DICTMENT, WHICH NOTHING CAN ADD TO, AND

THE OMISSION OF WHICH NOTHING CAN SUPPLY.

The Indictment, therefore, having charged the traitorous compassing, proceeds, in conformity to the statute, to state the act charged to have been committed in fulfilment of it; which, you observe, is not an armed assembly to seize and destroy at once the person of the King, but a conspiracy to effect the same purpose through the medium of a convention; the Indictment, therefore, charges their design to assemble this convention, not as a meeting to petition for the reform of Parliament, or to deliberate upon the grievances of the country, but with the fixed and rooted intent in the mind, that this convention, when got together, whatever might be its external pretext, should depose the King, AND PUT HIM TO DEATH. It is impossible therefore to separate the members of this charge without destroying its whole existence; because the charge of the compassing would be utterly void without the overt act which the statute requires to be charged as the means employed by the Prisoner to accomplish it, because no other acts can be resorted to for its establishment; and because the overt act would be equally nugatory if separated from the compassing; SINCE THE OVERT ACT DOES

NOT SUBSTANTIVELY CONSTITUTE THE TREASON WHEN SEPARATED FROM THE TRAITOROUS FURFOSE OF THE MIND WHICH PRODUCED IT, BUT IS ONLY THE VISIBLE MANIFESTATION OF THE TRAITOROUS

INTENTION, WHICH IS ADMITTED, ON ALL HANDS, TO BE THE CRIME.-Your office, therefore, Gentlemen-(I defy the wit, or wisdom, or artifice of man, to remove me from the position)—your office is to try whether the record, inseparable as I have shown it to be in its members, BE TRUE, OR FALSE; -or, to sum up its contents in a word, whether the Prisoner conspired, with others, to hold a convention or meeting, with the design that, under the mask of reform of Parliament, it should depose the King from his royal office, and DESTROy his life.

There are several other overt acts charged in the Indictment, to which, however, you will see, at a glance, that the same principle will uniformly apply; since the compassing the death of the King is alike the charge in all of them; the overt acts only differing from one another, as the Indictment charges different acts connected with the assembling of this convention-such as how it was to be held-who were to form committees for projecting its meeting -and so on-which I do not particularize just now, because I shall have occasion to consider them distinctly when I come to the particulars of the evidence. There is one of the counts, however, that has been so strongly relied on in argument, and to which so large a portion of the evidence has been thought to apply, that it is necessary, in this place, to attend to its structure: I mean the count which charges the circulation of papers. We have heard a great many of them read, and they will be a

lesson to me never again to destroy old newspapers as useless wrappings, but to treasure them up as precious manuscripts for the discovery of plots, and secrets of conspirators: for, with a very few exceptions, the whole of the written evidence-by which so deep laid and detestable a conspiracy is supposed to have been developed by the seizure of the persons and correspondences of traitors-has been to be found, for two years past, upon the public file of every common newspaper, and retailed, over and over again, in every town and country magazine in the kingdom; and that too with the implied consent of His Majesty's Attorney General, who could not help seeing them, yet who never thought of prosecuting any man for their publication. Yet these said old newspapers have been on a sudden collected together, and their circulation charged as an overt act of high treason against the honourable Gentleman before you; although, with a very few and perfectly harmless exceptions, it has not been shown that he either wrote them, or published them, or read them, or even knew of their existence.

But supposing him to have been the author of all the volumes which have been read, let us examine how they are charged, in order to erect their circulation into treason.

The Indictment states, that "further to fulfil "their traitorous intention as aforesaid" (referring to the antecedent charge of compassing in the former count), "they maliciously and traitorously did

compose and write, and cause to be composed "and written, divers books, pamphlets, letters, and "instructions, purporting, and containing therein,

66

amongst other things, encouragements and ex"hortations to move, induce, and persuade the "subjects of our said Lord the King, to choose, "depute, and send, and cause to be chosen, deputed, and sent, persons as delegates, to com

66

pose and constitute such convention as aforesaid, "with the traitorous purposes aforesaid"—which is agreed to be a reference to the traitorous purposes enumerated in the antecedent part of the Indictment. Here, therefore, let us pause again, to review the substance of this accusation.

The charge, you observe, is Nor the writing of a libel, or libels; or for their publication, or circulation; but their composition and circulation to effect the premeditated, preconcerted treason against the King's life. This intention, in their circulation, was accordingly considered by the Court most distinctly and correctly, not only in the charge to the Grand Jury, but upon the former trial, as the merest matter of fact which could possibly be put upon parchment; totally disentangled from every legal qualification. We are not, therefore, examining whether these papers which have been read, or any of them, are libels; but whether (whatever may be their criminal or illegal qualities) they were written and circulated by men, who, having predetermined, in their wicked imaginations, to depose and put to

death the King, wrote and published them to excite others to aid them in the accomplishment of that detestable and traitorous conspiracy.

66

There is another overt act, in which the publication of the same papers is charged, which I only read to you to show the uniform application of the principle which obviously pervades every branch and member of the Indictment. It states, that "the "Prisoners, in further fulfilment of the treason aforesaid" (i. e. by reference, the treason of PUTTING THE KING TO DEATH), "and in order "the more readily and effectually to assemble such "convention and meeting as aforesaid, for the trai"torous purposes aforesaid" (i. e. by reference, the traitorous purpose against the life of the King), "they composed, and caused to be composed, "divers books, pamphlets, &c. purporting and "containing, amongst other things, incitements,

encouragements, and exhortations, to move, "induce, and persuade the subjects of our said "Lord the King to choose, depute, and send, and "cause to be chosen, deputed, and sent, persons

as delegates to compose such convention and "meeting as aforesaid, to aid and assist in carrying "into effect such traitorous, subversive alteration "and deposition as last aforesaid." So that this

charge differs in nothing from the former.-For it is not that criminal pamphlets were published, but that they who published them, having wickedly and maliciously conceived in their minds, and set on foot a conspiracy wholly to overthrow and subvert