which manifestly indeed lean upon the establishment of the first for their support; because they charge the publication of different writings, and the provision of arins, not as distinct offences, but as acts done to excite the assembling of the same Convention, and to maintain it when, assembled : but above all, and which must never be forgotten, because they also uniformly charge these different acts as committed in fulfilment of the same traitorous purpose, TO BRING THE KING TO DEATH. You will therefore have three distinct matters for consi deration, upon this trial: First, What share (if any) the Prisoner had, in concert with others, in assembling any Convention or meeting of subjects within this kingdom:Secondly, What were the acts to be done by this Convention, when assembled :and Thirdly, What was the view, purpose, and intention of those who projected its existence. This third consideration, indeed, comprehends, or rather precedes and swallows up the other two; because, before it can be material to decide upon the views of the Convention, as pointed to the subversion of the rule and order of the King's political authority (even if such views could be ascribed to it, and brought home even personally to the Prisoner), we shall have to examine whether that criminal conspiracy against the established order of the community, was hatched and engendered by a wicked contemplation to destroy the natural life and person of the King; and whether the acts charged and established by the evi»

dence, were done in pursuance and in fulfilment of the same traitorous purpose.

Gentlemen, this view of the subject is not only correct, but self-evident.-The subversion of the King's political government, and all conspiracies to subvert it, are crimes of great magnitude and enor mity, which the law is open to punish; but neither of them are the crimes before you.The Prisoner is NOT charged with a conspiracy against the King's POLITICAL GOVERNMENT, but against his NATURAL LIFE. He is not accused of having merely taken steps to depose him from his authority, but with having done so with the intention to bring him to death. It is the act with the specific intention, and not the act alone, which constitutes the charge. The act of conspiring to depose the King, may indeed be evidence, accord ing to circumstances, of an intention to destroy his natural existence; but never, as a proposition of law, ean constitute the intention itself. Where an act is done in pursuance of an intention, surely the intention must first exist; a man cannot do a thing in fulfilment of an intention, unless his mind first conceives that intention.The doing an act, or the pursuit of a system of conduct which leads in probable consequences to the death of the King, may legally (if any such be before you) affect the consideration of the traitorous purpose charged by the record, and I am not afraid of trusting you with the evidence.-How far any given act, or course of acting, independently of intention, may lead probably or inevitably to any

natural or political consequence, is what we have no concern with; these may be curious questions of casuistry or politics; but it is wickedness and folly to declare that consequences unconnected even with intention or consciousness, shall be synonimous in law with the traitorous mind; although the traitorous mind alone is arraigned, as constituting the crime.

Gentlemen, the first question consequently for consideration, and to which I must therefore earnestly implore the attention of the Court, is this :-WHAT IS THE LAW UPON THIS MOMENTOUS SUBJECT?-And recollecting that I am invested with no authority, I shall not presume to offer you any thing of my own; -nothing shall proceed from myself upon this part of the inquiry, but that which is merely introductory, and necessary to the understanding of the authorities on which I mean to rely for the establishment of doctrines, not less essential to the general liberties of England, than to the particular consideration which constitutes our present duty.

First then, I maintain that that branch of the sta tute 25th of Edward the Third, which declares it to be high treason "when a man doth compass or "imagine the death of the King, of his lady the "Queen, or of his eldest son and heir," was intended to guard by a higher sanction than felony, the NATUBAL LIVES of the King, Queen, and Prince; and that no act, therefore (either inchoate or consummate), of resistance to, or rebellion against, the King's regal capacity, amounts to high treason of compassing

his death, unless where they can be charged upon the indictment, and proved to the satisfaction of the Jury at the trial, as overt acts, committed by the Prisoner, in fulfilment of a traitorous intention to destroy the King's NATURAL life.

Secondly, that the compassing the King's death, or, in other words, the traitorous intention to destroy his natural existence, is the treason, and not the overt acts, which are only laid as manifestations of the traitorous intention, or, in other words, as EVIDENCE competent to be left to a Jury to prove it; and that no conspiracy to levy war against the King, nor any conspiracy against his regal character or capacity, is a good overt act of compassing his death, unless some force be exerted, or in contemplation, against THE KING'S PERSON: and that such force so exerted or in contemplation, is not substantively the treason of compassing, but only competent in point of law to establish it, if the Jury by the verdict of Guilty draw that conclusion of fact from the evidence of the overt act.

Thirdly, that the charge in the Indictment, of compassing the King's death, is not laid as legal inducement or introduction, to follow as a legal infer ence from the establishment of the overt act, but is laid as an averment of A FACT; and, as such, the very gist of the Indictment, to be affirmed or negatived by the verdict of Guilty or Not guilty. It will not (I am persuaded) be suspected by the Attorney General, or by the Court, that I am about to support these

doctrines by opposing my own judgment to the authoritative writings of the venerable and excellent Lord Hale, whose memory will live in this country, and throughout the enlightened world, as long as the administration of pure justice shall exist; neither do I wish to oppose any thing which is to be found in the other learned authorities principally relied upon by the Crown, because all my positions are perfectly consistent with a right interpretation of them; and because, even were it otherwise, I could not expect successfully to oppose them by any reasonings of my own, which can have no weight, but as they shall be found at once consistent with acknowledged author rities, and with the established principles of the English law. I can do this with the greater security, because my respectable and learned frierid; the Attor ney General, has not cited cases which have been the disgrace of this country in former times, nor asked you to sanction by your judgment those bloody murders, which are recorded by them as acts of English justice; but, as might be expected of an honourable man, his expositions of the law (though I think them frequently erroneous) are drawn from the same sources, which I look up to for doctrines so very dif ferent.I find, indeed, throughout the whole range of authorities (I mean those which the Attorney General has properly considered as deserving that name and character) very little contradiction; for, as far as I can discover, much more entanglement has arisen from now and then a tripping in the expression, than from