66 this morning, if not in some measure or us. to friend, and I hate the man who could at- me; we phemy to glory in the truths of the gospel; to be grateful that our divine Saviour came down from Heaven, and took on him the nature of mau, for the purpose of securing us a victory over Sin, Hell, and the Grave-then indeed have I been a "Vagabond Orator"then have I been a blasphemer. Pamph-behaved to me like a gentleman, like a lets, containing improper things, have been circulated; but I consider it an Englishunan's right to read every work, and then think of it as he feels proper. That cannot be considered as a right in any man, for the exercise of which he buts," may be punished.-Mark the Gentlemen, we have rights, but if once they are exercised, they render men liable to be punished. At the meeting at Stockport one-fourth of the inhabitants only were at the meeting. Surely one is not a match for four; but, indeed, it has not been proved that any hope it will terrorem populi was used. not be said here, as it was said in ScotJaud, that Scotch law is not English law, and that Cheshire law also is not English law. It is not from your prejudices, Gentlemen, that I expect or fear for any thing. I hope you will not defile your oaths; and if you give a verdict contrary to the evidence, you will do so. The leaders of Reform are charged with sanctioning military training; I know of none who do so; and if such practices were now followed, it would be against the law, that I know; but then it is because of a recent enactment that makes it illegal. But the Re-age was expressed.] You might have formers are charged with every thing to bring them into disrepute. What is said of large meetings of the people, equally applies to election and other county meetings. I shall not say the indictment was framed to murder two innocent individuals--no, that would be too strong; I dare not say so; but I say, the sabre has pierced to the vitals, and was only prevented killing because it could not reach far enough. Then we have something on the Cato-street conspiracy, as it is called, I suppose to connect me with those foolish, absurd, rash men, who engaged in such an enterprise. Some gentlemen behind me won't let me speak. Perhaps there are some men who would accuse me of participating with the men on whom sentence was so solemnly pronounced this morning, but of that I am quite guiltless. Why was sentence pronounced on them hitherto heard that Juries have done their duty; so far good. I hope ail Juries will do their duty. So much for the Learned Judge's speech, as far as refers to one individual. I can't suppose my dilating on his speech will offend the Learned Judge, for he looked apon me while I was doing so with a very pleasant countenance [loud and continued laughter throughout the Court]. Gentlemen of the Jury, I bold in my hand another help, unbought, unasked, unsought, and unexpected, as if that Providence who knew my condition had given me a help when I most needed it. That help is-"A few brief Remarks by Jeremy Bentham" (a laugh), a great lawyer, one of the ablest men in England, perhaps I might say in the world, and I dare say, if their But. Gentlemen, I have not Lordships spoke of him they would say the same. yet read over the indictment, and shall proceed to read it (laughter). [He here read it as we have given it in the early part of our Report, and as he read, it excited the continued risibility of the crowds who heard him.] He now commenced reading Bentham's Remarks, and after he had gone through several pages, he was persuaded by same gentlemen who stood near him, not to proceed further in their perusal; but he observed: "I like these remarks; they are free, and I like freedom; I look upon them as a help sent me by Providence. I shall now then come to a close; my cause, Gentlemen, is in your hands. I had a great deal to say, but to accommodate friends. I shall not make the observations I intended. My cause is in your hands, there may be some doubts in your minds, and by the law of the land you will give the benefit of them to the defendants. It cuts me to the heart to think upon the conduct of some Juries in this part of the country. It has struck me that they take too little time to consider of the fate to which their verdict may consign a party; even six months' imprisonment would be a serious loss to me; but you cannot convict me without forfeiting your oaths. I ask no favour; I only want justice, and I demand it. But what if the Jury have beforehand made up their minds? Why, rather had I bear what I must suffer on account of their errors, than see the glorious right of Trial by Jury done away. If you find me guilty, look at what will be my fate, taken from my family, without the comforts of a letter, upless liable to be opened, as you have seen done this day, without my leave; not that it contained any thing wrong, but let it be on ever such secret business, it would be the same. What I have said has never been fairly reported; that is, no reporter ever wholly followed me throughout any one of my speeches. I do not know if the Learned Counsel for the Honourable Baronet intends to bring forward evidence against evidence; but for myself I would do so. If I do not bring