sonable in the contrary was never imputed to him. If his book had been written in pursuance of the design of force and rebellion, with which it is now sought to be connected, he would, like the prisoners, have been charged with an overt act of high treason; but such a proceeding was never thought of. Mr. Paine was indicted [in 1792] for a misdemeanor, and the misdemeanor was argued to consist not in the falsehood that a nation has no right to choose or alter its government, but in seditiously exciting the nation, without cause, to exercise that right. A learned Lord (Lord Chief Baron Macdonald] now on this bench, addressed the jury as Attorney General upon this principle. His language was this: "The question is not what the people have a right to do, for the people are, undoubtedly, the foundation and origin of all government. But the charge is, for seditiously calling upon the people, without cause or reason, to exercise a right which would be sedition, supposing the right to be in them; for though the people might have a right to do the thing suggested, and though they are not excit ed to the doing it by force and rebellion, yet, as the suggestion goes to unsettle the state, the propagation of such doctrines is seditious.” There is no other way, undoubtedly, of describing that charge. I am not here entering into the application of it to Mr. Paine, whose counsel I was, and who has been tried already. To say that the people have a right to change their govern only see what parts they choose to show us. But Nothing tren from what we have seen, does any man Edinburgh seriously believe that this meeting at Convention Edinburgh meant to assume and to maintain by force all the functions and authorities of the state? Is the thing within the compass of human belief? If a man were offered a dukedom and twenty thousand pounds a year for trying to believe it, he might say he believed it—as what will not man say for gold and honors?—but he never, in fact, could believe that this Edinburgh meeting was a Parliament for Great Britain. How, indeed, could he, from the proceedings of a few peaceable, unarmed men, discussing, in a constitutional manner, the means of obtaining a reform in Parliament; and who, to maintain the club, or whatever you choose to call it, collected a little money from people who were well disposed to the cause; a few shillings one day, and perhaps as many pence another? I think, as far as I could reckon it up, when the report from this great committee of supply was read to you, I counted that there had been raised, in the first session of this Parliament, fifteen pounds, from which, indeed, you must deduct two bad shillings, which are literally noticed in the account. Is it to be endured, gentlemen, that men should gravely say, that this body assumed to itself the offices of Parliament ? that a few harmless people, who sat, as they profess, to obtain a full representation of the people, were themselves, even in their own imaginations, the complete rep-ment, is, indeed, a truism. Every body knows resentation which they sought for? Why should they sit from day to day to consider how they might obtain what they had already got? If their object was a universal representation of the whole people, how is it credible they could suppose that universal representation to exist in themselves in the representatives of a few societies, instituted to obtain it for the country at large? If they were themselves the nation, why should the language of every resolution be, that reason ought to be their grand engine for the accomplishment of their object, and should be directed to convince the nation to speak to Parliament in a voice that must be heard? The proposition, therefore, is too gross to cram down the throats of the English people, and this is the prisoner's security. Here, again, he feels the advantage of our free administration of justice. This proposition, on which so much depends, is not to be reasoned out on parchment, to be delivered privately to magistrates for private judgment. No. He has the privilege of appealing loud (as he now appeals by me) to an enlightened assembly, full of eyes, and ears, and intelligence, where speaking to a jury is, in a manner, speaking to a nation at large, and flying for sanctuary to its universal justice. to it, and they exercised the right [in 1688], otherwise the King could not have had his establishment among us. If, therefore, I stir up individuals to oppose by force the general will, seated in the government, it may be trea- It is not trea son; but to induce changes in a gov- changes in the ernment, by exposing to a whole na- government tion its errors and imperfections, can have no bearing upon such an offense. The utmost which can be made of it is a misdemeanor, and that, too, depending wholly upon the judgment which the jury may form of the intention of the writer. The courts for a long time, indeed, assumed to themselves the province of deciding upon this intention, as a matter of law, conclusively inferring it from the act of publication. I say the courts assumed it, though it was not the doctrine of Lord Mansfield, but handed down to him from the precedents of judges before his time. But even in that case, though the publication was the crime, not, as in this case, the intention, and though the quality of the thing charged, when not rebutted by evidence for the defendant, had so long been considered to be a legal inference, yet the Legislature, to support the province of the jury, and