SPEECHES OF THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. REPRINTED FROM THE FIVE VOLUME OCTAVO EDITION OF 1810. With Memoir of His Life BY EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: REEVES & TURNER. 100 CHANCERY LANE, AND 196 STRAND. 1870. SPEECHES OF LORD ERSKINE. TRIAL of THOMAS HARDY, for High Treason, at the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, 28th of October to 5th of November 1794. THE SUBJECT. We have not been without considerable difficulties in preparing the introduction to Mr Erskine's speech upon this most memorable state trial. It was our original intention, as we have before stated, to have published such of Mr Erskine's speeches as we were able to collect, in the same manner as those of the Master of the Rolls in Ireland had been printed in Dublin, which led, as we have said, to the present publication -prefixing only, as in that collection, a short account of the occasions on which they were delivered. But as we advanced in the work, we found some of the speeches which we had collected so closely connected with political differences in our own times, that, to avoid even the appearance of partiality, or of any desire to render the work subservient to the sentiments or views of any particular class of persons, however eminent ;above all, to avoid the most distant appearance of entering into the imputed or supposed designs of the persons prosecuted by Government, and defended in the speeches in question, we found it advisable, because in those instances practicable, to print not only the speeches for the Crown, but the whole substance of the evidence. This could not be done upon the present occasion without printing the whole trial, which occupies three large volumes: yet, to give to Mr Erskine's speech-the publication of which is our principal design-its true spirit and effect, we found that it would be necessary to explain the nature of the arguments it opposed, and of the evidence which it appealed to, and had prepared a concise statement of the whole case. Still apprehensive, however, that we might be suspected of leaning to the side of the parties accused by Government, and be charged with giving a garbled publication from motives foreign to our professions, we resolved to print the entire speech of the Attorney-General, in which he detailed the whole body of the evidence, and also the law respecting high treason, as he meant to apply it against the prisoners, which, with the answer to it by Mr Erskine, brings forward the whole outline of this interesting proceeding. VOL. II. A |