Chapter 7 - Sedition

In this section I have collected those articles that report prosecutions for sedition or treason during the Revolutionary War. As a general rule all dissent was driven by hard conditions of life and I have accordingly included some articles dealing with debt. The suppression of freedom of speech and association continued throughout the war. See chapter16 ‘Libel’ for the later development of suppression.

Sat 31st August 1793

London news, 5th March:

The House of Lords has debated the Insolvent Debtors Bill. Lord Rawdon said imprisonment for debt was attended by many evils. His Bill is intended to distinguish the genuine debtor from the fraudster and to punish the latter only.

The Lord Chancellor supported the concept but not all the clauses. He thought the main objection to imprisonment for debt was the condition of the prisons. He thought it inconceivable that Judges could not know the malpractices routinely occurring in prison – extortion of every description – which were a disgrace to the service. The money extorted from debtors in prison would be better applied to their debts. The wickedness of the system precluded debtors from reflecting on their acts or feeling contrition for them.

Sat 12th Oct 1793

A new law is passed in England for the control of debtors. It does not apply in Scotland. Imprisonment is no longer invariable. Prisons will publish a list of debtors who have been gaoled for more than six months together with the amount of debt. The Lord Chancellor will distinguish the real from the fraudulent debtors.

Sat 30th Nov 1793

London news:

Sat 28th Dec 1793

John Frost was convicted at King’s Bench of speaking seditious words tending to denigrate the Constitution and the King. He said ‘equality is everyman’s birthright’ in a public room. When asked what he meant, he replied ‘no King’, adding ‘the Constitution of England is bad for having a King’.

Judgment - Your words reveal your malignity which requires correction. You have recently returned from France and should have known the advantages our Constitution provides. I have reason to suspect that you did not go to France to compare administrative systems, as you say. You are a professional attorney. You have sworn allegiance to your King (to access the Courts and use his qualification). You are to be gaoled for 6 months and within that time you will be pilloried at Charing Cross for an hour between noon and 2 pm. You are bound over in £500 to behave yourself for 5 years. Two sureties of £100 each are required. Lord Kenyon, the prosecutor, requested Frost be struck off the Roll of Attorneys.

Sat 5th April 1794

The first of Henry Dundas’ sedition trials has been held in Edinburgh:

Edinburgh 31st August 1794 – Thomas Muir of Huntershill is accused of inciting disloyalty to the King by means of seditious speeches at various Scottish reform societies in November 1792. He promoted and distributed Paine’s Rights of Man, the Declaration of Rights1 and the newspaper The Patriot. He also read the Address from the Society of United Irishmen to a Scottish Reform Society.

Muir pleaded ‘not guilty’. He said he all along supported the Constitution. He relied on a written defence which he submitted to the Judge. He had always told people to study reform and pursue Constitutional means to obtain it.

On the jury being named, Muir objected to every one of them. He noted they were all members of the Goldsmiths Hall Association which had offered a public reward to anyone who would inform them who was circulating what they called ‘seditious writings’. This suggested bias and he thought they were accordingly improper people to hear a government accusation of sedition.

Solicitor General Dundas, as prosecutor, declined to change the jurors saying every friend of the Constitution condemned Paine. The Court over-ruled Muir’s objections and the examination of witnesses proceeded.

The Lord Advocate then summed up the case ‘If there is anyone who should be prosecuted for sedition it is Muir. Pretending to promote reform, he has instead sought to destroy order and overturn the Constitution. He has compared France to England and repeatedly wished to introduce French principles here.” He then recapitulated the incriminating evidence which included Muir’s departure from and return to Britain.

Muir conducted his own defence. He said he was satisfied that his own moral character had been unsullied by the prosecution which had relied totally on the evidence of informers. He said the charge of sedition was a pretence. His actual crime was to press for political reform. Had he been so charged he would have pleaded guilty and saved everyone’s time. He recalled that Pitt and the Duke of Richmond2 had both once been proponents of reform. Was not the Lord Advocate himself a reformer; had he not recently been a delegate for the amendment of the representative arrangements in the Scottish counties?

Verdict – Guilty. Award – transportation for 14 years to wherever His Majesty might chose to send him. Muir said he would never be guilty.

Sat 28th June 1794

A convention was held in Edinburgh on 25th Nov 1793 to consider the reform of parliamentary representation to include the populations of new towns. The purpose of this group is said by the ministry to be anti-Constitutional. They elected an obscure individual as their President and he is a follower of Brelliard.

The Convention voted its approval to send emissaries throughout England, Scotland and Wales to disseminate their political opinions. Government proposes to punish them in the same way it punished Muir and Palmer i.e. convict them of sedition and transport them to Botany Bay or put them to hard labour on the Thames.

Government severity is essential as Dundas (the ministry’s man in charge of Scotland) has arrested a Frenchman named Duvalle whom he considers to be a spy. Duvalle was questioned by Privy Councillors and his papers have been examined. Dundas has arrested two other Frenchmen as well and imprisoned all three of them.

Sat 28th June 1794

William Skirving is the Secretary of the Society of Friends of the People. The ministry calls this Society the English Convention to infer its connection with the French National Convention across the Channel. The members demand universal suffrage and an annual parliament.

Skirving was charged in the High Court with writing seditious papers in imitation of the National Convention. Specifically, he called a meeting in contravention of the King’s Proclamation. For this offence he was sentenced to 14 years transportation.

Sat 1st Nov 1794

London, 16th May – The animated Constitutional debate between the government and the liberal Whig opposition has been ended by Henry Dundas. He has announced a high-level conspiracy to the Commons on 12th May and has implicated Lord Stanhope:

The ministry has informed the King that a conspiracy exists in London amongst some Societies which correspond with similar bodies throughout the country. These Societies intend to convoke a public assembly in emulation of the French to introduce democracy and compete with parliament for the loyalty of the people. The government has seized the books and papers of the London Corresponding Society (LCS) and the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI) and has placed them before MPs for their consideration. It has arrested the Secretaries of the Societies. These are Hardy the shoemaker, Adams, Rev Jeremiah Joyce tutor to Lord Stanhope’s son and his Lordship’s private Secretary.

They are all charged with the capital offence of High Treason. Another man named Stone is charged with traitorous correspondence with France and has been sent to Newgate.

The Commons appointed another Secret Committee on 14th May to examine the books of the LCS and SCI. It is headed by Pitt and Dundas.

Sat 29th Nov 1794

House of Commons, 16th May - Pitt has presented a voluminous report on the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information to MPs. It is prepared by the Secret Committee of the House (Pitt, Dundas, et al). It is voluminous only because a huge amount of the Societies’ correspondence is attached. The actual report is quite brief and was read in the House by the clerk. It takes a general view and is said to precede a detailed report, but is presented to MPs now in view of the urgency of the matter.

Pitt says the Committee was alarmed by its discoveries. By reviewing the correspondence of these two most important Societies back to 1791, the Committee believed the Societies sought to subvert the British Constitution and establish a French-style democracy in its place.

Early in 1792 the Societies adopted Paine’s Rights of Man (“that deceitful and mischievous system”) as representing their own policy and they widely circulated its details. In May 1792 they addressed a vote of thanks to the Jacobin Club of Paris and at the end of that year they sent a similar address to the National Convention by hand of M/s Frost and Barlow. They received a reply to this letter. In February 1793, when Pitt’s administration was beginning to contemplate war with France, the Societies admitted Barrere and Roland as Honorary Members. All this establishes their treason.

The Societies have attempted to foment disorder by encouraging the formation of regional Societies. Letters from the LCS to a similar Association in Norwich and to the British Convention at Edinburgh (to which they have sent a delegation) are attached to the report. Other letters approved the acts of Muir, Palmer, Margarot, Skirving and Gerald (Scots banished for sedition) and contain abuse of the Courts that sentenced them.

The Society for Constitutional Information was the first to be established, the London Corresponding Society came later. This new club has 30 divisions, one of which contains 600 members. An address by the LCS to the people of Britain was read to the MPs. It criticised the government and opposed war with France. The letter is signed by Martin as President and Hardy as Secretary who sign-off ‘with civic affection’. They called a meeting on the green at Chalk Farm, near Hampstead, and read a letter of thanks they had sent to Archibald Hamilton Rowan who, at that time, was preventively detained in Ireland for sedition under our Suspension of Habeas Corpus law. They have called a General Convention of the People and are clearly intent on establishing themselves as a sort of representative body to usurp the role of this House.

Pitt said there was no time to await the detailed report. The House must act now on the information the Secret Committee had provided. The formation of a General Convention of the People was intended to replace government and introduce Jacobin principles. These people are politicising ordinary people who are too stupid to understand what they are being asked to do. Their pretext is the relief of public grievances but actually they want to create anarchy in order to plunder the nation. They have the temerity to say that parliament lacks the authority to land foreign troops in England (the émigré battalions), to suspend Habeas Corpus or pass a Convention Bill and should we do so they will call a General Convention of the People to resist our authority. This means if MPs legislate to defend our system, they will oppose us. This has happened because of the French example. It is a coup d’etat.

Some may say they are few and we are many but we have just seen a small number of desperate men in Paris take over the entire country. The British democrats did not express regret for the execution of Louis XVI, they ridicule the House of Lords and they defy this House too. They say the only law should be the safety of the people. If they arm themselves we will have a civil war. The ministry will present a detailed report as soon as possible but for now the House should adopt strong and speedy measures to counteract this unconstitutional threat and he moved that a Bill be introduced to detain anyone suspected of conspiring against government.

Fox said the Secret Committee had reported a few hours after its appointment. He had supposed it had something important to say and he had cancelled his prior engagements to attend the House. Now he found the ‘report’ was a compilation of old newspaper stories and there was no indication of treasonable intent to be found. All this report reveals is a resolution to obtain full and free representation of the people by constitutional means.

The government has focused on words like ‘convention’ and ‘deputies’ to make a parallel with France. England has Conventions as well as France. He recalled that it was a Convention for Parliamentary Reform that had led his own election to the Commons in 1786. That Convention had petitioned the Commons and nobody then thought its name objectionable. Ireland had formed a Convention to progress its wishes for free trade and independence and had partly accomplished that. He supposed the Irish would have failed had there been no Convention. The Irish Catholics were living under shameful political disabilities and petitioned parliament (which was rejected). They then formed a Convention to decide what to do and they soon recovered those rights that they had been so long denied. Pitt himself and the Duke of Richmond made proposals in the Convention of 1780. There is no evidence that Conventions usurp the role of parliament or government. The people involved are not capable of that sort of initiative. Fox concluded that the Report was a farce and government’s real intention was to withdraw the liberty of the English people to bring them to submission.

Concerning supposedly common precedents, he knew of 2-3 cases in William III’s reign when Habeas Corpus had been suspended but each occasion involved the interference of foreign governments in our domestic affairs and our people were discontented. He believed suspensions occurred in 1715 and 1745 when the country faced rebellions and a deposed pretender to the throne who avowed he would overthrow our liberty, religion and law. We then briefly surrendered our ancient security to preserve our way of life and our own choice of monarch. In the instant case, not one of these considerations applies. If there is a Clear and Present Danger it has existed since 1792 and no urgency was suggested until now. He supposed that Pitt and Dundas would not push the matter through without some mature and careful debate and looked forward to contributing to it. For the present he would oppose the motion.

Robinson opposed the motion because he felt it would introduce the severity of Scottish law into England. Martin agreed. Lambton said it was unconstitutional and he would oppose it.

Burdon thought Pitt’s arguments had not been fully explained but he would temporarily support the minister and reconsider the matter when the Committee reported finally.

Jekyll said the report is insufficient to legislate an end to Habeas Corpus in England. If there are rebellious people here, which he doubted, the law is already adequate to deal with them without the abject surrender of one of the few worthwhile rights that the English people have.

Grey complained, like Fox, that he rearranged his appointments to attend and now found the Report ‘a set of trumpery papers’. He thought the proposed suspension would disaffect the English people and it would be this ministry that thus achieved the revolutionary aims of the democrats. Paris will be more pleased by Pitt’s proposed legislation than they are at their recent military victory (over General Clairfait’s Austrian army). He ridiculed the Secret Committee for trafficking in newspaper reports. He thought the Committee was rather like the Committee of Public Safety (CPS) in Paris. He said listening to Pitt was reminiscent of Barrere’s diatribes against counter-revolutionaries. He concluded that if the motion was approved, he would immediately move for ‘a Call of the House’ and would take its sense by a division at every stage of its progress.

Sheridan rose and impatient Pitt supporters called for him to sit down but he said he could not be silent on a motion that threatened the annihilation of British liberty. Whilst freedom of speech is still permitted in this House I will avail myself of the right. Once this Bill is passed any dissenting views expressed in the House will render the dissenter liable to imprisonment. Suspension of Habeas Corpus will give dissenters better grounds for dissent.

I have personally been calumniated by the press but had never thought to prosecute an Editor because the right to an opinion is the essence of Englishness. Even that paper under the control of Pitt, which continually libels me (today’s issue says I am in touch with a banished man), has never received my Writ. If Pitt wishes to raise the public estimation of MPs, he might start by ending the slanderous tattle he purveys to the press. Sheridan concluded that he had nothing to hide and right from the start of the French Revolution had done nothing improper.

He then considered the precedents and recalled the last occasion that Habeas Corpus was suspended was during the American War but it was applied only to those people coming here from America. He noted Burke had permitted his son to be an Agent of the Convention of Irish Catholics. It was another instance showing that hatred of Conventions was a limited thing. He was surprised at the abrupt introduction of the motion and supposed he would have abundant chances to speak on the Bill in its future stages. He likened Pitt to Barrere and the Secret Committee to the CPS and said he would oppose the motion.

Pitt said he intended to get the Bill through Committee today and have it passed tomorrow.

Grey reiterated that, if he attempted that, he (Grey) would divide the House at every stage. Burke characterised Pitt as vengeful but thought the Constitutional danger was real. He read from a book published by the Revolution Society that suggested the next stage would be the arming of the dissenters. In the events of 1715 and 1745 the great families of England were divided between support for the Stuarts and for the Hanoverians. The suspension of Habeas Corpus permitted the then government to gaol many prominent Lords. Had it not been so, those Lords would have been obliged to participate in the quarrel, and would have had their titles, fortunes and estates confiscated. He hoped the present proposals would have the same protective effect.

The Attorney General resented Fox’s censure of public prosecutions and asked which had been objectionable. Fox said it was the trials of Walker, Phillips of Leicester, Winterbottom and Frost.

The House divided and the motion was passed 201/39

Grey moved that the House be called over. Pitt condemned the likely delay. Fox said it was a good moment to reconsider ‘before we rescind freedom of speech’. The House again divided on Grey’s motion which was defeated 33/186.

Grey moved fourteen divisions before the Bill was read a first and second time, committed, reported and ordered to be read tomorrow. As a result of Grey’s delaying tactics, the House adjourned at 4 am.

