The following morning, Friday April 28th, at a quarter after nine, Lord
Chief-Justice Abbot, Chief Justice Dallas, the Chief Baron, Mr. Justice
Richards, Mr. Justice Best, and the Common Sergeant, took their seats.
Mr. Brown, the gaoler, was immediately requested to bring the prisoners
to the bar. In a few minutes the clank of chains was heard, and the
eleven prisoners entered the court. They were all double ironed,
with the exception of Ings, who had been much indisposed since his
conviction. Thistlewood came first, and advanced to the bar. There was
a melancholy resignation in his countenance, and his appearance was
considerably altered since the last time of his being in Court.
All being in readiness,
Mr. Shelton (the clerk of the arraigns), addressing himself to
Thistlewood, said,
“Arthur Thistlewood, you stand convicted of High Treason;--what have
you say why you should not receive judgment to die, according to law?”
THISTLEWOOD immediately drew forth a manuscript address, which he
proceeded to read in a mournful tone, as follows:--
“My Lords,--I am asked, my Lord, what I have to say that judgment of
death should not be passed upon me according to law. This to me is
mockery--for were the reasons I could offer incontrovertible, and
were they enforced even by the eloquence of a Cicero, still would the
vengeance of my Lords Castlereagh and Sidmouth be satiated only in the
purple stream which circulates through a heart more enthusiastically
vibrating to every impulse of patriotism and honour, than that of any
of those privileged traitors to their country, who lord it over the
lives and property of the sovereign people with barefaced impunity.
“The reasons which I have, however, I will now state--not that I
entertain the slightest hope from your sense of justice or from your
pity. The former is swallowed up in your ambition, or rather by the
servility you descend to, to obtain the object of that ambition--the
latter I despise. Justice I demand. If I am denied it, your pity is no
equivalent. In the first place,
“I protest against the proceedings upon my trial, which I conceive to
be grossly partial, and contrary to the very spirit of justice,--but,
alas! the judges, who have heretofore been considered the counsel of
the accused, are now, without exception, in all cases between the Crown
and the People, the most implacable enemies of the latter. In every
instance, the Judges charge the Jury to find the subject guilty; nay,
in one instance, the Jury received a reprimand, and that not in the
gentlest terms, for not strictly obeying the imperious mandate from the
bench.
“The Court decided upon my trial to commit murder rather than depart,
in the slightest degree, from its usual forms. Nay, it is with me
a question, if the form is usual which precluded me from examining
witnesses to prove the infamy of Adams, of Hyden, and of Dwyer. ’Ere
the Solicitor-General replied to the address of my Counsel, I applied
to the Court to hear my witnesses. The Court inhumanly refused, and I
am in consequence to be consigned to the scaffold.
“Numerous have been the instances in which this rule of Court has been
infringed; but to have infringed it in my case, would have been to
incur the displeasure of the Court, and to forfeit every aspiring hope
of promotion.
“A few hours hence and I shall be no more; but the nightly breeze which
will whistle over the silent grave that shall protect me from its
keenness, will bear to your restless pillow the memory of one who lived
but for his country,--and died when liberty and justice had been driven
from its confines by a set of villains, whose thirst for blood is only
to be equalled by their activity in plunder.
“For life, as it respects myself, I care not; but, while yet I may, I
would rescue my memory from the calumny which, I doubt not, will be
industriously heaped upon it, when it will be no longer in my power to
protect it.
“I would explain the motives which induced me to conspire against the
Ministers of his Majesty; and I would contrast them with those which
these very ministers have acted upon in leading me to my ruin. To do
this, it will be necessary to take a short review of my life, for a
few months prior to my arrest for the offence for which I am to be
executed without a trial, or, at least, without an impartial one by a
jury of my peers.
“’Tis true, the form, the etiquette of a trial has been gone through;
but I challenge any of the Judges on the bench to tell me--to tell my
country--that justice was not denied me in the very place where justice
only should have been administered. I challenge them to say that I was
fairly tried. I challenge them to say if I am not murdered according to
the etiquette of a Court (falsely denominated) of Justice.
“I had witnesses in Court to prove that Dwyer was a villain, beyond
all example of atrocity.--I had witnesses in Court to prove that Adams
was a notorious swindler, and that Hyden was no better.--These were
the three witnesses--indeed, almost the only ones--against me.--But
the form and rules of Court must not be infringed upon, to save an
unfortunate individual from the scaffold.
“I called those witnesses at the close of Mr. Adolphus’s address to the
Jury, and before the Solicitor-General commenced his reply; but the
Court decided that they could not be heard.
“Some good men have thought--and I have thought so too--that before
the Jury retired, all evidence was in time, for either the prosecutor
or the accused; and more particularly for the latter; nay, even before
the verdict was given, that evidence could not be considered too late.
Alas! such people drew their conclusion from principles of justice
only; they never canvassed the rules of Court, which have finally
settled my unhappy doom!
“Many people who are acquainted with the barefaced manner in which I
was plundered by my Lord Sidmouth, will, perhaps, imagine that personal
motives instigated me to the deed; but I disclaim them. My every
principle was for the prosperity of my country. My every feeling--the
height of my ambition--was the welfare of my starving countrymen. I
keenly felt for their miseries; but, when their miseries were laughed
at, and when, because they dared to express those miseries, they were
cut down by hundreds, barbarously massacred, and trampled to death;
when infants were sabred in their mother’s arms, and the breast, from
which they drew the tide of life, was severed from the parent’s body,
my feelings became too intense, too excessive for endurance, and I
resolved on vengeance--I resolved that the lives of the instigators
should be a requiem to the souls of the murdered innocents.
