Читать книгу Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland - Henry B. Stanton - Страница 7

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Treason Trials of 1794—Societies for Reform—Constructive Treason—Horne Tooke—Mr. Erskine.

The first conflict between Englishmen and their rulers, to which I will now more particularly refer, is the sedition and treason trials, near the close of the last century; more especially alluding to the trials of John Horne Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, and their associates, in 1794, for high treason. The victories then achieved heralded those subsequent reforms in Church and State which have so blessed the common people of England. It was the crisis of British freedom. Though failure then would not have uprooted the goodly tree, it would have blasted much of its sweet fruit, and retarded its luxuriant growth. Maj. Cartwright, ("that old heart of sedition," as Canning called him,) one of England's early reformers, in a letter written at the time, said: "Had these trials ended otherwise than they have, the system of proscription and terror, which has for some time been growing in this country, would have been completed and written in blood." The verdicts of "not guilty" not only pronounced the acquittal of the prisoners, but proclaimed the right of individuals and associations to examine and reprobate the acts of their King and Parliament; to discuss the foundations of government, and declare the rights of man and the wrongs of princes; and to arouse public opinion to demand such changes in the laws as would secure the liberties of the people. The crime charged against Tooke and his associates was, endeavoring to excite a rebellion, overthrow the monarchy, wage war on the king, and compass his death. Their real offense was, belonging to "the London Corresponding Society" and "the Society for Constitutional Information," better known as societies for Parliamentary reform, in which they canvassed the nature of government, the rights of the people, and the acts of their rulers, and specially advocated a reform in the Parliamentary representation and the electoral suffrage.

This was no new movement. Similar associations had existed for twenty years. The Society of "the Friends of the People" numbered among its members the imposing names of the Duke of Richmond, Pitt, Sheridan, Whitbread, Grey, and other men of rank. They had held meetings, published pamphlets, and petitioned Parliament. Discussions had taken place in both Houses. In 1770, the great Chatham advocated a moderate reform in the representation in the lower House. In 1776, Wilkes, the favorite of the London populace, made an able speech on moving for leave to bring in a radical bill to the same end. In 1783, Pitt, yielding to the generous impulses of his youth, moved for a committee to inquire into the same subject, and supported his motion in two eloquent speeches. In 1790, Flood, the celebrated Irishman, spoke with fervor on moving for a more equal representation in the Commons, and was replied to by Wyndham and Pitt, (who had become frightened by the French revolution,) and powerfully supported by Fox, then in the zenith of his fame, and by Grey, just giving earnest of those talents which, forty years after, carried the reform bill through the Lords. The discussion of kindred topics in Parliament during the same periods stimulated the popular party. The expulsion of Wilkes, the idol of the London mob, from the Commons; the seizure of his papers and the imprisonment of his person in the Tower for a seditious libel against the Tory Government; his repeated reëlection by his Middlesex constituency, and the votes of the House declaring his seat still vacant; the consequent debates in both Houses during the years 1768-'70 excited the populace to the verge of rebellion, and challenged inquiry into the relative rights of the people and their Parliament. The debates on the stamp act, the taxation of the colonies, and the American war, covering fifteen years, enlisted the best powers of Chatham, Burke, Fox, and Barre, and elicited from those high sources radical declarations of the rights of man. The denunciations of the test acts and of the Catholic penal code by Fox and his followers, from 1786 to 1790, as subversive of the rights of conscience, added fuel to the popular flame. All these agitations within the walls of Parliament were but the remoter pulsations of the great heart beating without—the faint shadows of that genius of reform, which, till recently, has numbered its representatives by units and its constituency by hundreds of thousands.