The progress of popular democracy in the French style was checked in England at end 1792 by ministerial action but has since revived. Then it was discovered that the London Corresponding Society proposed, immediately after the prorogation of parliament, to assemble a National Convention at its address in Chalk Farm on 14th April 1794. This provoked Pitt’s message requiring the formation of a Secret Committee of the Commons. The 21 Secret Committee members are all from Pitt’s side of the House but some few of them were formerly Foxites who followed the Duke of Portland across the floor. These people are reliable. They all agree that equality is incompatible with the British property system.

The Ministerial response to the democratic threat has been to suspend Habeas Corpus. The initiative was argued in the Commons on 16th and 17th May 1794. Habeas Corpus has rarely been suspended since the Constitution was introduced in 1689. On each of the two days the debate continued until 3 am. The government wishes to detain citizens to prevent their acting criminally. It wishes to disable their bailing themselves or obtaining securities for their release. Preventive detention is unconstitutional but MPs can vote away the peoples’ privileges if they think it appropriate.

At the outset, on 16th May, the Minister introduced a Report of the Secret Committee of the House. The committee is comprised of Pitt, Dundas, Welbore Ellis Attorney General, Windham Solicitor General, Grenville, Steele, Banks Jenkinson, Sir H Houghton, Powys, Lords Mornington and Mulgrave, J H Brown, J Anstruther, T Stanley, C Townshend and Edmund Burke.

Its report solely concerns the proceedings of the London Correspondence Society (LCS) and the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI). It outlines the pre-war connections of the two Societies with the French Convention, the Jacobin Club of Paris and other popular French societies; it lists the missions sent to Paris; the offers and assurances they had given and the replies they received and the union they had proposed with the Jacobins.

Thereafter the British Declaration of War interrupted these communications and the Societies were legislatively obliged to redirect their efforts. They have since spread French principles domestically, particularly in the manufacturing towns where the populace is ‘enslaved to the industrialists’. The report lists the titles of the inexpensive publications they circulated and the 27th March proclamation of the SCI convoking an assembly of all the Deputies of its regional Societies at a National Convention. All this was represented to parliament by Pitt as a conspiracy against the King and the ministry.

The opposition vociferously opposed Pitt’s speech. First Fox, then Robertson, Martin Lambton, Harrison, Jekyll, Earl Grey and Sheridan all made successive and largely satirical responses – the report contained nothing new, the men involved had no influence, their conduct was not dangerous, they desire a reform of parliament which is a legal object, just as Pitt himself and the Duke of Richmond had promoted previously in this House.

Burdon, Wigley and Burke spoke in support of Pitt and the motion passed 201/39. Grey asked that the debate be adjourned for a fortnight but was voted down 201/32. The First reading of the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Bill then occurred and was approved 197/33. The second reading was immediately held and passed 172/22 and the Bill send to committee where it passed 125/24. It was then adjourned to a special sitting on the following day (Saturday) when it was passed 146/28 and was sent to House of Lords where Grenville read a message from the King in similar terms to Pitt’s in the Commons. Thus was Habeas corpus suspended.

Sat 22nd Nov 1794

House of Lords, 12th May 1794 - The King requested an investigation of popular dissent and a Secret Committee of the Commons recommended the suspension of Habeas Corpus. The Bill was rushed through the Commons in two days and has now come before the Lords.

Lauderdale observed that the Secret Committee was supposed to report facts and not recommend what action is to be taken. He was called to order by the Bishop of Rochester who thought any such niceties were out of order. Lauderdale disagreed.

Grenville pushed on with the Bill and urged their Lordships to complete all necessary work to pass the Bill that day. The new law would permit the imprisonment without trial of anyone reasonably suspected of treason. He referred to a conspiracy to overthrow the national authorities as ‘well-established’ - ‘everyone knows about it’, he said. He told the Lords that Habeas Corpus had been frequently suspended and now was the proper time to do it again. He said in former times it was only necessary for the King to intimate a danger, for parliament to pass legislation. In this case it had been investigated by the Commons and the clearest proofs of the conspiracy were on the record.

Grenville then reviewed the proceedings of the London Corresponding Society to suggest it was founded on Jacobin principles whose sentiments, reasoning, etc., it adopted:

Grenville said, had they armed themselves, we would have defeated them. They are few and have little money – how can we trust our liberty to them? The most terrible conspiracies of history were begun by worthless men. We have Dumourier’s word that the French Revolution was commenced by a mere two hundred men, of whom the majority were wretched peasants. Grenville said this ‘little cloud on the horizon’ threatened a ‘great flood’ and there was no time to be lost. He urged the reading of the Bill.

Stanhope said he opposed the Bill which ‘reduces Englishmen to the same status as Frenchmen before the Revolution’. He thought it would be easy to refute everything Grenville had said. He thought a Congress of the People was a legal venture. It might agree to not support any candidate for election to the Commons who did not promote reform. He said such Conventions are not unprecedented in England – had not his Noble Friend ‘Citizen Richmond’ held one in Kent at which Lord Camden and Tommy Townshend and many other Lords attended? Lord Sydney instantly rose to deny ever being a member of a Convention. Stanhope said he had proof of Sydney’s membership of the Kent Committee. He then read a few of the resolutions of the Kent Committee and characterised them ‘as inflammatory as anything in the Report of the Secret Committee’. He noted these meetings were legal in Britain and Ireland as the Irish parliament had been required to enact a Convention Bill. He recalled Pitt and Sir George Savile had both avowed doctrines (such as those now objected to by the Secret Committee) when they had spoken on the desirability of parliamentary reform. Savile had despaired of reform occurring, except by an act of the people, such as was now occurring. In his letter to Col Sharman, ‘Citizen Richmond’ reviewed the whole matter up to universal suffrage and annual parliaments. That letter noted that despite the best efforts of Pitt, none of the parliamentarians could be persuaded to forego corruption (the necessary pre-condition to consensual parliamentary reform).

Burke had taken the same view as Pitt – his letter to the people of Bristol and his 1792 letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe about the exclusion of Catholics from the Irish elections, are evidence of his support. The activities of the Corresponding Societies had been common knowledge for two years and the government had done nothing – this was not some recent innovation that required urgent attention. It was a transparent pretext for popular repression.

The address of the Society to the National Convention was legal, having been made before the government declared war on France. Receipt of the reply (after war was declared) is said to have been a crime although the report does not indicate whether that reply was approved or even read in the Society’s proceedings.

The report is factually unreliable. Barrere and Roland are said to be leading members of the National Convention when Roland was a minister and barred by his employment from being a legislator. Stanhope concluded that he would oppose the Bill.

Spencer said it was a strong measure but he would support it. So did Kinnoul and Burlington. Thurlow said the Secret Committee had reported their opinion of Constitutional danger and it is the duty of legislators to uphold and protect the law. The worst tyranny was anarchy. Law restricted liberty to protect liberty. He opined that the offences which the Societies appeared guilty of were seditious not treasonable, as they had not sought to effect their beliefs by actions. He concluded he would support the Bill.

Lauderdale discovered an Order of the House of Lords dated 1715 that prevented a Bill being read more than once in a day. He requested an adjournment. Grenville replied that in former matters concerning suspension of Habeas Corpus, this Order had been dispensed with.

Carnaervon, Abington, Leeds and Carlyle supported the Bill. Derby was opposed.

Lansdowne said suspension of Habeas Corpus was unnecessary. The course of conduct of the Societies flowed consistently from their former meetings going back to their commencement in 1773 and the present plans were just the old (parliamentary) Jacobins persecuting the new.

The Lord Chancellor (Grenville) replied at great length and claimed to have shown that the Societies were not harmless. He concluded that the legislature should take precautions before any blood is spilt. The sitting continued until 3 am. The Lords then voted for suspension 137/9.

Sat 8th Nov 1794

Dr J B Priestley had written on the riots at Birmingham and the wish of his friends is that he leave England for America or France whilst he still can. He contrarily came directly to London and offered himself to the Privy Council for interrogation, an offer which ministers have so far ignored. He says:

“I have taken a long lease on a house in Clapton, refurbished it at great expense and resumed my laboratory experiments. I have taken the precaution of sending my family and my surplus capital abroad. I have been refused all employment here and am now considering joining my sons in America. I am rumoured to be guilty of sedition, of being an enemy of the Constitution and of peace.

“My life is devoted to theology and science – all my publications are about these subjects. I have never been interested in politics.

“When I was young (he’s now 60), I wrote an anonymous political pamphlet on liberty in England. It was at the time of Wilkes’ election for Middlesex. I later wrote another to the dissenters on the approaching rupture with America, at the request of Ben Franklin and Dr Fothergill. That pamphlet was widely circulated. After that I wrote on the Test Act and state control of religion which might be thought political. After this I was patronised by the Marquis Lansdowne and lived with him 7 years during which I published nothing political. I never preached a political sermon in my life, if you exclude the usual dissenting sermon we all make on 5th November each year, but even then I have never said anything the ministry might disapprove of.3

“The doctrines I espoused when young are now disapproved but I cannot abandon them simply because they have become hazardous to health. I have never disapproved of Societies that provide political information but then neither have I ever joined any one of them or attended their meetings.

“The French consider I was persecuted in England for my attachment to Liberty and gave me citizenship. Then several of the Departments asked me to represent them in the National Convention. This offer was repeated but I resolutely declined it. It now seems my usefulness to England is ending and I should seek to work elsewhere, perhaps with my sons.

“I was affected by the fate of Muir and Palmer (the Scottish democrats transported to Botany Bay for sedition). I was shocked by Winterbottom’s conviction for preparing a sermon that he had drafted but never actually delivered. I do not want to leave England and my many friends. I wish you all happiness and should you reflect on what I have done I hope you will recognise there is no harm in it.”

Sat 18th Oct 1794

House of Lords, 11th June – Lord Grenville formally produced a report of the Secret Committee. The Lords had each read a copy earlier. The names of the committee members are only partially revealed as Duke of Portland, Lords Grenville and Mansfield,

The report concerned public opinion and how far it supported the ministry and the King. It concluded that there had been a treasonable conspiracy operating under the name of ‘political reform’ to subvert the Kingdom and introduce French principles but it had been thwarted by the diligence of ministers. The conspiracy had operated for more than two years and involved Britons and foreigners. It had been developed to the point of execution when it was discovered and foiled.

The report’s authors said, soon after the execution of Louis XVI, a correspondence had commenced between reform clubs in England and the National Convention in Paris. In Nov 1792 formal Addresses from the British clubs were sent to the National Convention and had been regularly answered. These clubs informed the French parliament that the people of England wished to emulate the French and throw off the King and the aristocratic landowners and assume democratic control of the country. The clubs had informed the National Convention that a majority of Englishmen were opposed to the British government.

The club containing the greatest number of clever people is the London Corresponding Society (LCS). It liaised with regional clubs and acted as a head office, feeding democratic ideas to the regions and receiving back indications of the mood of the people. The Declaration of War had precluded this correspondence continuing directly but the LCS did continue to promote democracy at home and to defend the actions of the National Convention before the English people.

The LCS membership discussed forming a General Convention as had been done in France to request for the reformation of political abuses and the redress of popular grievances. The British Convention met at Edinburgh in October 1793 and agreed to promote democracy. They discussed obtaining arms to promote their aims by violence if necessary. Government discovered the plot just in time to prevent it. Some of the leaders had been arrested and charged with sedition. When this happened the British Convention was dispersed but an Emergency Committee was formed and continued to communicate with all the regional clubs. Although the British Convention had very few officers and regional clubs, they were bold and persevering and they represented a challenge to the ministry.

Grenville moved that an Address be made to the King advising him that a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution had been discovered and assuring him of parliamentary support.

Abington said the conspirators included members of both Houses of Parliament. “I have here in my hand a speech that Earl Stanhope made to this House on 24th January 1794 requesting peace with France and recognition of her popular government. It was enclosed with a petititon that the people of Glasgow sent to me. The covering letter of the Glaswegians says ‘your horse laugh will be properly attended to’.” Abington recalled that when Stanhope made the speech, he had said I (Abington) have ‘a good loud horse laugh’, for which I am now a marked man. I admonish those sans culottes Lords of this House. They are responsible for this mischief.

Lauderdale said he hoped everyone had read the report because his conclusions differed widely from the conclusions reached by its author Lord Grenville. He found no proof of a conspiracy in the report. He thought the main consequence of the report would be to show to the government of France that a supportive conspiracy existed in Britain that was so formidable it had required the executive to arm itself with extraordinary powers to resist it. He had no doubt that would be its main effect, for we ourselves had gauged the situation in France from the published proceedings of the National Convention and from these learned of the supposedly formidable Royalist Club in that country (which turned out to be an unformidable damp squib).

Lauderdale particularly noted that this matter involved the pending fair trail of the alleged conspirators who were charged with capital offences. Lauderdale recalled that in 1780 another group of nobles and gentlemen had used far more violent language for the reform of certain abuses. That group included several peers and MPs but, though they used strong language, it was not thought necessary to suspend Habeas Corpus or to set the army on them. For these reasons Lauderdale disagreed with Grenville’s interpretation of the known facts about the LCS and the British Convention.

Lord Sydney said he was a member of one of the reform societies but he seldom attended.

Lord Mansfield defended the thrust of the report. He was a member of the Secret Committee that drew it up. The Duke of Portland had taken a leading part in its preparation but was now sick and could not defend it. That few people are involved in the intended insurrection is irrelevant, he said. He recalled that the Roman civil war was commenced by 70 low-born people. He said the Scottish conspirators had planned to seize the Bank of Scotland and arrest the magistrates which would have interrupted commerce and administration.

Lauderdale objected. The Lord Chancellor then put the question of Grenville’s motion which was carried without a division.

Sat 6th Dec 1794

The Secret Committee on treason in Britain has reported finally. It has examined the books and papers, proceedings of the London Corresponding Society (LCS) and the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI) and found they comprised a complete record of the two societies.

These Societies are in correspondence with many others in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland. On 25th Jan and 1st Feb 1793, just before our Declaration of War, Barrere and Roland, then leading members of the National Convention, were admitted to honorary associate membership of the Society. The speeches of Barrere and St Andre (another honorary French member) that were reported in the Moniteur on 4th 6th and 7th Jan were republished in the books of the Society.

Our Declaration of War interrupted their communications but the Society has continued to promote democratic ideals and follows the forms, even the words, of the French democrats. The Society has assiduously promoted these democratic views in publications and by resolutions and circulated all these papers throughout Britain and Ireland. The Societies of Sheffield, Norwich and Manchester were the most active of the regional Societies.

In a letter to the United Political Societies of Norwich dated 12th April 1793, the SCI writes:

“ … where then are we to look for the remedy? To that parliament of which we complain? To the executive power, which is implicitly obeyed, if not anticipated, in that parliament? Or to ourselves, represented in some meeting of delegates for the especial purpose of reform, which we suppose you understand by the term Convention?

