To this information Mr. Rowan appeared, by Matthew Dowling, gent. his attorney, and pleaded the general issue-Not Guilty-and the court having appointed Wednesday the 29th day of January, 1794, for the trial of the said issue, the undernamed persons were sworn upon the jury: Sir F. HUTCHINSON, Bart. GEORGE PALMER, JOHN READ, ROBERT LEA, RICHARD FOx, CHRISTOPHER HARRISON, GEORGE PERRIN, THOMAS SHERRARD. Upon calling over the jury, John Read was objected to, as holding a place under the crown,* but the Attorney General insisting upon the illegality of the objection, and observing that it went against all that was honourable and respectable in the land, it was overruled by the court. Richard Fox, when called to the book, was interrogated whether he had ever given an opinion upon the subject then to be tried, to which he answered, that he did not know what the subject of the trial was. The same question was put to Thomas Sherrard, who returned a similar answer. Joshua Dixon, who had been sworn upon the jury, without any objection, here stated, that he had given an opinion upon the subject, upon which Mr. Attorney General consented that he should be withdrawn, but protested against the right of the defendant's counsel to examine the jurors as they had done. If they had any objection, they ought to make their challenge, and support it by evidence. The counsel for the defendant answered, that they would not acquiesce in the consent of the Attorney General to withdraw the juror, if their examination was to be objected to, and intimated that the juror ought to be withdrawn upon the desire of the Attorney General, without any consent whatever being entered into. Hereupon the Attorney General desired that the juror might be withdrawn. Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL-My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury, In this case, between the KING and ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, Esq., it is my duty to prosecute on behalf of the crown. The traverser in this case, gentlemen, stands accused upon an information filed ex officio, by the King's Attorney General, for publishing a seditious libel. It is my duty to lay the facts of this case before you—it will be the duty of another of his majesty's servants to observe upon the evidence. I shall state the nature of the charge and the questions Co. Litt. 156 a; 2 Hale. His. Pl. c. 271; Hawkins Pleas of the Crown, ch. 43, sections 32, 33. you are to try; I will then state such circumstances as are necessary to be taken into your consideration, for the purpose of understanding and expounding that paper which the information charges to be a malicious, and seditious libel. The information charges, that Archibald Hamilton Rowan, maliciously designing and intending to excite and diffuse amongst the subjects of this realm, discontents, disaffection and disloyalty to the king and government, and to raise very dangerous seditions and tumults, and to draw the government into scandal, infamy and disgrace, and to incite the subjects to attempt, by force and with arms, to make alterations in the government, and to excite the subjects to anarchy, to overturn the constitution and overawe the legislature of the kingdom, did publish the libel set forth in the information. In this case, therefore, it will be for you, gentlemen, upon the evidence which shall be laid before you, to determine, whether the traverser has been the publisher of that paper or not. I shall, in the course of what I am to offer to the court and to you, read the very libel itself, and make such observations as occur to me to be proper in the present state of the business. Previous, however, to my doing so, I will take the liberty, gentlemen, of stating to you some facts and circumstances that appear to me deserving of attention in the investigation of the matter before you; and in doing so, I shall carefully avoid mentioning many facts and circumstances which those disgraceful times have furnished, that might lead your verdict one way or the other. I shall not attempt to excite your passions. I am happy at length that this case has come before an impartial jury. It has long been the desire of every good man that this matter should come to trial before that constitutional tribunal who stand arbiters in this case, to protect the accused against the power of the crown; not resembling any of those prosecutions which the turbulence of former times have excited, you are assembled with that coolness which the solemnity of the occasion requires, to determine whether Mr. Rowan be guilty, criminally, of the offence charged against him. Take the libel into your consideration, and determine, as the law now allows you to do, whether it be a libellous publication, tending to excite sedition, to overawe the government; or tending to produce any of the effects imputed to it. I shall now proceed to state a few facts which I said it was my duty to do. I shall call your attention to the history of the times about which this libel was published :-No man, let his situation be what it may, can be too cautious in uttering what ought not to be said, which might influence your judgment upon your oaths; and in that office which I hold, which is the office of the people, as well as of the crown, it is more than a common duty to take care, not to step beyond that line which leads to common justice. I am warranted by the authority of a court of justice, by the proceedings of the King's Bench in England; by the opinion of a Judge of as much spirit and independence as any man, I allude to the case of the printer of the Morning Chronicle, in which Lord Kenyon informs the jury, that it is necessary, in cases of this kind, to attend to the circumstances and history of the times in which the libel was published.