Now, Gentlemen, I dare say that you have lately read the case of Watson; I dare say you saw it generally stated, and you would observe that this argument was very strongly urged by both my learned Friends who defended that prisoner, and put to the Jury by Lord Ellenborough: "It will be for you to attend to the evidence, and to say whether it be of the one description or the other;" that is, whether the violent proceedings which took place in that case, with a tri-coloured flag, and a number of persons parading through the streets, meditating an attack upon the Bank and the Tower; when headed by a young man, who leaped down among a mob, assembled for factious purposes, and says, will you follow me? amounted to High Treason. The Jury found that was not High Treason: they thought it was a riot, and must have thought so, on the foundation of that argument which was then urged by my learned Friends, but which did not originate with them, because it is very distinctly stated by Lord Hale; namely, that if it had been High Treason, under the statute of Edward III., there could have been no necessity for passing the subsequent Statute of Edward VI., to give it that denomination of offence, under particular circumstances, and after lasting a certain time. I submit to you that the case before you is precisely that described in the Statute of Edward VI.; it was a meeting of a number of persons above twelve to alter the Laws and Statutes of this realm by force, and to proceed to the execution of that purpose by the force they had so gathered. It was indisputably a rebellious riot, but the law provides, that if by force and arms they shall meet to effectuate that object, they shall be guilty not of High Treason, but, so far from it, they shall be, in the first instance, guilty only of a riot, and shall be punished and dispersed in the manner prescribed by that Act.

This argument is most matèrial in another point of view. In the time of Henry VIII, the first case of constructive levying of war took place. In the time of his son, King Edward the Sixth this Act was passed, which declared in effect, that what the Judges had called levying war was not

levying war, but was no more than an aggravated riot. For the case of enhancing servants wages was that in which all those ingredients concurred. The multitude met with force to carry that purpose into effect, and the Judges of that day declared these acts High Treason. But, in the very next reign, we find an Act of Parliament describing, in precise words, that which had been so considered in the reign of Henry VIII, and declaring it shall not, in the first instance, be High Treason, but riot. Nor must it be forgotten that the great and humane object of this law was not merely to bring to punishment the miserable persons who might have been goaded on by despair and famine to acts of violence and even of rebellion, but to repress them in the outset,and put them down before they be came fatal; not to look on and see them proceeding, and, when they had got to a certain head, to interpose when it has become too late, denounce them by the name of Treason, and scatter almost at random, among a misguided multitude, the dreadful sentence of death and mutilation; but the object was to say, you are wretched, you are ignorant, you are misled, you are entitled more to compassion than to punishment, and, therefore, in just commiseration of your ignorance and your wretchedness, the majesty of the law shall appear among you, with the Sheriff and the magistrates whom you know and respect; your neighbours and the force of the country, and all those on whom you ought to look with affection and veneration, shall entreat you to disperse, to return to your own houses and abide there in peace. We know the mischief and the danger of these meetings; we know to what they may lead; we know what fatal consequences they are calculated to produce; we have provided, therefore, for dissolving the riotous assembly by a superior legitimate force, and thus preserving the threatened peace of the country.

Let it, however, be remembered that these fatal consequences are by no means more likely to result from a treasonable confederacy than from a riotous assemblage, perhaps even less so; and, therefore, if any use is to be made of that most unfortunate circumstance which contaminates

the present case with blood, I say it has no real bearing on the present enquiry.

My learned Friend, the Attorney General, has himself desired you, in the plainest terms, not to allow that circum stance to affect your minds, and I trust you will not be cause a death has ensued, therefore think that it is the less a Riot or the more a Treason, for, in point of fact, the characters of the two crimes are in all respects perfectly distinct; and there are many circumstances connected with such transactions which make the death of an individual more likely to occur in the prosecution of Riot than of Treason.