“It is the end of each of these propositions that we ought to look to and, as success in a good cause must be the effect of perseverance and the rising reason of the time, let us determine with coolness, but let us persevere with decision. …. As to a Convention, we regard it as a plan the most desirable and the most practicable, so soon as the great Body of the People shall be courageous and virtuous enough to join us in the attempt. Hitherto we have no reason to believe that the moment is arrived for that purpose. …..As to any petition to the Crown, we believe it hopeless in its consequences. With respect to the last of the proposals, we are at a loss to advise. If the event is looked to in the vote which may be obtained from that body to whom this petition is to be addressed, which of us can look to it without the prospect of an absolute negative?

“In this point of view, therefore, it cannot require a moment’s consideration. But if we regard the policy of such a Petition, it may, in our apprehension, be well-worth considering as a warning voice to our present Legislators, and as a signal for imitation to the majority of the People.

“Should such a plan be vigorously and generally pursued, it would hold out a certainty to our fellow countrymen that we are not a handful of individuals, unworthy of attention or consideration, who desire the restoration of the ancient liberties of England; but, on the contrary, it might revivify that host of well-meaning men who, in the different towns and counties of this Realm, are silently but seriously anxious for reformation in the government.

“We exhort you with anxiety to pursue your laudable endeavours for the common good, and never despair of the public cause.”

But the main correspondence of SCI was with the British Convention at Edinburgh and the London Corresponding Society. On 15th October 1793 the SCI Secretary read a letter to the members from the Society of the Friends of the People at Edinburgh after which it was resolved to hold an EGM to consider sending delegates to a Convention of all the Societies to be held in Edinburgh for the purpose of obtaining a reform of parliament. On 23rd Oct this EGM took place and two delegates were chosen. They were instructed to assist and support all Constitutional means to obtain real representation in the Commons. They were told to always keep in mind two principles – universal suffrage and annual parliaments. They were told to assert the inalienable right of the people to reform their government and to propose a fixed sum, raised by a one-off charge on the people, whereby existing MPs might be compensated for their pecuniary loss.4 The Secretary also agreed to write to all SCI correspondents telling them what had been decided.

The delegates attended at Edinburgh but the SCI records are silent as the ministry was then prosecuting several members before the Scottish court. On 17th Jan 1794, after the Edinburgh sedition trials were completed, the SCI passed the following resolutions:

After this, the SCI books are full of approbation for Skirving, Margarot and Gerald, the men most recently convicted of sedition and full of inflammatory words towards the Court that convicted them.

Before reviewing those papers, the Secret Committee will comment on the LCS, which measures in the last six weeks result from a closer collaboration between the two Societies.

…. continued from last edition ….

On 27th March the LCS wrote to SCI proposing to concert their activities. They advised SCI of the resolutions they had made, attached copies of those reolutions, and proposed a full and explicit Declaration by all the Friends of Freedom. They enquired whether the ‘illegal’ prosecutions (in Scotland) would cause SCI to abandon reform or become more radical. They wrote “Are you ready to act with us to obtain a fair Representation of the People”. The letter was signed T Hardy, Secretary.

The attached Resolutions:

We are resolved that Justice and Liberty must be permanent to be valuable. Equal laws can only result from fair representation. We are willing to hazard our lives in this enterprise if that is the only way to assure our happiness. To protect us from illegal prosecutions and unjust sentences, in recollection of the wise laws which have been sequentially repealed, there ought to be a Convention of the People from all the Friends of Freedom in this country. We are further resolved to take the sense of the SCI on this subject.

After the SCI’s views are obtained, another meeting will be held and further resolutions made; a General Meeting of the Friends of Liberty should be called to discuss means of obtaining full and fair representation; The membership will be canvassed for their agreement to instigate all the regional Societies to join this effort; a Standing Committee of both SCI and LCS will be formed to co-ordinate efforts.

The Secret Committee of the House has learned that in the last few weeks circular letters have been sent to the regional societies to convene a National Convention. A pamphlet (no date given) in LCS files says:

The moment has come. Britons must chose to claim Liberty or submit to ministerial usurpation. There is only one peaceful measure we can propose for this. Notwithstanding the corrupt faction that presently tramples on our rights and liberties, our meetings require the adoption of a Convention Bill to better unify our various Societies. If we permit threats, prosecutions and unjust sentences to suppress the popular will, we are unworthy of Liberty. We must be quick – already Hessians and Austrians are amongst us. If we submit, a gang of armed barbarians will be released on us.5 We shall call a Convention in the centre of the country, which place will be identified later. Send us your answers by 20th April.

Subsequently, the LCS held a meeting at Chalk Farm on 14th April at which a Society of Friends of the People was proclaimed to convoke a Convention to discuss a legal and Constitutional method of fair representation. The conveners listed their grievances:

These complaints are in addition to those that derive from the present unrepresentative nature of parliament.

However the minister has declared war on France and uses the fact of war to say that this is not the time for reform. They say there is a risk of disturbance. Are we to have reform postponed by those who corruptly administer this country? What are these disturbances that threaten tranquillity? All the riots and disturbances that have occurred are fomented by government spies to create the appearance of the situation it says it fears. It is clear the minister is hostile to a genuinely representative assembly. We reformers are peaceful while Pitt is violent. Formerly he supported reform, now he has changed his mind. We must demonstrate to him that we are determined. We do that by a National Convention. Sgd Thomas Hardy.

.… continued in next edition ….

When the LCS started in 1792, it had 200 subscribers. After a few months the numbers increased dramatically and it was decided to create regional sub-groups around London. There are now about 30 regional groups which each send one member to form the General Committee of LCS. Whenever a group reaches thirty members it is required to create a sub-group for new applicants. The LCS corresponds with similar Societies in Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Coventry, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Norwich, Birmingham Leeds, Royston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York, Hereford, Edinburgh and other Scottish towns.

The LCS addressed the National Convention in France in 1792, just like the SCI. The only document we found on the Secretary was an Address that had been agreed in general meeting at the Globe Tavern, Strand, on 20th Jan 1794. John Martin was chairman. The LCS Address says:

Government has involved us in a war which has killed a huge number of our friends and relatives.6 A vast sum of money has been spent. Manufacturing and commerce have been destroyed. The country is ruined and starving. New taxes are reportedly about to be introduced. The load of imposts is already intolerable. All this has been done merely to re-establish odious despotism in France.

We do not approve the principles of this war. It is neither just nor discreet. We fear the likelihood of failure is high. The name of Britain is being disgraced. Everyday we hear from those in power (the placemen and sinecure holders) that the British Constitution is the perfection of human wisdom; that laws provide perfect justice; that the administration of law is impartial and provides equal remedies to rich and poor alike. On these assertions the government founds an opinion that our rights and liberties are well secured and cannot be diminished. They say Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 are the bulwarks of our liberty.

Well, we have studied the documents. Wise and wholesome laws were indeed established then. But hardly a vestige of our admirable Constitution remains. The only chapters of the Great Charter that are still legally valid are Caps 14 and 29.

Cap 14 says ‘a freeman shall be amerced in proportion to his fault, saving to him his contentment; a merchant shall be amerced likewise, saving to him his merchandise; another’s villain shall be amerced likewise, saving to him his wainage. These amercements can be quantified only by honest and lawful men of the vicinity (i.e. fines may be fixed Constitutionally only by jurors, not Judges). This Right has been unjustly ravished from us.

Cap 29 says ‘No freeman shall be imprisoned, his freehold or liberties seized, or his person outlawed or exiled. He will be judged by his peers or by applying the law of the land. We will not sell justice or right to any man neither will we deny or defer justice and right.’

From the various methods now in vogue it may be thought that the Great Charter has been repealed but it remains the basis to our Constitution. The representatives of rotten boroughs have even less right than real representatives to diminish it yet we find ‘informations ex-officio’ that usurp the role of the jury, are based on the bought testimony of a paid informer and in this way pensioned Justice has been substituted for our birthright. In addition, the expense of hearings, the novel practise of annuling jury verdicts and the delay at every stage of trial, all most flagrantly contradict the Charter clause that forbids denial, delay or sale of Justice.

A felon may be bailed to appear, at the risk of his life and goods (at common law), on finding two sureties of £40 each. A man recently accused of a misdemeanour, by using a form of words, was required by the Attorney General to put up £1,000 bail.7

Upon conviction for misdemeanour there have been several recent cases of enormous fines and long and cruel imprisonments that are unknown to our ancient laws and not sanctioned by new law. The Bill of Rights provides that excessive bail shall not be demanded not cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

In Ireland the acknowledged right of the people to meet for the protection of their rights and liberties is supposedly removed by a late Act of Parliament whilst Irish ‘peerages have been distributed in England and new sources of corruption opened to gratify the greed of the ministry.’

In Scotland not even an Act of Parliament countenances the interruption of the peaceful and lawful meetings of people by magistrates who disrupt proceedings of public meetings and prevent association.

The wisdom and restraint of the British Convention at Edinburgh is applauded. They defy government to name the law which they have broken. Notwithstanding this, the members have had their papers seized and presented in evidence against them, many virtuous people have been disgraced by illegal sentences of transportation. And these judgments have been executed with a rancour and malignity never before known in this land. They have been fettered and gaoled with felons in the hulks, which oppressions formerly required express words in the judicial sentence.

We associate to bring an end to all this. We expect fair, free and full representation of the people in a House of real national representatives. We are willing to be treated as felons to maintain these inherent rights and we will never forego them whilst we live. It is treason to withhold them. It is the same corrupt influence that dominates in Ireland, Scotland and England. Can you have confidence in those who send virtuous Irishmen and Scots to Botany Bay? Do you see that you may be next? The cause of the Irish and the Scots is our cause too. The Irish Parliament and the Scottish Judges, both acting under English influence, have brought us to the point we must take sides. Choose liberty or slavery for yourselves and your children. Do not wait until a barracks has been built in every village and the Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries are upon us.

The means we will adopt to obtain redress is by law. It is the ancient law of the land not the new law of oppressive plunderers.

And it is resolved that in the next session of parliament we will sit daily and observe the proceedings and administration of government. Upon the introduction of any Bill that is inimical with liberty – the landing of foreign troops, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the proclamation of martial law, or any other unconstitutional innovation - the General Committee will summons the delegates and call a General Convention of the People to consider such measures as are required. Sgd J Martin Chairman, T Hardy Secretary.8

LCS Committee Room, 23rd Jan – Resolved unanimously that 100,000 copies of the above address be printed and distributed. The following toasts, celebrated at our annual dinners, will be added at the end:

The Secret Committee report continued in the next edition …..

At a meeting of the LCS, a letter from the Friends of the People dated 11th April was read:

Sir, Your letter to Sheridan, Chairman of the Friends of the People, was read in our last meeting. We share your alarm at recent government proposals. We will co-operate with you in every peaceable and constitutional means to promote the objects of our associations but we fear the means you propose will give our enemies grounds to attack us and deter our members from countenancing what you approve. The Friends of the People accordingly decline to send delegates to a Convention as proposed by LCS. We nevertheless assure you of our wish to preserve a good understanding with you and others who promote the cause of parliamentary reform. Sgd W Breton.

The following LCS resolutions were then passed:

Having already sent a letter to Margarot, an address to Joseph Gerard was then read:

To Gerard, a prisoner sentenced by the High Court of Scotland to transportation beyond the seas for 14 years, beloved and respected friend:

You are martyred to the honourable cause of equal representation. We cannot allow you to leave this degraded country without expressing the obligations of the entire populace. We admire your spirited exertions in the cause, particularly during the sitting of the British Convention at Edinburgh and at your subsequent legal proceedings (we will not call it a trial). We honour both your resistance of the wrongs against your country and your philosophical suffering under an arbitrary and, until recently, unprecedented sentence. You are put amongst felons and the vilest outcasts of society, and doomed to a sojourn in New Holland. Remember our sincere regard. The equal laws of this country have fled. We daily commit the same actions and say the same words that caused your infamous sentence. We will continue to do so until we are successful. The law is either unjust to you or deprives us of our share of martyrdom. We pledge ourselves to you and to our country. We demand the rights that have been usurped from us. We will not cease to work for equal representation until we are triumphant. We wish you health and happiness. We will never forget you.

Sgd John Lovett Chairman and Thomas Hardy Secretary.

It was then resolved unanimously that the Committee of LCS convey its approbation to the following:

And it was resolved that 200,000 copies of these proceedings and resolutions be printed and published. Sgd J Lovett, T Hardy.

The Secret Committee of the Commons concluded that a meeting called a General Convention of the People assumes a representative quality and is intended to supercede this House. The references to reform are intentionally misleading. Margarot wrote to SCI in December 1793 advising them to say nothing about politics and to only mention reform instead. No petition to this House for equal representation has been made.9 This General Convention is an attempt to takeover the legislature.

The object of the Societies is the convocation of a General Assembly of the People composed of delegates of each Society to obtain fair and equal representation. The Societies have resolved to secure themselves from ‘future illegal and scandalous prosecutions, to prevent a repetition of unjust sentences.’ This is not an attempt to apply to parliament for reform, it is an attempt to confer political authority on themselves. They have attacked the legislature and promoted resistance to parliamentary measures. They assert the doctrines of Paine in the Rights of Man - the principles that direct France. It is a traitorous conspiracy to subvert the established laws and constitution and introduce anarchy as has already occurred in France.

There are two more things the Secret Committee wishes to say. Although we have found no mention of armed rebellion, we suspect measures have lately been taken to distribute guns to members. Since the arrest of the people who held the papers on which we have commented at length, there have been several meetings around London. These people have not abandoned their plans. We fear they will attempt a forcible resistance.

Having reviewed the Secret Committee’s Report and recommendations, Pitt then moved an Address to the King. He asked for, and expected, the unanimous concurrence of the whole House. He said the Secret Committee had exposed a plot to overturn the Constitution. He considered the petition of LCS to the Commons in May 1793 (which had been read and summarily rejected) had been merely a matter of form and that everything they had done subsequently would have been done in any event. After Hardy’s arrest, a paper had been found on him suggesting it was not the intention of the Convention to assume legislative power but to call into existence another Convention (by elections) that would assume the functions of this House. This proved the intent to overthrow the Constitution. He drew particular attention to the avowed belief of the Committee members that the Societies would achieve their ends by violence.

Lambton said if arms have been found in the possession of persons guilty of treasonable intent, then Pitt’s proposals are reasonable. He confessed that he had not assessed the Secret Committee’s report as justifying the fears of Pitt. He agreed that some of the words were very like sedition, but had they been recited in context they would have appeared more reasonable. He noted the repeated declarations to pursue their aims with moderation in obedience to law. Those declarations would satisfy a Judge if not this House, he thought. He noted at Algernon Sydney’s trial he had told that execrable Chief Justice (Jeffries) that if he selected passages out of context he could prove anything. The language of Pitt and the Duke of Richmond was as seditious as anything in the documents. The minister’s focus on armed rebellion was based on the discovery in Scotland of 18 pikeheads, 10 battle axes and about 20 unfinished sword blades. The democrats could hardly take over the country by violence with that arsenal. And he objected to the Society of Friends of the People, of which he was a member, being confounded with the other Societies.

