Had these poor men (too numerous to meet all together, and therefore renewing the cause of parliamentary reform by delegation from the societies) any reason to suppose that they were involving themselves in the pains of treason, and that they were compassing the King's death, when they were redeeming (as they thought) his authority from probable downfall and ruin? Had treason been imputed to the delegates before? Had the imagining the death of the King ever been suspected by any body? Or, when they were pros-ally the whole of it before you in the meetings I ecuted for misdemeanors, was the prosecution considered as an indulgence conferred upon men whose lives had been forfeited? And is it to be endured, then, in this free land-made free, too, by the virtue of our forefathers, who placed the King upon his throne to maintain this freedomthat forty or fifty thousand people, in the different parts of the kingdom, assembling in their little societies to spread useful knowledge, and to diffuse the principles of liberty-which the more widely they are spread, the surer is the condition of our free government-are in a moment, without warning, without any law or principle to warrant it, and without precedent or example, to be branded as traitors, and to be decimated as victims for punishment! The Constitutional Society having answered the letter of the 27th of March, in the manner I stated to you, committees from each of the two societies were appointed to confer together. The Constitutional Society appointed Mr. Joyce, Mr. Kidd, Mr. Wardle, and Mr. Holcroft, all indicted; and Mr. Sharpe, the celebrated engraver, not indicted, but examined as a witness by the Crown. Five it were appointed by the Corresponding Society to meet these gentlemen; namely, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Moore, Mr. Thelwall, and Mr. Hodgson, all indicted, and Mr. Lovatt, against whom the bill have just stated; in which you find ten gentlemen, appointed by two peaceable societies, conversing upon the subject of a constitutional reform in Parliament, publishing the result of their deliberations, without any other arms than one supper-knife; which, when I come to the subject of arms, I will in form lay before you. Yet for this, and for this alone, you are asked to devote the prisoner before you, and his unfortunate associates, to the pains and penalties of death; and not to death alone, but to the eternal stigma and infamy of having conceived the detestable and horrible design of dissolving the government of 59 A body of Hessian troops were landed on the Isle of Wight, from Germany, in 1794, in readiness for a projected expedition against France. The Opposition insisted that such an introduction of foreign troops, without the consent of Parliament, was illegal; but the motions declaratory of the illegality of the proceedings were negatived, and Mr. Pitt refused to countenance a Bill of Indemnity. This, though well intended by Mr. Pitt, was an unfortunate measfree discussion by force. The great evil was, that ure. Many considered it as designed to put down gave an opening for rash men to mislead the people, and represent these troops as called in to enslave them. There is reason to believe that this was one main reason why some were induced to prepare pikes and other weapons. their country, and of striking at the life of their Sovereign, who had never given offense to them, nor to any of his subjects. arms when the arrests first took place. Gentlemen, as a conspiracy of this formidable No mention of extension, which had no less for its object than the sudden annihilation of all the existing authorities of the country, and of every thing that supported them, could not be even gravely stated to have an existence, without contemplation of force to give it effect, it was absolutely necessary to impress upon the public mind, and to establish by formal evidence upon the present occasion, that such a force was actually in preparation. This most important and indispensable part of the cause was attended with insurmountable difficulties, not only from its being unfounded in fact, but because it had been expressly negatived by the whole conduct of government. For, although the motions of all these societies had been watched for two years together—though spies had regularly attended, and collected regular journals of their proceedings, yet when the first report was finished, and the Habeas Corpus Act suspended upon the foundation of the facts contained in it, | there was not to be found, from one end of it to the other, even the insinuation of arms. I believe that this circumstance made a great impression upon all the thinking, dispassionate part of the public, and that the materials of the first report were thought to furnish but a slender argument to support such a total eclipse of liberty. No wonder, then, that the discovery of a pike, in the interval between the two reports, should have been highly estimated. I mean no reflections upon government, and only state the matter as a man of great wit very publicly reported it. He said that the discoverer, when he first beheld the long-looked-for pike, was transported beyond himself with enthusiasm and delight, and that he hung over the rusty instrument with all the raptures of a fond mother, who embraces her first-born infant, "and thanks her God for all her travail past." Views of the Sheffield re In consequence of this discovery, whoever (6.) Prepara might have the merit of it, and whattion of pikes. ever the discoverer might have felt upon it, persons were sent by governformers. ment (and properly sent) into all corners of the kingdom, to investigate the extent of the mischief. The fruit of this inquiry has been laid before you, and I pledge myself to sum up the evidence which you have had upon the subject, not by parts, or by general observations, but in the same manner as the court itself must sum it up to you, when it lays the whole body of the proof with fidelity before you. Notwithstanding all the declamations upon French anarchy, I think I may safely assert that it has been distinctly proved by the evidence that the Sheffield people were for universal representation in a British House of Commons. This appears to have been the general sentiment, with the exception of one witness, whose testimony makes the truth and bona-fides of the sentiments far more striking: the witness I allude to (George Widdison), whose ev out. idence I shall state in its place, seems to be a plain, blunt, honest man, and, by-the-by, which must never be forgotten of any of them, the Crown's witness. I am not interested in the veracity of any of them; for (what I have frequently remarked) the Crown must take them for better for worse: it must support each witness, and the whole body of its evidence throughIf you do not believe the whole of what is proved by a witness, what confidence can you have in