But, Gentlemen, that unhappy event has misled me from the object I had in view, and I must again remind you of the argument I have urged, and of the effect it produced on the trial of Watson. I have not the slightest doubt that that was the main consideration which convinced the minds of that enlightened and independent Jury, and I am sure you are not less enlightened or less independent. Not upon their authority however, but upon the authority of your own reason and your just regard to principles, I submit to you that you ought to come to the same result, and pronounce the same verdict. Not that I am asking for impunity at your hands; God knows, the unfortunate objects, brought here to-day, are liable to punishment even when you shall have dismissed them. God knows, if the evidence be taken to be true as affecting this unhappy individual, on other charges besides that of Treason, there is but little fear he will escape with impunity. Too many laws have been already violated, too many feelings have been wounded, to suppose that this matter should be passed lightly over. I think it is not to be expected, and I tell you fairly-feeling as I do, that this is a public duty which I am performing, I tell you fairly I do not wish to see these parties escape with impunity. I think they ought to be punished, that they ought to be made sensible of their crime, and others ought to be warned by their example. But do not let it be by a strained construction of a positive law, which cannot be violated without affecting

the security of all the King's subjects, and the stability of our free constitution.

Gentlemen, the law of riots was re-enacted in the first year of the reign of Queen Mary, with this difference, that when parties should have been assembled an appointed length of time, without dispersing after proclamation read, they should be guilty, not of Treason, but of felony-ail the intermediate statutes of Treason were wiped away by the Act of Mary; the statute of Edward the third was placed again upon its old footing, and in my opinion, by this act of Mary and the previous act of Edward the sixth, the case of enhancing wages was completely destroyedthat decision was thereby declared to be erroneous, and is consequently now of no authority in a court of justice— that is my opinion, I have endeavoured to establish it by argument to the satisfaction of reasonable minds, and I hope I have so put my point to you that you cannot be deceived by it. I wish only to be understood, and I ain sure it will be considered by you in its proper light.

Gentlemen, I ought to advert to the particular facts which have been proved-and admitting that it is quite impossible to have heard the opening of my learned friend the Attorney General, without feeling great admiration for the candor with which he has brought the case to your notice, at the same time I must take the liberty to say that it is quite clear that upon some points of the statement he has been considerably and most materially deceived. He has opened to you matter which he has not even attempted to prove, and that matter not of mere aggravation-not of accidental occurrence in the course of the disturbances, but such as goes to the very origin and conception of the crime imputed. This crime is in the heart of man—this abjuration of allegiance to the King, this levying of war for his destruction has its root in the mind and motives of the accused. The question is whether the heart is tainted, and the way in which my learned friend undertook to prove it was, that these persons met on Sunday, having been two or three days before at another meeting, at which this conspiracy was arranged.

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- Mr. Attorney General. No indeed.

- Mr, Denman. The note I have taken is this "He was on Sunday the 8th at a public house, having been at a previous meeting a day or two before, at Pentridge, for the express purpose of leading the insurgents, and of receiving them and explaining the plan of operations, wiping all clean, and so on." I think, therefore, I am warranted in saying that my learned Friend was instructed to state that which turns out to be utterly unfounded, but which, if true, would have been most material to the proof of his case for if this man was at the White Horse on the Sunday, having come with a determination to carry measures into effect, which were the result of previous consultations, that would have shewn that a conspiracy existed, of which he was a member before that time. Now, if that conspiracy existed, I should like extremely to know who were the parties to that conspiracy, who it was that induced this man to go to Pentridge for the purpose of egging on these unfortunate starving people to the commission of riots and outrages, plunder and devastation, with the absurd and indefinite project of a provisional government for the distribution of bread and beer, and all those things which were heaped together in their incoherent conversation.

Then, Gentlemen, instead of the Prisoner's connection with any meeting two days sooner, the proof begins on this Sunday; and then this poor man is found in a public house, in a public room, on the most public day, accessible to all travellers, having been there all night, for that is in evidence, sitting in the room with these people round him: he was drinking, and they were drinking too. With respect to the outrage itself, it is, indeed, Gentlemen, impossible to deny that the outrage has been violent and dangerous in the highest degree: but I say it does not amount to any thing like a levying of war; he has been drinking there all night, and he is found with a map before him, with his apron twisted round him, and this the Attorney General has described as a belted Generalissimo, pointing out his stations on maps and plans. Could the