ther with Parliament-by using terms, which certainly may mean what it may be contended in the defence they did mean-but terms the same in their expression, certainly the same in their import, as those, which were used in every act which passed in this country during the time of the Commonwealth, when we neither had King nor Lords-that may signify a government existing without Lords or King, by declaring the obtaining such a representation of the people as necessary to the natural, unalienable, imprescriptible rights of man, as stated by Mr. Paine by these means and artifices they attempted to engage in their service the physical strength of men, who might not and did not discover the real nature of the plan, which that strength was to be employed in executing-who had not information enough to discover what the representation was meant finally to do or to execute. But you will find the persons mentioned in this Indictment had no doubt about it.-I mark these circumstances to you, because, in the evidence that is to be laid before you (and I am now stating the general character of the evidence, and not the principles upon which the charge is made) in the evidence to be laid before you of the plan for the execution of these purposes, some very remarkable particulars occur; and when you come to decide upon this case, I humbly beg your attention to those particulars; some very remarkable particulars will occur. You will find that the leading clubs, by which I mean the Constitutional Society, judging of its conduct for the purpose of this cause, though in some other cases we must go farther back, but, for the purpose of this cause, judging of its conduct from about the beginning of the year 1792, and the London Corresponding Society, which was formed, whether created, I will not say, but which was modelled by some leading members of the Constitutional Society, and received its corporate existence, if I may use the term, as it will be proved, under their own hand-writing-most distinctly from the hand-writing of some, who yet belong, and some, who have ceased to belong to the Constitutional Society; these leading societies, you will find, enlisting into their affiliation many societies in the country, composed of men who expressed their doubts as to the views of these societies in London, -who expressed their fears as well as their doubts about those views-who required information as to the purposes of those societies in London-some of these societies in the country professing one set of principles, some another ;-but all assistance is taken that is offered: accordingly you will see that the London societies enlist persons who profess, that "they ought to submit to no power but what they "have themselves immediately constituted:"-to these they give answers, couched in dark, cautious, prudent, but satisfactory and intelligible terms: those, who profess still to have attachments to the monarchy of the country, and who express appre hensions about its safety from the principles of the London societies, and the conflicting principles of various country societies, they sooth into fraternization, by telling them that all would be set right" by a "full and fair representation of the people in Parlia"ment;"-a name which was given to the Commons under Cromwell, as well as to the legitimate Parliaments of this country at different periods,-without telling them either what these words meant, or how that Parliament was to operate to reconcile these differences, which you will find amounted only to the differences between an attachment to an absolute republic, and an attachment to a limited monarchy. They enlist alike those, who expreseed a wish to know whether they proposed to reform the House of Commons, and those who wished to know whether they intend to rip up monarchy by the roots; their answers were calculated to satisfy each of them, to satisfy whatever might be the disposition of those, who address the questions to them, requiring information upon subjects so totally different. Gentlemen, this is not all: you will find again, that, for these purposes, publications upon the government of the country, which are alluded to in this Indictment, and which will be given to you in evidence, that publications upon the government of the country were adopted by those societies as their own, and circulated, if I may so express myself, in a mass, round the country, circulated in a manner, that totally destroys the liberty of the press in this country. The liberty of the press in this country - never ought to be under an undue correction of the law, but it must always be, for the sake of the people, subject to the correction of the law: you will find that these publications are either brought into the world with such a secrecy as baffles all prosecution, published without names of authors or of printers, published by contrivance, I am sorry to say by contrivance published in the dead of night (though they are the works of men who have talents to state them to open day, if fit to be stated to open day), and published in quantities, which make the application of the wholesome provisions of the law utterly incompetent to the purpose of allowing the correction of the law to be as frequent as the commission of the offences against it. Gentlemen, with respect to many of these publications I may take notice of what has happened in the history of this country, and though no man wishes less to talk of himself than I do, yet I am speaking in the presence of many, who have heard me both in Court and in Parliament respecting those publications to which I allude (and which will be offered to you in evidence), express the difficulty that my mind laboured under to concede that such a publication as the Address to the Addressers, was not, according to law, an overt act of high treason. -It did appear to me that the publication of the book called the Address to the Addressers was an overt act of high treason, for the purpose of deposing the King; at least I thought it required an ingenuity and subtlety, much beyond that which belonged to my mind, to state satisfactory reasons why it was not so; but there were reasons satisfactory to those who can judge better than I can, and therefore that book was treated only as a libel;but when I come to see it, as connected with the mass of publications alluded to in this Indictment, as connected with measures that I have to state to you in the course of opening this cause, and as connected with the project which this Indictment imputes to depose the King, I say it is either most distinct evidence of an overt act of high treason, or it is an overt act of high treason itself, Gentlemen, you will also not fail to observe (and I state it as a general feature and character of the evidence that I have to lay before you)-the malig nant art, and, if I may so express myself, the in, dustrious malignity, with which discontent has been spread by these two societies in London, and the means of spreading it have been studiously and anxiously taught from society to society: the means of spreading sedition, fresh as from London, in every town, all with reference (for they are not material, do not find they had such a reference) to the final accomplishment of the same purpose: you will not fail to observe, how the passions and interests of individuals have been assailed, and the method of assailing them taught, according to their stations in life-not merely upon government, but, for the purpose of subverting government, upon tithes if you |