forward evidence, my enemies will say I had none; and not producing it, may tell their Lordships it is enough to make me guilty. I shall leave the case where it is; I know there will be a verdict, and I hardly know that it will concern me much whether it be one of Guilty or Not Guilty. I do not despair, my heart knows not despair; and whether the verdict be for me or against me, I say, the will of the Lord be done." Thomas Garnett was some time ago a reporter to The Manchester Chronicle, It is generally considered a Ministerial Paper; I attended the meeting in Stockport to report the proceedings; I have no doubt there were 5,000 persons present; one circumstance rather alarmed me, it was a person in the employment of Mr. Nadin, who was employed before Sir Charles Wolesley came there; if Sir Charles Wolesley had told the people to be patient for a little time and that all would then be well, he must have heard it. Cross-examined by Mr. BENYONThe paper he reported for is of Ministerial politics; he was within three yards of the hustings, and went to take an account of the proceedings. Robert Thomas Hanson attended the Meeting at Stockport for The Manchester Observer. I felt no terror at any thing I saw; the shops were open; all that I saw were; I heard Sir Charles address the police-officers to keep the peace, and then to the people to be so; he said, he often found peace officers break the peace, and he now begged them to keep it; if he said in a few weeks the great struggle would be made and ended, he must have heard it; he heard no such thing. Cross-examined by Mr. LLOYD.~~. Remembers Harrison saying, "it was as foolish to petition the House of Commons as if a master were to go down upon his knees to entreat his menial servant to do that duty for which he is engaged and paid ;" remembers his saying, to petition them as they now are, is absolutely folly ;" he said "it is a grand principle that a whole nation cannof err, and if there be a thousand walls between us and our Prince, we shall blow them all down, either to heaven or hell, but we will have them down;" those are not exactly Harrison's words, but the effect is' substantially the same; he remembers Sir Charles Wolesley's saying something about the Bastile, but witness could not exactly mention what he said. Re-examined by Mr. PARK.-Harrison said it was useless to have petitions addressed to the Throne, as Lord Sid mouth refused to present them; it was if they had weapons in their hands; if James Swindon examined by Mr. PEARSON. I am a draper in the town of Stockport; I felt no alarm that day; my shop was not shut, and business was going on that day as usual. ror ;-if all this be proved in evidence, then the meeting at Stockport was unlawful. If ever there were a tumultuous assembly, it is that to which our attention has been attracted yesterday and this day. The Learned Counsel for the defendants made several allusions to the trial of Mr. Hunt at York, and I did not attempt to stop him. But whatever was Here the case for the defendants closed; and the Court adjourned at a quar-done at York, the Juries of Chester have ter after eight till to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. SECOND DAY-TUESDAY, APRIL 11. A few moments after the arrival of the Learned Judges this morning, Mr. BENYON (Attorney-General for Chester) commenced his reply. Gentlemen of the Jury, I now beg leave to entreat your attention while I reply to the observations made by the defendants, and offer such comments on the evidence as the nature of my case demands. We must first, Gentlemen, recur to the charge made against the defendants, for it has been endeavoured to put a different interpretation on it, from that which it requires; and we shall also have to consider the legality of one of the counts of the indictments, to which some objections have been taken by the Learned Counsel by Sir C. Wolseley. We have alleged, first, that these parties assembled an unlawful assembly, an assembly calculated to disturb the public peace, and by different means to excite in the minds of the people a contempt and hatred of the Government and Constitution of the Realm, as by law established. This general allegation appears to me to contain two offences-First, that of assembling an unlawful assembly; and secondly, by seditious words and other means inciting the people to contempt and hatred of the Constitution, as by law established. My Learned Friend has, Gentlemen, endeavoured to impress it on your minds, that the assembly was not unlawful, because not so stated on the record, because it did not appear that it was in terror of the people. and that it was not proved in evidence to have any tendency of that nature. But it is not because people of nerve were not alarmed, that it may therefore be pronounced not unlawful. If the number of people was so great; nothing whatever to do with it. I am obliged to the Learned Counsel for his mention of the case of the King and Hunt, and I say, if that were a case for conviction, the one before us is ten times stronger. Hunt was taken from the meeting at Manchester before he spoke. 