The barrister Serjeant Watson said the courts had been libelled. He thought the conspirators had few arms because the government had foiled their plot timely. Should we have waited, like we did in 1780, until they had 1,800 pikes? Instruments of death had been found and HM’s ministers had prudently stepped in to prevent mortality.

Sir Watkin Lewes knew and respected many of the members who formerly belonged to the SCI but he nevertheless thought a plot did exist.

Alderman Newnham said he had expected this development since the commencement of the war. He had warned against a conspiracy in the first session of this parliament.

Martin said a man has an express Constitutional right to bear arms in his own defence.10 He did not see any offence in the papers presented to the House.

Burdon said every living Englishman should rejoice that this conspiracy had been detected.

Fox said he had often spoken on this subject and would not take long. All the alleged conspirators had been faithful friends and supporters of Pitt and now they were providing the pretext for his assuming extraordinary powers and suspending the best parts of the Constitution. It was a nice question whether they had given Pitt better support then or now.

He recalled in the reigns of the two last Princes of Brunswick (George I & II) there were many who wished to subvert the Constitution and remove the King. They were rich men of high rank connected with foreign powers. In this case there is no evidence of wealth, rank or foreign involvement against the participants. Why had government extraordinarily intervened in this case? Were the laws now inadequate? If these conspirators are formidable it can only be by assistance from France and there is no evidence of that. We have just heard of Lord Howe’s victory over the French fleet. The threat of invasion has receded. He had hoped on hearing that news that Pitt would withdraw his proposal to suspend Habeas Corpus.

This House’s opinion of its loyalty to the King is well known. The King sends down some papers; the House, without seeing them or interviewing anyone, votes in accordance with the King’s proposals. That is the state of parliamentary representation.

In France the King was not removed by inconsiderable people. All the great families, the propertied people and the philosophers united to overthrow him. He noted the Secret Committee’s report focused on Scotland and he (Fox) was glad it drew attention to the severe anti-sedition laws in that country that produced disaffection. Mild measures were preferrable. The trials of Muir and Palmer were a disgrace. Oppressive government provokes rebellion.

His love of the Constitution was not for its form but its principle, which he identified as political liberty. He regretted the King’s alarm at his people meeting to discuss political subjects. It is said they had arms, but may not the time come when we have no means of preserving our Constitution but by resisting oppression? Do ministers say that the people must in all circumstances submit? He feared that ministers were emulating the French parliament and endeavouring to pass unpopular measures by invoking alarm. He thought there are as few Royalists in France as there are Republicans in England.

He reiterated that the best way forward was by mild measures. The Constitution can withstand attack. He hoped the members of these Societies would be tried with justice and mercy. Conspiracies are only dangerous when they adopt violent measures. He exhorted the House to protect all persons, of whatever religion, abolish tests, treat neutral nations, particularly America, with respect and end the war.

Sir William Dolben thought there had been a dangerous conspiracy. He recalled Fox had said, on the passage of his India Bill in the Commons, that the Lords could hardly reject a Bill that had passed with such éclat. It seemed to him that Fox wanted an obedient King, an unresisting House of Lords and a Republican Commons.

Dent wondered how any MP could defend the Societies.

Loveden said there are people in London who want to behead the King.

Wharton said he had attended a meeting of SCI and found the membership all innocent men. He had been President and its purposes were solely convivial.

Pitt’s motion was then carried.

The subsequent Address to the King:

We the Lords and Commons have considered your Bill concerning designs against the public peace. We see a seditious and traitorous conspiracy intended to subvert the authority of Your Majesty and his Parliament and destroy the Constitution and government. It was intended to use violence to achieve its ends. It has been caught in the nick of time. We are grateful for your paternal care in bringing it to our notice. We have empowered Your Majesty with additional authority to punish these crimes and suppress rebellion.11 And we assure Your Majesty that we will defend your reign from foreign enemies and support you in maintaining the Constitution of the realm and preserving internal peace. We will resist the desperate purposes of those who would introduce the miseries now prevalent in France.

Sat 31st Jan 1795

House of Lords, 25th July: The Privy Council is considering the best means of trying traitors. They wonder whether a dedicated Tribunal is advisable. The 12 judges were called to Lord Kenyon’s office and asked their opinions. They commended the ministry to continue the usual course of justice (through existing courts). Traitors from London and Middlesex will be tried at the sessions; traitors from elsewhere will be tried at county sessions.

Sat 28th Feb 1795

London emulates the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris:

Sat 28th Feb 1795

London news, 29th Sept – Pitt’s cabinet has fortuitously obtained some good support for its Constitutional roll-backs:

Two men have been arrested at Fleet Market on Saturday for plotting to assassinate George III. They were arrested on a warrant of the Duke of Portland, the Lord Chancellor. One man had an airgun and darts in his house; the other is a chemist. They have been interviewed by the Duke of Portland, Earl of Mansfield, Lord Grenville and Pitt.

The defendants are Peter le Maitre a watchcase maker of Denmark Street, St Giles, who owns the air-gun, and John Higgins a chemist in Fleet Market. They are said to have been turned-in by an accomplice whom they had asked to make a special hollow dart. All three are young members of the London Corresponding Society (LCS).

The plan, revealed by the ministry’s spies, was for the two to go to the pit of a theatre which the King has previously patronised. They were to have associates scattered throughout the audience who would create disturbance and, when the King glanced over the balcony to observe what was occurring, they were to shoot the poisoned dart at him and escape.

The only slight difficulty with the prosecution evidence is the well-known fact that the King seldom attends the theatre but he has been known to go. This connection between regicide and the LCS will justify the ministry’s recent acts.

Sat 4th April 1795

London – The Special Tribunal was opened on 2nd Oct at Clerkenwell Green Sessions to try the democrats who are presently detained in the Tower for high treason. (The membership of the Tribunal and identities of the permanent Jurors have been listed above.) They marched in parade through the streets to the Green. Twenty three of the nominated jurors were selected. Thirty six witnesses were then sworn and gave evidence.

Lord Chief Justice Eyre then addressed the Jurors:

“This is the most important legal case for a century. The verdict of twelve of you will determine the fates, perhaps lives, of the defendants. The anarchy in France must not be introduced here. France has been reduced to misery and confusion. Our King is the head of the law. He protects our lives, liberty and property. Anyone opposed to the King is an enemy of us all and must receive exemplary punishment. You stand between the King and the people. You are bound to consult the interests of both. The King has a just and ancient prerogative He exercises on behalf of the people. The law guards the King as the centre of the peoples’ safety. You will determine if the disclosed facts amount to high treason.

“Under the statute of Edward III anyone who compasses or imagines the death of the King is punishable with death. As the penalty is high, the evidence must be clear, and two witnesses are required to establish the offence. Both Houses of Parliament have concluded that the acts complained of are high treason, but you must satisfy yourselves that they are right. Societies for the reform of parliament are not illegal but if they fall under the influence of bad men they can progress to any enormity. If you find the defendants sought to reform the Commons without the approval of both Houses, it is treason. If they sought to reform parliament in contemplation of using the reformed chamber to execute the King, that may not amount to high treason.”

The following are the prosecution witnesses – Daniel Adams, Secretary of SCI; John Frost, lawyer; John Williams, wine merchant; William Sharpe, engraver; Isaac Saint, Norwich publican; Wm Broomhead, from Sheffield; George Wideson, from Sheffield; Samuel Williams, gunsmith; John Edwards, silversmith. These nine were at first arrested and questioned and have since volunteered to assist the prosecution. The other prosecution witnesses are several policemen, eight citizens and eleven King’s messengers.

The Jury quickly convicted John Martin, a lawyer.

Thomas Holcroft, author of The Road to Ruin, surrendered himself to the court having discovered only the day before that he was indicted. He addressed the Judge who categorised his statement as a confession of treason and ordered his formal arrest. He asked that the barristers Erskine and Gibbs be allowed to represent him.

Sat 25th April 1795

The treason trials at Clerkenwell:

The prisoners were charged with being instigated by the devil to depose and kill King George III and to subvert and alter the legislature. They wrote books and said words to incite the people to assist them. On 1st Mar and on other days they armed themselves with guns, muskets, pikes and axes and consulted on the best means to form a Convention and invite the people to send delegates to it to oppose the King’s power and law. Etc.

Sat 11th April 1795

London, Old Bailey, Saturday 25th Oct 1794:

The Special Commission for the Trial of High Treason has convened with Aldermen Plummer, Pickett, Anderson, Newman, Coombe, Langstone in their robes and Macauley in undress. The Attorney General and Solicitor General with other prosecution lawyers, including Pitt, appeared for the Crown. Kirby, the Keeper of Newgate, was ordered to produce the prisoners.

Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke, John Augustus Bonney, Jeremiah Joyce, Thomas Holcroft, Stewart Kydd, John Thelwell, John Richter and John Baxter were brought in. The remaining three accused – Thomas Wardle, Matthew Moore and Richard Hogdson - have not yet been apprehended. Counsel for the prisoners (Erskine, Gibbs & Vaughan) had not then arrived and the Commissioners agreed to wait briefly.

Tooke complained that the Court was draughty and the window behind the prisoners was letting in a constant draught of cold wind which was uncomfortable and unhealthy. He wished to remove somewhere more comfortable. The Court said if you plead, you can leave immediately.

Tooke was reluctant to plead as he had not received the ten days allowed by law to prepare his defence. They had all been gaoled in the Tower then moved to Newgate yesterday. All their defence papers had been mixed up in the move and meetings fixed with Counsel had failed because no-one knew where they were. The Court said Tooke’s argument would better be made by Counsel.

Tooke said he had been closely confined for a month and still did not know the precise charges against him, but to preserve his health from the cold wind he was now prepared to plead immediately. Thelwell made the same complaint of reduced time for preparation from the statutory ten days to less than nine. He wished the Court to know that his books and papers, which he had in the Tower, had been withheld from him at Newgate and his ability to defend himself had been reduced to relying on memory. The Sheriff said that the defendants had failed to collect their papers before the move. He disagreed that they had insufficent time. Thelwell said the Sheriff told the defendants he would order the papers be made available to them but it had never happened. The Sheriff then revealed that the prisoners’ trunks containing the papers also contained things that could not be admitted to Newgate.

The defendants were asked how they pleaded and what form of trial they chose. Hardy and Tooke both pleaded ‘not guilty’ and requested to be tried by ‘God and the country’. Bonney said there was an error in his indictment which might enable him to avoid liability (his indictment referred to high treason done in the parish of St Giles whereas he lived in St Pancras at the time of his arrest) but as he was innocent in any event he would reveal the prosecution’s error to the court for amendment. Thelwell also reported an error in his indictment. He was charged as a resident of the City of Westminster whereas he was a resident of the Duchy of Lancaster. He and the other defendants all pleaded ‘not guilty’. All the defendants asked for separate trials to which the prosecution assented.

Defence Counsel then arrived. Erskine confirmed the disruption of contact with his client Tooke. The prosecution agreed to delay the trial for a day and then start with the case against Hardy. Bonney told the court that his case was not about felony or murder. He was charged with holding a wrong opinion. He trusted the court and the law and had no fear of the verdict but he would like to have the usual conveniences of life restored to him during his imprisonment. He was kept in a dark and airless cell at Newgate, lacking every comfort, and he would like to be remanded to the Tower were he had been detained for the prior 22 weeks and had settled in. The Court said it was beyond its jurisdiction to vary the place of detention. Richter, Thelwell and Baxter also complained of the horrors of confinement at Newgate. The Lord Chief Justice asked the sheriffs to provide the best facilities they could.

Hardy was acquitted (there is no indication in the newspaper of the grounds) and was met outside the Old Bailey by a jubilant crowd which had been waiting for hours. They wished to remove the horses from his hackney and pull it themselves. Hardy was embarrassed and drove off to New Church in the Strand where he was prevailed upon to permit this show of popular support. The people then pulled the hackney in procession via Charing Cross, Pall Mall and St James Street to Lancaster Court in the Strand where Hardy temporarily resides at his brother’s home. He thanked the crowd for the honour they had done him and asked them to disperse peacefully.

Hardy’s lawyer, Erskine, was similarly taken in procession to Serjeant’s Inn where he made a fine extempore address on the British Constitution and the law and described the acquittal of his client as a striking example of their effectiveness.

Sat 18th April 1795

The trial of Thomas Hardy commenced on 28th Oct and continued six days a week until 5th Nov when he was acquitted. The notes of evidence are voluminous and we (the Bombay Courier Editor) have made a precis. The jury had to stay in the Old Bailey for days until on Wednesday night they were permitted to sleep at Hummums, a Covent Garden hotel. The principal witnesses for the prosecution were Pitt, Dundas, the Dukes of Richmond and Portland, Rose, Burke, Sheridan, Nepean, Ford, W Faulkner, Reeves and Cotterell.

Sat 2nd May 1795

London Treason trial. The prosecutor is discovering day by day that few of his witnesses are reliable. Today Le Maitre is examined:

What is your Christian name – Paul Thomas.

Are you a member of LCS - I will not answer until you show me the warrant; when I asked to see it at my arrest I was assaulted.

Here is the warrant - That is not me. My initials are not JP.

That does not signify, it is you we want – it does signify but I have nothing to hide and do not fear your questions.

Did you write this letter (about brass airguns and poison not being ready) – no.

Is it not in your handwriting – its similar but not mine. I can indicate the differences to you but I fear other letters will then be produced which I may not be able to satisfactorily distinguish.

The witness is ordered to withdraw.

Pitt told the court he had witnesses against Le Maitre who would show him to be a violent man.

The Attorney General John Scott (later Lord Eldon) then made a 9 hour speech justifying the government’s pre-emptive attack on dissent on the grounds it had been alarmed by events in France and feared the infection was spreading to England. He held that the representative democracy in England with its legislatively entrenched protection for property had produced more wealth than any other system in history and must therefore be better than French principles.

The affairs of 1688 empowered parliament and required the King to act in accordance with the common law and the statutory law of parliament. His position was made hereditary. The inalienable prescriptive Rights of Man were not compatible with the British Constitution and could not legally form a basis to the representation of the British people. Our Bill of Rights empowers parliament whereas Paine’s Rights empower the people - these are two different things. Deposing the King obviously, but also forcing him to change his minister or his government, were accordingly acts of treason.

