800 SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT. [1794. wish for if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for my honourable friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which are given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand." Mr. Pitt had on this occasion, as in many other instances, to endure the reproach of departing from the principles he once professed, in now sanctioning the execution of the sentences upon these men; "whose offence," said Mr. Adam, "might perhaps be traced to the doctrines formerly inculcated by some of those who now held distinguished situations in the Cabinet." * On the 12th of May a Message from the king was delivered to the House of Commons by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in which it was stated that upon information of seditious practices carried on by certain Societies in London, their books and papers had been seized; and that his majesty had ordered them to be laid before the House. A Committee of Secresy was appointed by ballot to examine these papers, and on the 16th they presented their first "The Society Report. The Societies whose papers were thus examined were for Constitutional Information" and "The London Corresponding Society."† On the presentation of the Report, Mr. Pitt dwelt upon the various allegations of the Committee; and particularly upon their conclusion that a Convention was contemplated, which might take upon itself the character of a general representative of the people; a Convention evidently designed, said Mr. Pitt, "to exercise legislative and judicial capacities, to overturn the established system of government, and wrest from the Parliament that power which the people and the constitution had lodged in their hands." He then moved "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to empower his majesty to secure and detain such persons as his majesty shall suspect are conspiring against his person and government." The proposed measure was a Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; ‡ and its necessity was grounded upon the recital of the Bill, "that a treacherous and detestable conspiracy had been formed for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing the system of anarchy and confusion which had lately prevailed in France." It was opposed strenuously by the usual small minority, but was rapidly carried through the Commons; and was passed at three o'clock on Sunday morning, the 18th. On the 23rd it passed the House of Lords. On the 19th, after examinations before the Privy Council, six persons were committed to the Tower, charged with hightreason; amongst whom were the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, private secretary to earl Stanhope, Horne Tooke, and John Thelwall. The State Trials arising out of these arrests, and of the arrests of others also charged with the highest offence known to the law, are amongst the most interesting proceedings in our constitutional history. Five months were employed by the government in preparation for the arraignment of thirteen persons to be charged with compassing the death of our Lord the King." This resort to the law of Constructive Treason can scarcely now find a defender, except a remnant be left of the alarmists who regarded the long struggle against popular rights as * "Parliamentary History," vol. xxx. col. 1490 to 1576. 1794.] TRIALS OF HARDY, TOOKE, AND THELWALL. 301 the saving of the monarchy. Most men agree with the eminent lawyer who now holds the highest office under the Crown, that if the ministerial measure had succeeded, "all political agitation must have been extinguished in England; as there would have been a precedent for holding that the effort to carry a measure by influencing public opinion through the means openly resorted to in our days is a compassing of the death of the sovereign. The only chance of escaping servitude would have been civil war." * The Grand Jury of Middlesex having found an indictment against twelve persons for high-treason, and a Special Commission having been appointed for their trials, this memorable proceeding commenced at the Session House in the Old Bailey, on the 28th of October, with the trial of Thomas Hardy. One who was amongst the twelve accused has described this crisis with some pomp of words which sounds like exaggeration, but which is scarcely an overstrained estimate of the popular feeling. Thomas Holcroft says, "Perhaps this country never witnessed a moment more portentous. The hearts and countenances of men seemed pregnant with doubt and terror. They waited, in something like a stupor of amazement, for the fearful sentence on which their deliverance or their destruction seemed to depend. Never surely was the public mind more profoundly agitated. The whole power of government was directed against Thomas Hardy; in his fate seemed involved the fate of the nation." + Erskine and Gibbs were assigned as counsel for the prisoner. Sir John Scott, Attorney-General, opened the case for the prosecution in a speech of nine hours. He maintained that the evidence would establish the fact of a conspiracy to depose the king, which, in point of law, is an overt act of compassing his death; that this overt act was included in the still wider design of subverting the entire monarchy, and substituting a commonwealth, which was the real object aimed at, under colour of a full and fair representation of the