“I could have proved Dwyer to be a villain of the blackest dye, for,
since my trial, an accomplice of his, named Arnold, has been capitally
convicted at this very bar, for obtaining money under circumstances of
an infamous nature.
“I seek not pity--I demand but justice:--I have not had a fair trial,
and, upon that ground, I protest that judgment ought not to be passed
against me.”
It is impossible to describe the feelings of horror and disgust
which pervaded the mind of every individual in the court during the
delivery of this most treasonable and ferocious harangue.--It was of
course expected that the wretched criminals would offer something
in extenuation of the crimes of which they had been convicted, but
it could never have been conceived that any man existed so deeply
depraved, and so dreadfully hardened in crime, as to venture to justify
projects of assassination, and to propagate doctrines of treason and
murder, while standing as it were on the very brink of eternity, and
about to be ushered into the presence of that God whom he had braved,
by the impious and inhuman declarations to which he had just given
utterance.
Mr. Shelton next addressed himself to DAVIDSON, and put to him the same
question which he had put to Thistlewood. Davidson advanced, and spoke
to the following effect:
“My Lords, you ask me what I have to say why I should not receive
judgment to die for what has been said against me? I answer that I
protest against the proceedings in this trial in toto.
“In the first place, I always thought that in a court of justice the
balance of justice was held with an even hand. But this has not been
the case with me; I stand here helpless and friendless. I endeavoured
to shew that the evidence against me was contradictory and incredible,
and I hoped I had made an impression on the gentlemen in the box; but
the moment I was done, the Attorney-General got up, and told them that
the evidence was pure and uncontaminated, and to this I may add, that
Mr. Baron Garrow almost insisted that they should pronounce me guilty.
“I would ask, has any person identified me but the officers? who, every
one knows, have at all times been instrumental in the death of innocent
persons.
“I do not now plead for my life; I know I must fall a victim to the
vengeance of my enemies. But in what manner have I been guilty of High
Treason? It would seem I was a silent spectator; none of the witnesses
impute to me a single observation. Now is this probable? I had always
got a great deal to say for myself, consequently I was not the person
who would stand by without uttering a word; and yet such has been the
testimony of Adams.
“Then, with regard to the blunderbuss;--I have already explained that
this was not mine, and that I acted in that affair entirely as the
agent of Edwards. I have also declared how I came by the sword, and I
now declare upon my soul, which will shortly appear before its Maker,
that I never made any blow at any man, or discharged any carbine.
“As for Munday, the man who swore that I had a long sword, with a pair
of pistols in my girdle, who is he? He is a poor labouring man who
comes here for his day’s pay and his victuals, to swear away the life
of a fellow creature, and to support the unfounded charge against me
that I meant to assassinate his Majesty’s Ministers.
“I appeal to any man, whether it is upon such evidence the life of an
innocent man is to be sacrificed? But even supposing, for the sake of
argument, that the lives of his Majesty’s Ministers were threatened,
it did not follow that this was to extend to the King himself.
“In a passage of Magna Charta, it was ordained that twenty-five barons
should be nominated to see that the terms of the charter were not
infringed; and, if it was found that his Majesty’s Ministers were
guilty of such infringement, then four barons were to call upon them
for redress. If this were not granted, then the four barons were
to return to their brethren, by whom the people were to be called
together to take up arms, and assert their rights. Such an act was not
considered in old times as an act of treason towards the king, however
hostile it might be towards his ministers. But this does not apply to
me.
“I had no intention of joining in any scheme whatever, either to put
down my King, or to murder his Ministers. I was entrapped by Goldworthy
and Edwards, in order for some private purposes of their own, that they
might have my life sworn away.
“I have no objection to tender my life in the service of my country;
but let me at least, for the sake of my children, save my character
from the disgrace of dying a traitor. For my children only do I feel,
and when I think of them I am deprived of utterance--I can say no more.”
JAMES INGS was next asked what he had to say, why he should not receive
judgment to die? He replied--
“I have very little to say. My abilities will not allow me to speak.
If Mr. Edwards had not got acquainted with me I should not be here.
He came to me, unfortunately when I had no business, nor no means of
getting a livelihood for my family. I entered into the conspiracy only
through him; and it was only necessity, and the want of the means to
support my wife and family that brought me here.
“It is only through Edwards that I shall lose my life. I do not mind
dying, if you will let that man come forward, and die with me on the
scaffold. It was through him that I was going to do that which, I must
allow, was of a most disgraceful and inhuman nature.
