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THE JUDICIAL HISTORY OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.

VII.
FROM 1789.

BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER,
Of the New York Bar.

HE outbreak of the French Revolution was contemporaneous with the rise in England of another and more powerful means than the press for influencing and directing public opinion-public meetings and organized societies or associations. This new method of agitation is to be clearly distinguished from the earlier riotous and tumultuous agitations of which the proceedings of the Spitalfields silk-weavers in 1765 is an illustration. One of its earliest appearances was the general demonstration over the violation of the rights of the electors of Middlesex in the case of John Wilkes. Once established this form of agitation rapidly developed in influence through systematic organization. As these political societies multiplied in numbers, the principle of association was brought into active operation. Committees of correspondence were appointed, and delegates were sent to London to give concentration and force to their petitions for reform, and to keep alive the public. agitation of grievances. In this way the people hoped to overcome the disadvantage of a very limited representation in Parliament. One of the earliest of these organizations was the "Revolutionary Society," formed to commemorate annually the Revolution of 1688. Another, "The Society for Constitutional Information," had been formed in 1780 to instruct the people in their political rights and to forward the cause of parliamentary reform. Pitt, Fox, Sheridan. and many of the leading statesmen of the day were among the members of these organizations and participated in their proceedings. Upon the outbreak of the French Revolution, however, these associations were directed into new channels, and agita

tors like Horne Tooke assumed direction of their activities. New organizations of which the "London Corresponding Society" may be taken as a type, arose out of the excitement caused by events in France. This society, composed chiefly of working men, sought to redress all the evils of society. To promote their visionary schemes they carried on a system of correspondence, not only with affiliated societies in England, but with the National Convention of France and the Jacobins of Paris. Their arguments for universal suffrage were combined with all the abstract speculations and conventional phrases then current in France. Their proceedings alarmed the timid and provoked the severe measures of repression which ensued.

In May, 1794, in the preamble to the act suspending the writ of habeas corpus, Parliament declared that "a traitorous and detestable conspiracy had been formed for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing the system of anarchy and confusion which has so lately prevailed in France." The government at once proceeded to demonstrate the assertion. In October indictments for high treason were found against Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke and ten other leading members of the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information. The indictments charged the prisoners with conspiracy to break the public peace, to excite rebellion, to alter the government of the country, to depose the king, and put him to death. In pursuance of these traitorous designs, the prisoners were charged with having written and issued letters and addresses with the object of summoning a

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sideration for our submitting at all to government. If the plain letter of the statute of Edward the Third applies to the conduct of the prisoners, let it in God's name be applied; but let neither their conduct nor the law that is to judge it be tortured by construction, nor suffer the transaction, from whence you are to form a dispassionate conclusion of intention, to be magnified by scandalous epithets, nor overwhelmed in an indistinguishable mass of matter, in which you may be lost and bewildered, having missed the only parts which could have furnished a clue to a just or rational judgment."

The government had strained every nerve to convict Hardy, and, not content with their defeat in that case, they determined to proceed with the trial of Horne Tooke (25 St.. Tr. 1). Erskine was again successful in defense of the prisoner. The groundless alarm of the government, stimulated by spies and informers, was exemplified by the evidence in this case. For For instance, Horne Tooke had received a letter containing the inquiry, "Can you be ready by Thursday?" This inquiry was supposed by the government to refer to a rising; but it appeared that it referred only to "a list of the titles, offices, and pensions bestowed by Mr. Pitt upon Mr. Pitt, his relations, friends and dependents." The result of these trials was most salutary. A conviction would have branded free speech as treason, and very likely brought about in reality the revolution which the government feared.

The prosecution of Thomas Walker in 1794 expressed all the fears of the government, and its issue exposed their extravagance. Walker, a respectable and wealthy merchant of Manchester, and six others, were charged with conspiracy to aid the French invasion and overthrow the government. The arms that were to have been used proved to be mere toys; and the firearms found in Walker's possession had been secured by him to defend his own house

against a mob by which it had been attacked. The entire charge in fact was founded on the statements of a disreputable informer named Dunn, whose falsehoods were so plain that the prisoners were immediately acquitted, and Dunn was committed for perjury.

From the indulgence and release which had been extended to most of the prisoners after the acquittal of Hardy and Horne Tooke, Henry Redhead Yorke had been excepted. In April, 1794, at a meeting assembled in Sheffield, he had spoken in strong terms of the corruption of Parliament and the necessity of reform. He was immediately arrested on a charge of treason, which, after a long imprisonment, was at length abandoned, but in July, 1795, he was brought to trial on the charge of conspiring to defame the Commons, and inciting the people to sedition. Yorke was a mere youth who had engaged in political agitation with more zeal than discretion. He was possessed, however, of considerable ability, and ably defended himself. Justice Rooke admitted to the jury that the language used by the prisoner could only be construed to be criminal in connection with the circumstances of public excitement under which it was uttered. He was found guilty, fined two hundred pounds, and imprisoned two years.

The ridiculous measures in which the panic of the government manifested itself during this period are well illustrated by the prosecution of Crossfield for complicity in what was ironically termed the "Pop-Gun Plot" (26 St. Tr. 1). In 1794 the government discovered an alleged conspiracy among the members of the Corresponding Society to assassinate the king. The murderous instrument was a tube or air gun through which a poisoned arrow was to be discharged! When, at length, nearly two years later, the alleged conspirators were brought to trial, the ridiculous features of the case prevailed over the public alarm and the prisoners were all acquitted.

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