* They tend to explain the motives Howell. St. Trials, vol. 22, p. 1017. which induced the publication, and the meaning of the libel itself. He says it is impossible for the court, or a jury, to shut their ears against the history of the times. Besides that common principle, I am the more justifiable in what I shall state, because the libel charged comes from that body of men, who have constituted themselves by the name of "The Society of United Irishmen in Dublin." From the time of the restoration of our constitution-from the year 1784 to the year 1792—this country advanced in prosperity, with a regular progress and gradation. The agriculture, commerce and police improved; the civilization of the country proceeded uniformly from year to year; the commonalty began to enjoy blessings they had been strangers to ships crowded in our harbours-commerce occupied our ports culture in our fields, and peace and happiness every where prevailed. The French revolution took place, when there were found many men, who from situation, from circumstances, from ambition, were desirous of commotion. Clubs were formed in the metropolis with the avowed intention of improving the constitution, for they must assume some pretext, but with a view, I fear, under colour of that, to overturn it. They subsisted here in this town under different names, till at length in 1791, they formed themselves into a club, called the Society of United Irishmen, consisting at first of a small number, composed of various classes of men, certainly some of them of the learned professions ;—some of the lowest members in the community. In 1791 they continued to pour upon the public daily publications, setting forth the distresses of the people, teaching them to be discontented with their situation and the government of the country. Things thus proceeded, down to the latter end of the year 1792. In the latter end of autumn, 1792, the allied armies retired from the kingdom of France: the convention of that kingdom began to hold a high language, and to talk of oversetting the government of kings. An attack was made upon regal authority, a spirit was stirred among those desirous of such schemes-it seemed to inspire them. There was a talk of overturning the government of king, lords, and commons-success at the same time seemed to crown the arms of the French; they advanced beyond their own territory, and menaced an attack upon the United States of Holland. In this situation of things, there did pervade a gloomy apprehension for the safety of the country. Emissaries from France were spread throughout Europe; a new array of a new corps was made in Dublin in the noon day, decorated with emblems of sedition; they were to parade in your streets, and to be marshalled in your squares. The Volunteers of Ireland, a name revered by this country and by every good man loving the constitution, that sacred name was made a cloak for arming a banditti, that arraigned the constitution and degraded the name of Volunteer; a National Guard was formed upon the plan of those in Paris. It is notorious to every man in Ireland, to every man in the British dominions, that such men assembled with clothing of a peculiar uniform, with emblems of harps divested of the royal crown; every thing was undertaken to spread the spirit which animated themselves, and can any man forget the situation of Dublin, in September, October, and November, 1792, which caused apprehensions in those who were well affected to the government and tranquillity of the country? Can any man forget the state of the nation at this period? her credit was shaken, good people stood appalled; those loving peace stood astonished at the languidness of government. At length that government came forward which had never slept, but had been proceeding with mildness, determined not to go forth to action, nor have recourse to any severer remedies until every man in the state, who had a moment's reflection, must see the necessity of the exertion. The troops are summoned to meet, the guards are summoned to assemble, and the first battalion of National Guards were to have paraded, clothed like Frenchmen. The night before the Lord Lieutenant had summoned the council of the kingdom; upon that night, a proclamation issued, stating that there were intentions to assemble men in arms, with seditious signs, and apprehending danger from their so assembling; it prohibited their meeting. The proclamation issued on a Saturday night, and it produced that satisfaction which all good men desirous of order seek to enjoy ; and they felt once more the pleasurable assurance that they had a government. Appalled by this proclamation, the corps did not meet on the 8th December, as it was intended, though some few were seen dressed in the National Guard uniform, parading the streets, with a mob, crowding at their heels; but however nothing followed. They were seen, and blessed be God, they were seen no more. This proclamation, having for its object the preservation of the peace of