people; that the Convention which the persons thus charged conspired to establish, was a Convention to alter the whole form of the sovereign power of this country, by vesting in a body formed upon universal suffrage and the rights of man, all the legislative and executive government of the country; and, contemplating the destruction of the regal office in the constitution of the state, was an overt act of high treason. The evidence to establish this statement occupied five days, from an early hour of each morning till midnight. "In the annals of English criminal jurisprudence there had not yet been an instance of a trial for high treason that had not been finished in a single day," says lord Campbell. This evidence embraced copious extracts of the voluminous publications issued by the reforming Societies-resolutions and speeches all over the country-toasts at public dinners-a vast variety of matters which Erskine, in his reply, described as not the peculiar transactions of the prisoners, but of immense bodies of the king's subjects in various parts of the kingdom, assembled without the smallest reserve. "Not a syllable have we heard read," said he, "in the week's imprisonment that we have suffered, that we had not all of us. read for months and months before the prosecution was heard of." This reply of the great advocate occupied seven hours in the delivery. No one, * Lord Campbell-"Lives of the Lord Chancellors," vol. vi. p. 470. +"Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 180. "Erskine's Speeches," vol. iii. p. 393. 302 TRIALS OF HARDY, TOOKE, AND THELWALL. [1794. even at this distance of time, can read it without emotion; for assuredly in the whole compass of forensic eloquence is not to be found a nobler display of impressive reasoning, of constitutional learning, of earnestness in the assertion of the great principles of liberty, of fearlessness in the exposure of the tendencies towards arbitrary government. Men must then have acknowledged the force of the great truth which he uttered, as we now regard it from the historical point of view, when he said, "We are in a crisis of our affairs, which, putting justice out of the question, calls in sound policy for the greatest prudence and moderation. At a time when other nations are disposed to subvert their establishments, let it be our wisdom to make the subject feel the practical benefits of our own: let us seek to bring good out of evil: the distracted inhabitants of the world will fly to us for sanctuary, driven out of their countries from the dreadful consequences of not attending to seasonable reforms in government,-victims to the folly of suffering corruptions to continue, till the whole fabric of society is dissolved and tumbles into ruin. Landing upon our shores, they will feel the blessing of security, and they will discover in what it consists: they will read this trial, and their hearts will palpitate at your decision: they will say to one another, and their voices will reach to the ends of the earth, May the constitution of England endure for ever-the sacred and yet remaining sanctuary for the oppressed." This confident anticipation of their verdict was not too bold. Although the House of Commons had made an ex parte declaration of guilt in the recital to the Act for suspending the Habeas Corpus-although "the protesting Commons was itself the accuser, and acted as a solicitor to prepare the very briefs for the prosecution" *-the orator's belief was fully realised. After nine days close confinement, the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. The advisers of the Crown now desperately resolved to cast the die for another chance of success. Upon the same charge, and with the same evidence, John Horne Tooke was arraigned. He took much of the conduct of the defence into his own hands, by cross-examining the witnesses for the prosecution. His coolness and readiness, his repartees and quaint questions, Speech on the Trial of Horne Tooke-"Erskine's Speeches," vol. iv. p. 7. 1794.] TRIALS OF HARDY, TOOKE, AND THELWALL. 303 appeared to betoken a levity inconsistent with his serious position on a trial for life or [death. But he had the discretion to leave the speech for his defence in the hands of Erskine. It was bolder and more confident than the speech for Hardy. Mr. Pitt was examined by Tooke as a witness for the defence; and he was subjected to a life-enduring mortification in having to say that he "did not recollect" having been present at a meeting of delegates previous to one of his motions in Parliament on the subject of Reform. There were others who did recollect. The trial of Tooke lasted three days. The jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of Not Guilty. A third prisoner was put to the bar, John Thelwall. He was also defended by Erskine; and the same verdict of Not Guilty was returned upon the third day. The service which Erskine rendered to his country, by his wonderful efforts on these trials, has been estimated by one of the most eminent of the orators of our own age: "If there be yet amongst us the power of freely discussing the acts of our rulers; if there be yet the privilege of meeting for the promotion of needful reforms; if he who desires wholesome changes in our Constitution be still recognized as a patriot, and not doomed to die the death of a traitor; let us acknowledge with gratitude that to this great man, under Heaven, we owe this felicity