Solicitor General

SPEECH for JOHN HORNE TOOKE, Esq. as delivered by Mr. ERKSINE in the Sessions House at the Old Bailey, on the 19th Day of November 1794.

SUBJECT, &c.

THE following Speech for Mr. Tooke requires no other introduction or preface than an attentive reference to the Case of Thomas Hardy in the Third Volume; the charges being the same, and the evidence not materially different. It is indeed not easy to conceive upon what grounds the Crown could have expected to convict Mr. Tooke after Mr. Hardy had been acquitted, since the Jury, upon the first trial (some of whom were also sworn as Jurors upon the second), must be supposed, by the verdict, which had just been delivered, to have negatived the main fact alleged by both Indictments, viz. That any convention had been held within the kingdom with intent to subvert, by rebellious force, the constitution of the kingdom. Nevertheless, the same propositions, both of law and fact, which, by reference to the former trial, appear to have been urged so unsuccess

fully, were repeated, and again insisted upon, even after the following Speech had been delivered. For it appears from Mr. Gurney's report (by whose license the Editor has published many of the Speeches in this collection), that on Mr. Tooke's addressing the Court (after Mr. Erskine had spoken) as to the necessity of going into the whole of the evidence, the Attorney General answered as follows :

Mr. Attorney General. That address being made to me, I think it my duty to Mr. Tooke to inform him, that I speak at present under an impression, that, when the case on the part of the Prosecutor is understood, it has received as yet, in the opening of his Counsel, no answer; and 1, therefore, desire that Mr. Tooke will understand me as meaning to state to the Jury, that I have proved the case upon the Indictment.

Mr. Erskine. Then we will go into the whole case. -See Gurney's Trial of Tooke, vol. i. p. 453.

This took place on Thursday the 20th of November 1794, and the Trial accordingly continued till Saturday the 22d.

After the acquittal of Mr. Tooke, even a third trial was proceeded upon, viz. that against Mr. Thelwall, after which all the other Prisoners were discharged. We do not state these facts as presuming to censure the advisers of the Crown on these great State Trials; on the contrary, we departed, as has been seen in the Third Volume, from the original plan of the publication, from an anxiety to give the most

faithful representation of the proceedings, without the publication of the entire Trials, as published by Mr. Gurney; which, at the time, were extensively circulated, and are, no doubt, still preserved in many libraries.

By comparing the introduction of the following Speech with that for Thomas Hardy, it will be seen what high ground the advocate felt he occupied in consequence of the former acquittal.