_July_ 15.
This Pamphlet was printed and ready for publication some weeks since; but
the Editor thought proper to keep it back until the trial of John Church,
which came on at the Middlesex Sessions on Monday the 12th of July 1813;
when he was _acquitted_. Indeed the Editor never imagined that any other
verdict than one of acquittal, would have been given on that particular
prosecution. If the Reader looks back to pages 25 and 26, he will find
in the account there given of the proceedings at Union Hall, that this
prosecution was ORDERED by the Magistrates of that Office, and _did not
originate_ with the prosecutor, William Webster, on whom the abominable
attempt was alleged to have been made eleven years ago; that the very
mention of the attempt was a mere incidental circumstance arising out of
another proceeding then before the Magistrates; and that the latter, upon
hearing it, dismissed the first complaint, and obliged Wm. Webster to
become (what he never until then intended to be) a prosecutor against
Church. Let the Reader also take notice of the following sentence in the
report in page 26: “The Magistrate observed, that from the length of time
which had elapsed since the offence had been committed, he thought a Jury
would not feel justified in finding him guilty.” This William Webster,
therefore, considered, in all respects, as an unwilling prosecutor, who
was supported only by one counsel of young standing, {38a} and had to
struggle against two of the most able advocates {38b} in the criminal
courts. The Editor (for he was not present at the trial) understands
that Webster gave his evidence with embarrassment and trepidation, and he
suffered himself to fall into some inconsistencies. With this _solitary_
and confused evidence, and after a lapse—after a _silence_ of ELEVEN
YEARS, was it possible to suppose that a Jury would have found any man
guilty? It must here be observed that the decision on this solitary
complaint of eleven years standing, does not in the slightest degree
affect any of the numerous accusation at a more recent date, which have
been made against John Church.