“In this mood I met with George Edwards. And if any doubt should
remain upon the minds of the public, whether the deed I meditated was
virtuous, or contrary, the tale I will now relate will convince them
that, in attempting to exercise a power which the law had ceased to
have, I was only wreaking national vengeance on a set of wretches
unworthy the name or character of men.
“This Edwards, poor and pennyless, lived near Picket-street, in the
Strand, some time ago, without a bed to lie upon, or a chair to sit in.
Straw was his bed--his only covering a blanket; but, owing to his bad
character, and his swindling conduct, he was driven even from thence by
his landlord.
“It is not my intention trace him through his immorality. Suffice it to
say that he was, in every sense of the word, a villain of the deepest
atrocity. His landlord refused to give him a character.
“Some short time after this he called upon his landlord again--but mark
the change in his appearance. Dressed like a lord, in all the folly
of the reigning fashion, he now described himself as the right heir
to a German Baron, who had been some time dead, and stated that Lords
Castlereagh and Sidmouth had acknowledged his claims to the title and
property, had interfered in his behalf with the German government,
and supplied him with money to support his rank in society. From this
period I date his career as a Government Spy.
“He procured an introduction to the Spenceans--by what means I am not
aware of--and thus he became acquainted with the Reformers in general.
“When I met with Edwards after the massacre at Manchester, he described
himself as very poor; and, after several interviews, he proposed a
plan for blowing up the House of Commons. This was not my view: I
wished to punish the guilty only, and therefore I declined it. He next
proposed that we should attack the Ministers at the _fête_ given by the
Spanish Ambassador. This I resolutely opposed, because the innocent
would perish with the guilty;--besides, there were ladies invited to
the entertainment--and I, who am shortly to ascend to the scaffold,
shuddered with horror at the idea of that, a sample of which had
previously been given by the Agents of Government at Manchester, and
which the Ministers of his Majesty applauded.
“Edwards was ever at invention; and at length he proposed attacking
them at a cabinet-dinner. I asked, where were the means to carry his
project into effect? He replied, if I would accede, we should not want
for means. He was as good as his word: from him came, notwithstanding
his apparent penury, the money provided for purchasing the stores which
your Lordships have seen produced in Court upon my trial.
“He who was never possessed of money to pay for a pint of beer,
had always plenty to purchase arms or ammunition. Amongst the
conspirators, he was ever the most active;--ever inducing people to
join him, up to the last hour ere the undertaking was discovered.
“I had witnesses in Court who could prove they went to Cato-street by
appointment with Edwards, with no other knowledge or motive than that
of passing an evening amongst his friends.
“I could also have proved that subsequent to the fatal transaction,
when we met in Holborn, he endeavoured to induce two or three of my
companions to set fire to houses and buildings in various parts of the
metropolis.
“I could prove that subsequent to that again, he endeavoured to induce
men to throw hand-grenades into the carriages of ministers as they
passed through the streets; and yet this man, the contriver, the
instigator, the entrapper, is screened from justice and from exposure,
by those very men who seek vengeance against the victims of his and
their villany.
“To the Attorney and Solicitor-General I cannot impute the clearest
motives. Their object seems to me to have been rather to obtain a
verdict against me, than to obtain a full and fair exposition of the
whole affair since its commencement. If their object was justice alone,
why not bring forward Edwards as a witness, if not as an accomplice;
but no, they knew that by keeping Edwards in the background, my
proofs--aye, my incontrovertible proofs of his being a hired spy, the
suggestor and promoter--must, according to the rules of court, also be
excluded.
“Edwards and his accomplices arranged matters in such a manner as that
his services might be dispensed with on the trial, and thus were the
Jury cut off from every chance of ascertaining the real truth. Adams,
Hyden, and Dwyer, were the agents of Edwards, and truly he made a most
admirable choice, for their invention seems to be inexhaustible.
“With respect to the immorality of our project, I will just observe,
that the assassination of a tyrant has always been deemed a meritorious
action. Brutus and Cassius were lauded to the very skies for slaying
Cæsar; indeed, when any man, or any set of men, place themselves above
the laws of their country, there is no other means of bringing them
to justice than through the arm of a private individual. If the laws
are not strong enough to prevent them from murdering the community, it
becomes the duty of every member of that community to rid his country
of its oppressors.
“High treason was committed against the people at Manchester, but
justice was closed against the mutilated, the maimed, and the friends
of those who were upon that occasion indiscriminately massacred. The
Sovereign, by the advice of his Ministers, thanked the murderers, while
yet reeking in the blood of their hapless victims! If one spark of
honour--if one spark of patriotism--had still glimmered in the breasts
of Englishmen, they would have risen to a man--for Insurrection then
became a public duty--and the _Blood of the Slain_ should have been the
watchword to vengeance on their murderers. The banner of independence
should have floated in the gale that brought the tidings of their
wrongs and their sufferings to the metropolis!--Such, however, was
not the case, and Albion is still in the chains of slavery--I quit it
without regret--I shall soon be consigned to the grave--my body will be
immured beneath the soil whereon I first drew breath. My only sorrow
is, that the soil should be a theatre for slaves, for cowards, for
despots.
“My motives, I doubt not, will hereafter be justly appreciated. I will
therefore now conclude by stating, that I shall consider myself as
murdered, if I am to be executed on the verdict obtained against me, by
the refusal of the court to hear my evidence.
[Illustration:
_Wivell Del^t._ _Cooper Sculp._