this kingdom, and the city in particular, mildly and coolly cautioning all men against those measures, held out the consequences that must necessarily follow, if they did not obey. A proclamation which received the applause of the great and good, of the lovers of society, and of every man not lost to the sense of order and the constitution; but odious to every man who was attached to the Society of United Irishmen, and whose views corresponded with it. While I speak of that Society let me not be understood as imputing to every man who is in it, those illegal motives which I impute to the Society in general: there might have been in it no doubt many wellmeaning persons; for there were men picked up industriously to lend their names, in the streets, in the lanes, in the markets, in the highways, and in the fields. Even the rich and industrious grazier was procured to lend his name. To the good, this proclamation gave pleasure and satisfaction, to the bad it became odious and detestable; and they accordingly formed the intention of bringing the government into disgrace, for issuing that proclamation. A few days after, I am not aware of the particular day, but a few days after the issuing the proclamation, the Society assembled; the proclamation was upon the 7th, the address I speak of was published the 16th of December. The meeting, therefore, must have been between the 7th and the 16th of December. The society, I say, assembled, and they agreed upon a certain address to the Volunteers of Ireland, and Dr. Drennan is there stated to have been in the chair, and the traverser, Secretary. At that meeting the address to the Volunteers was agreed upon, which is the libel charged against Mr. Rowan, as being guilty of publishing it. Under that address, this was to be done. The Volunteers of Dublin were to be called into action, and those papers were to be dispersed among them. For that purpose the several Volunteer corps at that time existing in Dublin were summoned to assemble in a house in Cope-street, belonging to Pardon, a fencingmaster, upon the 16th of December. Accordingly upon that day, the several corps of Volunteers did go with side arms to this fencingschool in Cope-street. The traverser was, I believe, at the head of one of these corps; another very celebrated name was at the head of another of them, James Napper Tandy. Who was at the head of the others I am not able to inform you. But in the afternoon of the 16th of December, several Volunteers, with uniforms and side arms, assembled in the fencing-school. In this fencing-school, gentlemen, there was a gallery, and into that gallery there was such public access that what passed below may be said to have passed in the face of the world; to such excess had those persons carried their designs as to expose them to open view, and if I state what is not true, there are one hundred persons in the Volunteer corps of the city of Dublin, out of whom a multitude may be called to contradict me. The corps, I say, assembled in that room. There stood in the middle of the room a table, and there was a vast number of printed papers brought in and placed on the table. The different corps entered into several resolutions, having taken into their wise consideration the proclamation issued by the Lord Lieutenant and Council; the necessity for issuing it is investigated, each of the corps took severally into their consideration the propriety of it, and next day published their different sentiments all expressive of strong disapprobation. So that it is manifest they were brought publicly together for a state purpose, and to debate a state matter. While these resolutions were in discussion, Mr. Tandy and Mr. Rowan were seen to take from the table the printed papers that lay upon it, and disperse them among the several Volunteers who stood around them, and to hand them from the lower room to persons in the gallery, and to persons not in their confidence; they were handed up promiscuously to any man there, and to many persons in the streets that evening and the next day; they were flung out of the windows to the mob that stood round the room. These, gentlemen, are the circumstances which preceded the publication of this paper by the traverser: it will be for you to consider with what view and purpose a paper like this was composed and thus dispersed. If you believe it was a candid and fair discussion upon constitutional subjects, or upon grievances real or supposed, you will not consider it as a libel: but if from internal evidence in the paper itself, and from the circumstances attending it, you believe it was no such thing, but that it was published with a view to raise discontents against the government--to disturb the people--to overawe the parliament, or any branch of the state, then you must find him guilty. You, gentlemen, will take the paper into your room with you; consider it cooly, and discharge from your minds, all you have heard abroad respecting it, and determine whether it be possible to give any other construction than that which the information has ascribed to it. I will submit to you, gentlemen-to you alone I desire to submit the cool examination of that paper, upon the paper itself. It is impossible with all the ingenuity (and he who comes after me on the other side has as much ingenuity as any man) to shew that it was not written for the purpose of overawing the legislature, or to |