This Chapter is mainly about government use of legal proceedings to stifle dissent. There is an interesting Constitutional argument in the matter of Sir Francis Burdett’s libel on the House. In the reports datelined 1818 and after are some general observations on the rule of law.
Sat 22nd Sept 1804
Cobbett is charged at the King’s Bench with inciting hatred in England by suggesting in the Political Register of 5th Nov and 10th Dec 1803 that Ireland is misruled. In the articles Lord Hardwicke is libelled as “a wooden head” and Lord Redesdale is libelled as “a corrupt Chancellor”.
The defendant has been writing publicly in America and England for 12 years. He is the son of a farmer and grandson of a day-labourer. His sole education was provided by his father in the evenings until he left home aged 13 years. He writes according to his conscience.
Character evidence was given by Liston, late British minister to America, Lord Henry Stuart, Lord Minto, Mr Windham, Mr Yorke and Mr Reeves who each described Cobbett as a lover of the Constitution and the King.
Ellenborough summed up to the Jury who found Cobbett guilty.
In a civil action arising out of the same publications Plunkett, the Solicitor-General of Ireland, sued for libel on behalf of Hardwicke and Redesdale and got £500 from Cobbett.
Sat 20th Oct 1810
An attempt to murder HRH the Duke of Cumberland at St James Palace has been made by a trusted servant and long-time favourite of the Duke’s named Sellis, who was very recently replaced in his personal duties to the Duke.
The Duke had retired when he says Sellis entered the room and set about him with a sword. The Duke fought back and called for his new attendant Cornelius Neale. Sellis then ran away. The blooded regimental sword of the Duke was found on the floor. A trail of blood was followed from the Duke’s bedroom to Sellis’ room where the servant was found with his throat cut from ear to ear. He also had a wound on his left arm. Sellis is said to have exercised an authority over the other servants which the Duke invariably supported until a few days before this incident when the Duke sided with Neale. Sellis had enjoyed the Duke’s favour and been extraordinarily allowed an apartment in the palace for his family with free supply of coals and candles.
The Duke is convalescing with the Prince of Wales at Carlton House. He has a nasty cut on his right hand.
Sat 11th Sept 1813
On 30th Aug and 27th Sept 1812 Henry White Jr published a supposed libel on the Royal Duke of Cumberland. The AG has now prosecuted him ex officio ‘on Information’:
Using the name Philo Junius, White published a long article which appears to accuse the Duke of adultery and murder.
One of the Duke’s servants named Sellis attacked the Duke and then killed himself, according to the Coroner. White’s article speculates on why the razor that inflicted the fatal wound and Sellis’ blood-soaked jacket were both found far from the body. He says there are other unsatisfactory aspects in the evidence, not least that a large number of Jurors were found unsuitable to hear the case – the usual indicator of a selected jury. His article expresses a belief that the servant could not have killed himself and, proceeding from there, speculates as to who did. The Jury found White guilty.
Sat 14th July 1810
The ministry has instructed the Attorney General to commence an action on Information for libel against the publisher Perry and printer Lambert of the Morning Chronicle.
This is the second time the Morning Chronicle has been prosecuted for libel; the previous charge arose from their reprinting an Address from the people of Derby to the King in 1793. They were acquitted of that charge.
In the 2nd Oct 1809 edition, the paper said “What a crowd of blessings might be bestowed on the country in the event of a total change of system. No monarch indeed, since the Revolution, will have so fine an opportunity of becoming nobly popular as the successor to George III.”
The AG, who is acting ex officio, characterised this paragraph as a malignant insinuation against the King, in whose name the ministry acts, charging him with interposing himself between his people and their best interests; cutting them off from those advantages that are considered blessings. The aim of the newspaper, said the AG in his Information, was to disparage the King and diminish the allegiance that his people owed to him whereas in fact the people already enjoyed the ‘blessings’ that the paper says are being withheld from them. In other words, the AG reasoned, the inferred libel was that no improvement in the happiness of the British people could be anticipated until George III’s reign ended.
Perry conducted his own defence. He said his entire life had been devoted to the best interests of England. He denied the paragraph was libellous and showed several other articles in the same day’s paper that were loyal and respectful to the King.
Ellenborough summed-up for the Special Jury – wishing for a change of system and expecting ‘blessings’ to result from that change is not libellous. The article inferred a successor to George III, it was not proposing the end of Monarchy. He saw no malice in it. He more or less directed the Jury to a finding of Not Guilty which they confirmed in a couple of minutes.
A similar prosecution against The Examiner, another London paper, for reciting the same paragraph was then withdrawn by the AG.
Sat 21st July 1810
Sir Francis Burdett is in trouble with the other MPs.
It has transpired that the commitment to Newgate of Mr Gale Jones on a Warrant of the Speaker resulted from a motion of Yorke MP to call J Dean, the printer of a handbill, to the bar of the House to answer Yorke’s charge of a breach of privilege. The obnoxious Handbill asked the reader ‘which is more egregious - Yorke’s motion to exclude strangers from the House during the Walcheren Expedition enquiry or Windham’s attack on the freedom of the press?’ The handbill proceeded to consider the matters in a way that Yorke thought was censorious of the proceedings of the House.
Dean arrived next day and told the Commons that Gale Jones was the author. Jones in turn appeared and acknowledged he wrote the Handbill. A vote determined he had violated MP’s privileges. Yorke moved his committal to Newgate which was agreed by a majority. Burdett was not in the House at the time but when he arrived he argued that the House could not call a citizen to its bar and charge him unless the offence had occurred actually in parliament before the MPs. This was easily defeated 153/14 but Burdett maintained his opinion and recited it in a letter to his constituents.
His case was later debated by the House in detail and the decision to gaol him in the Tower was approved without a division.
Sun 15th July 1810 Extraordinary
Sir Francis Burdett, MP for Westminster, is to be imprisoned in the Tower of London in consequence of a resolution of the House of Commons.
The Speaker issued a Warrant for the committal to Newgate of Mr Gale Jones for publishing some uncomplimentary comments on two MPs which the House of Commons considered a breach of the privileges of MPs.
Burdett moved that the Speaker’s Warrant was illegal but the House decided otherwise. He then wrote to his constituents on 24th March setting out his reasons for thinking the Warrant illegal and the letter was concurrently published in Cobbett’s Register. Burdett contended that the Jurisdiction of the Speaker only covered the House of Commons and did not extend outside the House.
Three days later Lethbridge MP moved that the letter was libellous and a breach of MP’s privileges (Burdett is leading the popular demand for parliamentary reform). The motion was debated on 4th April and the House voted with Lethbridge. Sir Robert Salisbury then moved Burdett’s confinement in the Tower and the Speaker issued another Warrant to do so.
The Earl of Moira is the Constable of the Tower and he is preparing a cell for Burdett. Three field pieces have been placed overlooking the entrance and the moat has been filled. A double guard has been placed outside. Tower Hamlets militia and a brigade of artillery have been put on stand-by. All access to the Tower is being regulated.
The ministry is alarmed by the great crowds surrounding the House of Commons. Several MPs have been verbally abused although Sheridan and Whitbread receive ovations.
The electors of Westminster are collecting signatures to a petition protesting the detention of their Representative. On Sat 7th April, a crowd of several thousands assembled outside Burdett’s house. All the shops in the neighbourhood are closed and every street, window and balcony is crowded. Burdett came out for a ride and returned about 12.30pm. The House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms and his messengers presented the Warrant and Burdett declined to obey it. The messengers then withdrew and a troop of cavalry arrived. Several people were trampled. The horse guards were then drawn-up opposite the house with swords drawn. The horse guards were taunted by hecklers and they attempted to make arrests but were deterred by stone-throwing. They eventually charged along Constitution Hill to disperse that part of the crowd. They fired on the people but details of casualties are unavailable. The entire London garrison has been brought to a state of instant readiness.
That night Sir J Anstruther’s house was damaged by stone-throwing crowds. Lords Castlereagh and Dartmouth lost their windows as did Perceval at No 10. At midnight the horse guards were withdrawn and the Westminster Volunteers, who had been under arms in a nearby Mews all day, were dismissed but 12 pieces of artillery continued to be deployed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields with a detachment of light horse.
Burdett has written to the Sheriffs of Middlesex reporting that his house is surrounded by an armed military force and stating emphatically that he will resist the execution of any ‘illegal’ Warrant. He calls on the Sheriffs, as the officers constitutionally empowered to protect the people of Middlesex, to relieve him from violence and oppression. He asks them to call out the Posse Comitatus for his protection.1 The Sheriffs complied and the Posse took up positions in front of Burdett’s house. The Sheriff asked the officer of the Guards to withdraw his force from the street. He compromised by dividing his force and placing about one hundred men at either side of Burdett’s house and some distance from it. The Posse then took possession of the steps leading to the front door and published a notice saying peace would be preserved by the civil power without the involvement of the army. They called on the people to disperse peacefully.
The cabinet has met several times but apparently no decision has been reached. A considerable amount of artillery has been sent from Woolwich and stationed in nearby parks. There is a howitzer and 6-pounder at Soho Square with matches lighted. The King’s German Dragoons (mostly non-English speaking Hanoverian subjects) have marched into town from Windsor. They were hooted by the crowds.
The Lord Mayor has protested to the Home Secretary. He resents the minister’s intention of marching an army through the City to escort Burdett to the Tower. Burdett is married to Sophia Coutts, daughter of the banker who has influence in the City.2 The minister affirmed his respect for the City and conceded to send Burdett by a roundabout route. On Mon 9th April, a magistrate arrived outside Burdett’s house and read the Riot Act. Some streets were closed, the parks were closed, the horse guards charged up Piccadilly and a timely rain shower helped them to disperse protesters. The sound of drums beating to arms and the appearance of so many troops with sabres drawn in central London made a fearful scene.
With parks and streets closed, the crowd was forced off towards Pimlico. Many were wounded but the immediate area around Burdett’s house was cleared of his supporters. An entry was forced through the kitchen the next morning. The House of Commons’ Sergeant-at-Arms entered and served the Speakers’ Warrant on Burdett somewhat earlier than the crowds had hitherto assembled. Burdett protested the break-in and the Sergeant held it was authorised by the Warrant. A glass coach (i.e. windowed) was brought to the front door, Burdett was bundled in and a couple of hundred cavalrymen surrounded the coach to escort it via the back streets to Tower Hill where another huge crowd had collected.
On this occasion there was a sufficiently large military presence to prevent the crowd interfering. The guards flourished their swords menacingly and got the Baronet passed the people and into the Tower. When the military forces withdrew, the last platoon (cavalry) was pelted with stones and mud. The horsemen fired their pistols at the crowd generally and a man was killed.
Sat 25th Aug 1810
John Lambert and James Perry’s (Morning Chronicle) libel case is reported at length in this edition. Perry conducted the Defence on his own behalf.3
Sat 15th Sept 1810
Sir Francis Burdett has replied to the Speaker’s letter from his cell:
I was elected by the people of Westminster to represent them and maintain the laws. I have taken an Oath of Allegiance to the King to maintain the laws. I will never obey anyone who acts contrary to those laws. Privilege and power are different. Privilege is an exemption from power granted to the Legislature to protect the representatives in their protection of the people. Privilege should not be used to attack the people or their representatives.
I know your Warrant is illegal. I am imprisoned by your superior force. I will not voluntarily associate with people who have illegally seized the power of the realm. I will accept the meanest office to vacate my seat – I just wish to remove myself from the company of your gang.
The Speaker read this letter to the House of Commons. Wynne thought it was contemptuous but the other MPs agreed to adjourn further debate.
The Sergeant-at-Arms was called. He was questioned at length by a great many MPs. He said he had got the AG’s approval to forcibly enter Burdett’s house. He arranged for 20 police officers and a detachment of cavalry and broke-in through the kitchen. He took Burdett to the Tower and delivered him to the Deputy Lieutenant. Under questioning by Whitbread and others he said that the Speaker had threatened him with commitment to the Tower himself if he did not serve the Warrant instanter. He had taken instructions from the Cabinet as to his mode of proceeding. Perceval (he’s a lawyer) told him he could break-in. He was promised as much force as he needed whereas the magistrate only permitted the use of military force if resistance was encountered. The force he requested for was 300 infantry and 500 cavalry.
Whitbread wished to clarify the AG’s role but that minister declined to answer any questions unless a majority of the House ordered him to do so and Perceval supported him – ‘the AG’s Advice had been given to the Privy Council and is not disclosable’. Whitbread said Westminster has been in anarchy for four days and riots are still continuing. Many people have been killed, and we are trying to ascertain if ministers have done their duty. You ministers should be assisting the process not obstructing it. Whitbread supposed that ministers were themselves doubtful of the legality of their proceedings against Burdett. Perceval denied it but then allowed the AG to answer the question. The AG said he had not been consulted on the legality of the Warrant but solely on the legality of using force to execute it.4
Sat 15th Sept 1810
20,000 people have protested in Westminster. The city is in turmoil. They have petitioned the Commons to reconsider Burdett’s arrest. They say Perceval and Castlereagh can sell seats in the House of Commons and get away with it, but Burdett is persecuted for looking after us.
Sat 22nd Sept 1810
The inquest into the death of Bryant, the Londoner who was killed by Life Guards at Crutched Friars on the day Burdett was arrested (9th April), has been completed and the Jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.
Strangely, the entire jury was composed of elderly paupers from the Whitechapel Workhouse who precisely followed the directions of the Coroner.
Sat 22nd Sept 1810
The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Livery of London have signed a petition to the House of Commons on behalf of the people of London. They believe the Commons has acted as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in the cases of John Gale Jones and Sir Francis Burdett. They write:
“You have no jurisdiction. We believe you have imprisoned two people unlawfully and you have used military force to do so, breaking into one man’s house and killing another in the process.
“More than 300 Members of the Commons are not elected by the people but nominated by 150-odd peers and others who really run the country. This complaint was made to your House in 1793 and has never been controverted. On the contrary the then minister (Pitt) threatened to punish the petitioner for libel. We will never forget your vote not to enquire into the sale of parliamentary seats by Spencer Perceval and Lord Castlereagh, then two of the King’s ministers. Seats in your House are bought and sold like cattle at a fair. You avow this traffic and screen those involved in it because it is committed equally by all factions. We feel indignation and disgust.
“Your unplanned expedition to Walcheren has cost much blood and treasure and made our country the ‘laughing stock’ of Europe. We have lost confidence in your House.”
Secretary of State Rider said this petition is not the opinion of the people. It is an insult upon the dignity of the Commons. It should not be received.
