“YOUR TYRANTS ARE DESTROYED!
“_The Friends of liberty are desired to come forward and
support the Provisional Government, which is now sitting._”
“So that, Gentlemen, if any doubt could be entertained of these men’s
ulterior designs not being confined to the destruction of his Majesty’s
Ministers, this proclamation, written by Thistlewood, would put it
beyond all doubt. He wrote two or three of these. He read them aloud
to the party assembled, and told them that they were to be stuck up
where the houses were on fire, that the people might see it. Afterwards
he sat down, and endeavoured to compose another proclamation, which
was to be issued to the soldiers, and that contained an offer to the
soldiers, calling on them to join the friends of Liberty; promising
them twenty pounds each to carry them home, and that they should be
rewarded with full pay and a pension for life!! These proclamations,
Gentlemen, were read aloud by Thistlewood to the conspirators, and they
were unanimously approved. Some of them, I should tell you, were to be
posted as convenient as possible to every barrack or public place which
might be set fire to or destroyed. Thistlewood himself carried the
proclamations from the house of Brunt to Cato-street.
“And now, Gentlemen, having stated these facts, let me pause to ask
you, whether, if I prove them in evidence, you can come to any other
conclusion than that the prisoner who stands before you, is guilty?
What answer, I will ask, can be given to such evidence as this, and
if no answer can be given in evidence, what answer can be given
in reason? It may be urged, in a general sense, that such schemes
and such plans as the facts I have related to you disclose, ought
scarcely to be credited in a Court of Justice. This may be inferred
from the circumstance of heated men with heated passions conceiving
and proposing the adoption of plans, wild and visionary, and in fact
wholly impracticable. In this case, however, such a principle did not
exist; for here were long laid regular plans, extensive schemes, and
the most abundant preparations, to effect a wicked purpose. And will
not desperate and designing men, infuriated by their passions either
influence others to the accomplishment of such plans, or be worked upon
by them themselves. Look then, Gentlemen, to the facts of the case
yourselves. You will view them as calm and sober men, and in doing
so, you will perceive such a system and such an adroitness towards
the execution of that system, that their object requires but little
solution.
“Gentlemen, it is not your duty to consider whether the schemes in
question were wild and visionary, but whether they had for their object
an illegal or wicked purpose; and if illegal, and that towards the
execution of their plans they took but one step, they have then done
that which renders them amenable to the offended laws of their country.
If these arguments, Gentlemen, won’t avail, what then may not be urged
for the prisoner? But you will also be told that accomplices are not to
be believed on their oath in a Court of Justice. I contend, however,
that they should; and if it was not permitted to accomplices in guilt
to give evidence for the purposes of justice, then the blackest and
foulest crimes would be daily committed, and go unpunished. But it is
not the law of England, alone, to hear the evidence of an accomplice.
It is the law of reason also, and has been the law of all ages and
nations. I admit that you should watch with the greatest caution
and jealousy the testimony of an accomplice. You should weigh his
story well, and see whether it be confirmed by the more indifferent
witnesses. Not confirmed in every part, for then his evidence would not
be required at all: but in certain collateral parts which may be found
to correspond with the other testimony. If therefore, Gentlemen, an
accomplice is produced before you, and you believe a part of what he
relates, you are bound in a great measure to believe that the whole of
what he tells you is true.
“No man, or set of men, who had ever conceived such plans as I have
laid before you, could have so conceived them without an intention of
pursuing them. The plans, therefore, at least for some time, could be
known only to themselves and to their God. I say then that the evidence
of an accomplice is not only highly necessary, but even laudable; for
if you resist such a principle, the more dark will be the crime, the
more secret the scheme, and the more wicked the purpose. As I told you
before, Gentlemen, it has long been the law of England to receive the
evidence of an accomplice, and even in cases of murder, it has proved
most salutary in the administration of justice.
“I will call a witness before you,Gentlemen, named Adams, an
accomplice, as you will find, and he being in the full confidence of
the conspirators, will prove to you the nature of all their proceedings
from time to time, and of the different plans and communications
which were made between him and them. I will call another man to you,
Gentlemen, who was the first to make known the diabolical plans of the
conspirators, to my Lord Harrowby; but this man was not much known to
them, nor did he therefore rank high in their councils.
“This man in fact, when he heard the dreadful plan related of visiting
his Majesty’s ministers with destruction and death, his heart
shuddered, his conscience smote him, and he could hold out no longer.
Some men, you know, have very strong minds, and are not to be deterred
from the most wicked purpose. Others are less firm, and more easily
shaken in the accomplishment of a cruel or immoral design. The witness
whom I shall produce to you, Gentlemen, and whose name is Hiden, is one
of this description.