in tenderness for liberty, has lately altered the law upon this important subject. If, therefore, we were not assembled, as we are, to consider of the existence of high treason against the King's life, but only of a misdemeanor for seditiously disturbing his 52 See the concluding remarks on Mr. Erskine's speech upon the rights of juries, page 683. title and establishment, by the proceedings for a reform in Parliament, I should think the Crown, upon the very principle which, under the libel law, must now govern such a trial, quite as distant from its mark. Because, in my opinion, there is no way by which his Majesty's title can more firmly be secured, or by which (above all, in our times) its permanency can be better established, than by promoting a more full and equal representation of the people, by peaceable means; and by what other means has it been sought, in this instance, to be promoted? when broken violence was not intended. lenges to their jurors, and other irregularities were introduced, so as to be the subject of complaint in the House of Commons. prisoners when reformers were Gentlemen, in what I am saying I am not standing up to vindicate all that was Apology for the published during these proceedings, warmth of the more especially those things which the Edinburgh were written in consequence of the tried and sen trials I have just alluded to.54 But tenced. allowance must be made for a state of heat and irritation. They saw men whom they believed to be persecuted for what they believed to be innocent. They saw them the victims of sentences which many would consider as equivalent to, if not worse than, judgment of treason-sentences which, at all events, had never existed before, and such as I believe never will again with impunity. But since I am on the subject of intention, I shall conduct myself with the same moderation which I have been prescribing. I will cast no aspersions, but shall content myself with lamenting that these judgments were productive of consequences which rarely follow from authority discreetly exercised. How easy is it, then, to dispose of as much of the evidence as consumed half a day in the anathemas against the Scotch judges! It appears that they came to various resolutions concerning them; some good, some bad, and all of them irregular. Among others, they compare them to Jefferies, and wish that they who imitate his example may meet his fate. What then? Irreverent expressions against judges are not acts of high treason! If they had assembled round the Court of Justiciary, and hanged them in the execution of their oflices, it would not have been treason within the statute. I am no advocate for disrespect to judges, and think that it is dangerous to the Gentlemen, when the members of this convenThe conduct of tion were seized, did they attempt rethe convention, sistance? Did they insist upon their up, shows that privileges as subjects under the laws, or as a Parliament enacting laws for others? If they had said or done any thing to give color to such an idea, there needed no spies to convict them. The Crown could have given ample indemnity for evidence from among themselves. The societies consisted of thousands and thousands of persons, some of whom, upon any calculation of human nature, might have been produced. The delegates who attended the meetings could not be supposed to have met with a different intention from those who sent them; and if the answer to that be, that the constituents are involved in the guilt of their representatives, we get back to the monstrous position which I observed you before to shrink back from, with visible horror, when I stated it; namely, the involving in the fate and consequence of this single trial every man who corresponded with these societies, or who, as a member of societies in any part of the kingdom, consented to the meeting which was assembled, or which was in prospect. But I thank God I have nothing to fear from such hydras, when I see before me such just and hon-public order; but, putting aside the insult upon orable men to hold the balance of justice. the judges now in authority, the reprobation of Jefferies is no libel, but an awful and useful memento to wicked men. Lord Chief Justice Jefferies denied the privilege of English Defense of law to an innocent man. He refused in respect to it to Sir Thomas Armstrong, who in Jefferies. vain pleaded in bar of his outlawry that he was out of the realm when he was exacted (an ob their language 54 The London Societies took a deep interest in Skirving and the other Scottish reformers, who had been condemned to transportation for fourteen years to Botany Bay. They spoke of this in strong terms Gentlemen, the dissolution of this Parliament speaks as strong a language as its conduct when sitting. How was it dissolved? When the magistrates entered, Mr. Skirving was in the chair, which he refused to leave. He considered and asserted his conduct to be legal, and therefore informed the magistrate he must exercise his authority, that the dispersion might appear to be involuntary, and that the subject, disturbed in his rights, might be entitled to his remedy. The magistrate on this took Mr. Skirving by the shoulder, who immediately obeyed; the chair was quitted in a moment, and this great Parliament broken up! What was the effect of all this proceeding at the time, when whatever belonged to it must have been best understood? Were any of the parties indicted for high treason ? Were they indicted even for a breach of the peace in holding the convention? None of 56 Sir Thomas Armstrong was seized in Holland these things. The law of Scotland, arbitrary as for having been engaged in Monmouth's conspiracy it is, was to be disturbed to find a name for their against James II. in 1685; and as it was apprehended that sufficient evidence could not be procured to offense,53 and the rules of trial to be violated, to obtain a verdict against him even from the subserv convict them. They were denied their chal-ient juries of that time, he was condemned and executed without a trial, under the pretense that he of indignation, as it deserved, and this was now made their crime. 