Had the people in Scotland (Muir, Margarot et al ) been charged with treason instead of sedition they would most justifiably have been found guilty, he thought. These people in England had gone ahead with their plan although they knew the results of similar activities in Scotland - they were incorrigible. They needed intimidating to bring them to heel. These people had no plan to petition parliament for relief – they planned to set up a Convention to vie with parliament for the hearts and minds of the people. They say the King and the aristocrats have usurped the legislature and seldom act in the interests of the people.

In 1792 and 1793 these people had merely talked of hoping for the adoption of their views but by this year (1794) they were talking of greater expectations. The conviction of Skirving and Margarot in Scotland produced a paper from the LCS containing the sentence ‘now is the time to do a deed worthy of men’.

One of the letters found in Hardy’s files was a note about the French fleet recently said to have been in the Channel. The writer said it comprised 70 sail and must accordingly contain transports i.e. it was so large it must be an invasion fleet, or part of one. The writer then recommends we ‘strike a bold blow for freedom’. The defendants had published their opinion that ‘law ceases to be binding when it is used for oppression’ and had expressly considered the violent dismemberment of Judge Jeffries as a suitable precedent for treatment of the Scottish judges who tried the sedition cases.12

Soon after those Scottish trials, the defendants were persuaded that they could only progress their views by violence. They had planned to enact a theatrical piece called ‘The Guillotine’ or ‘George’s Head in a Basket’ on 4th April (the final scene of which depicts the decapitation of leeches to represent the demise of the ministry). Mr Yorke of the Sheffield branch was the man who organised the production of weapons of a peculiar and distinctive type and these weapons had been found in every town where the group had a society. They had opened schools of military instruction at Holborn and Lambeth to teach the use of these pikes. Horne Tooke had a ‘black book’ in which the names of opponents to their plans were listed.

Much of the incriminating prosecution evidence was sourced from spies who had been infiltrated into the societies. There was no other way to get information.

However although these people are accused of conspiring to treason, they are entitled to separate trials under our legal rules.

Documents from Hardy’s papers and from the Scottish sedition trials establish that Hardy promoted annual parliaments and universal suffrage by peaceful means. He wanted paid national representatives at the Convention, the election of sheriffs by the people, juries chosen by lot (and not selected by either party to the proceedings) and that jurors should be instructed in their duty, the freedom of the press, the right of disobedience to oppressive laws and an end to factional politics.

Other letters proposed lines of conduct to be adopted should the government suspend Habeas Corpus, or land foreign troops in England or pass a Bill against the Convention. Erskine, for the defence, said that even if the correspondence revealed a conspiracy to treason, it had to involve his client to support the prosecution.13

Sat 9th May 1795

In the course of the prosecution of Hardy for treason, some part of the seditious proceedings of the British Convention in Scotland were adduced in evidence. The resolutions of that Convention on 28th Nov 1793 were:

Gale, a printer from Sheffield, instructed his local steel manufactory to make 10” pike blades, pointed like bayonets. In a letter to Hardy dated 24th April 1794, he writes “The steel has been tempered and polished. They are fitted with hoops for attachment to firwood shafts. They cost 1/- each, cash with order to the Secretary of the Sheffield Constitutional Society.”

This offer had been advised to Coke at Norwich. There was also an offer for the provision of a ‘cat’ – two pieces of steel rod, each bent at right angles, sharpened at either end and stuck together at the bend to create a four-pointed device which, however it fell, always presented one upturned spike. It was for use against cavalry.14

Otherwise the verbal evidence of the accuseds revealed only a wish for parliamentary reform. They planned to keep each other informed of their legal and political rights, to publish their grievances and to mobilise the people to protest. They proposed a petition to parliament requesting for full and fair representation. The activists preferred a petition to the King which was to also include a demand that the slave trade be ended. This was drafted by Henry Yorke and left for signature. It was then to be sent to Earl Stanhope in London. The intention was to restore the liberties enjoyed by the Saxon people of Wessex under King Alfred and rollback the diminutions of that liberty that were enacted after the Norman invasions. Nothing less than the proposed measures would effect that intention. They relied on the declaration of Lord Somers who drafted the Bill of Rights in about 1688 to support their position but, after William of Orange got the British throne, the annual parliaments he had agreed to accept were withheld and a triennial parliament substituted. This derogation had been permitted to continue for a century. The defendants thought it was time for a change.

On 28th Feb 1794 a meeting of 1,000 – 2,000 people was held in the open air, books were distributed and a collection of 1d per week was arranged from most of the attendees, about 600 of whom were Society members.

Sat 16th May 1795

Notes of the trial of Thomas Hardy, continued

Henry Alexander was sworn. I was a member of Division 29 of the LCS. We met at Robson’s Coffee Shop in Shire Lane. There were usually 60 – 100 members present. The songs sung by Division 29 at its meetings are Ca Ira, the Marseillaise and the Carmagnole.

He recalled Yorke’s speech when he left England on 5th Nov 1793. He said he was going to Belgium to fight. He hoped to return with the French armies and looked forward to seeing the heads of the King and his ministers upon Temple Bar. Everyone shook hands with him when he left. Alexander then went to the Lord Mayor Sir J Sanderson and told him what he had heard. Sanderson took him to Dundas to report.

Alexander recalled Tooke told one meeting that MPs were scoundrels and the opposition and government conspired together to oppress the people. He spoke harshly of hereditary nobility and asked the audience what they thought of Robert Banks Jenkinson (Lord Hawkesbury). Tooke excluded the ancient nobility (Bedford, Norfolk et al) which he thought useful - he was referring to the myriad new Lords whom the King had elevated and might be expected in return to do anything they were told to do. Tooke said the two Houses abused both the King and the people. He had no doubt the King had been constitutionally diminished by these people. He thought corruption would eventually destroy the Constitution.

On cross examination Alexander said he was employed to infiltrate the Society. He is also a prosecution witness in the trial of Yorke at Sheffield.

Another crown witness (John Groves) revealed he was a solicitor employed by the ministry to investigate the LCS. Under examination, it transpired he had, on one occasion, compromised Walsh, another government spy, in order to protect himself.

Sat 23rd May 1795

Erskine’s defence of Hardy was shaped to destroy the prosecution’s attempt to create an offence of ‘constructive’ treason. His opening remarks were:

He deplored the events in France, the anarchy that had resulted from such a total change in government, the absence of safety of the person or safety of property. He does not want it in England and his client does not either.

The eminent jurist Lord Holt has noted that under the common law there is a great latitude of interpretation that has allowed uncertainty to arise and has permitted the growth of the Royal prerogative.

Writing a thousand letters to effect the murder of a subject is a misdemeanour not treason, Erskine said. Treason refers to attempts to murder the King. The evidence against Hardy is contained in numerous letters. Rash and foolish as some of them are, they are worthy of censure but do not comprise treason. Treason requires an overt act which any reasonable man understands as intended to attack the King. The jury must be convinced. There was no overt act in Hardy’s case.

The prosecution has sought to convict Hardy on a chain of reasoning, from one inference to the next. His case ultimately turns on whether Englishmen are permitted to buy and keep books promoting different political systems. Lord Holt says that men who conduct themselves to seek for political reform without adopting any violent means, do not commit treason.

In the recent case of treason against Lord George Gordon, the prisoner was acquitted although he had taken a large group of people to the House of Commons and violence and threats of violence occurred, yet the jury was not satisfied that Gordon’s intention was treason. Lord Mansfield was seized of that case and he made the useful distinction between conspiracy against the King’s life and conspiracy against His crown and dignity.

In this case we should recall that Pitt the Elder made his name by proposals for reform of parliament. His son and the Duke of Richmond did the same. At that time (1780) Pitt Jr approved of reform; now (1794) he is opposed to it. In 1780 Richmond wanted annual parliaments and universal franchise. It is precisely what Hardy is asking for. Were Pitt and the Duke guilty of treason? What is the difference between Pitt or the Duke and my client –is it solely a difference of wealth?

In 1780 Lord Richmond wrote a famous letter to Col Sharman in Ireland. Sharman was then leading 10,000 armed men who had not been commissioned by the King. The Irish called a Convention at Dublin and delegates from every county attended. Both Richmond and the Dublin Convention members were attempting to have reforms made.

The Duke of Richmond is on record as telling parliament that, in 1780, 10,000 men returned a majority of British MPs whilst another 167 MPs are chosen by 71 peers and the Treasury. He said “from parliament I have nothing to hope. It is from the people at large that I expect any good.” Richmond refers in his speeches and correspondence to Conventions, Delegates and Committees of Correspondence – all the nouns which the prosecution says links these defendants with the recent change of government in France. These are not words we have derived from France. It is more conceivable that France derived them from the Duke, Erskine thought.

The English people have an inalienable right to assemble, whatever you call the assembly. They are permitted to seek for redress of their grievances by any peaceful means. Fox believes neither proposed measure would have been useful but that is immaterial if the defendants thought it would answer.

Erskine then reviewed the prosecution evidence:

The Society for Constitutional Information had a long honourable history and had attracted the highest people into its membership. The London Corresponding Society was formed for similar purposes. They carried on their treason in public papers. The Societies totally enlisted 40,000 members. A letter from the Norwich Branch to Hardy refers to ‘ripping-up monarchy by the roots and entrenching democracy in its stead.’ Hardy replied that their task was a complete reform of the Commons whereafter they could use that House to redress their grievances.

Then there is the Convention which the prosecution says must assume all the functions of the legislature. This plan for a Convention was not Hardy’s idea. There had just been a British Convention started in Scotland to reform the election laws. The Lord Chief Baron was the Chairman. The first purpose on the Lord Chief Baron’s list was “that they met for the purpose of reforming the Election Laws.” Skirving then circulated a letter inviting delegates to attend. This was held to be ‘constructive treason’ by the Scottish judges. The last time an offence of ‘constructive treason’ was presented was in the trial of Lord George Gordon when it was sought to attribute the acts of a mob to Gordon’s influence. If we are to apply this doctrine to the instant case, how many defendants will there be – the entire membership of all the Societies and their supporters, probably half the population.

When the London Corresponding Society was closed it had £15 in its treasury - hardly adequate funds to overturn a monarchy. Concerning the Convention they called - was it to be a Convention of the people or a Convention of societies. If of the Societies, Hardy is innocent. If of the people then every member (there are several tens of thousands) is notionally guilty.

The British Convention at Edinburgh was dispersed by the municipal officers who demanded it cease. Skirving refused. The Lord Provost took him by the arm. That was sufficient force to end the meeting. They refused to disperse because they saw no harm or illegality in their acts. Then several were arrested, charged with sedition and tried. They made the obvious defence and it was rejected. How they came to be convicted is obscure but the sentences were harsh.

The London Corresponding Society characterised this as an unbecoming use of excessive force against the people. They said those who imitate Judge Jefferys should anticipate the same fate. They were angered and they widely published what they perceived as government injustice. Government did nothing about reform. Paine was never prosecuted for his book. W Adams brought the matter of reform before the Commons just as Lord Grey had done – their Petition was rejected.

At that time, the French were surrounded by hostile neighbours. Pitt refused to talk with the French government and they declared war. The predictable disruption of our commerce followed. People lost their jobs or were otherwise affected, yet government still did not act. Connections were averred with French Societies. The evidence from the Sheffield Branch reveals the reformers were threatened by some people. Inflammatory handbills against them were circulated. The people were incited to attack them and their houses were fired into with guns.

In these circumstances the dissenters found it prudent to arm themselves for their defence. This first mention of arms is on 24th April and all the members say it was for their self-defence. Davidson wrote to Hardy telling what had occurred, not as an officer of the Sheffield Society but privately. This letter enclosed another for Norwich but it appears to have never been forwarded to that place. A man wrote to Hardy reporting people in Sheffield arming for self-defence – that is the entire prosecution case that led to the present proceedings - yet Hardy is charged with procuring arms to overturn the monarchy.

The case rested on the testimony of government spies. That testimony was at variance with the evidence of 40,000 members of the Societies. One of the spies, Alexander, had formerly been in service to Mr Smith on a salary of £25 pa but was induced to resign that job to become a spy - obviously spying is well paid. Two government spies – Groves and Green, who gave the evidence on knives - contradicted each other. Then there is the confession of Watt, a government spy, that he proposed to write a treasonous letter to Hardy in the expectation that its possession would incriminate him (Hardy).

The Duke of Burgundy gave the Belgians a Constitution. The Austrian Emperor marched in an army to overturn it. The Belgians rebelled, the French declared war, evicted the Emperor and came in and occupied Belgium. It was a similar story in America. These examples reveal that a government is secure only if it has the love of the people.

Long before his arrest, Hardy had exposed the London Corresponding Society papers to an MP who intended to bring a motion in the House concerning the activities of the Society. Now he is here. He is an ordinary man.15

Sat 18th April 1795

Leiden Gazette - Erskine, who has become a national hero for successfully defending Hardy against the ministry’s treason charge, made an address to the public from his window after the trial:

“Citizens, had Hardy been convicted I should have nothing to say. Now he is exonerated, I am content. 12 good men have reached an honest and independent verdict. Thank you for your moral support. Please go home and thank God for this result.”

Erskine’s defence was based on the previous liberal writings of Pitt the Elder, Pitt the Younger, the Duke of Richmond and Mr Burke, who were all prime prosecution witnesses. The proceedings would have been funny had the defendants not been at risk of execution.

Erskine’s argument was that ‘the endeavour to reform parliament by legal and peaceful means can never be treasonous’. It was in defence of this doctrine that Pitt the Elder founded his reputation. His son, the present minister, based his reputation on the same doctrine. It turned out in the proceedings that the LCS was actually founded by Pitt and the Duke of Richmond. They had demanded annual parliaments and universal suffrage. Richmond had said at the time that if the abuses in parliament were not corrected there would be a revolution.

He published his proposals in 1780 in a letter to Colonel Sharman and suggested that the delegates of popular assemblies should unite in a Convention. This was not a letter to a Society with a few pikes, it was to a soldier in command of 10,000 armed men who proceeded to capture Ireland for George III. Sharman’s army held a Convention, unauthorised by the King or the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the government expressed no concern or complaint. It appeared to have been entirely satisfied.

Erskine then reviewed the evidence of the policemen and informers to establish there was no case. Several of the Police witnesses and King’s messengers were obliged to admit they were paid by the administration specifically to collect evidence against the defendants.

Erskine was uninformed about and unwilling to defend the proceedings of the Convention in Scotland but for these proceedings against the LCS he thought it appropriate to demand a ministerial apology. He thought that everyone should respect the law and said ‘we may wish to shun innovations but our fear of them must not be permitted to make us unjust’.

Sat 4th July 1795

Habeas Corpus has been suspended in England by MPs on the minister’s assertion that traitorous conspiracies exist to introduce French principles of liberty and equality into Britain. The treason trials that evidenced the conspiracies have been concluded and all defendants acquitted. It appears the ministry has overstated the disaffection of the English people but Pitt still required the suspension of Habeas Corpus maintaining it is necessary for a continuance of the war.