“A third witness I shall produce to you, is an individual who was
rather more in confidence with the conspirators. His name is Dwyer,
and you will find that Thistlewood and Davidson applied to him for
his advice and assistance towards the execution of their murderous
purpose. You will even find that they solicited his aid on the very
day in which that purpose was to be put into execution. This witness,
however, horror-struck at the intended massacre, and feeling it to be
his bounden duty, ran almost instantly and communicated the fact to
others. He first communicated it to his wife, and next to an officer
in the army, named James, with a view that it might be immediately
conveyed to his Majesty’s ministers. This, under the special order of
Providence, was done.
“And now let me again ask you, Gentlemen, is this testimony to be
rejected? Surely it never can by enlightened men such as you are. But
this even does not furnish my case for the prosecution; for I assure
you it does not rest upon the testimony of Adams, Hiden, and Dwyer;
but there are facts in this case which, I fear, the prisoner will
not be able to answer. Why, I would ask, were these men assembled in
Cato-street, and why at night? There were none of them related to
each other, yet they were all armed with deadly weapons, and found in
close deliberation in an obscure stable. There were also found there
a quantity of destructive grenades and fire-balls, together with a
large portion of ammunition. But this is not all. At the houses of two
others of the conspirators, namely, Brunt and Tidd, there were found
similar articles of destruction, particularly ammunition. The weight
found of the latter, gentlemen, amounted to between eleven and twelve
hundred pounds; and I would ask, in the name of God, what object could
these men have had in the possession of such a quantity of ammunition?
Surely it could not even be for an individual murder! No, gentlemen, it
was the destruction of his Majesty’s ministers in the first place, the
burning and levelling of public barracks and edifices in the next, and
finally, the establishment of a revolution, and the appointment of a
Provisional Government.
“These men, Gentlemen, could never have been unfriendly towards
ministers as individuals. It must have been a hatred of them in the
character of their office alone, and their design was more particularly
levelled at Lord Harrowby, because his Lordship was President of the
Council. Can you doubt, that after this dreadful blow was made, and
it had succeeded, that it was the intention of these conspirators to
have established a provisional government, and thus spread anarchy
and confusion around. In fact, that was the eventual blow meant to be
carried into execution. I say, therefore, that even if the learned
counsel for the prisoners were to contend most successfully against
the evidence of the accomplices, the facts I shall produce to you by
other testimony, will answer the purposes of this just and necessary
prosecution.
“What was the conduct of the prisoners when they were discovered in
Cato-street? I want not, Gentlemen, by a repetition of this term, to
inflame your minds: but it will be extremely important for you to
remember, that when the officers entered the loft there, and said, ‘we
are officers,’ they submitted not to their authority, but resisted them
even in the most ferocious manner, and one officer, as you have before
heard, unfortunately lost his life. The prisoner at the bar, however,
is not under trial for that offence, nor should the fatal circumstance
operate in the present case against him. But I must again ask you, what
became of the prisoner on the 23d, the intended night of blood and
slaughter? Why he flies from the desperate scene, not to his own home,
as you have already been told, but to an obscure place of concealment.
These, then, Gentlemen, are the facts of this momentous case; and once
more I ask you, what possible conclusion can you draw from such facts,
if they be supported in evidence?
“Gentlemen, I repeat it, that this is a momentous and important
case, and if these plots of the conspirators, and of the prisoner in
particular, be proved to have existed--if the means had been used which
I have described to you for effecting the nefarious and diabolical
plans they had formed, then I call upon you, in the name of justice,
to give that verdict which will best satisfy the laws of your country,
and tend to protect the lives of your fellow-creatures. Commiseration
(if I may use the term) towards a prisoner, I never should withhold;
and God forbid, Gentlemen, that you should not give to the man at the
bar the advantage of every, even the slightest, circumstance of doubt
which may arise in his favour. If these doubts also should predominate,
it will be your duty to acquit the prisoner; but if, on the other hand,
the facts which I have laid before you be substantiated, and you feel
in your consciences that the charge is made out, it will then become
your painful but bounden duty to convict him. Should these facts, I
say, for the last time, be brought home to the prisoner, it will then
be your duty, as men, as citizens, and as fathers--as men desirous of
maintaining the laws, and of acting under the solemn obligation of your
oaths, to pronounce him guilty.”
The learned gentleman’s speech occupied the attention of the Jury for
nearly two hours.
Before the first witness for the prosecution was put into the box, all
the prisoners named in the indictment were brought up, with the view,
we suppose, of having an opportunity of hearing the evidence, it being
principally the same which is to be adduced against most of them. They
entered the Court with much apparent indifference.
Davidson and Ings were particularly remarked for the calm indifference
with which they surveyed the Bench and the spectators around them.
During the examination of Adams, some of the prisoners whispered
together. Thistlewood throughout preserved the most perfect composure.