part of it, or what part can you select to confide in? If you are deceived in part, who shall measure the boundaries of the deception? This man says he was at first for universal suffrage-Mr. Yorke had persuaded him, from all the books, that it was the best-but that he afterward saw reason to think otherwise, and was not for going the length of the Duke of Richmond; but that all the other Sheffield people were for the Duke's plan-a fact confirmed by the cross-examination of every one of the witnesses. You have, therefore, positively and distinctly, upon the universal authority of the evidence of the Crown, the people of Sheffield, who are charged as at the head of a republican conspiracy, proved to be associated on the very principles which, at different times, have distinguished the most eminent persons in this kingdom; and the charge made upon them, with regard to arms, is cleared up by the same universal testimony. these pikes. You recollect that, at a meeting held upon the Castle-hill, there were two parties in Reason for the the country; and it is material to at- preparat on of tend to what these two parties were. In consequence of the King's proclamation, a great number of honorable, zealous persons, who had been led by a thousand artifices to believe that there was a just cause of alarm in the country, took very extraordinary steps for support of the magistracy. The publicans were directed not to entertain persons who were friendly to a reform of Parliament; and alarms of change and of revolution pervaded the country, which became greater and greater as our ears were hourly assailed with the successive calamities of France. Others saw things in an opposite light, and considered that these calamities were made the pretext for extinguishing British liberty. Heart-burnings arose between the two parties; and some-I am afraid a great manywickedly or ignorantly interposed in a quarrel which zeal had begun. The societies were dis. turbed in their meetings, and even the private dwellings of many of their members were illegally violated. It appears by the very evidence to the Crown, by which the cause must stand or fall, that many of the friends of reform were daily insulted, their houses threatened to be pulled 69 This proclamation was issued on the 21st of May, 1792, and was directed against seditious meet ings, and publications. In support of this proclamation, associations were formed in many places to sustain the government, and the magistrates took very stringent measures, which were in some instances hasty and irritating. down, and their peaceable meetings beset by pre- | might provide pikes for themselves, in the same tended magistrates, without the process of the law. These proceedings naturally suggested the propriety of having arms for self-defense, the first and most unquestionable privilege of man, in or out of society, and expressly provided for by the very letter of English law. It was ingeniously put by the learned counsel, in the examination of a witness, that it was complained of among them that very little was sufficient to obtain a warrant from some magistrates, and that, therefore, it was as well to be provided for those who might have warrants as for those who had none. Gentlemen, I am too much exhausted to pursue or argue such a difference, even if it existed upon the evidence. If the societies in question (however mistakenly) considered their meetings to be legal, and the warrants to disturb them to be beyond the authority of the magistrate to grant, they had a right, at the peril of the legal consequences, to stand upon their defense; and it is no transgression of the law, much less high treason against the King, to resist his officers when they pass the bounds of their authority. So much for the general evidence of arms; and the first and last time that even the name of posing to Har the prisoner is connected with the de the prepara subject, is by a letter he received from London. a person of the name of Davison. am anxious that this part of the case should be distinctly understood, and I will, therefore, bring back this letter to your attention. The letter is as follows: Letter from Sheffield pro tion of pikes in I "FELLOW-CITIZEN,-The barefaced aristocracy of the present administration has made. it necessary that we should be prepared to act on the defensive, against any attack they may command their newly-armed minions to make upon us. A plan has been hit upon, and, if encouraged sufficiently, will, no doubt, have the effect of furnishing a quantity of pikes to the patriots, great enough to make them formidable. blades are made of steel, tempered and polished after an approved form. They may be fixed into any shafts (but fir ones are recommended) of the girt of the accompanying hoops at the top end, and about an inch more at the bottom. The "The blades and hoops (more than which can not properly be sent to any great distance) will be charged one shilling. Money to be sent with the orders. "As the institution is in its infancy, immediate encouragement is necessary. manner that Davison was recommending, through Gentle such foundations. Yet this is the whole of the written evidence concerning arms; for the remainder of the plot rests for its foundation upon the parole evidence, the whole of which I shall pursue with precision, and not suffer a link of the chain to pass unexamined. Witnesses in preparation Camage. William Camage was the first witness. He swore that the Sheffield societies were frequently insulted, and threatened to respect to the be dispersed; so that the people in of pikes: general thought it necessary to defend themselves against illegal attacks. The justices peaceable and legal meetings, they thought they having officiously intruded themselves into their had a right to be armed; but they did not claim "Orders may be sent to the Secretary of the this right under the law of nature, or by theories Sheffield Constitutional Society. [Struck out.] of government, but as ENGLISH SUBJECTS, under "RICHARD DAVISON. the government of ENGLAND; for they say in "Sheffield, April 24, 1794." their paper, which has been read, by the Crown Gentlemen, you must recollect (for if it should that would condemn them, that they were enescape you, it might make a great titled by the "BILL of RIGHTS" to be armed. difference) that Davison directs the Gentlemen, they state their title truly. The preanswer to this letter to be sent to Rob- amble of that statute enumerates the offenses of ert Moody at Sheffield, to prevent post-office sus- King James the Second; among the chief of picion; and that he also incloses in it a similar which was his causing his subjects to be disone which Mr. Hardy was to forward to Nor- armed, and then our ancestors claim this violawich, in order that the society at that placeted right as their indefeasible inheritance. Let Hardy did not reply to the letter. BBB |