Burke requested that Habeas Corpus be restored. Ministers recalled a Grand Jury had found sufficient reason to indict the defendants – they had a case to answer which is nearly as good as a conviction. The liberal opposition noted that Grand Juries often act under superior management. Sheridan noted several Grand Jurors had received notes from the Sheriff dispensing with their attendance. Sheridan supposed that if the Grand Jury found evidence to indict and the Jury acquitted, one or other was wrong.

Windham expostulated.

Sheridan accused Windham of being the one man in all England most responsible for the decision to war.16 He recalled that twelve of the foremost lawyers of England had assisted in the prosecution, of whom only the Attorney General acted gratuitously. He noted that the prosecution list of witnesses against Mr Joyce comprised 207 names of whom 22 were staff of the Home Secretary’s office, 45 were police and prison officers, 23 were prisoners, 28 were lawyers and their clerks, 17 were Scots who had never met Joyce, 23 were government spies and 49 were police informers. It had taken Attorney General Scott nine hours to explain government thinking behind the charge.

The prosecution made much of a supposedly intended armed rising but, after much trouble, produced only a single pike in evidence. The whole army of traitors was commanded by a tailor and had ammunition for nine muskets. They held a treasury of £11 and one bad shilling.

Sheridan concluded that the whole project had been a piece of theatre constructed by the ministry to create the illusion of national danger and justify their oppressive response to the change of French government. He particularly deplored the employment of spies – ‘those zealous men whose exertions produced all the evidence of excesses presented against the defendants at the trial’. He accused the ministry of governing by a reign of Terror.

The Barrister Serjeant Adair reminded the House that only one clause of the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended – the one dealing with charges of high treason – and all other provisions remained in effect.

Windham said the fact of the conspiracy to commit treason had been established in the trials – government just failed to link the defendants to it. He thought the acts of the ministry were necessary.

Fox said Hardy’s signature was on the papers that supposedly established the ‘constructive’ treason that the ministry alleged. If he signed them, he approved them. But Hardy said those papers were prepared in pursuit of parliamentary reform and the jury agreed. He regretted that several people had been arrested and imprisoned and later released without charge or apology.

He asked the House to consider an event he had just seen at the Bow Street Court where a man charged with stealing a 9d wooden board was forgiven by its owner, whereupon the Magistrate sentenced him to life in the army. The culprit protested - he had a mother to support - but the magistrate was implacable. Counsel addressed the Magistrate that the liberty of the man was being infringed. The magistrate said he acted on the authority of a letter from Henry Dundas as Home Secretary directing the Judiciary to provide more men for the army. Fox thought it inappropriate for the Home Ministry to treat the Judiciary as a crimp or a press gang.

Sat 20th June 1795

House of Commons has continued to debate the treason trials and Habeas Corpus:

Sheridan again asked that Habeas Corpus be restored ‘now the treason trials are ended’. He ridiculed the efforts of the ministry to create alarms in justification of its suspension and he asked any one of the ministers to tell him whether it was their intention to repeal the law or extend its validity on expiry.

Dundas said there was no change in the security situation and the Act will continue. Jekyll reprobated the ministry’s attempts to silence the people - “it is like the terrors of the Bastille” he said.

The Solicitor General defended the treason trials - “if it is not treason to correspond with the French legislature, I don’t know what is” the law officer said. He criticised the jurors - “if they knew the law as well as I do, they would have convicted” (laughter). He said Horne Tooke had not denied plots but had relied on the government having inadequate evidence to convict.

Fox wondered why the ministry still needed extraordinary measures when the people they feared had been tried and acquitted and the ministry’s fears had been revealed to be insubstantial - “Juries are not composed of placemen and pensioners, or of men who are promised peerages. They do not cultivate party connections or indulge in party speculations” he said. The continued suspension of Habeas Corpus revealed the ministry would stop at nothing to get its way, he thought. Serjeant Adair said that, as a lawyer, his profession was disgraced by the suspension.

Sat 20th June 1795

A Bill for preventing ‘clandestine outlawries’ has been presented in the Commons.

Sat 27th June 1795

Mutiny at Spithead – The Culloden (Trowbridge) ran aground entering Spithead and damaged its rudder. The Sampson ran aground at the same time and place and was seriously damaged. It required towing into Spithead. The Irish crew of Culloden were reluctant to assist the Sampson. They said the Culloden had become unseaworthy too.

Capt Trowbridge remonstrated with them but they insisted on going directly into harbour. The crew went below and stayed six days in command of the lower decks. They directed two cannon to cover the companion ways and kept lighted matches nearby throughout the period.

The Royal George and the Queen were then brought alongside the Culloden and ordered to sink the ship with the mutineers on board unless they surrendered. Capt Pakenham obtained permission to board and talk with the men. They surrendered to him and produced 6 Irishmen whom they said were the ringleaders. All six are landsmen (pressed farmers).

Sat 12th Sept 1795

Thornton, MP for Colchester, presented in the Commons in early April a Petition from his constituents to the King:

“Two years ago we had full employment and prosperity. Now very many people are unemployed and depend on others for their necessaries. The war is ruining England. All our national wealth is diverted to the war. We have to abandon commercial employment and join the army to survive. Pity your distressed subjects and start peace negotiations.”

Sat 14th Nov 1795

London 14th July: A crowd collected at Charing Cross to attack the house of a crimp but was diverted into a general riot against Pitt’s ministry protesting the shortage of bread and the continuation of the war. They were throwing stones at all the houses of the nobility. Lord Mornington was cut on the hand by a stone. A regiment of guards was called-in to disperse them.

The residue of some 12,000 protesters crossed Westminster Bridge and demolished an army recruiting centre. The army brought up cannon to confront the mob and a cavalry charge succeeded in dispersing the people, many of whom were trampled and injured.

Sat 30th Jan 1796

London, 1st August 1795 – the Lord Chief Justice Kenyon has charged a Grand Jury at Worcester as follows:

On my circuit I found rioting at Oxford due to the scarcity of grain. If it happens here in Worcester you should crush it. Rioting only increases the costs of corn - the farmer will not risk bringing it to a disorderly market. This year’s harvest has been good and only a few days is necessary to relieve shortages.

Sat 20th Feb 1796

Mutiny at Cork, Ireland on 5th Sept:

The 105th and 113th Regiments mutinied. They took to the streets, showing their Conditions of Service to any who would look, and complained they are to be drafted into other regiments. There has been no violence but there are only a few fencibles to oppose them and orders have been sent to Mellow Cove and Spike Island to call the Louth and Meath militia to march to the protection of Cork.

General White offered to pay the mutineers ½ guinea each in cash and to secure the payment of their arrears of wages as soon as possible if they would submit to him. They insisted their regiments be maintained under their own officers or they would not serve.

General Massey then advocated strong measures to subdue the refractory men. He brought his militia to surround the square where the rioters were assembled and set-up two field-pieces loaded with grapeshot. The Irish troops did not believe that Massey meant business. He ordered them to ground arms. They hesitated but reluctantly complied.

They were then deprived of their arms and marched off. The sergeants and corporals were deprived of their badges of rank. The ringleader was identified and removed to prison. The riot then subsided. There were no injuries.

Sat 27th Feb 1796

Letter from Botany Bay:

M/s Palmer and Skirving (the Scottish sedition trial defendants), who arrived here on the Surprise, were accused by the Captain en voyage of plotting to mutiny and take the Surprise to France. Major Grose, the governor of the penal colony, has found no evidence of the Captain’s allegation and released the men. He proposes to charge the Captain for their false imprisonment as they were dreadfully treated. They are both very popular here.

They live near Muir and Margarot, two other defendants. Palmer was given a country house with a 2-acre garden by the residents. He has bought 150 acres nearby and proposes to farm.

Governor Grose is leaving for Europe soon and his replacement will be Hunter.

Sat 2nd April 1796

The latest French proposals for peace have been joyously welcomed by the British people but King George has coincidentally had a strange experience:

On 29th Oct 1795 as George III was en route by carriage to the Lords to open parliament, he drove passed a reported 200,000 citizens who were milling around St James Park allegedly in response to a suggestion of the London Corresponding Society that the people should petition the King for relief. They were calling “No Pitt, no war” and “Peace and bread”.

As the King’s carriage passed through the crowd, a circular hole appeared in the window as though made by a ball. No gunshot was heard and Lords Westmoreland and Onslow, who were in the carriage with the King, suggested an airgun may have been used. No bullet was found in the carriage and no-one was injured.

When the King reached the Lords his first words on alighting were “they have fired on me.” Onslow and Westmoreland corroborated this. Unfortunately, no forensic examination of the state carriage was done. When the King concluded his business in the Lords, he returned home and the carriage was taken back to the stables. At that time it was captured by the mob and totally destroyed.

Pitt issued a Proclamation in the King’s name on 31st Oct offering £1,000 reward for information on the identity of the culprit.

On 4th Nov His Majesty send down another Proclamation to parliament requiring the suppression of all seditious assemblies. The cause of this further request was a meeting of the London Corresponding Society three days before the state carriage was pelted by the mob in St James’ Park. The King believes the two events are connected. Pitt prepared a Bill and presented it to parliament on 10th Nov. It passed its three readings the same day, each with a huge majority and was sent to the Lords.

Pitt described the broken carriage window to MPs on 10th Nov as “an outrage which not only threatened the destruction of the monarch but of the whole Constitution.”

Fox called it ‘a feeble pretext’ in his reply to Pitt’s speech. He said ‘revolutions were (not) owing to the freedom of popular meetings: On the contrary, was it not a fact that revolutions had always sprung from oppression?’

Stanley quoted Montesquieu ‘an increase in the penals of a country is the greatest cause and sign of its decline and destruction’.17

A joint open-air meeting of the Whig and Corresponding Clubs was held near the Copenhagen Hotel on 12th Nov. About 5,000 attended. The Dukes of Bedford and Norfolk were there with Fox, Erskine and about 50 MPs (all the dissident Whigs). The opinions expressed were solidly opposed to Pitt.

The King’s Address on opening parliament calls for additional taxation although he contrarily expresses concern that the cost of grain is too high and the last harvest was small.

Sat 18th June 1796

The House of Commons, 16th Nov 1795:

Sheridan protested against the Seditious Meetings Bill. He thought stopping public meetings was a serious matter which ministers should fully justify. The previous Constitutional derogations had been carefully researched and explained. These new derogations had not.

It was one thing to resent an insult to the King (the hole in the carriage window) and another to legislatively remove popular rights, he thought.

If ministers were right there was a great body of Englishman intent on subverting the Constitution. Or perhaps this new law was the mischievous machinations of the King’s minister to create doubt and fear where none was indicated. He thought it most probably the latter.

The government has told us there are plots to seize the Tower, attack the Palace, commence Revolution, etc., and to add substance to these whimsical fantasies, they have fortified the Tower and increased the garrison. When one looked at the evidence adduced in the treason trials one found nothing to support these exciting and romantic aims. The army of government spies who gave evidence against the ‘traitors’ revealed that the whole fabrication was groundless. The government nevertheless produced a report and the consequence of it was the suspension of Habeas Corpus.

Then we had the story (originating with ministers themselves) that the King was to be assassinated in a theatre, a place the King rarely attends. No instrument was found but the ‘conspirators’ were arrested and gaoled. All this ‘opera’ was to persuade the people that there really was a plot. The prosecutors did not themselves believe there was a plot – it was just a ministerial game. The reputations of the prisoners were ruined.

At commencement of this session the King asked that the people be relieved of the burdens of war and the ministry said one good effect of the war had been to change the sentiments of the people. Now they have this ‘hole in the carriage window’ thing and try to make an assassination out of it. Does anyone recall Pitt alerting us to the effect ‘the country is progressively moving towards revolution – handbills are everywhere, seditious meetings are continuous’.

Pitt has been put in the position of saying that the acts of a few required the punishment of everyone. He relied on what he says is happening in France to support his tyranny. He can get this oppressive piece of legislation approved only by exempting MPs from its effects. Sheridan thought it absurd that Frenchmen, who had formerly had none or very few rights, should be compared with Englishmen who had enjoyed rights for over a century. The French were so oppressed it became intolerable and they eventually threw off the oppressors. Ministers in England wished to use the same oppression to prevent debate.

Sheridan suspected that the inflammatory handbills which the ministry complained of were most likely produced by the ministry itself – they seemed so familiar with them (most handbills seen in parliament are printed by ‘Citizen Lee’, the printer that the London Corresponding Society uses). Everyone must recall that when the minister’s spies gave evidence in the treason trials they agreed they had necessarily been themselves the most outspoken people advocating revolution. The obvious inference was that spies and informers had promoted the thing ministers feared because their incomes depended on it - there must be very little they would not have agreed to do. They are precisely the sort of protected villains who might persuade someone to throw a stone at the King with importunity whenever they were asked to do so as a £1,000 reward was payable for arrest of the culprit (advertised days later). He called for a committee to examine the allegations of the ministry.

Sat 14th May 1796

The Liverymen of London had a tempestuous meeting at the Common Hall on 21st Nov and agreed to petition parliament over the Seditious Practices Bill by a majority of about 80% of the members.

On 16th Nov an immense number of electors in Westminster met at Old Palace Yard for the same purpose. The government sent an army of peace officers and retained several military units around the venue. Fox opposed both the Bill to better protect the King and the Bill to prevent seditious meetings. In future people might meet only in the presence of a magistrate and if anything is said that the magistrate finds disagreeable he may arrest you and disperse the meeting. If you decline to obey him he may call in the army to disperse you. There can hardly be a greater violation of popular liberties, he thought.

Lord Bedford said the existing laws were perfectly adequate to deal with the person who had broken the King’s carriage window but it would be necessary to mobilise extensive popular complaint to have the proposed law dropped.

Lord Hood spoke in support of the minister. The matter was then voted and a unanimous decision to petititon for relief from both Bills was reached. Afterwards Fox, the Duke of Bedford and Sheridan got in their coach to leave but the people removed the horses and pulled it themselves. They paused outside St James Palace then continued through Berkeley Square to Fox’s house in South Street where the three men alighted. Fox then spoke from the 1st floor window to congratulate the people on their spirited character.

Another meeting of numerous freeholders of Middlesex was held on 21st Nov at the Hackney Mermaid. There were so many attendees that the meeting had to be removed to the bowling green nearby. The Duke of Norfolk said the English people would be subjected to the arbitrary decisions of the magistrate. Mr Perry of Blackwall was the only one who spoke in support of the minister and he was shouted down. A petition similar to the Westminster petition was agreed by all except four attendees.

At a meeting in Surrey last Friday Fox spoke again and the great majority of attendees voted for a petition against the Bill as well.

So far there have been 17 petitions from geographical areas and many more from societies and individuals.