“On the other hand, his Majesty’s Ministers conspire together, and
impose laws to starve me and my family and fellow-countrymen; and if I
was going to assassinate these Ministers, I do not see that it is so
bad as starvation, in my opinion, my Lord.
“There is another thing, my Lord. A meeting was called at Manchester,
under the protection of the law of England, for which our forefathers
died, and which King John signed in the open air. This meeting was
called under the protection of that law, for the people to petition
parliament to give them their rights; but, previous to the business of
the meeting, the Manchester yeomanry rode in among them, and cut down
men, women, and children, in a manner that was a disgrace to the very
name of Englishmen. These yeomen had their swords ground beforehand;
and I had a sword ground also: but I do not see any harm in that.
“I shall suffer, no doubt; but I hope my children will live to see
justice done to their bleeding country. I would rather die like a man
than live like a slave. I am sorry I have not the power, gentlemen, to
say more; I shall, therefore, withdraw.”
JOHN THOMAS BRUNT was next called upon. He came forward in a quick
and rather hurried manner; and, in answer to the usual interrogatory,
addressed himself to the Court in a firm and confident tone.
He said, he “had intended to have written the observations which he
should make, but he had not had the benefit of ink and paper. He would
repeat what he had before stated to the Jury on his trial, which had
been so ably knocked down by the Solicitor-General, whose sophisticated
eloquence would make even crime a virtue. He then proceeded to
recapitulate the circumstances already stated by him in his defence.
He protested against the verdict; not that he valued his life. No man
valued it less when it was to be sacrificed in liberty’s cause.
“Looking around him in this Court, and seeing the sword of justice
and the inscriptions which were placed on the walls above the Learned
Judges, he could only say, that he felt his blood boil in his veins
when he thought how justice was perverted, and her sacred name
prostituted to the basest and vilest purposes. He was a man of his
word, and not a shuttlecock, as some might suppose. If he pledged
himself once to destroy a tyrant, he would do it.
“Edwards, that infamous villain, whom the Solicitor-General had not
dared to bring forward, had preyed on his credulity; and Adams had
betrayed him. Where was the benefit which would result to Christianity
from the able defence made of it by the Solicitor-General? What was
Christianity? Why, did its doctrines promulgate so horrid an idea, as
that supposing a man to have been a Deist, and all at once to have
been converted by seeing the halter staring him in the face, he would,
therefore, be strengthened by Almighty God to become a villain and a
perjured betrayer of his associates?
“That this was the case with Adams was evident from his own confession.
Was this, then, Christianity? If it was, he prayed God he might die
without it; for very different, indeed, were the ideas he had formed of
religion.”
The prisoner then proceeded to attack the character of the witness,
Hale, his apprentice; in which, however, he was interrupted by the
Lord Chief Justice, who said, he would not allow persons and witnesses
not before the Court to be vilified.
_Brunt_ proceeded--“He had antipathy against none but the enemies of
his country. He was a friend to the lower orders, and, as an honest
man, had a fellow-feeling for his countrymen, who were starving through
the conduct of Ministers. Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth had an
antipathy against the people; and if he did conspire to murder them,
was that high treason? He readily acknowledged that he had agreed to
assassinate Ministers; but he denied having ever conspired to dethrone
or injure the Monarch. But, if resisting the Civil Power, or opposing
wicked Ministers, was treason, then he confessed he was guilty. He was
no traitor to his country--he was no traitor to his King; but he was an
enemy to a boroughmongering faction, which equally enslaved both the
King and the people.
“The happiness, the glory, and the safety of the King, depended on his
being free as well as his people; but this was not the case now. A
faction ruled both King and people with lawless sway. He had, by his
industry, been able to earn about three or four pounds a week; and,
while this was the case, he never meddled with politics: but, when he
found his income reduced to ten shillings a week, he began to look
about him, and to ask to what could that be owing? And what did he
find? Why, men in power, who met to deliberate how they might starve
and plunder the country. He looked on the Manchester transactions as
most dreadful, and thought that nothing was too severe for men, who had
not only caused, but even applauded, the dreadful scenes which occurred
there.
“With pleasure would he die as a martyr in liberty’s cause for the good
of his country, and, to have been avenged on her tyrants would have
given him pleasure to have died on the spot. He was not a traitor, nor
a friend of a traitor, and it was only a villain who could call him so.
While a nerve of his body could move, that nerve should and would be
exerted against the enemies of the people.