55 The legality of the sentence in the case of these men, as well as of Muir and Palmer, has been called in question; it being maintained by many that outlawry without transportation was all that the law allowed. 53 They were indicted for leasing making, by was not entitled to claim one, as he had not surrenwhich was meant stirring up sedition. dered himself after outlawry. jection so clear that it was lately taken for grant- | utmost confidence that I ask you a few plain ed in the case of Mr. Purefoy). The daughter of this unfortunate person, a lady of honor and quality, came publicly into court to supplicate for her father, and what were the effects of her supplications, and of the law in the mouth of the prisoner? "Sir Thomas Armstrong," said Jefferies, "you may amuse yourself as much as you please with the idea of your innocence, but you are to be hanged next Friday;" and upon the natural exclamation of a daughter at this horrible outrage against her parent, he said, "Take that woman out of court;" which she answered by a prayer that God Almighty's judgments might light upon him. Gentlemen, they did light upon him; and when, after his death, which speedily followed this transaction, the matter was brought before the House of Commons, under that glorious Revolution which is asserted throughout the proceedings before you, the judgment against Sir Thomas Armstrong was declared to be a murder under color of justice! Sir Robert Sawyer, the Attorney General, was expelled the House of Commons for his misdemeanor in refusing the writ of error; and the executors of Jefferies were commanded to make compensation to the widow and the daughter of the deceased. These are great monuments of justice; and although I by no means approve of harsh expressions against authority which tend to weaken the holdings of society, yet let us not go beyond the mark in our restraints, nor suppose that men are dangerously disaffected to the government, because they feel a sort of pride and exultation in events which constitute the dignity and glory of their country. The treatment reformers very demned. liament. Gentlemen, this resentment against the proceedings of the courts in Scotland was of the Scottish not confined to those who were the generally con- objects of them. It was not confined even to the friends of a reform in ParA benevolent public, in both parts of the island, joined them in the complaint; and a gentleman of great moderation, and a most inveterate enemy to parliamentary reform, as thinking it not an improvement of the government, but nevertheless a lover of his country and its insulted justice, made the convictions of the delegates the subject of a public inquiry. I speak of my friend Mr. William Adam, who brought these judgments of the Scotch judges before the House of Commons, arraigned them as contrary to law, and proposed to reverse them by the authority of Parliament. Let it not, then, be matter of wonder that these poor men, who were the immediate victims of this injustice, and who saw their brethren expelled from their country by an unprecedented and questionable judgment, should feel like men on the subject, and express themselves as they felt. Gentlemen, amid the various distresses and emProof from the barrassments which attend my present situation, it is a great consolation that I have marked, from the beginning, your vigilant attention and your capacity to understand; it is, therefore, with the conduct of the accused that reform by force was not intended. questions, arising out of the whole of these Scotch proceedings. In the first place, then, do you believe it to be possible that, if these men had really projected the convention as a traitor. ous usurpation of the authorities of Parliament, they would have invited the Friends of the People, in Frith Street, to assist them, when they knew that this society was determined not to seek the reform of the Constitution but by means that were constitutional, and from whom they could neither hope for support nor concealment of evil purposes? I ask you, next, if their objects had been traitorous, would they have given them, without disguise or color, to the public and to the government in every common newspaper? And yet it is so far from being a charge against them that they concealed their objects by hypocrisy or guarded conduct, that I have been driven to admit the justice of the complaint against them, for unnecessary inflammation and exaggeration. I ask you, further, whether, if the proceedings thus published and exaggerated had appeared to government, who knew every thing belonging to them, in the light they represent them to you to-day, they could possibly have slept over them with such complete indifference and silence? For it is notorious that after this convention had been held at Edinburgh; after, in short, every thing had been said, written, and