"One gentleman says, 'He cannot see any good purpose the motion would answer, for it would not assist Government with a ship, a man, or a guinea, towards carrying on the war with vigour or towards establishing that much-wished-for object, peace.'

"My Lord, I hope the measure will be made to produce to Government both ships and men and guineas. For they would be very poor politicians, indeed, who could not in one measure comprehend many purposes; and still poorer, who should miss the present opportunity of obtaining, by this one measure of reform, every desirable object of the state.

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"Another gentleman apprehends that nothing less than giving every man in the kingdom a vote would give universal satisfaction.' "My Lord, I trust that there are very few persons in the kingdom who desire so improper and impracticable a measure. But, if there were many, the wisdom of Parliament would correct their plan, and the corrected would be well pleased at the correction.

"My Lord, I shall not waste a word to show the necessity of a reform in the representation of this country. I shall only consider the mode of reform, and endeavour to show that it is not difficult to embrace every interest in the state, and to satisfy well-meaning men of every description. To this end I am compelled first to remove the prejudices, and indeed, just objections, which some persons entertain to all the modes of reform which have hitherto been recommended.

"My virtuous and inestimable friend, Major Cartwright, is a zealous and an able advocate for equal and universal representation—that is, for an equal and universal share of every man in the government. My Lord, I conceive his argument to be this: Every man has an equal right to freedom and security. No man can be free who has not a voice in the framing of those laws by which he is to be governed. He who is not represented has not this voice; therefore, every man has an equal right to representation, or to a share in the government. His final conclusion is, that every man has a right to an equal share in representation.

Now, my Lord, I conceive the error to lie chiefly in the conclusion. For there is a very great difference between having an equal right to a share, and a right to an equal share. An estate may be devised by will amongst many persons in different proportions; to one five pounds, to another five hundred, &c.: each person will have an equal right to his share, but not a right to an equal share.

"This principle is farther attempted to be enforced by an assertion, that the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another man is to that other.' But, my Lord, this maxim will not hold by any means; for a small all is not, for very good reasons, so dear as a great all. A small all may be lost, and easily regained; it may very often, and with great wisdom, be risked

for the chance of a greater; it may be so small as to be little or not at all worth defending or caring for. Ibit eo qui zonam perdidit. But a large all can never be recovered; it has been amassing and accumulating, perhaps from father to son for many generations, or it has been the product of a long life of industry and talents, or the consequence of some circumstance which will never return. But I am sure I need not dwell upon this, without placing the extremes of fortune in array against each other. Every man whose all has varied at different periods of his life, can speak for himself, and say whether the dearness in which he held these different alls was equal. The lowest order of men consume their all daily, as fast as they acquire it.

My Lord, justice and policy require that benefit and burden, that the share of power and the share of contribution to that power, should be as nearly proportioned as possible. If aristocracy will have all power, they are tyrants and unjust to the people, because aristocracy alone does not bear the whole burden. If the smallest individual of the people contends to be equal in power to the greatest individual, he too is in his turn unjust in his demands, for his burden and contribution are not equal.

"Hitherto, my Lord, I have only argued against the equality. I shall now venture to speak against the universality of representation, or of a share in the government, for the terms amount to the same.

"Freedom and security ought surely to be equal and universal. But, my Lord, I am not at all backward to contend that some of the members of a society may be free and secure, without having a share in the government. The happiness, and freedom, and security of the whole, may even be advanced by the exclusion of some, not from freedom and security, but from a share in the government."

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Mr ERSKINE. These are Mr Tooke's sentiments, and they speak for themselves, without any commentary. It is very fortunate for me, therefore, as well as for the unfortunate gentleman whom I represent, that the subject of his defence is almost exhausted, because I myself am entirely so; and surely that circumstance must present in the strongest colours to men of your justice and discernment the fatal precedent of such a trial, since, if I were even capable of grasping in my mind more matter than the greatest reach of human thought and memory could comprehend, the bodily strength of the strongest man would sink under the delivery.

I have been placed here, as you know, in a most arduous and anxious situation for many days during the late trial. I have had no opportunity of rest in the interval, but have been called incessantly to the other labours of my profession, and am now brought back again to the stake without the refreshment which nature requires, for it must be a dishonest mind which could feel

the tranquillity necessary for its reception. I came into court this morning perfectly subdued with fatigue and agitation, and although I know the disposition of my honourable and learned friends to have left me at home till the season arrived for the defence of the prisoner, yet amid the chaos of matter which the fulfilment of their duty obliged them to lay before you, it was impossible for them to know, within even hours, the time I should be wanted. I hope, however, that amidst all these pressures I have been able to lay before you sufficient information for the discharge of your duty to the prisoner and to the public. The matter for your consideration being a mere matter of fact-Has the prisoner at the bar conspired, with others, to depose the King, and to subvert by force the Government of the kingdom?