1 Here seditious words have been used; this Meeting had considerably more of terror in it-and, in short, it has every one concomitant circumstance, with one exception, namely, that here seditious words were actually used. If, then, we are to call to mind what was done by others at that meeting, we find the case ten times stronger as to this. Hawkins, and other learned authorities, have been cited as to the legality of one of the acts charged in the indictment: with that you have nothing to. There seems to me no necessity for dividing the case, the facts of it are perfectly clear before you. With respect to the legality of the meeting, one may say it was assembled under the specious pretext of petitioning for Parliamentary Reform. Parliamentary Reform! I check myself; for though many of these unhappy meetings were assembled under such apparent motives, the mask was here completely thrown off, and there was no man who heard of the meeting of the 28th of June but must know that it had no more to do with petitioning for Reform than it had with any other purpose that the imagination of man could suggest. In this case the defendants stood together on the hustings-they were each participators in the whole of the proceedings, and if any thing unpleasant to Sir C. Wolesley had occurred, if he found he was not in good company, would he not have left them? He gave his complete assent to whatever was said by Harrison; and if the language used by him was seditious in its nature, Sir C. Wolseley was, in point of law, equally guilty with the i person who uttered it. The meeting | It will be, however, in your recollecwas also attended with flags. Mr. PARK here observed that there was no evidence of more than one flag having been used. Mr. BENYON proceeded-“Well, one flag is as good as one hundred. The inscriptions upon it sufficiently prove the objects of the meeting. Crowds attend ed from distant places, and even from different counties, armed with sticks and other offensive weapons. And then can it be gravely contended, that such an assembly was met together for the purpose only of obtaining Parliamentary Reform? It has been set up as a justification of this meeting, that every man has a right to meet for the purpose of petitioning. It has even been said that people may proceed to such meetings with flags and other insignia, provided their object be petition. But, Gentlemen of the Jury, will you believe that this is the way to obtain a Repeal of the Corn Laws, if they be objectionable? And as to all the farrago of Aunual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage. and Vote by Ballot, if any man, or set of men, were gravely and quietly to petition for their adoption, I should lament their folly, while I pitied their judgments, and should think they meant not a Reform, but a complete overthrow and revolution. For, depend upon it, if ever these things are granted, this will no longer remain a happy country, with a mixed and balanced Constitution, but will become a wild and dangerous Republic. If, however, there are persons who think that these things will prove of service, I should find no fault with their quietly assembling to procure them, but I do find fault with those who attend such meetings with insignia only calculated for the purposes of intimidation. Harrison said, we don't come here to petition the House of Commons," and Sir C. Wolesley assented to it. 'We won't," said Harrison, “ petition the Sovereign, nor the House of Lords, in its present corrupt state." Mr. HARRISON-I hope, my Lord, you will keep the Learned Gentleman to the truth. Mr. BENYON. I wish you, Gentlemen of the Jury, to take nothing from me. If I inadvertently state any thing inconsistent with my notes of the evidence, it will be in the power of their Lordships and yourselves to correct it. tion, that Harrison did not advise the petition to the House of Lords or Commons. Then add to that the barriers and the ten thousand wails," and ask yourselves if I am wrong in stating, that it was no more a meeting for the purpose of petition than any thing that the imagination of man can suggest? Now we come to the seditious expressions. I shall not draw your attention to them further than this: -You recollect the expressions used by Sir Charles Wolesley, relative to the Bastiles, as well as those of Harrison about his ignorance, a man or a pig filled the Throne, as well as the other expressions of contempt of the Sovereign, and it will be for you, as men of education, as men of sense, to say whether those expressions were not seditious, and were not used, as the language itself imports, for the purpose of bringing the Royal Authority into contempt. The second count charges the defendants with a conspiracy, and I shall convince you that it is not vulnerable either in law or in fact, but made out in many different ways by the evidence; by what occurred before and at the meeting, as well as by what was anticipated from the contemplated meeting at Oldham to be held on a future day. If the witnesses. are to be believed, I shall demonstrate a conspiracy. All this, Gentlemen, is to depend-must depend on the evidence you have heard, and not upon what learned men have said. Mr. Bentham, every one admits, is a clever man, but he might as well talk of what occurred at China, as of what was going on in this Court. He