transacted, on which I am now commenting, and after Mr. Paine's book had been for above a year in universal circulation—ay, up to the very day when Mr. Grey gave notice, in the House of Commons, of the intention of the Friends of the People for a reform in Parliament, there was not even a single indictment on the file for a misdemeanor; but, from that moment, when it was seen that the cause was not beat down or abandoned, the Proclamation made its appearance, and all the proceedings that followed had their birth. I ask you, lastly, gentlemen, whether it be in human nature, that a few unprotected men, conscious, in their own minds, that they had been engaged and detected in a detestable rebellion to cut off the King, to destroy the administration of justice, and to subvert the whole fabric of the government, should turn round upon their country, whose ruin they had projected, and whose most obvious justice attached on them, complaining, forsooth, that their delegates, taken by magistrates in the very act of high treason, had been harshly and illegally interrupted in a meritorious proceeding? The history of mankind never furnished an instance, nor ever will, of such extravagant, preposterous, and unnatural conduct! No, no, gentlemen. All their hot blood was owing to their firm persuasion, dictated by conscious innocence. that the conduct of their delegates had been legal, and might be vindicated against the magistrates who obstructed them. In that they might be mistaken; I am not arguing that point at present. If they are hereafter indicted for a misdemeanor, and I am counsel in that cause, I will then tell you what I think of it. Sufficient unto the day is the good or evil thereof. It is | feel to the very soul for a nation beset by the sufficient for the present one, that the legality or sword of despots, and yet be a lover of his own illegality of the business has no relation to the country and its Constitution. crime that it is imputed to the prisoner. (4.) The send to France by the two Lon don societies. France was his sympathy icans though in Gentlemen, the same celebrated person, of The next matter that is alleged against the whom I have had occasion to speak Mr. Burke pub authors of the Scotch Convention, and so frequently, is the best and bright- licly expressed ing of delegates the societies which supported it, is est illustration of this truth. Mr. with the Amer their having sent addresses of friend- Burke, indeed, went a great deal fur- arms agains 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 war— ber, 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 dis-flections. Thousands of persons, the most firmly avows them such men are not Frenchmen." attached to the principles of our Constitution, and The same correspondence conveys the most sol- who never were members of any of these socieemn assurances of friendship down to the very ties, considered, and still consider, Great Britain year 1792, a period subsequent to all the corre- as the aggressor against France. They considspondence 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 hold government for the hour is at all times dif- others may have similar ing the French treasonable de views respect without any signe. 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 En 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 been 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. All the treason The transaction respecting this second convention, which constitutes the principal, to be found here, or, more properly, the only overt act if any where. in the indictment, lies in the narrowest 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 You will recollect, that the first motion toward the holding of a second convention to the Constitu- originated in a letter to the prisontional Society. er 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 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 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 conjunction with this and other societies to obtain a fair representation 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 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 exerted by MEN and 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. "I am, fellow-citizen, "(In my humble measure), "(Signed) "A friend to the rights of man, T. HARDY, Secretary." the continuance of any right but in equality of They then resolve that there is no security for laws-not in equality of property-the ridiculous bugbear by which you are to be frightened into of the proceedings, and most emphatically in Mr. injustice; on the contrary, throughout every part Yorke's speech (so much relied on), the beneficial subordinations of society, the security of commercial interests, are held forth as the very property, and the prosperity of the landed and objects to be attained by the reform in the representation which they sought for. In examining this first moving toward a sec ond convention, the first thing to be The object of this was the same as of the former convention, which was con sonable. considered is, what reason there is, from the letter I have just read to you, or from any thing that appears fessedly not trea to have led to it, to suppose that a different sort of convention was projected from sembled and dispersed. The letter says, another that [at Edinburgh] which had been before asBritish 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 words: "March 27, 1794. 58 Those of Muir and others, mentioned above. |