“He had joined the conspiracy for the public good. He was not the man
who would have stopped. O, no; he would have gone through with it to
the very bottom, or else have perished in the attempt. Their death was
necessary for the public good. They might quarter his body--they might
inflict on him every species of torture; but they could not shake his
resolution, nor subdue his spirit. He would mount the scaffold with the
same firm intrepidity he now evinced, and, if his life was called for,
if his wife was to be made a widow and his child an orphan, in this
mighty cause he would cheerfully sacrifice it!”
In the course of this daring address, the wretched man had worked
himself up to a degree of passion bordering on rage. A feeling of
horror was visible in the face of all within his hearing, whilst the
unhappy man was coldly explaining and justifying his murderous purposes.
The same question was put to each of the remaining prisoners, who
severally returned answers to the following effect:
RICHARD TIDD said, he had been convicted so late last night, that he
had no time to prepare a written address, as he could have wished. He
denied that the evidence against him was true, with the exception of
that of the gentleman he saw on the bench (Captain Fitzclarence); and,
as for shooting him, why he would as soon have thought of shooting his
own father.
JAMES WILSON declared that he had been drawn into the plot by one of
the witnesses (Adams) who appeared against him.
JOHN HARRISON, on being called upon, said My Lord, they were all false
witnesses.
RICHARD BRADBURN.--The evidence of Adams was false.
JOHN SHAW STRANGE.--I have only this much to say, my Lords, that the
evidence of Adams and Hale was false, and that they are perjured
villains.
JAMES GILCHRIST was much affected, and some time elapsed before he
could speak. He said--
“My Lords, what I say, I shall say and think as in the presence of my
God. I knew nothing of the business until four o’clock on the day on
which it took place. I then had not tasted a morsel of food the whole
day. [Here the prisoner burst into tears.] I then went to a place
where a person appointed to meet me at six o’clock, where I saw four
or five men, not one of whom I knew, except Cooper; of him I borrowed
a halfpenny, to buy a bit of bread. I appeal to God who now hears me,
(casting up his eyes), and knows that this is true.
“I went into the room at Cato-street, where I found a number of men
eating bread and cheese, which they cut with a sword. I cut some for
myself. Seeing so many men and arms, I was anxious to get away, but
Adams stopped me, and brandishing a sword, said, ‘If any man attempts
to go from here, I will run him through.’ An officer then came in, and
I surrendered without opposition.
“This was all I knew of the business, and yet I stand here convicted of
high treason. I have served my King and country faithfully for twelve
years, and this is my recompense, this is my recompense, O God!” [Here
the prisoner again burst into tears, and could proceed no further.]
CHARLES COOPER said, My Lords, there is no evidence to convict me of
high treason.
GILCHRIST came again to the bar, and said, My Lords, I have no
objection to die; I would willingly resign my life to save that of
another. (It was not known to whom he alluded). He again retired from
the bar in tears as before, and continued so till the whole of the
prisoners were removed from Court.
Proclamation was now made by the Crier that the Judge was going to
proceed to pass sentence on the prisoners, and enjoining strict silence
in the Court.
The Lord Chief-Justice ABBOTT, having put on that solemn part of the
judicial insignia, the black velvet cap, proceeded to his awful duty,
and thus addressed the prisoners:--
“You, Arthur Thistlewood, James Ings, John Thomas Brunt, William
Davidson, and Richard Tidd, have been severally tried and convicted of
High Treason, in Compassing and Levying War against his Majesty.
“You, James Wilson, John Harrison, Richard Bradburn, John Shaw Strange,
James Gilchrist, and Charles Cooper, did originally plead _Not Guilty_
to the same indictment; but, after the trial and conviction of the
preceding prisoners, you desired to withdraw your plea, and plead
_Guilty_. You have cast yourselves on the mercy of your sovereign; and
if any of you have your lives spared, which I trust will be the case
with some of you, I hope you will bear in mind that you owe it to the
benignity and mercy of your sovereign, and to some of those public
officers whom you had devoted to a cruel and sudden death.”
His Lordship then proceeded with his address. “Thistlewood,” he
observed, “had complained that the Court had refused to receive the
testimony of some witnesses, after the evidence had closed on both
sides. But he should recollect that his trial was conducted according
to the law, as it had been administered in this country for ages. The
witnesses whom he proposed to call were for the purpose of impugning
the testimony of a man of the name of Dwyer, and no other. His learned
counsel had previously called witnesses to the same effect. It could
not be allowed to him, according to the ordinary course of proceeding,
to do more. Indeed, even if he had been allowed so to do, it could have
been productive of no advantage, because his case did not depend upon
the evidence of that witness alone. This observation was confirmed by
the fact, that in subsequent cases, where the evidence of Dwyer was
altogether omitted, a similar verdict of guilty was returned.