The political sea, ruffled by these winds, was soon to be tossed by violent storms. The French revolution produced a profound sensation in all classes of Englishmen. The fulminations of its third estate against monarchy, and the democratic doctrines of Paine's Rights of Man, (republished in England from the Parisian edition, and scattered far and wide,) found a response in thousands of British hearts. The people felt their grievances to be more intolerable than ever, and the example of France emboldened them to demand redress in firmer tones. The London Society for Constitutional Information, which had grown languid, suddenly felt a revival of more than its original spirit, and kindred associations sprang into existence all over the kingdom. Their orators declaimed upon the rights of man, painted his wrongs, extolled the merits of the people, and denounced the vices of bishops and nobles. The oppressions of the middle and lower classes, (of both which the societies were mainly composed,) by the privileged orders, afforded ample materials for these appeals to the best and worst passions of human nature.

The Government was alarmed. The events of France in 1792 had determined the English Ministry to crush in the bud the revolution they pretended they saw springing up at home. Their real object was to prostrate the reformatory associations. Louis was deposed, and the Republic had decreed fraternity and aid to the people of all nations in recovering their liberties. Riots occurred in a few English manufacturing towns. The King suddenly convened Parliament, and declared in his speech, that conspiracies existed for overthrowing the Government, and that the kingdom was on the eve of a revolution. In the debate on the King's speech, the Minister said that seditious societies had been instituted, under the plausible pretext of discussing constitutional questions, but really to promote an insurrection of the people. Mr. Fox met the assertions of King and Minister with a denial, whose language borders on temerity. He declared, "there was not one fact stated in His Majesty's speech which was not false—not one assertion or insinuation which was not unfounded. The prominent feature in it was, that it was an intolerable calumny on the people of Great Britain; an insinuation of so gross and black a nature that it demanded the most rigorous inquiry and the most severe punishment!" Bold words, these; not unlike those of Cromwell, who declared "he would as soon put his sword through the heart of the King as that of any other man."

But the Government was not to be arrested in its course by the bold words of the Opposition leader. It continued to prosecute printers and lecturers for seditious libels and speeches, fining, imprisoning, cropping, branding, and transporting, at will. The progress of events in France was precipitating the crisis. In 1793, Louis and his Queen were guillotined, and the next year saw the Princess Elizabeth's head fall, while the bloody star of Robespierre loomed in the ascendant. At these scenes, the cheek of monarchical Europe turned pale. Pitt was alarmed. Prosecutions for sedition did not reach the seat of the disease. Royal proclamations did not silence the reformers. The constitutional societies still met and debated. Early in the session of 1794, he brought in bills to clothe the Government with extraordinary powers to detect suspicious persons, (i. e. reformers,) and to suspend the habeas corpus act. After a furious contest, in which Fox, Grey, and Sheridan, stood by the popular cause, the bills passed. The habeas corpus was suspended in May, 1794. The safeguard of English liberty being prostrated, a fell blow was aimed at the societies, through the persons of some of their leading members. Informations for high treason were filed in May by the Attorney General (Sir John Scott—Lord Eldon) against Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, and nine others, and they were sent to the Tower to await their trials. Both parties now prepared for a death-struggle. The Ministers trusted for success to the power of the Crown, the subserviency of the judges, and the wide-spread panic among the higher classes. The common people, though alarmed at the strength of this combination, relied upon the innocence of the accused persons; but, at all events, (though the more timid erased their names from the roll of the societies,) the mass resolved to make a stand for the freedom of speech and the press, and the right of associating for a redress of grievances, worthy of the exigency. From the papers of the London Society, which had been seized, it appeared that the members contemplated holding a National Convention to promote Parliamentary reform; and this was regarded as a conspiracy to subvert the monarchy and establish a republic!

I have stated the crime with which these men were charged. Indicted for conspiring to subvert the monarchy, depose the King, and compass his death, it was only pretended that they had uttered and published seditious words with the intent to alter his Government; when, in fact, they had only advocated radical reforms in the two Houses of Parliament. The existence of the constitutional societies and their doings were clearly legal. No doubt, many unguarded and some unwarranted expressions about the King and Parliament had been used. But nothing had been said or done which, on a fair construction, exposed the parties to a just conviction of any crime. Most assuredly they were not guilty of high treason; and as surely their words and deeds were tame and puerile, compared with what the English press and people have since said and done in the ear of Ministers and under the eye of Majesty. In short, they were to be immolated on the judicial guillotine of "CONSTRUCTIVE TREASON."