of the times." * Lord Campbell affirms that lord Loughborough was a principal adviser of these trials; and he adds a remarkable anecdote: "To the credit of George III., when the whole subject was understood by him, he rejoiced in the acquittals, and laying all the blame on the Chancellor, he said, 'You have got us into the wrong box, my lord, you have got us into the wrong box. Constructive treason won't do, my lord, constructive treason won't do.'" + A sagacious observer of the public temper of this period-one who had lost all his original enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and dreaded that the French would "preserve nothing of civilized life but its vices "-writes in October, "There are many persons here who wish a total overthrow of our constitution, and many more who desire great changes in it." Romilly thus separates the smaller class of republicans from the larger class of reformers. There was a far more numerous class than either of these "the majority of the nation," who are "most ardent zealots for maintaining our constitution as it is, and disposed to think the reform of the most palpable abuse, which has been of long continuance, as a species of sacrilege." We may be sure, therefore, that to "the majority of the nation" the determination of the government to resist every species of innovation offered no ground for alarm or solicitude. They thought there were greater dangers than abridgment of public liberty. Nevertheless, the confiding Englishman who believed himself free, at a time when the political spy was everywhere dodging his footsteps, had no desire again to look upon heads on Temple Bar, and was not sorry when Hardy, the shoemaker, and Parson Horne, and Thelwall, the lecturer, and nine other men of various grades in society, returned to their homes. Whatever might have been the general apathy, this was, indeed, a period of Lord Brougham-"Statesmen." "Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” vol. vi. p. 267. Lord Campbell has no reference to an authority for this anecdote. 304 INVASION THREATENED-NATIONAL DEFENCE. [1794. real danger a period in which the rashness of impracticable theorists, and the terrors of party lawgivers, might have plunged the country into a contest which would have ended in anarchy or despotism. But the quiescent state of the bulk of the people was their safety. The rallying cry of Liberty at the beginning of the reign of George III. was no longer heard; but the principle was not dead. There is a noble passage in Erskine's Speech for Hardy, the truth of which is as fresh now as on the day of its utterance, and whose value may even be better estimated at the present day, after the experience of the last quarter of a century: "In reviewing the history of this highly favoured island, it is most beautiful, and at the same time highly encouraging, to observe, by what an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, under the superintendence of a benevolent Providence, the liberties. of our country have been established. Amidst the convulsions arising from the maddest ambition and injustice, and whilst the State was alternately departing from its poise, on one side and on the other, the great rights of mankind were insensibly, taking root and flourishing. Though sometimes monarchy threatened to lay them prostrate, though aristocracy occasionally undermined them, and democracy in her turn rashly trampled on them, yet they have ever come safely round at last. This awful and sublime contemplation should teach us to bear with one another, when our opinions. do not quite coincide; extracting final harmony from the inevitable differences which ever did, and ever must, exist amongst men." * From the commencement of the war, the spirit of Reform in England was abundantly neutralized by the spirit of Patriotism. The French government at the beginning of 1794 threatened invasion. The English government not only increased the regular forces, but advocated the formation of bodies of Volunteers in every county. On the 17th of April an Act was passed, "for encouraging and disciplining such corps, or companies of men, as shall voluntarily enrol themselves, for the defence of their counties, towns, or coasts, or for the general defence of the kingdom, during the present war." This arming of the people was principally confined to corps of yeomanry cavalry. Lord Grenville, writing to his brother, says, "I think the natural defence of this country against an enemy once landed, is by the immense irregular cavalry that might be collected, and formed round small bodies of disciplined horse. This, of course, does not exclude the necessity of some infantry to oppose the enemy in front."+ Lord Grenville's notions of national defence seem to have been as crude as the plans of the ministry for carrying on the war abroad. In the naval administration there was less to be deplored. A great writer has said, "The English navy no mismanagement could ruin. But during a long period whatever mismanagement could do was done." A great naval commander, on the contrary, says of the period at which he first joined the service (June 1793), "The energy of the government kept pace with the patriotism of the nation. That fearful system of naval jobbery, which unhappily characterized the subsequent progress of the war, crowding the seas with worthless vessels, purchased into the service "Erskine's Speeches," vol. iii. p. 347. |