“Some of them had thought fit to say much of the character of a person
who had not appeared as a witness upon this occasion. The Court could
proceed only upon the evidence which was brought before it. Of the
person, therefore, to whom they alluded, or of the practices of which
he had been guilty, they could have no knowledge. Upon the testimony,
however, which had been adduced against them, there was abundantly
sufficient to induce a Jury of their country to come to a conclusion,
that the whole of them had taken an active part in the crimes imputed
in the indictment.
“From all that had appeared in the course of these trials, as well
as from much of that which they had then heard, it was plain to see,
that they did not embark in their wicked designs until they had first
suffered their minds to be corrupted and inflamed by those seditious
and irreligious publications, with which, unhappily for this country,
the press had but too long teemed. He did not make these remarks to
aggravate their guilt, or to enhance the sufferings of persons in their
situation. He made them as a warning to all who might hear of their
unfortunate fate, that they might benefit by their example, and avoid
those dangerous instruments of sedition, by which their hearts and
minds were inflamed, and by which they were drawn from every feeling of
morality, from every sense of obligation towards their Creator, and of
justice towards society.
“The treason of which they were charged, and found guilty, was that
of compassing and imagining to levy war against his majesty, for the
purpose of inducing him to change his measures and Ministers; the
first step towards effecting which was to have been the assassination
of Ministers themselves. They had endeavoured now to complain of the
testimony of those persons who had been examined as witnesses on the
part of the prosecution. Some of them were accomplices in their guilt.
“It had here happened, as it had upon other occasions, that the
principal instruments in the hands of justice were partners in their
wickedness: he trusted that circumstance would have its due weight
and consideration with all those, who became acquainted with their
situation, and with the circumstances of their trial. He hoped that,
for the sake of their own personal safety, if they could not be
restrained by any other consideration, they would abstain from evil
communications and from evil connexions, such as had brought the
prisoners to the unhappy position in which they stood.
“Some of them had avowed their intention to have taken away the lives,
and to have steeped their hands in the blood of fourteen persons, to
many of them unknown. It was without a precedent to see Englishmen
laying aside their national character, and contriving and agreeing on
the assassination, in cold blood, of fourteen individuals, who had
never offended any of them. This was a crime which hitherto was a
stranger to our country, and he trusted it would, after the melancholy
example of the prisoners, be unknown amongst us.
“It now,” he said, “only remained for him to pass upon them the
awful sentence of the law; but before he did so, he exhorted them,
he implored them, to employ the time yet left to them in this life
in endeavouring, by prayer, to obtain mercy from that Almighty Power
before whom they would shortly appear. The mercy of heaven might be
obtained by all those who would unfeignedly, and with humility, express
contrition for their offences, and seek that mercy through the merits
of their blessed Redeemer.”
This awful appeal, delivered by the judge in the most impressive
manner, was wholly lost on Thistlewood, who, with apparent careless
indifference, pulled out his snuff-box, some of the contents of which
he took, casting his eyes round the court, as if he were entering a
theatre. His indifference was the more conspicuous when contrasted
with the solemn manner in which the Lord Chief-Justice addressed the
prisoners.
His Lordship continued.
“Whether the prisoners would profit by the advice which he thus
sincerely gave them he could not say, but he once again begged that
they might not allow themselves to be led away by such feelings and
opinions as seemed hitherto to have influenced them.
“He had now to pronounce upon them the sentence of the law, which was--
“That you, and each of you, be taken from hence to the gaol from whence
you came, and from thence that you be drawn upon a hurdle to a place
of execution, and be there hanged by the neck until you be dead; and
that afterwards your heads shall be severed from your bodies, and your
bodies be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of as his majesty
shall think fit. And may God of his infinite goodness have mercy upon
your souls!”
The crier said aloud, “Amen!” in which he was joined by many in the
Court, who were deeply affected by his Lordship’s address.
The prisoners were then removed from the bar; some of them,
particularly Thistlewood, Brunt, and Davidson, appearing to be wholly
unconcerned at the awful sentence which had been passed upon them, and
the whole of them evincing great firmness and resignation.
Tidd complained of the immense weight of his irons, when the Lord Chief
Justice, with that humanity and feeling which had characterized his
conduct throughout the whole of this arduous and painful business,
said he was sure the gaoler would grant the prisoner every indulgence
consistent with his safety.