Alderman Coombe for the petitioners said the wording had been agreed by a majority of the Liverymen. There are 12,000 Liverymen of whom some 3,000 attended the meeting and most of them voted for the petition. The people putting-up their hands against the petition numbered about 50. If that background was not considered representative of the Liverymen one might conclude that the acts of House of Commons are not representative of the country. A counter-meeting had certainly been held and a counter-Declaration adopted but that involved the fifty dissenting Liverymen. There should be no doubt which is the majority opinion and which the minority.
Sir James Shaw, Sir Charles Price and Sir William Curtis presented the Counter-Declaration. It had been signed by 1,400 Liverymen. Shaw reminded the House of Commons that it had agreed to imprison Sir Francis Burdett by a majority of 38 MPs.
Whitbread noted that when Yorke MP had recently been made Teller of the Exchequer he had properly vacated his seat. He then tried to get back in through the electors of Cambridge county but they rejected him. Yorke then found another successful route for returning to the House (the seat for St Germains – tiny electorate). He was later made First Lord of the Admiralty.
The House previously rejected the petition of the electors of Middlesex by saying their words were insulting and inadequately submissive. The Livery of London was aware of that decision and endeavoured to make their petition acceptable on those grounds. Ministers still object. What they abhor is being criticised; they are unwilling to be answerable to the people. They introduced the infirmity of the King as reason for not accepting petitions.
Whitbread said presenting petitions to the King is an old Constitutional right. On this occasion ministers had denied it, saying the King could not receive Petitions at a levee. The people have an absolute right to bring the deficiencies of a ministry to the attention of the King.
Sat 29th Sept 1810
The death of a second man, Thomas Ebrall, who was shot by a Life Guard during the riots over Burdett’s arrest, has been considered by a Coroner in Westminster. It was said the youth of 18 years was in Piccadilly when a couple of cavalry men trotted passed and one fired at the boy for no apparent reason. The shell passed through the spleen and the lad died of an infection five days later. The Jury returned a verdict of murder against an unidentified Life Guard.5
Sat 6th Oct 1810
The Earl of Moira is required to identify all visitors received by Sir Francis Burdett and report their names to the cabinet. The Earl has just been served with Burdett’s Writ requiring him to identify his authority for imprisoning Burdett. He has told the cabinet he will say that he believed the Speaker’s Warrant and the personal instructions of the Secretary of State to him were both valid.
The House of Commons has been told by a Select Committee that it can issue an ‘inhibition’ against any Court endeavouring to seize jurisdiction in matters involving the ‘privileges of the House’ and thus thwart judicial review. The House is also advised it may commit any Judiciary process-server although that will not stop the legal action. The committee advises the House that the best course is to warn-off judicial intervention by a bold denial of the Courts’ jurisdiction. It is said to be imperative that the Speaker not be made amenable to Courts of Law. If the courts get hold of this case, the appeal is ultimately to the House of Lords and we cannot have them setting limits on MPs privileges. “Our parliamentary privileges are not matters for the Courts to concerned themselves in” said the liberal Lord Milton.
Lord Folkestone thought that any proceeding that did not permit of redress cannot be a good proceeding. The Attorney General said no court had the right to interfere in the privileges of the House. The House ultimately decided by a large majority that its Speaker and its proceedings were not amenable to judicial review.
A Committee has been appointed to search the journals and discover a precedent that might bear on Burdett’s case. Its first report says all libels are treated as contempt of the House and MPs routinely punished authors whether they were other MPs or members of the public. Whitbread looked at the report and described it as ’a farrago of nonsense’. It was agreed to recommit the report.
Sat 6th Oct 1810
The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Liverymen of the several Companies of the City of London have met in the Guildhall on 21st May 1810. A majority agreed that the rejection of their petition by the Commons was unconstitutional. They agreed the rejection demonstrated the inadequacy of the Representation and revealed a need to reform the House of Commons.
They have also considered the counter-petition that was launched by a dissident group of 1,400 Liverymen purporting to act in their official capacity. They note that signatories to the alternative petition are contractors, tax-gatherers, placemen and place-hunters and a good number of their agents, clerks and other dependents and only a few of the 1,400 signatories are actual Liverymen. In the present confrontation of arbitrary privilege with Constitutional freedom, they deplore this attempt to maintain the old familiar corrupt ways. They published the following resolutions:
“Resolved that this City has a glorious tradition of petitioning for the redress of grievances. In 1673 and 1680 we asked Charles II to call a sitting of parliament and the same opposition was raised then. A variety of counter-petitions were submitted asking Charles II to not call a parliament into being on the basis that it would impinge on the Royal Prerogative. A Parliament was eventually called on 21st Oct 1680 and it immediately voted that there exists and has always existed a right of subjects to petition the King for the redress of grievances. It found that any attempt to frustrate such petitioning is a subversion of the Constitution. It proceeded to expel those MPs who had attempted to stifle the right. It petitioned the King to remove from power those other dissident MPs who held office. Sir Francis Withers et al were the Constitutional abusers in that instance. The denial of a right to complain is characteristic of slavery. The City’s arguments were then over-ruled by the Judiciary and thus began a sequence of events that concluded with the eviction of the Stuarts from the throne.
“The Bill of Rights subsequently obtained in 1688 entrenched the right to petition formally, however it has again been questioned, this time by the Commons, and an attempt has been made to reassert the Stuart doctrine of passive obedience.
“Is it the minister’s intention to procure another dynasty?
“We call on the people of England to uphold the real principles of the Constitution and to use every legal means to obtain their full, fair and free Representation in parliament:
“Resolved that we have never consented to grant to King, Lords or Commons a power above the law.
“Resolved that we chose to remonstrate with the Commons to bring them to a proper sense of their duty and this remonstrance will be prepared and signed in the usual way and presented to the Commons assembled by our Alderman Harvey Christian Combe MP.
“Resolved that the thanks of the City be given to Lord Erskine, Sir S Romilly and S Whitbread for their independent conduct in the Commons on this matter.”
The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Liverymen of London have marched in procession to the Tower and visited Sir Francis Burdett. The Earl of Moira sent them a note warning them off but they ignored it and in the event he was quite gracious. They delivered a copy of the above Resolutions to Burdett and assured him they were doing what they could for his release.
Burdett deplored the two factions, Whig and Tory, that have for so long acted like thieves and crucified the nation. “I hope the time is not far distant when we will put an end to peculation, to the borough-mongering system, to grinding the faces of the poor and undermining the security of the rich.” He looked forward to the re-establishment of legal government.
Later the City officials held a dinner at the London Tavern where Mr Lemaitre sang this song:
The sun of olde England can never be set
Whilst freedom is seen in hand with Burdett.
A free British spirit runs high in his veins
So here’s to the Right which unfetter’d remains
Burdett was freed from the Tower once parliament had been prorogued on 27th June 1810.
Sat 27th Oct 1810
The 2nd Report of the committee searching for precedents to justify the arrest of Burdett has been re-committed, like the first. There is still no progress in finding justification for executing the Speaker’s Warrant beyond the Houses of Parliament. Mr William Wynne has joined the committee as he has some ideas.
Sat 8th Dec 1810
Castlereagh and his group have issued at Writ at Clerkenwell Sessions against John Gale Jones for libel. The Grand Jury returned a true Bill.
Sat 18th May 1811
The case of John Gale Jones has been heard - he was convicted of libelling Lord Castlereagh. Jones is the Editor of the British Forum which had averred Castlereagh acted oppressively to the Irishman Finnerty during the Walcheren expedition. Finnerty was resident in Antwerp but was taken unwillingly in a British warship and brought a prisoner to England.
Finnerty’s complaint was published in the Morning Chronicle and taken up by the British Forum but only the latter paper was sued. Finnerty pleaded guilty to libelling Castlereagh which pre-judged Jones’ trial. Jones made a mitigatory statement - “I do not know Castlereagh or Finnerty. I just commented on the Morning Chronicle article.”
Another libel of Jones in the same article concerns Orr whom Castlereagh sent to Ireland for execution although the English Judge seized of Orr’s case had told Castlereagh he believed Orr was innocent.
Jones was sent back to Newgate for later sentencing. His prosecution is one of the AG’s ‘on information’ actions wherein he controls all the timings. He will apply for Judgment when he thinks fit.
Sat 12th Jan 1811
The King v Cobbett - The Court of King’s Bench has disposed of the case of libel against Cobbett the author, M/s Budd & Bagshaw the publishers and Hansard the printer.
The Court finds Cobbett published the libel to increase circulation, i.e. for profit. It impugned the reputations of foreigners in British military service, particularly the King’s German Legion which put down the riots in Ely. Cobbett had called their act an ‘atrocious tyranny’. There was popular dissatisfaction with German troops enforcing the Riot Act on British crowds, particularly as some protesters were killed, and Cobbett had sought to capitalise on the dissatisfaction.
He is sentenced to two years in Newgate and fined £1,000. On release he must enter a Bond to keep the peace for the subsequent 7 years. Cobbett left Court with a smile on his face.
Sat 26th Jan 1811
Sir Francis Burdett has issued three Writs – one against Lord Moira, the Custodian of the Tower, another against F J Coleman, the Sergeant at Arms of the House and a third against Charles Abbott MP, the Speaker.
The trials are set down for hearing on 20th Nov 1810.
Burdett complains the government is delaying the actions whilst he has acted timely. Moira says his chief witness (now Brig General Coleman, the ci-devant Sergeant at Arms) is serving in Spain and cannot be made available for many weeks. Government is arguing for the legality of the Warrant whilst Burdett has focused on lack of Jurisdiction and the consequent illegality of the break-in to his home to serve it.
Sat 1st June 1811
Lovell is the proprietor of The Day newspaper. He is prosecuted by the King for libel. The recent popular protests of poor people in and around London caused the government to call out the army to disperse the crowds. Lovell then published an article saying the Magistrate’s reading of the Riot Act had been the signal for the military execution of many Londoners. The Attorney General says a good subject should not say such things; the army did what it was told to do. This article might incite the people against the government – that is the libel.
Lovell has also libelled some Commissioners of Taxes in an undisclosed way.
He got a year on each count consecutively whereafter he must enter a secured bond of good behaviour for three years.
Harvey and Fisher were the printer and publisher of The Day. They submitted to the Court and pleaded for mercy. They got 1 year each whereafter they will have to find security and be bonded for good behaviour.
Sat 29th June 1811
Guildhall 19th Dec; Hugh Bell v Byrne:
Bell is a City merchant and Byrne is the sole proprietor of the Morning Post, a government-sponsored newspaper. Bell is represented by the barrister Topping and the Defendant is represented by the Attorney General.
When the Speaker was attempting to arrest Sir Francis Burdett, it was discovered that Mr Roger O’Connor was an occasional visitor to Burdett’s London house. He is the brother of Arthur O’Connor, the Irish patriot presently in preventive detention in Ireland.6 The Irish parliament has debated connections between its State prisoners and gentlemen in London and inter alia it was mentioned that the Plaintiff Bell had been arrested for High Treason in England in February 1798. This was untrue but no-one checked in England. The Morning Post belatedly learned of the Irish parliamentary debate, presumably from one of its ministerial sources, and published the comment about Bell again. He protests he has been damaged in his reputation and business.
Topping said there was nothing new in this case except for the Attorney General acting in the unfamiliar role of Defendant’s advocate. The Defendant relied first on a letter indicating Arthur had written to Roger introducing Bell as his agent for the sale of some property to Burdett; and second on the subsequent arrest of Bell on suspicion of High Treason, based on this intercept and his interrogation by the Privy Council. Government had since queried Roger’s loyalty due to the ideology of his brother and it had been unimpeachably established in the public eye by publication of a series of his letters relevant to the matter in hand. As Bell had never been prosecuted or convicted of High Treason the article was inevitably libellous.
The Attorney General characterised the prosecution case as a slander on his character. Topping justified his claim at length. His position ultimately was – if there was a conviction of the Defendant for Treason there is no libel and vice versa.
The AG proved the arrest of Bell on a Warrant of the Duke of Portland. Cox, the King’s Messenger who effected the arrest, gave evidence of searching Bell’s house and seizing his papers for examination. He arranged a postal intercept on his correspondence and sent all the letters to Wickham for vetting. Cox recalled Bell was interviewed by the Privy Council for 2+ hours on 7th March 1798. Subsequently, the case developed no further but the AG invited the court to note that, obviously, Bell is a bad man.
The Jury found for the Plaintiff, damages of £500.
Sat 27th July 1811
Lord Holland has drawn House of Lords attention to the Attorney-General’s predilection for issuing ex officio Writs for libel ‘on Information’ against critics of the ministry. During the six years 1801-06 some 14 such Writs were issued but since Sir Vicary Gibbs’ appointment in April 1807 there have been 42 Writs issued.
Chief Justice Lord Ellenborough opposed Holland’s motion for investigation which was defeated 24/12.
Sat 24th Aug 1811
House of Lords, March 1811 - Lord Holland has told the House of Lords that the House of Commons routinely appoints a Committee of Justice at the start of every session to oversee the administration of justice and ensure the spirit of law is maintained. He believed the House of Lords also concerned itself with this subject as it had recently enquired of lower courts for the number of prosecutions for revenue offences that entailed capital punishment. He mentioned this because some Lords had said his motion impinged on the independence of the judiciary.
He is pursuing his concern at the Attorney General’s predilection of suing political commentators ex officio on Information for libel against the state. The AG also has a new power (enacted 1807) of bailing people he proposes to thus sue. The period of bail is unrestricted. He wished to ascertain if the AG’s acts had deterred state libels or diminished the licentiousness of the press. He is satisfied with the state of the libel law - he merely wished to understand why actions under it had become so frequent in recent years. He suspected that libel was replacing or supplementing treason and sedition as the common ministerial response to public criticism.
To protect against such abuse English law required a Jury of 12 men to pronounce on the evidence. Otherwise any free discussion of political acts might often come close to libel when it is fundamental in our system that free public discussion is the foundation of good government. Innocence should not be criticised or punished otherwise the libel law will become a law of terror.
Concerning the AG’s libel cases ex officio, many people thought it was illegal. He mentioned Lord Hale’s obiter dicta that if these ex officio informations were questioned they would fall but Lord Hale had said he was opposed to the Informations ex officio and not opposed to the AG.
Libels are prosecuted in three ways – by civil or criminal action, by indictment and on Information. Any action by indictment required the use of a Grand Jury whereas actions ‘on Information’ can be pleaded by permission of the Court or ex officio, and government lawyers used both channels. However the legal position was that prosecutions ‘on Information’ should not proceed in capital cases because it was manifestly less favourable to the defendant; and they had better not proceed at all in criminal cases, the wish being to have the defendant tried by twelve of his peers.