The character and station of the prisoners excited the interest of different ranks of society. They had been shut up in the Tower six months, closely confined, and all access to them by their friends denied. Hardy was a shoemaker, and, with two or three others, was from the upper strata of the lower orders. Kyd was a barrister; Holcroft, a dramatic writer; Joyce, a minister; and Thelwall, a political lecturer. These belonged to the middle class. John Horne Tooke, the most considerable person among them, held a debatable position in the higher circles. He was a gentleman of limited aristocratic connections, and a scholar of rare and varied learning. He had taken holy orders in his youth, but had long ago left the altars of the church for the closet of the student and the forum of the politician. He was the author of the profound philosophical treatise on the English language, called "The Diversions of Purley." Many then supposed him to be the author of Junius. He had had a violent newspaper controversy, feigned or real, with that writer, and had worsted him. He was the ablest pamphleteer and debater among the ultra-liberals, and was ever ready, with his keen pen and bold tongue, to contend with the scribes of the Government through the press, or its orators on the rostrum, and he never gave cause to either to congratulate themselves on the results of the encounter. Nearly twenty years ago he had stood before the same tribunal, and defended himself with consummate skill, and a courage bordering on audacity, against a prosecution for publishing a defense of "the American rebels" at the battle of Lexington. He and his associates were now to make a stand for their lives.

The trials took place at the Old Bailey, in October and November, 1794, and extended through several weeks. The prisoners were defended by Erskine, whose name was a tower of strength, and Gibbs, the very embodiment of legal knowledge, (Tooke aiding in his own case,) whilst Scott, long-headed, learned, and unscrupulous, assisted by the Solicitor General, prosecuted for the Crown. The hall and the passages leading to it were densely thronged with persons of all ranks and conditions, eager spectators of or participants in, the most memorable struggle which the courts of the common law have witnessed. No overt acts of any moment could be proved against either of the accused, and the prosecution had to rely mainly on ambiguous words and writings of doubtful import. The whole power of the Court of the King, and the Judges of the King's Court, was brought to bear upon the doomed prisoners, aided by the multifarious lore and subtle reasoning of the Attorney General. Every doubtful word was distorted, every ambiguous look transformed into lurking treason. The rules of evidence were put to the rack, to admit bits of letters and conversations, written and uttered by others than the accused, and to hold them responsible for all that had been said and done by every man who, at any time and anywhere, had belonged to the societies, or taken part in their discussions. The friends of the prisoners spoke with bated breath, as the trials proceeded; for they knew, if the prosecution succeeded, a reign of terror had begun, in which the King was to enact the Robespierre, and they were to be his victims. But neither the ravings of the Court at Windsor, nor the partialities of the Court at London, could suffice against the learning, the logic, the skill, the vigilance, the eloquence, the courage, the soul, which Erskine threw into his cause. He battled as if his own life had been at hazard. He knew that twelve "good and true men" stood between the lion and his prey. The Court ruled that if the jury believed the discussions and writings of the prisoners, or of the societies to which they belonged, tended to subvert the monarchy and depose the King, or change the Constitution, they must find them guilty. But Erskine maintained, with a power of argument which, for the moment, shook the faith of the Court, that for British subjects to utter their sentiments, in ANY FORM, concerning the Government of their country, was not TREASON. So thought the jurors, (though the Court leaned heavily to the side of the Crown,) and one after another these hunted plebeians passed the terrible ordeal. The King lost; the People won. They shouted their triumph so loud, that he heard it within his palace, and the crowned lion growled, gnashed his royal teeth, and beat the bars of his constitutional cage, till his anointed head throbbed with anguish.