only to INTENTIONS.-If the State be threatened. with evils, let Parliament administer a prospective remedy, but let the Prisoner hold his life UNDER THE

LAW.

Gentlemen, I ask this solemnly of the Court, whose justice I am persuaded will afford it to me; I ask it more emphatically of you, the Jury, who are called upon your oaths to make a true deliverance of your countryman, from this charge :-but lastly, and chiefly, I implore it of Him in whose hands are all the issues of life, whose humane and merciful eye expands itself over all the transactions of mankind; at whose command nations rise, and fall, and are regenerated; without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground;-I implore it of God himself, that He will fill your minds with the spirit of justice and of truth;" so that you may be able to find your way through the labyrinth of matter laid before you, a labyrinth in 1 which no man's life was ever before involved, in the annals of British trial, nor indeed in the whole his- › tory of human justice or injustice.

Gentlemen, the first thing in order, is to look at the Indictment itself; of the whole of which, or of some integral part, the Prisoner must be found guilty, or be wholly discharged from guilt.

The Indictment charges that the Prisoners did maliciously and traitorously conspire, compass, and imagine, to bring and put our Lord the King to,» death; and that to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect, their most evil and wicked purpose (that is, to say,

of bringing and putting the King to death), they

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met, conspired, consulted, and agreed amongst "themselves, and other false traitors unknown, to "cause and procure a Convention to be assembled "within the kingdom, WITH INTENT-" (I am reading the very words of the Indictment, which I entreat you to follow in the notes you have been taking with such honest perseverance)-"WITH INTENT, " AND IN ORDER that the persons so assembled "at such Convention, should and might traito"rously, and in defiance of the authority, and "against the will of Parliament, subvert and alter, "and cause to be subverted and altered, the legis"lature, rule, and government of the country; "and to depose the King from the royal state, "title, power, and government thereof." This is the first and great leading overt act in the Indictment; and you observe that it is not charged as being treason SUBSTANTIVELY AND IN ITSelf, but only as it is committed in pursuance of the treason against the King's PERSON, antecedently imputed ;for the charge is NOT, that the Prisoners conspired to assemble a Convention to DEPOSE the King, but that they conspired and compassed his DEATH; and that, in order to accomplish that wicked and detestable purpose, i. e. in order to fulfil the traitorous intention of the mind against his LIFE, they conspired to assemble a Convention, with a view to depose him. The same observation applies alike to all the other counts or overt acts upon the record, which mani,

festly indeed lean upon the establishment of the first for their support; because they charge the publication of different writings, and the provision of arms, not as distinct offences, but as acts done to excite to 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 consideration, 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, compre hends, 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 evidence, 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 ta subvert it, are crimes of great magnitude and enormity, 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, according to circumstances, of an intention to destroy his natural existence; but never, as a proposition of law, can 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 intro+ ductory, 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 NATURAL 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.