Blackstone, who adulated English Law, said the purpose of the ex officio action was to permit the ministry to act expeditiously against serious impediments to good government and/or the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. It was for this reason that the power of instant prosecution, ex officio, was given to the AG. It appears that if the ex officio action does not satisfy Blackstone’s test it is unlawful; not only that, but Defendants are put to considerable expense defending themselves. It was particularly egregious that many of the AG’s ex officio prosecutions are left suspended in mid-course and of the forty-two that Sir Vicary Gibbs has commenced only 16 have been concluded. These 26 suspended actions are the evidence that the AG has used the ex officio process as a means of harassment.7
When the previous AG, Pigott, was in office (for only a year) he introduced only one ex-officio prosecution against an inflammatory address that the Morning Post published to several regiments that were on the point of embarking for foreign service. That address had the tendency of discouraging the soldiers from embarking or indeed from following orders. It appeared a proper use of the power. However when this present AG assumed office he entered a nolle prosequi in favour of the Morning Post (it is the present ministry’s newspaper) and the prosecution has not yet been revived.
Finally, when an action is taken and lost in the King’s name, the Defendant still has to pay the costs. The King never pays. As a result, innocent people pay the costs of both parties, often £60 - £100. It is also well-known that the AG prefers to prosecute publishers rather than authors, that he permits considerable delays in bringing his cases to Court and that he procrastinates for months after the Hearing before applying for Judgment during which period the defendants remain in goal. This appeared to reveal a systematic bias towards the interests of the ministry. Holland thought it all evidenced the misapplication of ex officio prosecutions by the AG and he asked for a list of all the ex officio prosecutions for libel in the last ten years.
Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough (who has himself heard nearly all of these cases) says there is no problem. He categorised Holland’s complaint as conjectural. He thought Holland had invented Lord Hale’s obiter dicta.8 He said the Law of Informations was as old as the Common Law and equally as reliable. He said there had been a single instance of the AG bailing people he intended to sue and that involved a chap called Gorman who was already being prosecuted for a libel when he recited the same libel in his publication.
Holland characterised Ellenborough’s speech as an evasive misunderstanding of the facts. Ellenborough became ruffled but did not reply.
Erskine said some unexceptional things and the Lords divided 24/12 against Holland
Sat 2nd Nov 1811
Sir Francis Burdett’s Writ against Lord Moira and the Sergeant-at-Arms of House of Commons Coleman is postponed to 19th June.
Sat 2nd Nov 1811
The government’s libel cases against Drakard, the publisher of the Stamford News, and Collier, the Mancunian who published disapproving comments on the Commissioners for Taxes, have both succeeded. They were fined and imprisoned for 18 and 12 months respectively. Drakard will have to provide secured bonds for his good behaviour thereafter.
Sat 11th Jan 1812
Lord Folkestone moved the Commons to consider the sentences for criminal libel awarded to Drakard and Collyer. He thought they were too harsh.
The first libel appeared in Drakard’s own newspaper the Stamford News and was then copied by the Hunt Brothers, owners of a London paper, leading to the Attorney General’s ex officio prosecution on information of the owners of the latter paper. When the case came up the Jury found the Hunts ‘not guilty’. The AG was undeterred by failure and launched a second prosecution, this time at Drakard for the original publication. He was tried at the Assizes and found guilty.
It has been a constant theme of the Attorney General’s prosecutions that all these publicists are working for France to bring down the rule of law in England. The AG also asserted to the Court that the libel tended to produce a ‘breach of the peace’. To counter this, Drakard, when called upon to mitigate his offence before sentencing, produced volumes of his newspaper to illustrate the patriotic position he had taken for several years. This was portrayed by the AG as making Drakard’s offence more heinous by lulling his readers into false assumptions of his patriotism. Drakard was then gaoled for 18 months, fined £200 and required to provide securities for his own good behaviour for the three years subsequent to his release. Folkestone thought it strange that the same libel should result in two disparate judgments.
Turning to Collyer’s case, he was a dyer in Manchester and had been surcharged for income tax. He swore that his income was about £150 whereas the tax was assessed on an income of £300 but was reduced by the Commissioner after negotiations to £250. Collyer still refused to pay and his goods were distrained and his horse & cart sold. His neighbours supposed he had done something wrong and his local reputation and credit diminished, particularly when it became known that the Commissioner disbelieved Collyer’s evidence.
Collyer then elected to publish a vindication of his own conduct and, being illiterate, he applied to Cowdray, the Editor of a Manchester newspaper, to write up a fair copy of his complaint in his newspaper and he (Collyer) would pay for it as though it was a trade advertisement. The evidence reveals he particularly asked Cowdray to avoid contention and just state the facts. The draft was made, read to Collyer who approved it, and published. Later some alterations were made and Collyer took it to another Manchester newspaper which published the amended version. Here it was seen by Lovell the Editor of a London paper now serving 12 months for having published it as well. Collyer likewise got 12 months and he felt aggrieved as the original libel was drafted by another whom he had expressly asked to stick to the facts.
Folkestone noted that many people were today being convicted of felonies at the Old Bailey and sentenced to 1, 2 or 3 months gaol but these libel cases attracted severe punishments in comparison. Folkestone then read Collyer’s libel to the House. He noted that the Commissioner for Taxes at Manchester had no complaint about the article and indeed Editor Cowdray, who drafted it, was a friend of the Commissioner’s, the supposed victim in the AG’s pleadings. The newspaper staff and the Commissioner’s staff had all sought to alleviate Collyer’s concerns but then the AG got hold of the case.
Folkestone thought the AG’s attitude to libel cases could only be understood as a ministerial attempt to muzzle the press. He said he had employed a solicitor to obtain copies of all the Writs in consideration of producing them at this debate. He was denied copies at each of the Court Registries and eventually obtained them directly from the Defendants. Only Collyer’s attorney declined to provide a copy - when he learned it was for an MP he became alarmed it would get to the knowledge of the AG and his own career would be ruined. He thought this well indicated the state of intimidation that the law worked under.
It was a dangerous state of the law to have legal precedents, as we have, for the position that posting a letter at the Post Office was publication of it. Even our private letters might be criminal if they were read, as many are, by the ministry.
The AG replied that he had always done his duty. He never portrayed criminal acts in other than their true colours. He said the libel in the Hunts’ case differed slightly from the libel in Drakard’s case and this probably accounted for the different verdict. He was not being oppressive.
In Collyer’s case the AG said he had examined minutely into the facts. The duty of the Tax Commissioners was laborious and invidious. It was apparent that Collyer had evaded his tax liabilities for five years. He had only commenced his prosecution when the Commissioners themselves said Collyer had undermined their authority and they could not continue in office unless he was punished. He would normally have prosecuted the printers but the Commissioners were only concerned to deter Collyer, so he overlooked the publisher and printer and went after Collyer alone. He had nothing to hide.
Whitbread said libel sentences were too harsh. He had previously presented a Petition to the House from White and Hart who had been gaoled for 3 years for libel and were shortly to be released. He had heard that government was preparing another charge against White as soon as he was released in order to secure his further imprisonment.
The decision of the House, without a division, was to deny Folkestone’s motion for disclosure of the relevant papers.
Sat 28th Dec 1811
On 13th May 1811 several libel actions were commenced at the Court of King’s Bench:
The AG is suing Rous, Hurley and Laurence for libel. They are the printers at Canterbury of The Whim, in which paper the Mayor of Canterbury, Charles Pout, says he was libelled. Pout was an upholsterer and auctioneer until his election as Mayor last Dec 1810. Shortly after his election a poem appeared in The Whim which scurrilously defamed him and the Writ was issued.
Mansell Philips MP is to be sued for a libel against the Bishop of Derry which was published in the Swansea paper The Cambrian.
The Rev Blacow was sued for libel of Mrs Fairclough, wife of the famous Liverpool merchant. Blacow has admitted the offence. The Faircloughs have a country estate in the village where Blacow is curate. Blacow is also vicar of St Marks Church in Liverpool where he preaches on a licence. After regular contact between the parties, the Faircloughs decided to retain Blacow as the tutor of their son. They paid him £100 a year and fed him during teaching hours. After 7 years the Faircloughs were minded to enter their son into a public school and Blacow disagreed. In the discussions Blacow alleged that Mrs Fairclough had been unfaithful for years. He said unless he was allowed to continue teaching the boy, he would publish details of her infidelities.
Sat 18th April 1812
The procedure of suing people for libel under ex officio Informations, that has been revived in England against the press, has been extended to Ireland.
Saurin, the Irish Attorney General, has filed two ex officio Informations against the Earl of Fingal whilst presiding at Catholic meetings in July and August 1811.
Sat 2nd May 1812
Sir Francis Burdett has appealed the judgments on his Writs against the Speaker of the House of Commons and its Sergeant-at-Arms. The Court of Exchequer Chamber has jurisdiction over the Courts of Westminster Hall and will hear the Appeal. It is actually the twelve Judges of the Westminster courts sitting jointly. If these Judges do not assist Burdett, his next step is an Appeal to the House of Lords by way of petition. Then we might have the Upper House making decisions on the Speaker’s powers.
Sat 30th May 1812
Brigadier General Coleman, the erstwhile Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons who arrested Sir Francis Burdett, is reported to have died in Portugal after a fever.
Tues 6th Oct 1812 Extraordinary
Rioting in the British midlands has increased and considerable property damage has been done. The army has been called out. They have fired on the people and several citizens have been killed.
Sat 3rd Oct 1812
The printer Daniel Isaac Eaton has been prosecuted by the ministry for libelling God. He printed a book casting doubt on the authenticity of the bible, even the New Testament. The author is not identified but the printer shares his opinions.9
The prosecution proved the libellous publication and the Defendant commenced his defence which was a lengthy justification. After he had reviewed some of Genesis and Esdras, Lord Ellenborough told him he did not come to Court to hear Christianity reviled and advised Eaton to omit all contentious passages. The defendant said his Defence was all the same. Ellenborough said ‘your Defence is an offence’ (laughter). The Defendant said the pamphlet had circulated in America for over six years without complaint and America was far more religious than England. Ellenborough said the Christian religion is incorporated in the Law of England. The Jury convicted and the defendant was gaoled.
On 30th April 1812 the Attorney General applied for judgment (it is an ‘on Information’ prosecution whereby the AG controls the timings) and Eaton, who has been imprisoned since his first arrest, put in an affidavit maintaining his opinion that the book was not a libel on God. He said he was 60 years old and unwell. “The government has burned £2,600 of my books and I had to pay them £280 to get back my furniture. If publication was a mistake, I acknowledge it.” Eaton thought there was a natural human curiosity about religion that should not be suppressed. He protested the Attorney General’s ex officio informations were a bar to all natural enquiry. Eaton was remanded by Ellenborough for another week prior to sentencing.
Sat 24th Oct 1812
Government attempts to put down rioting in the north of England by violence have not been successful for long. Trouble broke out again in the West Riding of Yorkshire and spread to the manufacturing towns of Lancashire, Cheshire and Nottinghamshire. The level of mob violence has worsened – its not just machinery being destroyed but employers as well. Some factory owners have been murdered.
The people are infuriated by a lack of jobs, unilaterally reduction of wages and now a shortage of food. Even if you have some savings it has become expensive to feed yourself. General Maitland has been ordered to prepare his artillery and firmly suppress dissent.
A Chester man named Walker has been leading the protesters there. He marches at the front of the protesters wearing a large cocked hat and calls himself General Ludd. He has just been arrested and six guineas was found in his pocket – it seems it was not poverty that motivated him.
Luddites placarded Nottingham town at night with a poster offering a reward for the capture of mayor Wilson, dead or alive. The mayor had just offered a £600 reward for the identification of the murderers of Treatham, one of the factory-owners slain by the mob.
Sat 24th Oct 1812
General Gascoigne, MP for Liverpool, has presented a petition from his constituents. 6,500 Liverpudlians signed it in four days. They say 15% of the population is existing on charity. The streets are littered with beggars. They feel they have done nothing wrong and pray for relief. They want the Orders-in-Council and the Licensing system repealed. They attribute the reduction in commerce and revenue to these two political measures.
The ministry moved a vote for £90,000 to construct new cantonments near Liverpool, Bristol and other disturbed population centres.
Burdett said he thought barrack construction had nothing to do with the war and everything to do with oppressing the people. He adverted to the extensive recent use of the army against Midland protesters. He thought it impolitic to make the people pay for army forts that were built for their oppression. These barracks are intended to provide safe areas from which the army can sally out against the people whenever required. It is also murder when a soldier is ordered to kill citizens. Popular dissent is not insurrectionary – the protesters just want food and clothing. He was amused to hear ministers talk of the military government of France when England was exactly the same.
When Queen Elizabeth was asked where her guards were, she pointed to the people; when this ministry is asked, they point to the army. Their acts are unjust and lack popular sanction. He stated his opinion, as a matter of law (he is a lawyer), that reading the Riot Act did not authorise violence by the soldiery.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer accused Burdett of making cheap points for his constituents. Voicing these wild ideas will destroy our liberty, he said.
Sat 7th Nov 1812
A plot has been discovered at Stockport to overturn the ministry. The conspirators have contacts all along the mail route to London. The mail coaches were to be stopped as a signal to the towns on the route to simultaneously rise. St John Fleming Leicester has responded with alacrity. He has the Earl of Chester’s Legion, consisting of six troops of yeomanry and 300 infantry, and he has posted them around Stockport to act decisively at the first signs of insurrection.
Sat 7th Nov 1812
Ryder proposed the death penalty for making or administering an illegal Oath. The Luddites are swearing to never betray each other on pain of death. The numbers of murders in the industrial districts had since increased. Ryder wants a Bill to execute anyone administering or making such an Oath with intent to commit felony.
Wynne said the legal principle was to distinguish intent from actual commission. This Bill conflated the two. If the punishment for the Oath is the same as the punishment for the felony, it might inspire an even greater number of murders. We would do better to transport the people we expect to convict, he thought.
Horner said this is yet another instance of Draconian punishment for a specific event. The rioters were not whimsically destroying property – they relied on their employers for subsistence and had been let down. Parliament should closely investigate the cause of discontent and legislate a remedy. All legislators should by now be aware that harsher punishments do not procure tranquillity. We would do better to invoke the Act of 1797 and send a special commission to the Midlands to investigate and make recommendations.
Perceval said he was making enquiries but in the interim the destruction is continuing. He needs a temporary solution to protect property. He believes people are being forced to make the Oath. Perceval denied that the lack of employment was due to ministerial policies. He says the Luddite ring-leaders are men of property who employ ignorant workers to destroy industrial property on the basis ‘remove the competition and there’s more work for me’. He thought Ryder’s proposal was merited if it had no retrospective effect and provided a route for Oath-takers to confess and renounce. Perceval recalled the House had faced a similar problem before. We enacted a law to deter the seduction of soldiers from their officers, executed a single soldier two days after passage of the Act and mutinies stopped. Temporary solutions work, he said.
