TRIALS OF JEREMIAH BRANDRETH, AND OTHERS, FOR High Treason, UNDER A SPECIAL COMMISSION AT DERBY, TAKEN IN SHORT HAND BY WILLIAM BRODIE GURNEY, Short Hand Writer to both Houses of Parliament. London: SOLD BY BUTTERWORTH AND SON, FLEET-STREET; AND FENNER, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 535 382 V.2 (Entered at Stationers Hall.] Printed by Luke Hansard & Sons, TRIAL OF WILLIAM TURNER, FOR High Treason, SPECIAL ASSIZE, DERBY, REPLY. MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL. IT May it please your Lordship, Gentlemen of the Jury, T becomes now my duty to address to you, some observations in answer to those which have been made by my learned friends who are Counsel for the Prisoner; and also to make some observations upon the case as it has been proved on the part of the Crown, and remains totally and entirely unanswered by anything in the shape of evidence on the part of the Prisoner at the bar. Whether the observations that have been made to you; the ingenious observations that have been made by both my learned friends, shall do away a body of evidence, the truth of each and every part of which, I will venture to say, can upon no ground of solid reason be disputed, remains to be seen by the verdict that you shall hereafter give: a verdict which you are called upon to give by the common and ordinary duties imposed upon you as honest men—a verdict which you are called upon to give by the sacred and solemn obligation of that solemn appeal which you have made to your Maker, in the oath which you have taken a verdict which you are called upon to give by that oath, not according to the observations which shall be made by my friends on the one side, or which shall be made by me on the other, but according to the evidence, so help you God. Gentlemen, I should not occupy much of your time in commenting upon this case, but for some observations that have been made by my learned friends on the other side; no matter what my impressions may be upon the subject, for according to my impressions, you are not to decide; yet my impression being that the case is so strongly proved as almost to make it a waste of time to make many observations upon that which has been proved, I should take up very little of your time, but that I think it incumbent upon me for the sake of the Public, for the sake of the administration of the justice of the country, for the sake (if I may use the phrase) of the learned Judges who are sitting here, and least of all, which is of much less importance, than the other considerations, for my own sake as well as of my learned friends exercising our duty, (God knows as far as relates to myself, with little enough of talent to enable me to exercise it; but I hope I may say, with as much desire to do it with integrity, as any man who ever stood in the situation in which I am placed ;) in justice to that character, am I called upon to make some observations in answer to what has fallen from my learned friend. Gentlemen, no man can very well answer for his wisdom; every man either can or ought to be able to answer for his integrity. Gentlemen, my learned friends have addressed to you an observation upon the subject of the nature of the Court and of the Tribunal in which this Prisoner at the bar is tried; they have told you, that the Attorney and Solicitor General, with an array of Counsel, come down here, I think the phrase was, as it were to make or levy war upon these Prisoners, under a special commission, and that this is not conducted at the common and ordinary tribunal of the assizes, which are holden twice a year in this county; why gentlemen, let it be recollected, and my learned friends should have recollected, that unless the proceeding were under a special commission, the trial of these men must have been postponed from the last assizes till the next; for that statute which has given the Prisoner the benefit and the right to the two Counsel who have been heard on his behalf by you, actually prevented, from its rules and regulations in favour of prisoners, these trials from being decided at the last assizes. Gentlemen, a law which was passed immediately upon the glorious revolution in 1688, gives rights to a prisoner, which I thank God he has, however sometimes it may create inconvenience, personal inconvenience to persons who have to decide upon such cases. When a bill of indictment is found against a Prisoner, before he can be arraigned and desired to answer that indictment, he must have a copy of that indictment delivered to him above ten days previous to that arraignment; he must have an opportunity of having counsel assigned to him during the same period of time, to advise him as to the nature of his defence, and not merely to address the Jury in court, when he shall come to be tried; he must have a list of all and every witness it may peradventure be necessary to call against him, or any of those indicted with him, for the same period of time; he must have a list, with proper description of every gentleman of the jury, who may chance in the allotment of jurymen, after either side have exercised their right of objecting either with, (or without cause as far as relates to the Prisoner,) to come there. All these things must be done, and ought to be done for the benefit of the prisoner; let it be recollected, for it is for his benefit that that statute was passed; and these things make it absolutely impossible, without interfering with the ordinary justice and mode of proceeding in the country, to try the prisoner at the assizes, at which the bill of indictment is found, unless those assizes shall be adjourned over till after all the rest of the circuit is passed through. But gentlemen, that is not all; did ever man hear this sort of objection made before to the constitution of a court; |