SPECIAL COMMISSION ISSUED.

treason, and the charge was fully proved. These men had laid a plan to surprise the castle of Edinburgh, to take possession of the city, to massacre the troops, to imprison the judges, and demand from the king certain measures; in the event of refusing which, he was to take the consequences. Watt had been a spy in the pay of the Secretary of State; but his services having been disregarded, or not sufficiently rewarded, he engaged, either from treachery or revenge, in the formation of this plot. He was condemned and executed without commiseration from any quarter. His coadjutor, Downie, was also convicted, but recommended to mercy; and the capital penalty was, in his case, commuted to transportation for life.

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89

and others.

In September, a Special Commission was issued Horne Tooke for the trial of the State prisoners who had been committed by the Privy Council in May on charges of high treason. Eyre, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with Chief Baron Macdonald and four of the ablest and most experienced puisne judges,-Hotham, Buller, Grose, and Lawrence, - constituted the Commission. On the 6th of October, the Grand Jury found true Bills against all the prisoners, namely, Hardy, Horne Tooke, Stewart Kyd, Bonney, Joyce, Richter, Baxter, and Thelwall. They also found true Bills against four

d Lord CAMPBELL states that Eyre was placed at the head of the Commission in preference to Kenyon, whose temper and discretion could not be trusted.-Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. iii.

90

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La Motte,
Lord George
Gordon.

RARE OCCURRENCE OF

other persons not in custody. One of these persons, Thomas Holcroft, immediately surrendered, and was committed to Newgate. An interval of several days took place, while the prisoners were severally furnished with copies of the indictment, with a panel of the jury, and the names of the witnesses to be called by the Crown, in accordance with the law and custom in cases of high treason. On the 25th of October, the prisoners were called upon to plead. All pleaded not guilty; and Erskine, as leading counsel for all, having desired that the prisoners should be tried separately, the Attorney General signified his intention of proceeding in the first place with the indictment against Thomas Hardy. Accordingly, on the 28th of October, Hardy was placed at the bar charged with the crime of high treason in compassing the death of the king.

Within the memory of living men, trials for political crimes had been of rare occurrence. Only two cases of high treason had been tried in London during the present reign. One was that of La Motte, a spy in the pay of France, convicted and hanged, in 1781. Another trial in the same year, was that of Lord George Gordon, who, by reviving a prejudice about which the people of this country have always been sensitive, afforded a pretext for riot and plunder to the rabble of London. But, though all persons deplored the mischief which had been done on that occasion, few desired the capital punishment of a crazy

TRIALS FOR POLITICAL CRIMES.

fanatic, who, so far as he could be considered a responsible agent, did not appear to have been actuated by malice. The impeachment of Hastings had excited extraordinary interest; but it was an interest which concerned the higher and educated classes rather than the multitude. The novelty and grandeur of the spectacle; the unparalleled magnitude of the charges; the astonishing display of oratory by performers who had never been surpassed-all contributed to dazzle the senses and to fire the imagination of the vast audience. But there was no feeling of reality in the scene. When Burke described the torture of the Begums, or when Sheridan depicted the duress of Cheyte Sing, the audience were moved, as they were moved when Siddons gave the daggers to Macbeth, or when Kemble pourtrayed the agony of Lear. None felt an impulse to tear in pieces the venerable gentleman who stood at the bar unshaken by the storm of eloquence which raged around him. Nobody regarded the proceedings as really intended to put the life of Warren Hastings in jeopardy. The proceedings, indeed, were so wholly unlike a trial for life, such as the public were accustomed to behold in the regular tribunals, that it was hardly possible to regard them as a stern reality. A counsel, for the prosecution in a criminal case, whether a petty larceny, or a capital charge, who should resort to rhetorical arts to procure a conviction, or who should beyond a plain statement of the facts which he

go

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1794

91

92

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1794

Rash proceedings of the

OBSCURE CONDITION OF PRISONERS

meant to prove, would infallibly draw down upon himself the heavy censure of the court, or be looked upon as a tyro who did not understand the rudiments of his profession. The great impeachment, therefore, was treated as a splendid anomaly, and after the first rage of curiosity was gratified, it was suffered to drag on its slow and lingering course without any person - hardly the parties immediately concerned-manifesting any interest in its progress or its issue.

Far different was the feeling excited by the Government. State trials of 1794. No personal interest, indeed, attached to any of the prisoners. They were, with the exception of Horne Tooke, men in the middle and lower ranks of life, without anything to distinguish them from the swarm of envious malcontents who rise to the surface in civil commotion. But these men-obscure, half educated, of doubtful repute, insignificant as they were,-represented principles and sentiments, associated with the most favoured traditions of English liberty. Hardy the shoemaker, Thelwall the lecturer, Holcroft the dramatist, were, by the rash act of the Government, raised up as the confessors of a political faith which, but for the fostering aid of persecution, would in due time have languished and been forgotten. Hardy and his fellows founded themselves on Parliamentary Reform, the cause to which Chatham had faithfully adhered to his last day, and of which the son of Chatham had only ceased to be the foremost

TRIED FOR TREASON.

champion, when he rose to be the head of the State. Upon this foundation, the prisoners had reared wild and foolish theories, which they had sought to effect by wild and lawless means. There could be no doubt that these men had offered deliberate insults to the Government, which could hardly be suffered to pass with impunity. But it was one thing to deal with a set of obscure and desperate adventurers who were willing to obtain notoriety on any terms as minor offenders, and another to elevate them to the dignity and importance of delinquents charged with the highest crime known to the law. The question raised by these prosecutions was, whether the terrible penalties of high treason were to attach to every man who held extravagant opinions on the subject of parliamentary reform, and who openly sought to enforce them by illegal methods. Was it levying war against the King and compassing his death, in accordance with the precise language of the statute, to issue a prospectus for a Convention which should assume functions incompatible with the rights of Parliament? For, putting aside minor details of questionable import, this was the sum and substance of the charge against the prisoners.

On the 28th of October, Hardy was placed at the bar. After some challenges, both on the part of the Crown and on that of the prisoner, a jury was sworn, consisting of merchants and substantial tradesmen, who fairly represented the intelligence and opinions of the middle class of the Metropolis.

Ch. 34

1794.

Trial of

Hardy.

93