Stephens said it was too early to take a view on the Bill. We should discuss it further. Now the House is more evenly divided, there is no prospect of its passage without debate.10
Whitbread feared the predilection of ministers for harsher and harsher penalties would soon arrive at Henry VII’s boiling punishment or the adoption of torture as has been practised and defended in Ireland of late. The objection to Ryder’s Bill is the absence of a distinction between administering an Oath and killing a man.
Abercromby said all insurrections have a cause.
Bathurst said we should put down the insurrection first then identify and remedy the cause.
Hibbert asked why we did not use the existing law.
Davis Giddy said he thought the French were behind it and we should immediately annihilate the rioters.
It was then agreed to bring in Ryder’s Bill.
Sat 13th Feb 1813
London, 12th July – a party has been held at the Crown & Anchor Tavern to celebrate the release of Cobbett from Newgate after an imprisonment of 2 years. He was found guilty of libelling the ministry in respect of a critical article he published about flogging. He has been held in the felon’s section of Newgate. To obtain his release, Cobbett had to pay a fine of £1,000 and provide securities for his good behaviour for the next 7 years.
Sir Francis Burdett and several of the City Aldermen attended the celebration.
Cobbett is bitter about the AG’s use of ex officio Informations – a form of proceeding that was abandoned after the Court of Star Chamber was annulled, he says. The AG lays the Information and the defendant is detained, but the venue and timing of the hearing, the selection of Jurymen, the request for judgment and sentencing, and the location of the gaol are all in the control of the AG who takes his time. It is a biased and oppressive form of proceeding that has been used to stifle press commentary on ministerial acts and keep the people ignorant. Cobbett hoped Englishmen would not be cowed into silence; that they would discuss issues fearlessly and insist on their freedom to do so.
Sat 20th March 1813
Lascelles of the Secret Committee of House of Commons has reported on the Luddites. He says they are not out-of-work labourers but a conspiracy of organised revolutionaries. They have targeted arms and ammunition for theft and have committed many daring robberies to amass capital. These are not the impulsive acts of starving workers but an organised resistance to our government. They have rockets and signal lights for communications. They have various types of organising committee. They use Masonic signs to identify each other. They do not use the Post Office to communicate so we cannot read their letters. They swear an Oath to help each other. They all pay 2d a week subscription to the cause.
Lascelles detects a prospect that the riots will extend to London and Ireland. He says government’s traditional methods of control and subversion (infiltration, bribery, misinformation, surveillance of communications and a broad variety of legal remedies) are unlikely to work. When the people work together like this, there is a real danger to the peace and security of the country, he said.
Sat 22nd May 1813
Court of King’s Bench, 9th Dec - John and Leigh Hunt, Irish proprietors of The Examiner have been prosecuted by the Solicitor General for libelling the Regent in their edition of 22nd March:
They object HM’s Address to his regiment on its embarkation for Portugal. They say this Adonis of loveliness is a corpulent gentleman of fifty years. They call him a libertine, a debtor and a liar. He has lived half a century without giving a single cause to invoke the gratitude of his country.11 This is all highly libellous.
Brougham is defending:
He says the article was a report on a St Patrick’s Day dinner at which a toast to the Regent was widely hissed.
The ministerial newspapers reported the event differently. The Morning Post said it was attended by worthless people who should be treated with sovereign contempt. In fact the Marquis Lansdowne presided and the Marquis Downshire, Lord Moira, Sheridan, the Lord Mayor and a city sheriff all attended.
The first occasion the ministry prosecuted these defendants involved an article they published about the Duke of York and concerned the then rumour that he was going to Spain to command our army there. The second occasion was when they discussed the range of corporal punishments approved by the army. These are important topics, worthy of national attention. It is difficult for a newspaper proprietor to do his duty to his readers and still satisfy the ministry.
The defendants are retiring, studious men. They write on history, poetry and politics. They belong to no faction. The motto of their newspaper is “party is the madness of many for the gain of a few”. They are concerned with bettering the condition of man and they frequently comment on our government of Ireland - resenting that we pillaged their ancestors, disqualified them for their religion and destroyed their churches so we could replace them with our own. Perhaps their opinions are wrong but they are genuinely held.
Lord Ellenborough is the Judge. The Solicitor General is prosecutor. Both object to the line of Defence. Brougham is told he may present evidence but not read from former publications.
The Jury found both defendants guilty. They will be imprisoned until next session when they will be sentenced.
Sat 21st Aug 1813
Trials and executions of unemployed factory workers are proceeding in the north. They are all young men in their twenties and thirties who have been attacking factory owners and wrecking machinery. Their cause is popular but government is on top of it. The executions at York Castle were held with two troops of cavalry and a detachment of infantry to prevent a rescue.
The crowd was much larger than usual but totally and dismally silent. The three lads were hanged in their irons and their bodies were convulsed only briefly. Another seven youths are on trial in Leeds for riotous assembly. They attacked a mill in Liversedge. Five were convicted and sentenced to death. The other two were found not guilty.
Sat 23rd Oct 1813
Creevey MP made a speech in the House of Commons and later published it in a letter to his constituents. He is prosecuted for libel.
The original speech was considered libellous but escaped punishment because MPs are allowed to say anything in parliament. The article however was available to the people at large and must be subject to law.
Creevey’s defence was that the House of Commons published the proceedings of its Committees even if the debates were unpublished. The trend was towards publication and therefore it should be legal.
The Court ruled that the letter was subject to law.
Sat 30th Oct 1813
Bristol, 24th March – On Monday a small group of protesters climbed over the railings of Portland Square and pulled down the statue of George III that was placed there by public subscription two years ago. They threw a rope around the neck and pulled it off its plinth. It was destroyed in the fall. One protester was arrested.
Sat 30th July 1814
William Earle, publisher of the London monthly The Scourge, is prosecuted for libel. The Defendant pleaded Not Guilty then adduced an apology he published in the following edition as his defence.
The AG is prosecuting. Its one of his ex officio ‘on Information’ proceedings. He says the Defendant’s attempt to avoid liability by apologising to Buckhardt is not a defence. The libel was gross – Buckhardt was said to be the son of a Dutch fisherman, of being uneducated, of attending meetings of the London Corresponding Society – and such a base attack must be punished otherwise all the newspapers will publish libels in one edition and apologies in the next.
Earle was imprisoned for 6 months and fined £100. He will be required to provide sureties in £400 for his future good behaviour before his release.
Sat 25th April 1818
Morning Herald, 27th Oct 1817:
Derby, 10th Oct - Jeremiah Brandreth alias John Coke, and a group of some 20 friends, is on trial for High Treason. They intended to take the town of Nottingham as a first step to overturning the government. Brandreth told his group that concurrent risings were planned in Manchester, Chesterfield, Sheffield and other places. He quoted a poem:
Every man his skill must try
He must turn-out and not deny.
No bloody soldier must he dread
He must turn-out and fight for bread.
The time is come, you plainly see
When government opposed must be.
They planned to occupy the Butterley Ironworks, kill the management and make weapons. They took lead from church roofs for bullets. They needed gunpowder and went to Nottingham Forest to make charcoal and politicise the hundreds of unemployed people living there on forest food and wild animals. Several of Brandreth’s group were identified and co-opted as special constables when the plot was first reported. They were directed to collect evidence of the conspiracy and have since provided the case for the prosecution. In the course of preparations, Brandreth had gone to Hepworth’s house and killed a servant while stealing guns. That was the event that made the case High Treason - a man had been killed.
One defence witness was called who said Brandreth is on poor relief from the town of Welford. He was a frame-maker but has long been unemployed.
They were all sentenced to hanging, beheading and quartering, their bodies to be placed at the disposal of the King (i.e. denied burial - usually the bodies were used by medical schools). Brandreth appeared unmoved but the others cried. Some sang hymns. The Lord Chief Baron, who was seized of the case, was visibly affected. The convicts were followed from the court to the gaol by several thousand people.
Next day 19 other conspirators were produced. The Crown Solicitor said if they changed their pleas from Not Guilty to Guilty he would strongly recommend mercy. They changed their pleas and were remanded.
A final batch of 12 conspirators were produced who maintained Not Guilty pleas and declined all attempts to influence them. The prosecutor told the jury he would offer no evidence against them. He said the purpose of justice was to deter citizens from crime and that had already been achieved in this case.12
Sat 9th May 1818
A rare triumph for the ordinary man:
King’s Bench 18th Dec – The AG has prosecuted Hone for libel. Its one of the ex officio proceedings ‘on Information’ that the Bar has criticised. Hone has profaned the Anglican catechism, Apostle’s creed, Lord’s prayer and the ten commandments. He pleads ‘not guilty’. The AG said that great jurist Hale has told us ‘Christianity is parcel of the common law of England’. The book of common prayer and the form of the Liturgy were established by Act of Parliament under Charles II. He said it follows that a failure in one’s Christianity is a criminal offence.
A few excerpts from the holy documents and Hone’s absurd parodies were then read in Court and caused amusement amongst the audience. Hone has been selling the parody from his shop on Fleet Street for 2d a copy. There have been similar parodies (in Blackwood’s Magazine and elsewhere) published prior to his. He started selling on 14th Feb and stopped on 22nd Feb when he heard friends had been offended.
The pamphlets are political attacks:
“I believe in George, the Regent Almighty, maker of new streets and Knights of the Bath;” and
“The present ministry was conceived in Toryism, brought forth of William Pitt, suffered loss of place under Charles James Fox, was execrated, dead and buried. In a few months they rose again from their minority, they re-ascended to the Treasury benches and sit at the right hand of the little chap in the wig from whence they laugh at the petitions of the people;” and
“I am the minister, the lord thy liege, who brought thee out of want and beggary into the House of Commons. Thou shalt have no other patron but me. Thou shalt not support any measure but mine. Thou shalt not take the pension of the minister in vain for I will force him to take the Chiltern Hundreds who takes my pension in vain.”
The entire libel is reprinted in the law report and seems to be popular.
Hone appeared in his own defence. He had enquired the costs of defence but he says the price estimate of £100 would have ruined him. He regretted this now because, had he paid the fee, he would have learned the nature of his offence. He was arrested on Ellenborough’s warrant in May and has been imprisoned ever since. During that time the ministry had published its own version in its newspapers and politicised the country against him. He was told of the trial this morning. He had guessed his offence but was not told until charged just now. He declined to plead as he was denied a copy of the Information and he held that proceedings ‘by Information’ were unconstitutional.
He contended that trial by jury was a privilege of Englishmen and that trial ‘on Information’ removed the influence that juries should have on proceedings. The timid Jury hears the AG’s information and the Judge’s construction of the law and makes its finding. Judges customarily remind Jurors to beware of their Oath. He denied an intention to blaspheme – he was solely concerned to ridicule the ministry.
He objected to the method of Jury selection. Jurors were nominated by a Master from a list prepared by the Crown. The Master was a servant of the Crown. It appeared as though the prosecution got its own Jury.
He then set upon his Defence which was to show by an endless succession of delightful examples that ridicule was a common form of expression and not libellous. It created happiness amongst the audience, so much so that when the AG summed-up he was thought boring and the people booed. The Jury retired for 15 minutes and returned a verdict of Not Guilty.13
Sat 13th June 1818
House of Lords, 28th Jan 1818 – the Bill for the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act was read for the first time. Sidmouth tenaciously argued against it. Holland equally tenaciously supported it.
The latter said there had been no need for a suspension in the first place.
The Bill was then read a second and third time and sent to the House of Commons. Several MPs protested the ministry’s recent initiatives under this Act. Ministers have bound-over on recognisances all those people who had been imprisoned then released a few weeks before this repeal – ‘if you knew you were going to release them all, why bind-over so many?’ The AG said he would move in King’s Bench for the cancellation of the recognisances.
Sat 27th June 1818
London - 22 people (and some other illegible names) have applied for discharge from recognisances they made with the Attorney General at King’s Bench under the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act. Most recognisances are in £100. They come from gaols all over the country14 and apply to Ellenborough one by one for discharge. He told one if he is discharged, he should make affidavit. They say the AG’s recognisances require their daily attendance at King’s Bench until discharged. They all ask for finality. Ellenborough declined – “I am not a Counsel, I am a Judge. I receive advice, I do not give it.” He said the Court cannot discharge recognisances. Eventually the Attorney General came along and applied for the discharges which the Court then granted.
Sat 4th July 1818
House of Commons, 2nd March – Bennett moved the repeal of all those Acts that authorised rewards to policemen for arresting suspects who were later convicted. It was commonplace for known felons to remain undisturbed by the police until they achieved a certain ‘weight’, commonly £40, whereupon a police party would arrest them. This unwillingness to act against suspects for whom no reward was offered was encouraging crime. When suspects did attract rewards, there was repeated Judicial evidence of police conspiracies to encourage their further criminal activity in order to entrap them.
He recalled that in 1786 a species of this type of police conspiracy had resulted in the conviction and execution of 70 people. In 1772 there had been a similar case - the conspiracy of Brock, Pelham and Vaughan - which excited public censure, and this has again occurred with Kelly and Spicer.15
Bennett wished to repeal all the rewards available except two – the Tyburn ticket should be continued but be made non-transferrable16 and a reward of $40 should be available to Executors of Estates of people who had died in the prevention or apprehension of highway robbers. He also wished to introduce a clause to permit remuneration of witnesses.
Most of the complaints derive from people imprisoned as a result of Lord Sidmouth’s circular. Jonathan Buckley of Warrington, the bookseller who was said to have sold copies of ‘a political litany’, was seized, loaded with irons, handcuffed and imprisoned, etc., for 19 weeks until recently discharged on his own recognisance. His stock of books had been seized at the time and has not been returned, having been deemed improper without further explanation. The stock contained no copies of ‘a political litany’ and he himself says he had ceased selling it before his arrest when he learned the authorities disliked it. A similar petition for redress had been received by the House of Commons from Samuel Billings.
The Attorney General said he had no formal notice of the complaints and could take no action. He said the matter had become contentious because of Hone’s acquittal. In fact, several booksellers had recommenced selling Hone’s disgusting pamphlets after the verdict. He said libel is a complex matter and he might decide to prosecute others for the same offence he had alleged against Hone.
Sat 1st Aug 1818
An enquiry was made in the House of Commons as to whether Brock, Pelham and Vaughan, the three accessories before the fact in a case of counterfeiting 18 months ago, had been pardoned. Members recalled that three Irishmen had been convicted of counterfeiting and passing five silver-plated brass shillings. It had transpired in evidence that they were acting on the instructions of Brock, Pelham and Vaughan who were government agents charged with the suppression of counterfeiting. It was rumoured that there was some legal obstacle to convicting policemen which the MPs wished to understand.
