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whole system of our public government as a system of plunder and rapacity;-representing, particularly, the administration of a neighbouring kingdom by a Lord-lieutenant, as a scheme and device merely invented to corrupt the people, and to enrich and aggrandize the individual to whose care the government of that kingdom is more immediately delegated ;-in short, arraigning every part of our public economy as directly productive of misgovernment and oppres-sion. The King himself was sometimes more particularly pointed at by Mr. Walker. He related of him a strange, incredible, and foolish fable, which I never heard suggested from any other quarter ;"That His Majesty was possessed of seventeen "millions of money in some bank or other at Vienna, "which he kept locked up there, and would not "bestow a single penny of it to relieve the dis"tresses and indigence of any part of his own sub"jects." Many other assertions of this sort were made, and conversations of a similar import held, between Mr. Walker and the persons thus assembled.

About three months after the formation, as far as I can collect it, of this society, that is, about the month of March 1793, a person of the name of Yorke-Yorke of Derby, I think he is called,-arrived at Manchester, with all the apparatus of a kind · of apostolic mission, addressed to the various assemblies of seditious persons in that quarter of the kingdom. He harangued them upon such topics as were;

most likely to interest and inflame them;-he explained to them the object of the journey he was then making through the country ;-he said, he was come to visit all the combined societies, in order to learn the numbers they could respectively muster, in case there should be an invasion by the French, which was then talked of, and is yet, I am afraid, talked of but upon too much foundation;-to know, in short, what number they could add to the arms of France, in case these arms should be hostilely directed against Great Britain itself;-he stated that the French were about to land in this country to the number of forty or fifty thousand men, and that he was collecting, in the different societies, the names of such persons as could be best depended upon; in order to ascertain what number in the whole could actually be brought into the field upon such an emergency.

When this person was present, there seems to have been a sort of holiday and festival of sedition : each member strove with his fellow which should express sentiments the most injurious and hostile to the peace and happiness of their country. Dunn, the witness I have already alluded to, will speak to the actual communication of all the several persons who are Defendants upon this record in most of the mischievous councils which were then held, and which are the subject of this prosecution. They met during a considerable length of time he attended (and here you will not be called upon to give credit

to a loose and casual recollection of a few random expressions, uttered upon one or two accidental occasions, capable of an innocent or doubtful construction); but he attended, I believe, at nearly forty of these meetings;-he attended them from about the month of December or January, down to the month of June, when, either through compunction for the share he had himself borne in those mischievous proceedings, or whatever else might be his motive I trust it was an honourable one, and that it will in its effects prove beneficial to his country,―he came forward and detailed this business to the magistrates of this county. It became them, having such circumstances related to them, and having it also confirmed by other evidence, that there were numerous nightly meetings of this sort held at stated intervals at the house of Mr. Walker, upon having the objects of these meetings detailed and verified to them -it became them, I say, to use means for suppressing a mischief of such extent and magnitude. It was accordingly thought proper to institute this prosecution for the purpose of bringing these enormous proceedings into public discussion and inquiry, before a Jury of the country, and for the purpose of eventually bringing to condign punishment the persons immediately concerned in them.

Gentlemen, the evidence of this person, the witness I have mentioned, will unquestionably be assailed and attacked by a great deal of attempted contradiction;-his character will, I have no doubt, be

arraigned and drawn in question from the earliest period to which the Defendants can have any opportu nities of access, for materials respecting it. Upon nothing but upon the effectual impeachment of the character of this witness, can they bottom any probable expectations of acquittal; to that point, therefore, their efforts will be mainly directed. I wish their efforts had been hitherto directed innocently towards the attainment of this object, and that no opportunities had been recently taken, in occasional meetings and conversations, to at-. tempt to tamper with the testimony of this witness. There are other practices, which, next to an actual tampering with the testimony of a witness, are extremely mischievous to the regular course and administration of justice. I mean attempts to lure a witness into conversations respecting the subject of his testimony; of this we have seen many very blameable instances in the course of the present circuit, where conversations have been set on foot for the purpose of catching at some particular expres-.. sions, inadvertently dropt by a witness, and of afterwards bringing them forward, separately and detached from the rest of the conversation, in order to give a different colour and complexion to the substance of his evidence, and to weaken the effect and credit of the whole.

Gentlemen, these attempts are too commonly made;-happily, however, for public justice, they are commonly unsuccessful; because they do and

must, with every honourable mind, recoil upon the party making them. Private applications to a person not only known to be an adverse witness, but to be the very witness upon whose credit the prosecution most materially depends; private conversations with such a witness, for the purpose of getting from him declarations which may be afterwards opposed in seeming contradiction to his solemn testimony upon oath, are of themselves so dishonourable, that, with every well-disposed and well-judging mind, they will naturally produce an effect directly contrary to the expectations of the persons who make them.

I know, Gentlemen, what I have most to fear this occasion; I know the vigour and energy upon of the mind of my learned friend.—I have long felt and admired the powerful effect of his various talents -I know the ingenious sophistry by which he can mislead, and the fascination of that eloquence by which he can subdue the minds of those to whom he addresses himself. I know what he can do to-day, by seeing what he has done upon many other occasions before. But, at the same time, Gentlemen, knowing what he is, I am somewhat consoled in knowing you. I have practised for several years in this place; I know the sound discretion and judgment by which your verdicts are generally governed; and upon the credit of that experience, I trust that it will not be in the power of my friend, by any arts he is able to employ, to seduce you a single step from the sober paths of truth and justice. You will hear the evidence

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