might certainly write or comment upon the nature of an indictment, but he could not know the nature of the facts to be proved, and not knowing this, he was totally incompetent to form a just opinion of the case. It was urged that Sir C. Wolesley could not be made responsible for what was said or done by any other persons at the meeting; but let me ask you, Gentlemen, whether he might not, if he disapproved of what was said, have retired; and whether his remaining was not an approval of the observations used by Harrison? I give Sir C. Wolesley credit for wishing to preserve peace in the meeting. A regard for their own safety would have prevented them from nicating the constables face to face. As to the expressions relative to the Bastile in France, had Sir Charles gone no further than expressing his satisfaction at its destruction, I should not have objected to it, but I object to his instituting a comparison between that and any gaol in this country. At that time, a man could be immured in prison by a leltre de cachet, without any opportunity or means of inquiring into or vindicating himself from the charge against him; but here it was not in the power even of a King to commit a man to gaol without leaving him his right of Habeas Corpus-of demanding his trial, or his immediate discharge. Where then is there any similitude between either the prisons or constitution of the two countries? But I will tell you what was meant by the mention of the Bastile. One of the first steps to the French Revolution was the destruction of that-establishment. I may be deceived-I may be warped in my opinions, but I caunot help urging; I cannot conceive but that he meant a similar stir should take place here. Great as was the evil of Harrison's language, it was light in the scale compared with that of Sir C. Wolesley. The language of Mr. Burke on the French Revolution, was quoted to shew the innocence of the expressions of Sir. C. Wolesley, but was there any similitude, any resemblance between the occasions or the manner in which the different expressions were used? Every man is accountable for his words, and if the words of Sir C. Wolesley can bear an innocent interpretation, let the defendants have all the advantage of it in a criminal prosecution. I think them highly criminal. The evidence on the part of the prosecution, has been corroborated by that for the defendants, and under all the circumstances of the case, I cannot but feel satisfied that we have demonstrated the meeting to have been unlawfully assembled, and that such seditious expressions were made use of as to bear on the first count of the indictment. With regard to that for conspiracy, I think we have satisfactorily proved it. We have given in evidence a letter of Sir C. Wolesley, where he complains of a letter to Harrison having `been delayed in its progress. We have shewn them to have been together before the meeting, to have been together on the hustings -Sir Charles Wolesley, as chairman, taking a leading part, assenting to all that was said by Harrison; and we have given you beside a letter from Harrison to Baguely, who is confined in Chester Castle, in which he details the numbers who attended and the general circumstances of the meeting. Could Sir Charles Wolesley have come to that meeting, and be called by acclamations to the Chair, without a previous knowledge of what was to be done? But even though he had no such knowledge, I say that at that meeting they conspired to bring the Government and Constitution of the country into hatred and contempt. This, of itself, I allege, constitutes a conspiracy. Gentlemen, I need not labour the question further. I think it is as clear a case as ever was submitted to a Jury. pardon for detaining you so long. I leave it wholly in your hands, knowing you will shew no favour to the Government on the one side, or to the defendants on the other. If you have any reason. able doubts on your minds, give the benefit of it to the defendants. Justice must be done, without any consideration as to the parties immediately interested; and I hope you will give such a verdict as will prove satisfactory to the county of Chester, as well as to your own consciences and to the kingdom at large. I beg The CHIEF JUSTICE (Mr. Warren), in recapitulating the evidence to the Jury, said, that any meeting or great number of people assembled together, armed in a warlike manner, was illegal, for no one could foresee what might be the effect of such assemblies. This was laid down by Hawkins, and with it he concured. In reading the evidence of Winterbotham, his Lordship said it would be useless; it would be an idle waste of time to say that Harrison's expressions were not seditious. Their natural import was of that character. It was forcibly said by the AttorneyGeneral, commenting on the use of the word Bastile by Sir Charles Wolesley, that there were no Bastiles in England. And coming from such a man as Sir Charles Wolesley, it would be for the Jury to decide what construction should be put on them. The Jury would see there was an evident allusion to there being some prison in England, where men were treated as if in a Bastile. And taking all his words, it was contended they were not seditious; but if |