Bathurst, the Attorney General, confirmed the pardons had been given but said the nature of the case could not be discussed in the House of Commons.
Sir Francis Burdett urged the minister to obtain a judicial pardon rather than issue it himself.
Bathurst said he had prosecuted Vaughan and some other police officers for inciting crime in precisely similar circumstances and obtained convictions but the safety of the convictions was questioned. The case was considered by the 12 Judges and the convictions overturned. The facts in Brock’s case were similar to Vaughan’s so the minister pardoned them as well. At that point Castlereagh said there was no motion before the House and all discussion should end.
Sir Francis Burdett thought, if there was an obstacle to prosecuting the policemen on the original counterfeiting, at least they might be charged with conspiring to take life for reward.
The debate was then ended on Castlereagh’s point of order.
Sat 4th July 1818
House of Lords, 3rd March - The Habeas Corpus Indemnity Bill is being debated in parliament. It is to protect those ministers and their informers who identified people for preventive detention.
Auckland disliked the principle of the Bill – the spy is protected but the innocent man is defamed. He did not mind indemnifying the ministers and the magistrates but this was a step too far.
King said the Bill will protect those magistrates who committed innocent people but he doubted that assassinations would ensue if the Bill was not passed. The imprisoned people should be allowed to meet their accusers and talk through their suspicions, he thought. Protection of secret informers made the government appear like the Inquisition.
Bathurst supported the Bill - the informations made by secret informers had been given on Oath. They must be true, and they deserve protection.
Sat 4th July 1818
Lord Erskine and nine other Lords have dissented from the majority decision of House of Lords to pass the Habeas Corpus Indemnity Bill.
They say the great body of the people are loyal. The Secret Committee found no evidence of widespread disaffection. Those people who had been inveigled into supporting the rebels (Brandreth’s farcical rebellion) had thrown away their pikes before the military appeared. Only very few real insurgents existed. We have an enormous loyal army and the idea of a successful rebellion is ludicrous.
This Bill fails to distinguish real information from malicious information. If the ministry had been able to bring just one genuine conspiracy to court it might be different. The principal characteristic of government spies was their mercenary nature. Maintaining secrecy about their impure evidence is oppressive.
A better course would be for ministers and parliamentarians to adhere to the principles of the Constitution.17
Sat 11th July 1818
Sir J MacIntosh has moved an enquiry into the increased frequency of executions for forgery. He thinks the House of Commons should focus on diminishing crime rather than punishing it. Between 1783 – 1797 there were 4 cases of forging Bills of Exchange. Between 1797 – 1811 there were 448 cases mostly for bank-notes. Tabled.
Sat 1st Aug 1818
Bank Restriction commenced in 1797.18 Sir James MacIntosh says it is the cause of the great increase in forgery cases. He says the numbers of prosecutions and executions for forgery is a hundred times greater than when bullion was freely available. In the 14 years before 1797 there were 4 cases; in the 14 years after 1797 there were 438 cases.
He thought this indicated a disadvantage in the paper currency system compared with the gold/silver system. The preponderance of prosecutions involved £1, £2 and £5 notes – the currency of the people and the market towns. Larger notes (the currency of trade) were seldom forged.
Lockhart thought the Bank might help itself by using paper and inks that were uncommon. He said the simplicity of existing notes was an allurement to poor people to commit crime.
Sat 11th July 1818
Allegations of Treason in London are attracting public attention:
Sidmouth recently arrested 44 people for Treason. He discharged 7 people after initial enquiry by a ministerial committee and imprisoned the other 37 on suspicion. One died in prison, another was discharged for ill-health and a third was released. The remaining 34 were supposed to be indicted in a great public trial but that plan now seems to have been abandoned.
The Secret Committee’s report on disaffection in the country, which was Sidmouth’s reason for the intended show-trial, turns out to not be an original production. Its report was copied from the transcript of proceedings in Brandreth’s trial in Derby. Earl Grosvenor was disappointed the report contained no new information. On the contrary, the people of Manchester had petitioned that there has been no evidence of rebellion in their town contrary to the suggestion in the report. The Commons has also received Petitions from at least four people complaining of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for supposed Treason. It seems the Committee report is useless and meanwhile we have 34 people long imprisoned for an as yet unidentified crime.
The Lord Mayor and Common Council of the City of London has petitioned the House of Lords on 23rd Feb for an enquiry into the conduct of ministers. They are accused of maladministration in respect of the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act. They have filled the prisons with suspected traitors. They are aware from proceedings in the House of Commons that the evidence of spies against these supposed traitors is doubtful and they have taken no action to confirm or refute that. The fact is it is a commercial thing – the spies get more for arresting traitors than they get for arresting criminals.
Sat 11th July 1818
King’s Bench, 7th Feb – The King v Arthur Thistlewood. Thistlewood was committed to the Tower for High Treason in March last year. On 3rd Feb this year he wrote to Sidmouth, the man signing his arrest papers, demanding the satisfaction of a duel. Sidmouth applied to Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice, for protection from his prisoner.
Thistlewood said he made the challenge under his right to trial by battle, which is reserved to a defendant by Norman law. Several old British legal authorities were quoted in support, ending with Lord Coke (who said it was restricted to trials for murder). There was authority to say the right could be supplanted in cases of incontrovertible proof of guilt, an exception that appears in the Charter of the City of London.
Ellenborough remanded Thistlewood to April saying the Court was very busy.
Sat 18th July 1818
The growth of poverty in Britain is revealed in Poor Law statistics. Before 1750 the assessments and expenditure were each under a million Pounds. Before 1800 they were under £2 millions. In 1803 there was £5.3 millions assessed and £4.3 disbursed. The average of 1813 – 1815 (3 years) was £8.2 millions and £6.1 millions. During those three years the number of people on poor relief was just under a million of whom 560,000 were receiving dole continuously and 490,000 occasionally. No children are counted but they are also enrolled in the work-houses. The population of England and Wales in 1811 was 10,150,615.19
In the same three years the enrolment in Friendly Societies was over 800,000.
Sat 1st Aug 1818
Sir Samuel Romilly is trying to get his Act through parliament again. Twice in the last session, and twice the session before, he obtained House of Commons agreement to enact a new law on capital punishment. People convicted of theft of goods worth 5/- or more are both hanged and denied benefit of clergy. He thought hanging was sufficient. Every time he succeeds in the Commons he gets rebuffed in the Lords.
Between 1805 – 1817 there were 655 indictments for this type of theft. 365 were found guilty of simple larceny (a lesser non-capital offence); 113 were found guilty and sentenced to death but all had their sentences remitted. Romilly thought the 365 Jury convictions for simple larceny revealed an unwillingness of the British people to execute petty thieves. Thus 365 x 12 Englishmen were violating the Oath they took as Jurymen in order to display mercy. It was also the case that 5/- was a lot of money when the Act was introduced but had since become far less valuable.
He noted that burglary of 40/- was necessary before it became a capital offence. In the 8 years before 1816 1,697 people had been indicted for this type of burglary of whom 293 had been capitally convicted and none executed. The others had either been acquitted or convicted of lesser (non-capital) offences.
It was rumoured anecdotally that Judges were reluctant to order the execution of thieves but this mercy was reversed in cases of fraudulent bankruptcy (where a bankrupt person hides assets) and forgery. The offence of fraudulent bankruptcy had been on the statute book for 85 years but only 4 people had been executed for it in that time. The great preponderance of convictions had both creditors and defendants begging the Court’s mercy, the former to preserve their chances of recovery. Likewise forgery had been seldom tried in British Courts before the introduction of paper money. Now there were any number of banks printing money in their local printing shops and the offence had grown like Topsy - two women were executed last week and two teenagers were condemned this morning. In their case there was compelling evidence that they had been induced by reward into committing the offence and were not themselves the principals in it. He thought the Legislature should routinely endeavour to inculcate a respect for life amongst the people. He mentioned the case of a man accused of a capital offence who had found the delay of trial intolerable and killed himself in a frightful way. The Sheriff had exhibited the mutilated body with a small gallows above it. He thought Sheriffs should not assume judicial functions as it brought the law into disrepute.
J Smith MP said many cases of forgery were not taken forward due to reluctance of victims to prosecute. The bankers of London had a committee to review all cases of which they were victims to ensure that no complaint was made against anyone who might have a claim on public sympathy.
Sat 20th March 1819
Old Bailey, 30th Sept - Lawrence O’Halloran has been prosecuted for forging a 10d frank with intent to avoid payment of postage charges. He is an elderly man and was formerly a tutor, having taught the present Solicitor General et al. He says his prosecution results from a quarrel he had with his local vicar.
As a result of that quarrel, six men broke into his house and attacked him. They were acting for a bailiff who held a warrant for his arrest. He was imprisoned for three months pending for trial. After he had been restrained and arrested, his house was searched and his papers seized although there was nothing about search and seizure in the Arrest Warrant. He was convicted on the evidence of a policeman who said, inter alia, that O’Halloran goes about with a brace of loaded pistols in his belt so they had to use violence to arrest him.
He says he does not use guns, is a nice chap and the imprisonment is bad for his health. He has twenty years of testimonials from his academic clients. The frank he is supposed to have made is dated 7th Jan 1817 and was well out-of-date but he had carelessly revealed its existence to the vicar, hence the prosecution.
The Recorder said he should have said all that before the policeman gave evidence. The Court has a clear case against him and has no discretion on sentencing which is a mandatory seven years transportation. The appeal route is to the minister who may request a Royal pardon.
Sat 5th June 1819
The ministry is under attack by an MP concerning the conditions aboard the convict ships that carry emigrants to Australia. Dr O’Halloran, one of the prisoners transported to New South Wales (convicted of forging an out-of-date 10d frank), has petitioned for improvement of the conditions.
He travelled on the India Company’s ship Baring which carried up to 300 banishees in tiers of cribs in the hold. Each crib is 78 inches wide and 66 inches long and contains six people. Any vomit or effluent from the upper cribs falls onto the lower ones. The space per passenger was rather less than required in the old slave trade Transportation Regulations (slaves got the regulation 18” whereas banishees get 13”). The voyage to Australia averages six months duration. The ship Sally took 200 convicts to Australia last year and lost 20% en voyage.
Bathurst said the character of these convicts was such that parliamentary solicitude was inappropriate. O’Halloran had threatened the ship captain that he had a friend in House of Commons (the MP presenting this Petition) – he has no respect for authority. The comparison with slave ships is specious – slaves are chained down, banishees are not. It may be unusual for a middle-class doctor to be transported but there is no special law for the rich. Even when concentrated in the holds as at present it still cost the government £80 a head in fees to the India Company’s shipping cartel for a single passage to Australia. A doctor is provided on each ship – they are attentive to the needs of passengers (laughter)
Clive MP said average deaths en route to Australia were only 6%. On some voyages only one or two died. These people are being punished – its not a pleasure cruise.
Harvey said some prisoners were transported for a few years, others for life. The egregiousness of their offences differed and the quality of their accommodations should also vary.
O’Halloran’s petition was tabled.
Sat 29th May 1819
Morning Chronicle, 11th Dec - There is a law in the Greek islands that a person distributing oregano before the Sultan receives his portion of the harvest is liable to capital punishment. There is another law awarding capital punishment to anyone disturbing the King when playing chess. We should import these laws into England. They fit well with the trend of our recent legislation.
We have about 200 capital crimes in England. Apart from treason, murder, burglary and rape, for which offences a capital sentence is often justified, we also have shoplifting over 5/-, pick-pocketing over 1/- and a surfeit of other minor crimes against property. They all require a death sentence on conviction and only the King can vary the award. In 1805 4,605 people were committed for trial; in 1816 it was 9,091 and this year 13,932. It seems superficially that Draconian punishments do not deter crime.
It is also well known amongst the lawyers that many victims refuse to prosecute crimes because they say they are appalled at the possibility of serious punishment. This is particularly the case with young offenders who, instead of being checked by discovery, are allowed to continue.
It is equally well known in the legal profession that Jurors prefer to be fined for non-attendance than become enmeshed in the law; that Jurors break their Oath and find offenders guilty of a lesser crime than the one proved in order to avoid the death of the culprit; that in one notorious case the twelve Jurors dealing with a case of theft of a £10 note from a house (larceny of £2 or more from a dwelling house is capital) found as a matter of fact that a £10 note is worth £1.19.0d. Thus are they and the law both injured.
The Court of Common Council of the City of London has petitioned both Houses along these lines and requested a review of the criminal code. They note that many parliamentarians and lawyers criticise the awards but nothing gets done. They suggest that Britain emulate feudal Russia where Alexander has restricted the death penalty to cases of treason and murder.
Sat 7th Aug 1819
House of Commons, 2nd March – Sir James MacIntosh has given a speech on the state of the criminal law. He says the British statute book contains 200 felonies that require capital punishment but between 1749 – 1819 only 25 of them have been prosecuted to conviction and sentence. The superfluity of capital offences seems to flow from the Revolution of 1688 whereby a parliament was created and every MP was welcomed to introduce a law creating a new capital felony.
Burke used to say that as his parliamentary career progressed he was enabled to obtain a felony without benefit of clergy (a favour from the minister).
This frivolous parliamentary procedure produced a separation between the words of the law and the provision of justice to the people. Almost all the legislative acts resulted from personal experiences of MPs and led Sir Wm Grant to observe that the principle of law was opposed to its practice.
Thus on the one hand we had legislators producing a river of new law and on the other a confederacy of judges and attorneys endeavouring to provide justice. The great increase in crime in England has been contemporary with the great war with France. In that war we used deception and bribery as well as violence to achieve our ends and these have overflowed into society, etc.
Sat 28th Aug 1819
There is a wind of change in Europe and it seems mainly due to Napoleon. Even in exile he troubles us. All the countries upon which he bestowed Constitutions are discontented by the return to feudalism. It is the same in the toeholds of Europe that we managed to hang onto – Spain and Sicily – where the Constitutions we provided in emulation of Napoleon were withdrawn on the return of their Kings.
The continuing example of America does not help either. Tens of thousands of Dutch, Germans and French have emigrated there and, whilst they are not yet doing very well, their letters suggest its more hopeful that staying at home.
Another element in the change is the British parliament. Throughout the war the preponderance of MPs were submissive to the minister but since the peace they have become unruly and make ministerial government difficult. The changed attitude in House of Commons is palpable. Debates are more free and more wide-ranging; formerly forbidden subjects are now discussed. In the past the country MPs attended to enjoy the quality of debate rather than the subject-matter; now they are starting to talk of what concerns them. The minister is often in difficulties in assembling a majority and has to proceed with care.