Sat 2nd July 1796

The House of Commons, 23rd Nov 1795 – This was an angry sitting with voices raised louder than on any former occasion. Some residents of Gosport, Devonshire and Manchester have petitioned in favour of the two Bills; Bristol, Reading, Canterbury, Southampton, Norwich, Chichester, Sheffield have petitioned against them. Each petition had a few thousand names. Sheridan queried the Bristol petition as it had not been signed by any of the merchants. Lord Sheffield, who introduced it, supposed it was unrepresentative. Lord Belgrave queried the Chichester petition ‘as it is signed only by Jacobins’.

Strutt presented a petition of the London Corresponding Society with 10,000+ names. He said Citizen Lee, the LCS printer, had earned the attention of the authorities and his premises at Copenhagen House was searched but no inflammatory documents were discovered. Lee was nevertheless charged by the ministry in respect of a pamphlet headed ‘Tyrannicide’. Lee said he was not the retained printer of London Corresponding Society he just did ad hoc work for it. He headed the objected pamphlet ‘Tyrannicide’ because he thought it would sell more copies. He supported parliamentary reform because he believed, without it, there would be revolution.

Strutt objected to Pitt getting £4,000 a year when soldiers with missing limbs remained uncared for. He thought Pitt received a large income for setting Europe in flames. The London Corresponding Society was charged with treason and sedition but he was confident no British jury would convict. He noted the speakers at London Corresponding Society meetings routinely urged members to maintain peace and good order. He said Pitt had formerly held the same views but now he was in power he had abandoned them. Strutt then read a ‘treasonous’ pamphlet by a member of the Judiciary (Justice Reeves – see the earlier parts above) who wrote ‘the monarchy of England is like a goodly tree of which the two Houses of Parliament were mere branches that might be lopped off. The Constitution will still go on without their aid’. This judge should be prosecuted, he felt.

Sheridan complained the tactics of the ministry. He noted Lord Mornington (Richard Wellesley, later 1st Marquess Wellesley) had addressed the House on some misinformation he had received. In fact the case involved an affiliate of the London Corresponding Society called ‘the Friends of the People’. At their meeting the candle had been blown out and a pamphlet dropped on the floor in the darkness which was discovered when the room was relit. It was inflammatory and the person identified as dropping it (a ministerial spy) was expelled. The Society then quickly voted and minuted their unanimous abhorrence of the pamphlet.

Canning was in favour of both Bills.

Fox said the more these Bills are debated the more opposition they receive. He wanted some delay to permit opinion to manifest more clearly. Fox characterised the Bills as attempts by the minister to thwart the Constitution and if they passed the House of Commons on the mere influence of the minister he would advise his electors to acquiese only so long as it was prudent to do so. Pitt accused Fox of ‘fomenting civil war’ He said the law was too strong for Fox to oppose. Fox denied it and declined to retract any words.

Windham said Fox’s views clearly showed the need for stronger laws.

Sheridan said ‘when plot-forming ministers meditated attacks on the Constitution; at a time when Secretary at War Dundas had garrisoned London, the seat of parliament, and talked of applying a vigour greater than law,’ he would advise every man ‘to resist the establishment of a system of Terror in this country. We do not want a British Robespierre harassing the people with pretended plots. Robespierre so divided the French he could not visit the Mayor of Paris without an armed escort.’ He deplored the fact that this was now emulated in England.

Sat 30th April 1796

The House of Commons has debated the Seditious Meetings Bill on 24th Nov. This is the Bill Pitt is trying to rush through parliament on the King’s report of his attempted murder in St James Park. Many petitions have been received against it:

Charles Grey presented petitions from the parish of Killaton and Houston in County Renfrew and the journeyman tailors of London - 2,936 of them complained the law would prevent their occasional assemblies on business. Grey’s third petition came from the people of his constituency in Northumberland. Others came from Maidstone, Devizes and the traders of Edinburgh. They were all tabled.

Erskine presented a petition of 2,900 merchants and bankers of London. It was presented to him by Waddington who, for this service, had been instantly deprived by the King of his commission in the Surrey fencibles. Erskine noted there was a Constitutional right for anyone to petition parliament. He presented another petition from Portsmouth and Portsea signed by 1,544 persons, which was tabled.

Mainwaring presented a petition of several London and Westminister publicans fearing their trade would reduce if meetings of friendly societies were not permitted in their public houses. Pitt said there was no government intention to prohibit meetings of friendly societies. It was also tabled.

Lord William Russell presented a petition of the inhabitants of Southwark.

Fox presented one from 4,320 Mancunians, another from 2,350 freeholders and other inhabitants of Coventry and a third with 2,000 – 3,000 signatures from Paisley.

Sheridan presented one of 1,700 residents of Farrington Without, a huge constituency encompassing one sixth of London. Others were presented from St Albans, Hellstone, Kettering and Buckinghamshire. All were tabled.

Alderman Newnham said the London petitioners were not the big capitalists in the City but another petition representing the full weight of the City would soon be presented. Alderman Lushington said few people had attended the meeting at which Erskine’s petition was agreed - it did not represent the views of 75% of Londoners who were generally in favour of repression, he said. Two other friends of the minister said the petitioners had been misled as to what they were signing and would not have signed if they had known better.

Fox said the Livery of London and several wards of the City, particularly Westminister, each contained a majority of people who opposed the restrictions. He thought the same view was expressed throughout the country and estimated public support for the Act at less than 20%. He wondered how Lushington had determined his 75% figure.

Pitt said Foxites had roused the country against the Bills when a proper view would show their wisdom.

Fox recalled that when he produced his India Bill it was Pitt’s group that went the length of the country to raise dissent. He did not like the practice but could not deny the right of people to express themselves.

Pitt said Fox based his Constitutional views on the conditions at the time of the Revolution in 1688. The situation had since changed. In 1688 the King had violated the Constitution and could only be stopped with violence. In 1795 the King was at idem with his minister and acting in accord with the wishes of a majority of Lords and Commons. He particularly complained that the Journeyman Tailors supposed the Bill would prevent their trade meetings – ‘a groundless alarm’ he called it. He resented that the weavers of London (a commercially important class of people) have been told that their meetings to demand wage increases will be illegal if the Bill passes – ‘a wicked artifice’ said Pitt.

Other pamphlets had been distributed throughout the country saying the Bills made private family meetings illegal - Pitt said he intended to remove that clause. He had also heard that the Bill prevented the right of Englishmen to petition their representatives. He said the powers of a magistrate to licence a meeting, attend it and if unsatisfied to disperse it, were powers that required careful drafting and he would leave as little as possible to the discretion of the magistrate.

Mr Onslow mentioned the recent Surrey meeting which had been poorly attended. Only 300 freeholders had felt it safe to attend due to the Bill.

Sheridan said the Bill as drafted diminished the liberties of the people and enhanced despotism. Meetings to discuss public grievances, misconduct of ministers or parliamentary reform were all grist to the magistrate’s mill and the magistrate is a government functionary. Sheridan concluded that the King had got this Bill by misrepresentation and Pitt misrepresents its thrust. He congratulated the House on obtaining some slight modification of the Bill from Pitt.

Sir Watkin Lewes said a majority of the Common Hall of London had opposed the Bill.

Charles Grey said it was already being used repressively. The Sheriff of Northumberland had refused to permit a meeting just a few days ago. England is approaching the situation in Russia where people are permitted to petition but if it is adjudged unfounded the petitioners are executed. People are going to play safe. They will not apply to the magistrate for licences to meet. It is not only Trade Associations but schools and science that will be affected. And he identified the Constitutional principle - any parliamentary act against the sense and interest of the people permitted their resistance to it. He added it is a principle that Pitt’s father always maintained.

Sat 4th June 1796

The Seditous Practices Bill is in the House of Lords. The opposition say the ministry would better address the causes of popular discontent than simplistically try to repress it. By this war, the people had been made destitute of food and their means of growing it diminished (by the transfer of agricultural workers to industry and the army and navy and the progressive enclosure of land). The Foxites say ‘stop warring and the people will recover their food supply and become tranquil’.

Lord Mansfield attributed popular discontent to the Corresponding Societies which repeatedly reminded people that things could be better. He thought they allowed the inference that monarchy was a cause of popular hardship. He had been twice to France in an official capacity once fifty years ago and again since the Revolution. The difference in France then and France now was incredible.

Lauderdale resumed his opposition. Of the two associations – the Cabinet and the Corresponding Society – the latter was the least dangerous Constitutionally, he said. Grenville immediately threatened Lauderdale “what you have said here could be actionable in a Court of Law”.

Thurlow said it is the duty of legislators to foresee the consequences of the Bill if it is passed - Lauderdale had merely sought to do this. He said there was doubtless a legal right to oppose tyranny and it overcame the usual legal and social duty to comply with law.

Norfolk noted Grenville had confirmed that the present Bill would prevent nothing that was not already an offence. He found it the most persuasive argument for abandoning the whole Bill. He thought any large crowd was likely to contain a few idiots who attend only to make trouble. It hardly evidenced the King’s contention that a gang of assassins is leagued against him.

Abington said Tory administrations always favour violent solutions and just as quickly abandon them. The existing laws were adequate and he would oppose the Bill. The 1st reading then passed 77/7 (with proxies a government majority of 72) and a 2nd reading was instantly held.

Sat 7th May 1796

The Seditious Practices Act has become law. It is a capital offence of High Treason for any Briton in writing or in speech to intend the injury of the King or to deprive Him of any of His realms or to levy war on Him or incite any foreigner to invade His domains. Anyone adjudged a traitor will be executed and his property confiscated.

Anyone saying or writing words that incite a dislike of the King or his Government is guilty of High Misdemeanour and will be bound-over on the first offence and transported for 7 years on the second. All offences require the testimony of two witnesses for proof unless the defendant do confess. The ancient privileges of the members of the two Houses of Parliament are preserved notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Act.18 The common law offence of Treason may not be charged unless the defendant has been first charged under this Act.

When the Bill reached the Lords, Lauderdale asked why it did not apply to Scotland. Lord Mansfield said the laws of Scotland already provided adequate safeguards.

The Duke of Bedford disliked the Bill - it was oppressive. The sole reason for it was the circular hole said to have appeared in the King’s carriage window and the speculative role of ‘certain unidentified societies’ in directing that insult.

Much had been said of France. Bedford did not believe the revolution in France resulted from the acts of societies, or from the press – it appeared to originate entirely in the government itself. The French Court had been morally dissolute and this had extended to its ministers. The national finances had not been preserved and the King persisted in hopeless wars which impoverished the people and brought-on the revolution. It was nothing to do with sedition.

The only difference between France and England was the extent of the King’s morality. Otherwise both governments were corrupt by creating offices and showering them on their dependants. Even Burke, ‘the preacher of economy’, had accepted a lavish pension. Both governments persisted obstinately in an ‘unfortunate’ war. Both governments had difficulty financing the war and, whilst Britain was better placed, France might find unforeseen means to continue fighting and we would be embarrassed. He opposed the Bill.

Grenville supported the Bill. The behaviour of crowds was due to the incitement of the societies. The existing laws were inadequate and new legislation was necessary to deal with the case. No new crimes were created by the new law – there was no diminution of popular liberties. The only new thing was the penalties. He agreed that the cause of the revolution in France was the acts of the former monarchical government but the violence since was entirely attributable to the clubs and popular societies. He had hoped at first that the revolution would be a glorious event, equally beneficial for France as the rest of Europe, but it turned out to be extremely violent and created misery in France and concern throughout Europe.

Lauderdale asked how the existing laws can be called inadequate when they have not been tried. If they had been applied and failed to improve the situation, then ministers might ask for new law. If it was true, as ministers said, that the social situation had long been deteriorating, why had nothing been done. The Bishop of Rochester (Dr Horsley) has said the people have no business with the laws except to obey them - why then did he earlier attend a meeting for parliamentary reform in Southwark? Lauderdale condemned the pension given to Burke, whom he called an author of the war,19 and he would oppose the Bill.

Lord Abingdon would vote against the Bill as an unnecessary infringement of personal liberties. He equated Vox Populi with Vox Dei – it is Heaven that inspires people to do what they do.

The Bill was then approved 41/5. With proxies the government majority in the Lords was 59.

Sat 9th April 1796

Another packet of dispatches and letters has arrived at Bombay from Basra:

The Seditous Meetings Bill has passed. It is enacted at the demand of the King and diminishes the liberties of every Briton. It is deeply resented throughout the country. A large number of petitions have been received against it.

Sat 2nd July 1796

London, 23rd Jan 1796 – Declaration of the Whig club (translated from a French paper, hence the late date):

The circumstances in which England finds itself today can no longer be effectively influenced by our membership alone. We support the Constitutional amendments made after 1688. Those amendments empowered your representatives but can only be effective if controlled by the people. Democracy requires a personal effort from all of us, it does not work automatically. We invite the British people to petition for the revocation of the late Acts.

Public assemblies are hobbled with previously unknown restrictions. Attendees might be compelled to disperse or be shot. If the meeting is allowed to proceed, a magistrate will attend to censor public speech and induce self-censorship.

We imagine ourselves to live in a free country. This innovation is repugnant to our national character. Government should obtain its strength from justice. Public obedience follows an administrative willingness to be restrained by law. There is no reasonable basis for popular restraint and terror. If we surrender the right to free speech, we lose one of our Constitutional rights. The House of Commons protects us from the King; the House of Lords protects us from the Commons. If all three conspire there is nothing to protect us except our own efforts.

You must all freely express yourselves to the King and the legislature. You must publish your opinions to your neighbours. You should only take care to avoid disturbing the peace and not promote sedition or treason.

The Declaration (Bill) of Rights obtained in 1689 secures the right to petition. An inevitable corollary of that right is the inferred right to debate the subject-matter of these petitions. This was the agreement we made with the Dutch King Willem of Orange that inures to restrain his Hanoverian successors.

The other Act, speciously called An Act to Preserve His Majesty, belies the well known fact that “Kings, chiefs and governors of every Kingdom of every dominion and every community are in greater security from the love and attachment of their subjects, than by the fear and terror of laws that impose rigorous pains and excessive penalties.” Disposed to wholehearted concur in this, we are alarmed by the extension of the crime of treason beyond the bounds fixed by Edward III. We all know the happy domestic tranquillity that resulted from Edward’s Act and the agitations that result when its spirit is forgotten by zealous Ministers. This new Act provides for the banishment of offenders. It permits the minister to remove his opponents and those who dare to question his policies. Banishment will not rehabilite offenders. It arguably transgresses Clause 10 of the Declaration of Rights against cruel and unusual punishments. The convict is shipped to join a herd of proscribed and abandoned people in a distant land far from his friends and family. By removing them from the scene the minister elicits our negligence and forgetfulness and mitigates public opprobrium. No constraint limits the oppressor whilst the oppressed is deprived of consolation.