The sentiments of Mr Tooke upon the subject of our excellent Government, which my learned friend, Mr Gibbs, has just read to you, would in themselves be sufficient to expose the falsehood of the charge. The publication cannot be considered as a pretext, because they have ever been uniformly supported by his conduct. One of the most honourable men in this country, now present, will prove to you that he acted upon these principles at the time he published them, and offered all his influence and exertions to promote Mr Pitt's plan, which was then in agitation; and I will lead him on in your view, day by day, from that period till within a fortnight of his apprehension for this supposed treason. Mr Francis, a most honourable member of the House of Commons, and one of the society called the Friends of the People, having suggested a plan for the reform of Parliament, which appeared to him to be moderate and reasonable, applied to Mr Tooke, who was then supposed to be plotting the destruction of his country, to give him his assistance upon it. Mr Tooke's answer was this-" Onefifth or one-tenth, nay one-twentieth part, of what you are asking will be a solid benefit, and I will give it my support." Mr Francis will tell you this upon his oath, and he will add, what he has told me repeatedly in private, that he grew in his esteem from the candid and explicit manner in which he made this declaration. Mr Sharp has also proved, that at the very time when all this scene of guilt is imputed, Mr Tooke was uniformly maintaining the same sentiments in the most unreserved confidence of private friendship. I could go on, indeed, calling witness after witness. throughout the wide-extended circle of all who have ever known him, that a firm and zealous attachment to the British Government, in its uncorrupted state, has been the uniform and zealous tenor of his opinions and conduct; yet in the teeth of this evidence of a whole life, you are called upon, on your oaths, to shed his blood, by the verdict you are to give in this place.

Gentlemen, I cannot conclude without observing that the conduct of this abused and unfortunate gentlemen throughout the

whole of the trial, has certainly entitled him to admiration and respect. I had undoubtedly prepared myself to conduct his cause in a manner totally different from that which I have pursued: it was my purpose to have selected those parts of the evidence only by which he was affected, and, by a minute attention to the particular entries, to have separated him from the rest. By such a co urse I could have steered his vessel safely out of the storm, and brought her, without damage, into a harbour of safety, while the other unfortunate prisoners were left to ride out this awful tempest. But he insisted on holding out a rope to save the innocent from danger; he would not suffer his defence to be put upon the footing which discretion would have suggested. On the contrary, though not implicated himself in the alleged conspiracy, he has charged me to waste and destroy my strength to prove that no such guilt can be brought home to others. I rejoice in having been made the humble instrument of so much good; my heart was never so much in a cause.

You may see that I am tearing myself to pieces by exertions beyond my powers-I have neither voice nor strength to proceed further. I do not, indeed, desire to conciliate your favour, nor to captivate your judgments by elocution in the close of my discourse; but I conclude this cause, as I concluded the former, by imploring that you may be enlightened by that Power which can alone unerringly direct the human mind in the pursuit of truth and justice.

CASE of the BISHOP OF BANGOR and others, indicted for a riot and an assault. Tried at Shrewsbury Assizes on the 26th of July 1796.

THE SUBJECT.

THEexemplary morals and decorum which have so long, to the honour of this country, distinguished the high dignitaries of her national church, bestowed upon the trial of the right reverend prelate, who was the principal object of it, an extraordinary degree of curiosity and interest. Indeed, from a perusal of the whole proceedings we cannot help thinking that the prosecutor might, perhaps, have been influenced by the expectation that any compromise would have been preferred by the defendant and his friends to even a public discussion of such an extraordinary accusation as that of a riot and assault by an English bishop, assisted by other clergymen of his diocese, within the very precincts of his own cathedral. The reverend prelate, however, was not to be intimidated. He pleaded Not Guilty to the indictment, and received the clear acquittal of a jury of his countrymen.

The indictment was preferred against the Lord Bishop of Bangor, the Rev. Dr Owen, the Rev. John Roberts, the Rev. John Williams, and Thomas Jones, gent.; and was prosecuted by Samuel Grindley, the deputyregistrar of the Bishop's Consistorial Court.

The indictment charged that Samuel Grindley, the prosecutor, was deputy-registrar of the Consistorial Court of the bishopric of Bangor, and that being such, he had of right the occupation of the registrar's office adjoining to the cathedral; that the bishop and the other defendants, intending to disturb the prosecutor in the execution of his office, and to trouble the peace of the King, unlawfully entered into the office, and stayed there for an hour, against the will of the prosecutor; and it further charged that they made a disturbance there against the King's peace, and assaulted Grindley, so being registrar, with intent to expel him from the office.

The indictment was originally preferred in the Court of Great Sessions, in Wales, where the offence was charged to have been committed, but for a more impartial hearing was removed into the Court of King's Bench, and sent down for trial in the next adjoining county, before a special jury at Shrewsbury, where Mr Adam and Mr Erskine attended on special retainers; the former as counsel for the prosecution, and the latter for the bishop and the other defendants.

In the pursuit of our plan, to preserve some remarkable speeches of Lord Erskine, when at the bar, we felt that we could not, upon this singular occasion, have recourse to a better or more impartial preface than to introduce, at length, the speech of Mr Adam, who conducted the prosecutor's case with the greatest zeal, ability, and eloquence; his address to the