The German states along the Rhine are scarcely better than feudal with laws that are hostile to every wise principle of good government. They are obliged now to reform - even Hanover is not exempt.
The other force for change is the merchants. Many are educated and quite rich but in Germany their wealth counts for little. They are not admitted at Court and are still required to leave the room when a nobleman comes in and chooses to dance or play cards. The nobility owning the German states are determined not to work. They get a stipend of about £100 a year and free supply of wax candles – just enough to avoid work – and they are proud.
There have also been assassination plots, the latest against the Austrian Emperor at Mantua. Another against Kotzebue succeeded. The assassin Charles Sand is a Bavarian. He is a graduate of law at Tubengen University and seems a thoughtful fellow. He said he acted in the interests of the German people and had published a paper calling on the people to arise and unite the German-speaking countries. A third attempt was by eleven men against the Tsar Alexander. Five have fled, one is missing and another is a French army officer. They planned to capture the Tsar en route to Aix-la-Chapelle and force him, on his life, to sign a Proclamation to the French recalling Napoleon to take up the government. They were betrayed to the magistrates and arrested. They have been imprisoned. One of them, Buchoz, is to be pilloried and branded.
Sat 4th Dec 1819
The Stockport Union has published a Democratic Manifesto which will upset the ministry. About 12,000 people approved it. They say it is an appeal to the British people to form a National Union. Its all about freedom, equality and the Rights of Man. Whether the Bank of England should be permitted to continue was one of the subjects discussed. Sir Charles Wolseley told the meeting that reform was imperative and he did not care how many Sidmouths and Castlereaghs heard him say so. Indeed Sidmouth was convicted of High Treason by the meeting in a mock trial. His offence was intercepting the City of London’s petition to the Regent. There is widespread doubt whether any of the popular petitions are getting through to the Regent. A London Committee was appointed to collect provincial complaints against the ministry.
Workmen in several counties are in rebellion. They demand more pay. The army has been sent into Dalston and Cockermouth to restore order.
The Sun says this Manifesto might be the means of spreading rebellion throughout the country.
Castlereagh talks of the flourishing state of the country and the improvement in manufacturing and commerce but he bases himself on the London experience. The bankers and merchants there are indeed doing very well but it extends no further. The value of wages has decreased a third in purchasing power. In Carlyle 4,000 labourers work 14 hours a day for 5/9d per week and Castlereagh is increasing taxes. The increase in malt tax has redirected popular drinking from beer to distilled spirits which are easy to make at home and comparatively cheap.
Sat 11th Dec 1819
The ministry says it has evidence of a subtle conspiracy behind the Stockport Union. It says it has been created to mislead the workers and destabilise the country. Well, we have heard this too many times to believe it any more.
It seems the minister wants to resort to those violent and oppressive but futile measures of yesterday. Hunger is not assuaged by suspension of Habeas Corpus and yet another Bill of Indemnity to absolve ministers of liability for their acts may not be so easily obtainable this time round.
Sat 22nd Jan 1820
The Manchester Star, 18th Aug 1819 – About 50,000 people, mostly unemployed spinners and weavers of both sexes, assembled here on Monday to express their grievances. The density of population in this part of England is unique.
This was a completely new type of assembly – people did not arrive in small groups but marched-in in platoons. They assembled around a stage where five flags were raised. One said ‘taxation without representation is unjust’ and on the back was ‘unite and be free’. On another was ‘no corn laws’. The French ‘cap of liberty’ was conspicuously displayed.
The magistrates arrived at noon and said some local businessmen were fearful of trouble. They read the Riot Act.
Just after 1 pm Henry Hunt arrived in a carriage with an Amazon seated in the box seat. She is Mary Waterworth and she looked magnificent, proudly waving the flag of the Stockport Female Reformers.
It was known that a large contingent of yeomanry and regular army regiments was nearby out of sight and Hunt and the other organisers kept a firm grip on the proceedings. His first words to the assembly were instructions to maintain order and not give the authorities an excuse to attack. He told the crowd “if any man makes the slightest attempt to break the peace, put him down and keep him down” (a precaution against ministerial spies) but just as he uttered these words the Salford and Manchester Yeoman Cavalry galloped down Morley Street and Peter Street and ranged themselves across the south side of the meeting where the magistrates were assembled. It was discovered later that the Yeomanry had sharpened their sabres in anticipation of an engagement. The 15th Hussars were also in attendance.
Many people in that vicinity ran away but the mass of the crowd was too great to permit complete dispersal. There was silence for a few minutes (when the magistrates were said to have read the Riot Act again) then military orders could be heard and the cavalry charged the crowd, hacking their way through to the rostrum. All the organisers on the stage were arrested and led away under repeated bludgeoning by the constables. About 80 people were trampled in the cavalry charge but the details of deaths and injuries are unknown.
The magistrates say carrying the ‘cap of liberty’ is a treasonous act and Hunt certainly had one in his hand when he arrived. The streets were patrolled by the army and until late at night all the roads out of Manchester were filled with men, women and children, clothes torn and dirty, walking back home.
Local newspapers have blamed the military for the deaths and injuries. They seemed to really relish their role. Deputy Constable Nadin performed better than expected. He has been ridiculed by the reformers but it is certain Hunt would have been sliced to pieces if Nadin had not restrained some of the wilder Yeomanry. It is a shocking thing to remember that these young yeomen are volunteers, ordinary people like the ones they attacked. The magistrates arrested thirteen people and issued warrants for many more.
Sat 5th Feb 1820
From an un-named newspaper report, datelined Birmingham 13th June:
The people of this burgeoning unrepresented industrial town have taken the law into their own hands. They have usurped the right of the King and elected their own representative to parliament, claiming a constitutional right to do so. The dissent is organised by several school-teachers.
Some 50,000 people assembled yesterday and elected Sir Charles Wolseley as their MP although there is no seat for Birmingham in the House of Commons. They proceeded by a show of hands and, whilst no-one precisely counted the result, it was manifest that a preponderance favoured his appointment. They have dealt with the absence of a Writ by giving Wolseley their individual Powers of Attorney. The meeting was a hopeful and joyous affair with no wildness or violence.
Some people from Leeds took the opportunity to advertise a similar event in their town next week. It seems intended to form a national union of the electorates of several of these ‘representatives’ to ensure popular rights are protected.
The ministry has responded by assembling a Grand Jury in Warwickshire which has returned true Bills of Indictment against Wolseley and against Rev Joseph Harrison. They were involved in the Stockport affair as well. They are both accused of making seditious speeches and will be liable to transportation if convicted. The democrats will characterise this prosecution as based on the ‘perjured evidence of government spies’ and if the Jury convicts they will be become ‘betrayers of liberty’. We are convinced that the democrats have little real support. It will only take a few large orders in the factories to satisfy everyone and restore peace.
The rise of female reform groups is the same. The Ellesmere Female Reform Society celebrated its first anniversary last week and all the fashionable people of Shropshire and the surrounding counties converged on Ellesmere. They had an excellent band and the parish priest gave a good sermon. They then went down to the Bowling Green and had tea and danced until 9 pm.
Sun 6th Feb 1820 Extraordinary
Bristol Gazette - Henry Hunt’s group of Manchester conspirators have been offered bail at several hundred Pounds each.
A meeting has been held at Norwich to consider the intervention of the military in the Manchester affair. Its constitutionality is to be discussed. Birmingham is also arranging a meeting on the same subject.
The Norwich assembly concluded that the Manchester crowd had been attacked because the magistrates there are stipendiary magistrates, reliant on the government for their appointments and salaries and therefore prone to endorse ministerial policy regardless of merit. It was argued that if the ancient Constitutional privilege, whereby freemen are empowered to elect their own magistrates, had been available to Mancunians, the assembly would have remained peaceful.
The Regent has called Tierney to interview and asked him to liaise with the Duke of Bedford and see if a replacement ministry can be assembled.
Sun 6th Feb 1820 Extraordinary
Henry Hunt and the Manchester conspirators have appeared at Lancaster Assizes. When the prosecution named the Grand Jury, Hunt objected to several nominees saying he would shortly prefer indictments of murder against several Manchester magistrates and their relatives on the Jury might be biased.
Baron Wood is seized of the case. He directed the involved Jurors to retire when Hunt’s indictments were preferred. Hunt then preferred charges against three officers of the Manchester yeomanry. The charges were dismissed by the Jury.
Hunt et al were then accused of assembling on 16th Aug a riotous crowd of 60,000 armed people displaying seditious posters. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
Sun 6th Feb 1820 Extraordinary
The Common Council of London has resolved that the Manchester riots resulted from the magistrates calling in the army with no or inadequate warning to the assembly and at a time when the proceedings continued peacefully. The cavalry charge is said to have caused the death of many people by trampling or sabre cuts. They have petitioned the Regent for an inquiry and the punishment of any persons thought to have acted improperly.
A majority of the Aldermen thought it inappropriate to censure magistrates as they are people in authority and the Council had relied entirely on news reports of the events complained of. The commoners noted that the Regent had given public thanks to the magistrates 3 days after the event whereas the Council had waited 20 days to take a mature view of the matter. The vote in favour of the London petition was 71/45.
Meanwhile the printing press used to print Sherwin’s Register which contained Carlyle’s exciting account of the affair has been identified as Wroe’s Press. The proprietor has absconded but his workers are under arrest. This Press is described in government documents as ‘the grand market of seditious publications’. Wroe’s workers are under threat of prosecution for sedition and are assisting the authorities.
A committee has been appointed at Liverpool to enquire into the Manchester affair and has sent a solicitor to Manchester to gather evidence.
A group calling itself ‘the Friends of Reform’ at Bury St Edmonds has started a collection for the Manchester defendants and to finance an investigation into the merits of the government case against them.
Sat 12th Feb 1820
Manchester, 20th Aug – the prosecutor at New Bailey says he has new evidence and has charged the eleven Manchester defendants with High Treason. It is a capital offence with a slow and complex means of killing. Henry Hunt was quite assured but the other defendants, particularly the woman Elizabeth Gaunt, were visibly anxious. Hunt complained it was more noisy in the courtroom than at the demonstration.
The Manchester Chronicle has published a list of people killed and injured. Some had been shot, others had fractured limbs and ribs, rather few have sabre wounds. One patient is R Campbell, a special constable who was beaten-up by the mob and is in critical condition. Forty people were treated and discharged. The Manchester Observer says 5-6 people died immediately and a similar number succumbed to their injuries soon after. 300 were more or less injured. The Observer makes a general supposition that blood was spilled unnecessarily.
The democrats have recalled and published the act of Lord Chief Justice Holt in about 1710. He was in office when a riot occurred in Holborn. Word was sent to Whitehall and a regiment of guards was sent to restore order but the commander had the prudence to send an officer to Holt to advise what he had been ordered to do and obtain a Posse Comitatus. Holt asked the officer ‘if the people do not disperse, what will you do?’ and got the reply ‘we have orders to fire upon them’. Holt then gave the officer notice that if one rioter was shot, and the soldiers appeared before him, ‘you and every one of the responsible soldiers will be hanged’ and he declined to send any judicial officer to accompany the troops. He took the view that the Laws of England were not to be executed by the sword but by the civil power.
The democrat Sir Francis Burdett has adopted Nelson’s famous signal to the movement for reform - ‘England expects every man to do his duty’. It has popular resonance.
The Manchester case is seen as a challenge to Prime Minister Sidmouth specifically and the ministry generally which latter, when the case eventually came on for trial, caused the Treason charges to be withdrawn and substituted by an offence of ‘trying to change the law by force’. Hunt said he wanted justice. The defendants were committed to Lancaster Castle until the Assize.
Sat 12th Feb 1820
This whole edition is full of similar reports of social disorder.
Sat 19th Feb 1820
We have received English newspapers to 4th Oct and the discontent in the country has spread to Scotland. Riots have occurred at Paisley and Glasgow, both manufacturing towns with large populations of unemployed. Further meetings have occurred in Leeds and many other towns. Parliament has been prorogued to November and will probably not reconvene until January.
In spite of many mercantile failures and widespread unemployment, the funds remain stable with 3% consols at 70 and Omnium at 1½ discount.
The value of owning a newspaper has increased and proprietors have found they possess one of few investments that benefit from hard times. Perry, who owns the London Morning Chronicle, has offered to sell for £100,000.
The ministry believes it has found a way to resolve its problems. Ireland, which is and has long been at least as impoverished as the British manufacturing towns, has no assemblies or protests at all. There is a history of violent suppression in the country which influences some people, but the main reason appears to be the lack of a Poor Law - there is no safety net to fall on in Ireland.
The ministry is persuaded that if people are required to expend all their energy in subsistence, they will not protest. It should be said that there is a slight difference between Ireland and England that may also contribute to its more peaceful aspect – the franchise is more extensive there than in England.
Sat 19th Feb 1820
The Lord Mayor of London, John Atkins, has told the Common Council that dissidents intend to burn down the City. John Stocks of the Needlemakers Company riposted that the Mayor seeks to frighten everyone. Stocks wants Atkins to explain himself and has requested the Aldermen to issue a summons ordering the Mayor to attend the Council, reveal his evidence and explain why he has done nothing about his information other than to inform the Council members. The Aldermen disclaimed jurisdiction over the Mayor and asked Stocks to approach the Mayor himself.
Stocks was not to be stopped. He thinks the Mayor has no evidence of a plot but he did recall that Atkins wants a knighthood. He thinks the Mayor is promoting a scheme of Prime Minister Sidmouth who has a long history of deception. It was sufficiently plausible for the Aldermen to approve Stocks bringing the matter before the Common Council.
Sat 11th March 1820
Parliament was recalled on 23rd Nov. The ministry wants to increase the establishment of the army by about 10,000 to deal with civil unrest. The plan is to restore the Chelsea pensioners to full pay and put them, under half-pay officers, on garrison duty throughout the country. This will free a similar number of younger troops from the garrisons for active duty against the democrats.
Earl FitzWilliam, who has been sympathetic to the popular cause, has been dismissed as Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding (of Yorkshire).
These two measures indicate the direction of future ministerial policy towards the people. Lord Liverpool’s group has gone along with the plan in return for progress on Catholic emancipation. It is supposed that Sidmouth will be sacrificed to appease the reformers.
Sat 25th March 1820
Henry Hunt attended the Court of King’s Bench on 8th Nov to apply for a criminal information against the Manchester magistrates. The Judge was opposed to the application from the outset and held that both the law and the practice directions denied the right of private individuals to move for criminal informations. They are all at the suit of the King and can only be moved for by King’s Counsel.
Sat 8th April 1820
Henry Hunt wants to institute a prosecution of the Manchester magistrates but the Lord Chief Justice is not in agreement. Hunt regularly attends the Court but has been ignored and delayed. Eventually he insisted on a hearing.
He says he has a precedent in the prosecution Pitt instituted against Huskisson that Ellenborough approved whilst Lord Chief Justice. The Chief Justice said he thought that decision of Ellenborough’s was wrong. Justice Best said anyone presenting a criminal case in the Courts of England was an advocate of the King - members of the public cannot do it. They are effectively imposing themselves on the King and requiring him to prosecute one of his subjects. Hunt said ministerial influence on the Bar ensured no member would prosecute this case.
Hunt returned a few days later and requested leave to institute a civil proceeding against the Attorney General. He wished the court to direct the Attorney General to investigate the acts of the Manchester magistrates. He had a letter from the Attorney General refusing to do so. The court asked if he sought a Writ of Mandamus, which he denied.
The court suggested he approach every member of the Bar, and if they all refused to take the case, the Court might assign Counsel to consider it.
Sat 22nd April 1820
The new parliament is hurrying through legislation to regain control of the country. A new onerous Bill for punishment of blasphemous or seditious libels is enacted to facilitate easier prosecutions in cases like Carlyle’s (he eventually got 3 years and a £1,500 fine). All premises in the midland and northern counties are opened for searches for arms without a warrant; other counties may do so on application to their Quarter or General Sessions. Training and military exercises by civilians is made an offence – culprits transportable for 7 years.
Another Bill seeks to deem as seditious all meetings of more than a stated number of people, but this is still being debated as it has many other restrictions. Magistrates and all types of constable are to be indemnified for killing citizens in the course of their duty.
An increased Stamp Duty on political newspapers has be enacted. The Suspension of Habeas Corpus is again anticipated and a censorship of the Press is commended by some ministers.
Motions by Lansdowne in the House of Lords and Althorp in the House of Commons for a Select Committee to consider the state of the country were rejected by large majorities. The Regent, in his address opening parliament, referred to the seditious spirit of the people who attempt to change the political institutions of the country in opposition to the Constitution. Property must be protected and he wants parliament to act - its a crackdown.
Brougham ridiculed Castlereagh’s efforts – he has not indicated whether meetings indoors were allowed; assemblies for literary, charitable or religious purposes were caught, etc.
Rancliff said it was all unconstitutional.
Sat 6th May 1820
Sidmouth has written to all the Lords Lieutenant of the northern counties on 12th Dec requiring them to impress upon their magistrates the need to enforce the new restrictive laws with ‘active vigilance’.
The leaders of the unemployed have called-off planned meetings and army patrols have not been required to take action.
The inmates of prisons in the manufacturing districts have been moved to Renfrew to make room for a new intake.
The Rev Harrison of Stockport has been arrested. Some constables, who infiltrated his congregation, noted seditious words in a sermon.
Sat 6th May 1820
John Cam Hobhouse MP has been arrested on a warrant of the Speaker for libel of the Legislature. It was published by Robert Stoddart who is now assisting the Speaker in his enquiries. Hobhouse was taken at a friend’s house in Spring Gardens. It is a re-run of the arrest of Sir Francis Burdett and appears similarly illegal. A messenger of House of Commons was specially elevated to Sergeant-at-Arms to effect the arrest. Hobhouse said the ex parte hearing that condemned him and the warrant were both illegal. He is imprisoned in Newgate.
Sat 27th May 1820
Grenville has compared the state of the country in 1794 (when the great state trials, executions and banishments occurred) with the present. He says English society is like the French before the Revolution – the government ignoring Petitions and suppressing popular meetings violently, thus tending to force dissenters to respond violently. He thinks we create our own problem. Pitt and Fox and Sir George Savile had all commended parliamentary reform for four decades but nothing has come of it.
We have just seen Sir Manasseh Masseh Lopes convicted of bribery in connection with sale of seats in this House. He is imprisoned and fined. The Judge said in his summing-up that ‘whilst seats in parliament were available for purchase, buyers will indubitably seek to make a profit on the investment.’ The fact is that many representatives are here for the money and the concerns of the electorate are hardly noticed.
Sat 3rd June 1820
The British ministry’s newspaper, the Courier of 24th Feb, reports a despicable attempt to assassinate the entire ministry. The ministers were to dine at Lord Harrowby’s house which is situated close to open fields permitting its approach by the assassins undetected. The ministry already had intimation of the plot from its spies and the finger of suspicion had pointed to Arthur Thistlewood and some of his friends. The attempt was to be made yesterday (23rd Feb).
The conspirators assembled in Cato Street in one of the poor districts that the magistrates seldom visit. Police reported them arriving in twos and threes. On the previous day the police had seen them delivering bags of equipment. The staircase to the assembly room was so narrow only one person could pass it at a time. The conspirators placed a guard at the foot of the stairs. At 8 pm the magistrate Birnie, armed with a warrant and supported by 12 officers, arrested the staircase guard. A detachment of troops under Capt FitzClarence, the adopted son of the Royal Duke of Clarence, was in attendance. The police then burst-in discovering 25-30 people loading firearms. Thistlewood killed a policeman with his sword and the other policemen opened fire. The lights went out and firing continued in the dark. Several of the conspirators escaped by a window onto a flat roof.
Then FitzClarence and his men arrived, the house was surrounded and the assassins rounded-up. Nine well-known radicals, all artisans, were arrested. They have often been seen in the company of Watson and Henry Hunt (the reputable front of the dissident movement). Sidmouth co-ordinated the operation from his office and did not attend the ministerial dinner.
The Courier says the plot required Thistlewood to appear at Harrowby’s house as a King’s Messenger, deliver a despatch and await an answer. Having gained access by this ruse, he was to let some accomplices in whilst others threw grenades through the dining room windows. Thistlewood escaped Sidmouth’s raid and a £1,000 reward was offered for his capture. He was captured in bed in Wood Street by policemen. All the local people turned out as he was driven away shouting ‘hang him’ and ‘that villain’. The prisoners are being examined by ministers. They are all charged with High Treason – some are committed to the Tower, others to Coldbath Fields.
The Courier says it was the incautious way of sending arms to Cato Street that was the means whereby the police discovered the plot, but it is more plausibly rumoured that one conspirator revealed the plan to Harrowby for reward.
Several were found guilty. The Lord Chief Justice Abbot said they planned to kill fourteen ministers who were unknown to them. As such, the victims could not have caused them offence, he averred. He sentenced five to hanging, beheading and quartering. Five others who had changed their plea to Guilty were transported for life and another who had pleaded Guilty was not sentenced.
Alderman Wood tried to interview the condemned men but Sidmouth has ordered they be permitted to see no-one except a clergyman. Wood was annoyed as Newgate is within the City, his constituency, and he particularly wants to ascertain the role played by George Edwards, a known police spy.
The ministry intends a joint public execution and the City Surveyor is required to construct a new and more extensive gallows outside the Debtors’ Gate of Newgate. A large audience is expected. The cost of a good view is 3 guineas but a seat not too distant from the scaffold can be had for 2/6d. People started turning-up after 4 am and by 6 am about 700 had assembled. A detachment of infantry was marched into nearby buildings in case of need but kept out-of-sight. Troops of Horse Guards were placed across each end of Old Bailey.
Davidson was saved for Christ during the night. The Rev Cotton was able to induce his sincere and unbounded repentance. The others were intransigent. The condemned men asked to take their last meal at 6 am together but the gaoler was apprised of their intention to consult on their last words on the scaffold and refused it. They were then marched out to the execution place.
Alderman Wood was there and convinced the Sheriffs to permit him to question Thistlewood who confirmed he had met Edwards at Preston’s house and had received a few Pounds from him. Wood is pursuing a suspicion that Sidmouth encouraged the conspiracy using Edwards who is the source of the arms and actually proposed the crime.
The convicts wrist and ankle shackles were then knocked-off but it was thought prudent to tie their arms again. As they shuffled out of the gate and came in sight of the scaffold, and the executioner testing his devices, they raised a feeble cry of ‘liberty or death’. Davidson was late out – he was engaged in continual prayer and seemed to expect divine intervention. Meanwhile the executioner completed his tests and assisted in bringing out the coffins and a large block of wood, for the beheadings. Thistlewood refused the cap which the executioner tried to draw down over his face. This earned a cheer from the crowd. Ing also refused it and said ‘I die an enemy of all tyrants’ but the crowd did not hear it. The caps were then pulled down over all the men’s faces. The trapdoors were then opened and they all died without a struggle except Ings who was a trifle convulsed. Some calls from the crowd impugned Monument, another informer who had infiltrated the group, and there were cries of ‘murder’.
Exactly 30 minutes after hanging, they were cut down, placed face-up in each coffin with their heads overhanging the end. A new person then arrived in a mask. He used a surgical knife to sever the heads – it was a dextrous and skilful performance. The axe was not employed. The man is reportedly a surgeon and performed the same service at Despard’s execution. He received 20 guineas in fees on this occasion. He required three scalpels to sever five heads. The King had already remitted the sentence of quartering. The five wives petitioned Sidmouth for return of the bodies (they are at the King’s disposal) but were refused. Meanwhile the wives of the banished men sought for a last meeting with their husbands but were told they had already gone.
Sat 30th Sept 1820
Alderman Wood has continued his enquiry into the role that Sidmouth’s spy played in the Cato Street conspiracy. It appears George Edwards was permitted to escape although a true Bill of Treason has since been found against him by a Grand Jury in Middlesex. Wood relies on Sidmouth’s Proclamation that all people assisting traitors are likewise guilty of Treason as Principals. It appears to be settled law in England. He suspects Sidmouth assisted Edwards.
Edwards played an important provocative role in the conspiracy. However Edwards sought to promote a conspiracy to kill the King whilst the real conspirators only wanted to kill the ministers. Edwards provided the money to procure the arms that were essential to the success of the plot. There can be no doubt that the whole gang planned to create mayhem but Wood wants to know why Edwards was not produced as a witness in Court. Sidmouth said on 26th April that he would be a witness and that was why he had not been charged with the rest. Wood asked him to ensure Edwards did not leave the country and Sidmouth replied on 3rd May that he lacked the powers to detain him. Wood replied 4th May that he has already given Sidmouth the evidence to detain Edwards. Sidmouth replied the same day refusing to arrest the man. Edwards was then sent to America, days before the true Bill was found against him.
It is supposed that Edwards was the man who alerted Lord Harrowby to the intended assassinations but Harrowby swore to the Judge he knew nothing of the matter or of the identity of the informant who warned him. He is President of the Privy Council and superficially appears to have remained ignorant of what Sidmouth was doing. The main thing is that a group of dissidents have really conspired to commit Treason and have been tried and convicted and executed in a magnificent spectacle that should cow the liberals for years. It is most unlikely that the magistrates will diligently pursue their duty in discovering Edwards and bring him to Court as their employment is in the gift of the ministry. It really is a tremendous coup for Sidmouth who now only needs to assure himself of Edwards silence.
Sat 30th Sept 1820
Alderman Wood MP has asked the Commons for a Secret Committee to investigate the activities of Edwards and his colleagues over the last two years. He believes that Edwards bought the arms and ammunition and directed the Cato Street plot. He rented the premises in Davis Street that were used by the conspirators. He waited until the £1,000 reward was published before leading the magistrates to the place wherein he had housed Thistlewood for refuge and where they arrested the conspirators. Wood referred to Watt’s case at Edinburgh many years previously in which Watt had given money (obtained from Dundas) and other assistance to some conspirators to procure their acts against the government and the dissidents had been hanged for it.
Alderman Wood is the man who previously indicted three government spies for fomenting crime in anticipation of reward (the Brock case). He knows Edwards comes from Windsor and is a protégé of Col Taylor of the Guards, the man appointed to read the King’s dispatches in 1805 after His Majesty’s sight failed. It appeared from his own enquiries that all the conspirators had been motivated and directed towards the crime by Edwards. For six weeks after payment of the reward, Edwards lived the high life in a rented apartment at Buckingham Gate using the name Walls. During that time the Sheriffs wished to interview him and he told the landlord, should anyone come looking for Edwards, it was him they sought for.
The Attorney General said government had relied on Edwards’ information but had not employed him. He was merely the means whereby they had defeated a horrible conspiracy.
Burdett said the evidence of all the conspirators established that Edwards was the guiding hand. Why should the ministry be reluctant to investigate. Spies are only employed by the most odious and tyrannical governments. Their use in suppressing the discontent of the people reveals something is wrong in the government.
Canning ridiculed Wood - half these defendants admitted their crime and the other half were found guilty after a careful hearing. They did it and did not try to take procedural points in their defence.
Brougham did not defend the system of employing spies and informers but thought it was pressed upon government by the exigencies of the times.
Wood offered to withdraw his motion and substitute a legal proceeding through the Courts if the Attorney General would undertake not to frustrate it. The gallery was cleared, supposedly for a division, and the reporters left. It transpired that no division took place and, after some further unreported discussion, Wood’s motion was negatived.
Sat 30th Sept 1820
Wood returned to the fray on 16th May by endeavouring to portray the use of spies as a breach of privilege. As a City magistrate he had taken depositions from seven witnesses. From these it appeared that in 1819 Edwards had gone from pub to pub inviting patrons to join him in a plot against the government. He proposed to select 6-8 men to enter the House of Commons and attack the membership. They could enter carrying books which the sentries would permit into the chamber. These books were to contain iron pipes filled with gunpowder to be thrown into the body of the House during full attendance. At that time Edwards could hardly pay for his beer but he soon revealed greater financial ability.
The man Edwards selected to lead the plot was Thistlewood who was due for release from Horsham Gaol at about that time. Wood told the deponents to take their story to Sidmouth, who had jurisdiction in the City, and ask for a Warrant. Sidmouth declined to see the witnesses and they left their depositions in his office. Wood then moved that Edwards be brought to the bar of the House to answer the allegations.
Bathurst said the grounds for the breach of privilege were improper. It was a criminal allegation and should be made in the usual way. Wood said he could get no action from the magistrates or Courts. Brougham said spies always exaggerate. Edwards was employed by government but so long as people like Thistlewood existed it was right that government should employ spies. Canning then asked Wood to withdraw his motion which he did.
Sat 3rd June 1820
Sir Francis Burdett MP is on trial at Leicester Assizes (eleven of his twelve Jurors are JPs in the pay of the ministry). The AG has filed an Information against him for Seditious Libel contained in a letter Burdett wrote to his constituents about the Manchester riots.
Sir Charles Wolseley and others are on trial at Warwick (Birmingham residents elected Wolseley to represent them in the Commons in a way that threatened the minister’s power); other dissenters are appearing at Birmingham court and Henry (Orator) Hunt and the group arrested at Manchester are being tried at Lancaster.
If Sir Charles Wolseley survives the Warwick proceedings he will be tried again at Chester for sedition at Stockport. That charge alleges he sought to foment insurrection in the Realm, a capital offence.
Sat 29th July 1820
John Cam Hobhouse has been feted and dined on his release from prison. He says the Romans, Danes and Normans invaded and occupied our country but they discovered they could not overcome the institutions of freedom they found here. The toast was ‘the people, the only free source of legitimate power.’
Some appropriate songs were sung – ‘kick the rogues out’, ‘Britons strike home’ and “rule Britannia’. The eaves-droppers, spies and characterless masters of corruption (that’s the ministry) had acted unconstitutionally and prevented his access to the Courts but, whilst the Judiciary was unable to act, the people had spontaneously given their verdict.
Hobhouse said there is an old legal maxim – there is no wrong without a remedy – and his case lucidly demonstrated that there was nothing for the people to fear.
He predicted that the current attempt to force the people of the north into submission would fail – we merely have to guard against the frauds of the power-holders, he said.
The ministry has put into the King’s mouth (in his Address to parliament) a verdict against the Manchester defendants who are yet to be tried. Those defendants are on trial for their lives. The ministerial faction has combined with the Royal Family into one immense centre of patronage and authority controlling the church, armed forces and political institutions of England. How can the defendants receive fair judgment when all authority is arrayed against them?
We have shown the ministry that force will not avail them. We now have to take care that we are not misled, by deception and guile, into surrendering our ancient and most valuable rights. I will not be considered as the impartial chronicler of the late parliament. We have had bad parliaments before and bad ministers who sought to diminish those rights we obtained in 1688. As Sir Francis Burdett has said ‘we must take care to control the borough-mongering oligarchy’. In the last weeks of that last parliament, the freedom of the press was threatened, the right to carry arms in our defence was diminished and the right to speak openly and freely had been curtailed by a ubiquitous army of spies. The most extraordinary aspect of the times is that good honest men have been deluded into supporting the system.
Sat 12th Aug 1820
Wolseley, Burdett and Hunt have been tried and convicted.
Sat 16th Sept 1820
In the prosecution of Sir Charles Wolseley at the Lent Assizes in Chester, the newspaper called Wheeler’s Manchester Chronicle was described as ‘a ministerial paper’. One of its reporters, Jeremiah Garnett, was a defence witness. Another paper, Wardell’s Manchester Observer, was not so described.
The evidence revealed the prosecution case - Wolseley had said it was useless to Petition the Crown because Sidmouth would not forward petitions and they could not be given to the Regent directly.
All the dissenters (Wolseley, Burdett, Hunt) were found guilty and sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment. Hunt got 2½ years and fled to Paris to avoid it.
Sat 14th Oct 1820
London, 24th April – the Attorney General has addressed the Court of King’s Bench concerning the recent Treason trial. The Court, in the person of Lord Chief Justice Abbott, had directed the Press to make no publication of the proceedings until they are completed.
The Observer, a Sunday paper of 169 The Strand, published a complete account of Thistlewood’s trial and a précis of Ings trial notwithstanding that the publisher was on notice of judicial wishes. The publisher’s knowledge of the judicial prohibition is established because he had published it as well.
He is William Innell Clement and he commenced business as publisher of The Observer in 1816. During the week previous to the objected publication, Clement obtained 40,000 stamps from the Stamp Office (each newspaper sold is an individual contempt of court). The Judges called Clement to explain himself but he did not appear. The Judges discussed together and concluded the publisher had endeavoured to obstruct the course of justice. The Courts wish Jurors to attend with their minds free of information about previous trials.
In the Treason trial, the defence had required prosecution witnesses to be examined separately so they could not easily conspire. The Observer’s publication was said to have defeated that admirable precaution.
All the other newspapers had complied with the Court’s wishes. Why not Clements? Perhaps he had 40,000 reasons? If he had been present he would certainly be imprisoned. As he is not, he is fined £500 summarily and ex parte.
Sat 18th Nov 1820
House of Commons, 1st June - There are about 25,000 foreigners in Britain and Castlereagh wishes to renew the Aliens Act. He is concerned foreigners might come here and use London as a base to disturb tranquillity on the continent. He says it is also a preventive measure. So long as foreign trouble-makers know the ministry has the power of deportation, they will not come.
Under the Act, every arriving alien must be immediately placed under police supervision; he must report to the Aliens Office at Westminster within a week of arrival or face a month’s imprisonment; he must reside at his registered address and may not remove without government permission. It duplicates the wartime provision. After peace was restored, aliens were allowed to come. They merely gave their personal details to the police.
Castlereagh said that during the last two years the country had witnessed cases of Treason. Internal security had deteriorated. There are riots of students in Vienna, riots in Paris, a Brussels newspaper had to be closed for inciting rebellion. The state of Britain and the continent is unsettled and the renewal of wartime powers is desirable. Ministers are solely concerned for public safety, he said. The power to remove aliens without declaring reasons should be available to government.
Sir Robert Wilson said Castlereagh had pledged to the other signatories of the Treaty of Vienna to prevent subversion of continental governments by people in Britain. Last session there was a move to abolish the Act but it was dropped when it appeared the ministry would do so voluntarily. In fact all continental governments point to our Aliens Act as the British part of a continent-wide effort to restrain dissent. The Dutch no longer permit their nationals to come to England without first getting a passport from the Foreign Secretary which costs £2.6.0d. They are unwilling to pay the fare and not be welcomed on arrival. Wilson was concerned that putting 25,000 people under close control would likely lead to cases of injustice. He noted that Magna Charta expressly allows foreigners free access and egress from these islands.
He said that in fact the sanctuary that England had historically offered to Europeans has already been provided by Spain which is where all the dissidents now live since the renewal of the Constitution. The Aliens Act is not a suitable piece of legislation for a supposedly free country.
The Solicitor General said the provision in Magna Charta was solely to encourage European merchants to come here for trade. They had formerly been restricted.
Sir James MacIntosh agreed it was reasonable for a country’s government to have the right to remove people it found undesirable but this Act goes further – it specifies where they are to be sent instead of leaving it to individual choice. We will be sending people to countries they have chosen to leave. The Act is clearly a part of a pan-European attempt to stifle dissent. Who knows what might happen to them on their return to their homes.
Castlereagh’s motion was then approved 149/68
Sat 25th Nov 1820
The renewed Aliens Act has been passed by the House of Commons.
Sat 6th Jan 1821
Stirling, 6th July - A Treason trial is commencing here.20 The ministry’s case is being argued by London barristers but none could be found to represent the defendants who will retain Scottish barristers. They all pleaded ‘not guilty’ and were returned to prison. The trial date will be fixed later.
Sat 27th Jan 1821
The Treason trial at Stirling has produced 22 convictions and they are all sentenced to death but twenty have recommendations of the Jury for mercy.
Sun 10th June 1821 Extraordinary
Sir Francis Burdett has been at last sentenced to 3 months imprisonment and fined £2,000 for his libel. He had expected 1-2 years. He has the same cell that Lord Cochrane occupied.21
Sat 10th Nov 1821
Ministerial involvement in an attempt to control the press has been detected. The Loyal Constitutional Association (LCA) was established surreptitiously by government to prosecute sedition on its behalf. Prosecutions originating from a supposedly popular society were thought likely to be better received by the Judiciary. The Association’s Honorary Secretary and Solicitor is Charles Murray and he launches the prosecutions.
Edward King, a Chancery Lane bookseller, has written to The Times. On 6th May he was approached in his shop by a youth asking for a copy of the Political Dictionary. King did not stock it but agreed to obtain a copy later and gave it to the lad that afternoon. Later King’s wife said the boy collected the copy and asked for another. She also told him they did not keep a stock of that title and he left.
King soon learned that the LCA had applied for an Indictment against him for selling the Political Dictionary. He inspected the Indictment. On the back was the name of the only witness in the case - Horatio Orton. He went to the office of the LCA in Bridge Street and found Horatio Orton was a clerk in the office and was the man who had solicited and bought the copy of the Political Dictionary.
King accordingly classified his prosecution in the same category as several recent ministerial prosecutions for political libel.
Several similar Indictments came before the Middlesex Grand Jury and were all dismissed without hearing. The LCA appears overtly reputable – for example, the Duke of Wellington is a member and he is currently a cabinet member.
Sat 15th June 1822
House of Commons, 11th Feb - Sir Francis Burdett and Hobhouse have proposed and seconded a motion requesting that the House urgently debate its own reform.
Burdett said the Civil List since 1818 had averaged £27 millions a year whereas in 1792 it had been £10 millions of which £3 millions had been management charges. Castlereagh said he was looking forward to discussing reform but the affairs of Ireland were more urgent. Burdett’s motion failed 58/186
Sat 13th July 1822
House of Commons, 5th Feb - The Habeas Corpus Act Suspension Bill was continued today. The gallery was cleared and no reporters were permitted to be present during the debate or vote.
Sat 24th Aug 1822
It appears the ministry has lost the co-operation of the Judiciary that it enjoyed under Ellenborough and a brief period thereafter. Many of the recent sedition prosecutions have failed as have some of the libel cases.
Now a series of prosecutions of Londoners for confronting the soldiery at Hyde Park and elsewhere during the funeral of Queen Caroline and for a fortnight afterwards, are being thrown-out too.22
There is a widely-held popular wish to end the garrisons throughout the country and shrink the army to its pre-war size.
Sat 2nd Nov 1822
London newspapers - Ministerial weakness is as apparent in England as anywhere. The House of Lords recently voted not to enquire into the state of Ireland. The decision was won by the minister 108/60 solely due to the influence of the King on his friends in that House.
The 2nd reading of the Aliens Bill in House of Commons was similarly approved 109/75 in spite of the patriotic appeal of Sir James MacIntosh. The House of Commons is the only place in the entire Kingdom that does not agree with MacIntosh’s analysis.
The voters of Westminster have heard from their representatives Sir Francis Burdett and Lord John Russell on the state of the country. Those gentlemen trace dissatisfaction to two principal causes – the corruption of parliament and the use of special juries to obtain convictions. They trace popular satisfaction likewise to two causes – freedom of the press and trial by jury.
Mde de Stael wrote in 1816 of her astonishment that British MPs are paid by the minister for their votes. Soon afterwards Castlereagh was convicted of bartering seats and got promoted. The trouble is the Constitution is like Harlequin’s horse:
Thus Harlequin extolled his horse,
Good for field and road and course,
One fault alone he had, its said,
And what was that? - the horse is dead.
Tues 16th Sept 1823 Extraordinary
Lord John Russell’s motion for parliamentary reform was lost at end April 280/169 but the vote indicates the cause is gaining ground.
1 A means whereby a citizen may receive protection from oppression, specifically the predilection of ministries at this time to employ the army to enforce domestic law.
2 City support for political change has increased since the loss of the Baltic convoy of 700 ships.
3 The Defendants were acquitted and published a book on the proceedings later in 1810.
4 The newspaper report goes on for pages. The difficulty is that none of the lawyers know much about Speaker’s Warrants. The force and jurisdiction of the Writ has puzzled the Sergeant, the Speaker, the Bow Street magistrates, the Attorney General and the Cabinet.
5 The City has conducted its own investigation into the two killings and concluded that both were due to shots from the rear-guard of the cavalry as they withdrew and were fired under the provocation of repeated stone- and mud-throwing by the crowd.
6 And a member of the Irish Directory provisionally appointed in Paris, see the main text.
7 The Defendants are commonly imprisoned far from their homes and friends to deter visits.
8 An apparently common occurrence of the times.
9 It turns out to have been a recital of the third part of Paine’s Age of Reason.
10 The government majority has greatly declined since the commencement of the Regency due to alienation of country members, forced on them by constituents.
11 George IV was an unfortunate man. His father denied him access to all employment that might have had a political dimension. After George III’s death the ministerial intention was to diminish monarchy to a thoroughly controllable level. As a result George IV was funnelled into architecture and similar apolitical interests and his frustration seems to have manifested in personal excess.
12 Twenty of the convicts had their capital sentences remitted to banishment. They were sent to Australia
13 The London press, which felt it had been manipulated, announced the verdict as a vindication of ‘a free press makes for a free people’. A second charge against Hone for libelling the Litany was dismissed later. These trials become a cause celebre in London and Lord Ellenborough’s reputation was damaged. He directed the Jury in the second case to find Hone guilty and they acquitted him. Ellenborough is a learned and capable jurist but has permitted his support for the ministry to pervert his thinking. A third charge of libel over ‘the sinecurist’s Creed’ is heard last. All three prosecutions are effectively one prosecution – libelling the Anglican Church - but the AG is instructed to nail Hone and took three shots. The AG objected to a couple of Jurors. He is not obliged to give reasons. Hone spoke in his own defence for 7½ hours. Ellenborough came to try the case himself. The Jury again found Hone Not Guilty. The crowd was ecstatic.
A fascinating aspect in this prosecution was the Attorney General’s exposition of a legal requirement for Christian morality in English Law.
14 Sending dissenters to remote gaols to await trial and after conviction is a feature of this period.
15 I was unable to find a record of the 1786 case. Brock, Pelham and Power were policemen who framed Irishmen for coining. They were pardoned. Their victims were released and compensated by public subscription.
16 An assignable certificate given to the AG on his successful prosecution of a felony. It exempted the bearer from payment of parish tythes.
17 The liberal Whigs are ‘whistling in the wind’. The ministry and particularly Sidmouth, the internal security minister, are opposed to public discussion. Sidmouth can rely for a supportive majority on the clients of the borough-mongers and the docile country members in the House who attend to enjoy the cut and thrust of debate. In the House of Lords it is the King’s appointees, the landowners and the bishops who determine the results of votes. Some of these ‘kept’ representatives are thoughtful people but they know which side their bread is buttered. There are no more than 50 - 60 MPs supporting the Constitution in the House of Commons and perhaps ten Peers in the Lords - they are easily out-voted by the establishment.
18 The law permitting the Bank of England to withhold payments in gold or silver, the first concession of limited liability to private merchants.
19 It has been noted above, but is worth mentioning again, that the price of a parliamentary seat (rotten borough) was related to the amount of the poor rates for that borough. This provided some support to the unemployed of represented constituencies. Recipients of poor relief were required to work as directed, often for the local landowner, and thus became a cheap source of labour. In industrial (unrepresented) towns this mechanism was unavailable and employment came and went with boom and bust. In times of national economic downturn, in the absence of this slight refuge, industrial unemployment quickly became civil discontent.
20 Arising out of the Radical War, an attempt by Scots to replace the government, according to the ministry.
21 See the main text for details of Admiral Lord Cochrane’s offence and the South America chapter for details of his later life.
22 See the Caroline chapter for better details.