The drafters of these Acts agree they are restraints of liberty but they say they are necessary - they have to remove liberty in order to protect it. We suppose it is conceivable that there might be an occasion when general principles should submit to the exigencies of the situation, but the rights of debate and remonstrance cannot be abridged at any time. Necessity is the invariable argument used to support abuse of Power. All enslavements of people have commenced with an act purportedly necessary for their security. On this occasion it is the acts of a few individuals (Pitt, Grenville, Dundas, etc) that have produced the punishment of us all.

The ministry also suggests that existing law is inadequate. They can never establish this argument because it is untrue. It is not even suggested in the preamble to these Acts. These ministers are invading our Constitution. They promote and protect those opinions that tend to diminish it. They believe this country can avoid anarchy only by embracing despotism.

They have fomented a war with France and use the fears they have aroused to raise the political power of the King to the disadvantage of the people. They have begged and borrowed to amass a vast store of wealth to bribe their way to success. These laws are proposed at a time when the army is more numerous than ever before and is encamped near every population centre throughout the country. Ministerial efforts are directed to creating a schism between the army and the people and directing the virtuous opinions of the officers (who all swear for the King) to permit the oppression of the people.

Influence combined with illusion; corruption combined with terror - the drafters of these Bills believe the time is now right for them to impose silence on the people. These laws are a formidable instrument of political repression.

Those of you electors, who resist both enslavement and violence to attain your ends, must address the legislature for redress of these alarming innovations and the restoration of the Constitution. Their usurpation of our rights is still recent and is not yet entrenched - now is the time to protest. We want His Majesty to realise his security is best assured by mild Constitutional government.

We invite the people to make a national petition to parliament. “When the wicked conspire, it behoves the good to associate.” The undersigned offer their best efforts in abrogating the two Acts. Sgd C J Fox et al.

Sat 23rd April 1796

A note in this edition mentions Lushington, the great supporter of King and India Company, brought in a Bill in the last session of parliament (1794/5) to deprive defendants of trial by jury at the City Court in commercial cases above a certain sum. It was rejected.

Sat 29th Oct 1796

The India Gazette, Calcutta, 3rd Oct – the Marquis Cornwallis (Hogan) has arrived from Port Jackson in New South Wales. Of the four men banished to Australia as a result of the sedition trials in Edinburgh two years ago, Muir has just left for the Northwest coast of America. Skirving and Margarot have both died. Palmer alone survives at Rose Hill.

The Company recently sent a delegation to Australia to recruit volunteers for the forces. It is said they are having no luck.

Sat 21st April 1798

The anniversary of Fox’s first election to parliament for Westminster was celebrated at the Shakespeare Tavern, Covent Garden and Fox gave a fine Address. He regretted the country MPs supported Pitt so uncritically. He confirmed he would not attend the House in this session as there was nothing to be done against Pitt’s overwhelming majority. He particularly deplored the situation of the people of Scotland and Ireland. He said:

He had been in the Commons for 17 years supporting the rights won in 1688. He had opposed the King in his war with America and, once the people had been aroused, they had succeeded in ending it with the appointment as minister of the late Earl of Guildford, who revered the Constitution.

Pitt has examined the causes that checked his predecessors and identified a number of MPs (the country gentlemen) who represented large bodies in the House. Fox had wooed these MPs on the basis that, if they would defy the handful of their most vocal electoral constituents, they would find an even greater support amongst the majority. He regretted that some MPs would gratify their ambition for a title and noted that this mode of corruption was cheaper than doubling MP’s salaries and pensions, as he himself thought more appropriate.

He attributed the continued support that Pitt obtained, even after the two Bills that directly violated the Bill of Rights, to the exercise of corruption in the House. The people petitioned for relief and this was followed by a disastrous war in which we have now been abandoned by all our allies. Fox had fought this in debate until it was clear that Pitt had purchased sufficient MPs to get any measure approved with the appearance of having the approbation of a majority of the country. Fox had then decided to cease attending parliament in the hope that the withdrawal of criticism would encourage the people to protest and demand a reform. Only the people can demand a reform and only reform can presage a reinstatement of their Constitutional rights.

As examples of the arbitrary proceedings of ministers, he mentioned that the freedom of the press in Ireland had just been abolished and all printers were in fear since the army went to a printer’s house and, finding him not at home, burnt it down. He said the army killed people in Ireland as they killed animals when hunting and these marauding units were often commanded by teenage ensigns. The army had the support of ministers for these acts which were said to be done ‘for the benefit of the people’.

In Scotland the same principles are pursued. Ministers had tried to exclude Tranent for his profession of advocate because he advised a client to publish an article that was not illegal to publish.20 The same modus operandi was adopted against Henry Erskine to remove him from a place of honour – ‘suppose it had been done against his brother’ Fox said.

Fox mentioned these events in Ireland and Scotland to indicate that the people of England were not immune to the same oppression. He mentioned the English meeting of 31st July (Ferguson’s meeting) which, before the attendees had started to discuss their grievances, was deemed illegal by the Bow Street magistrates and ordered to disperse. Some were arrested and only by their non-violence was bloodshed avoided. He identified a torpor in every part of the country that caused people to submit to ministerial innovation rather than risk querying or criticising.

Concerning the peace negotiations at Lille, the published details showed our minister was insincere. Malmesbury preferred insurrection in France to pacification. Fox supposed that, under the present system, the war would continue for many years until our finances had been depleted to the level of our political rights.

Sat 9th June 1798

Thomas Muir, a Scottish refugee in Paris,21 responded to a toast being drunk here with the words ‘to the victims of despotism in England, Scotland and Ireland’.

He says he had seen the bloodshed and protested at it and that was the cause of his banishment. On behalf of all Scottish and Irish people, Muir assures France that the Republic is not contending with the English people but only a core of about one hundred scoundrels. ‘When they fall, universal peace will be established.’

Sat 9th June 1798

Charles Fox’s birthday has been celebrated at the Crown and Anchor Tavern. Horne Tooke was there. Numerous songs of freedom were sung.

The Duke of Norfolk gave an address – ‘…. freedom is threatened. Twenty years ago General Washington had only 2,000 men to rely on when his country was attacked. America is now free. Well, we have 2,000 assembled here today…..”

The toasts were ‘the rights of man’, ‘constitutional redress for wrongs’ and ‘parliamentary reform’.

Sat 25th Aug 1798

Part of the Judges’ address to Jurors at commencement of the Treason trial in Maidstone (Arthur O’Connor’s trial) – “We have full security for our freedom, for no law can be enacted which will not render every Member of the Legislature liable to its effect the same as the poorest subject in the Realm22 … the difficulties and perplexities of government are … almost innumerable, and the people at large have not sufficient judgement. Much mischief is done by dwelling on imperfections that are inseparable from every human system, by imputing all evils that befall a state to the corruption of the rulers. People would do well to reflect that government, by its nature, must soon fall into the hands of a few. Etc.”

Sat 11th Aug 1798

Commons, 12th April – Pitt has obtained from MPs an extension of the suspension of Habeas Corpus to 1st Feb 1799:

The renewal of suspension was contemporary with the publication of treason plots discovered by the government - one case each at Manchester and in Ireland and another in London.

Sheridan objected. There has been no proven evidence of treason – all we have is ministerial pamphlets and allegations. The main support for Pitt was a Grand Jury which had found a true Bill of Indictment against O’Connor, etc. He thought Pitt was also using the threatened French invasion as pretext for oppression. He noted that over a hundred people had been arrested before the most recent treason cases of whom only five had been charged and they had all been acquitted.

Pitt said the English people are supporting government and need protection from democrats. It would be unjust to expose them to the acts of dissenters. Anyone espousing democracy was a friend of France and ipso facto an enemy of England. We do not have legal evidence but we have convincing documents. And the people in preventive custody might have spent just as long in gaol if they were suspected of some other crime.

The MPs then voted 113/14 in favour of a continuation of suspension.

Sat 23rd June 1798

London, Feb 20th - Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, premier Duke in the Kingdom, is to be punished for his speech at Fox’s birthday party. The Duke of Portland as Home Secretary has told him the King has divested him of the sinecures of Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding and Colonel of its 1st battalion of militia. Earl FitzWilliam takes the West Riding lieutenancy; the militia sinecure has not yet been awarded.

Fox spoke of the King’s act at the Whig Club last week. He said he had learned of the alleged statements of the Duke from the London press:

“The Duke was constantly opposed to the American War and admired Washington’s perseverance for America. The reverence that all humanity feels for Washington in his struggle for popular rights is not the sole possession of the Duke. Perseverance in the demand for parliamentary reform is the sure route to success. But Washington’s recourse was to armed struggle whereas we Whigs seek reform through the application of law.

“The abuses of the British Constitution that have slipped in over the last century are maintained by the corruption of parliament. The Duke of Norfolk reminded the people at Fox’s birthday party that perseverance in a just cause, even from very small beginnings, is always effectual. I completely agree. I am myself a Privy Counsellor. At least I have heard nothing to the contrary yet. I should be awarded the same token of the King’s displeasure.

“Another address that gave regal offence was the toast to ‘the majesty of the people’ which was accompanied by observations on their sovereignty. This is not some new idea – it is the basis to our system of government. If I am wrong then King William was a usurper. How otherwise did he ascend the British throne if not by a sovereign act of the people? The foul and blasphemous idea of ‘Divine Right’ is erected to misled the people into a belief that God appoints Hanoverian Kings whereas British Kings are actually appointed by Act of Parliament. It is true that King William called that parliament but he did so as a right conferred on him by a Convention of the people. The parliament then settled the crown on him and his heirs. It is whimsical that, had the Duke of Norfolk made his alleged statements during the reigns of George I or George II, they would have been considered unexceptional. Indeed if he had not made the statements, he would have been exposed to a charge of Jacobinism, an adherent of a deposed family. The King might just as well have dismissed Norfolk for being a Protestant as most of his ancestors were Catholics.

“This entire spat is absurd, considering the policy of the present government. Ministers are pleading for unanimity and requesting a united front against the French – they then expel a powerful man from their ranks. It seems that whoever has a different opinion is untrustworthy. Will France be impressed? Will they abandon their invasion? What the King has told France is this country is so distracted that even the premier Duke of England is not trusted after a lifetime of zealous support for our Constitution. He cannot be trusted to head a regiment of militia.

“It is possible that the French Directory will not be misled. Perhaps they will not see this outrageous act as an indicator that an invasion of Britain would be welcomed. There is no precedent for taking a militia regiment from a Lord Lieutenant during war without any cause assigned. If it is a qualification for supporting England that candidates must abjure the Whig principle of sovereignty of the people, there will be few left to defend the country. I shall certainly not and I am still a Privy Councillor. If that is an offence then I am as guilty as the Duke. So are all those people who have fought for any former Prince of the House of Brunswick.”

The Duke of Norfolk spoke. He thought the cause of his dismissal must be found in some, as yet, unknown error in his administration of the West Riding or of the militia corps formed from those people. His comment concerning ‘2,000 people’ was intended to motivate the party with the understanding that great objects have small beginnings and that 2,000 people might well obtain a reform of parliament. We need that reform to end subversion of the Constitution and restore its pristine clarity.

Sat 15th Sept 1798

London newspapers:

The Whig Club held a meeting in the Freemasons’ Tavern with Fox in the chair. The toast was ‘the sovereignty of the people of Great Britain’. The Duke of Norfolk proposed another ‘the man who is, and dares be, honest in the worst of times – Mr Fox’. Fox then delived a harangue which, if the Whig papers have it right, appears highly inflammatory but we will report it as the country is fully united against the common threat:

“I have not been to parliament in the present session but after the Sedition Bill repealed the Bill of Rights, after the surrender of parliamentary control over the public purse (the remittance of millions to foreign powers without a vote), after the adoption of the system employed in Ireland (a template for the system Pitt is likely to introduce in England, he said), I wonder whether it is a perceived want of power or a lack of public interest that prevents the English people from resisting tyranny. This is a system of Terror, a system of Robespierre, etc.,”

And he proposed a toast – ‘may the ancient nobility of this country think it their first duty to support the rights of the people’.23

The Duke of Norfolk responded ‘when the people have no rights, the nobility can have no privileges worth enjoying’.

Erskine was present but said nothing. Sheridan proposed another toast – ‘our absent friend Habeas Corpus’

Sat 6th Oct 1798

The Irish barrister James Agar has been arrested by the Home Secretary Lord Portland at his chambers in Hare Court, Temple. Mr Curren, son of a barrister was also taken. An arrest warrant against Barrister Traynor was also served.

The Hon V B Lawless, son of the Irish peer Lord Cloncurry, was arrested with his French valet at his Pall Mall house and a chap named Stewart was arrested in Piccadilly under the same authority.

They are all accused of treason and their papers have been taken for examination. An Irish chap called Gratton was also arrested but turned out to be a known British sympathiser and was released.

Sat 25th Aug 1798

A London newspaper has promised to provide regular information on the progress of the Maidstone treason trial by sending transcripts of evidence to London every two hours. The Attorney General told the Court that if anyone did that, he did so at his peril. Justice Buller said publishing the proceedings was a contempt of court.

Sat 6th Oct 1798

The theatrical state trial of O’Connor and his group at Maidstone has been vandalised by the Defence. Barrister Plommer read a letter of the Rev Arthur Young to Gamaliel Lloyd in which the clergyman says he dined with three jurors from the Blackburn Hundred to persuade them to hang the defendants whatever the evidence. Young refused to identify the jurors and the whole contingent from the Blackburn Hundred had to be discharged. A prospective Juror, I Raikes of Bromley, was discharged for shaking his fist at the defendants and calling them ‘damned rascals’. The Crown prosecutors took up the business and launched challenges against 12 other jurors but without stating reasons. The defence protested but was over-ruled. 12 men were eventually selected under foreman C Hoskins of West Wickham.

The Bow Street runners produced an inflammatory pamphlet which they said they had found on one of the defendants. It was a letter from the Secret Committee of England to the French Directory. It alleges that:

“ …. taxes increase but overall revenue collections reduce. Pitt’s attempts to borrow more are frustrated by the lack of security he can offer. It seems his system of borrowing is threatened. The voluntary contributions are only voluntary amongst the rich. The poor people pay because it is a condition of their employment. Even soldiers are forced to contribute to evidence their patriotism. There is widespread fear and anger.

“The English people need your protection. Their constitutional rights are diminished by a docile parliament that partakes in their plunder and they need protection from their own representatives. All Ireland and Scotland is saddened and dissatisfied - we have representatives of both countries on our Committee. Soldiers and sailors are likewise suspicious and doubtful but we have no leader to unite our efforts. The greedy have thrown their support behind government whilst the fearful are staying indoors. A few of the aristocracy, who should be beyond serious danger, have spoken on behalf of the people but they offer words not action.”

Lord Moira and T Erskine gave evidence for the defence. Moira was prevented giving hearsay evidence of a conversation he had with O’Connor. Erskine said he knew O’Connor for three years and he is a fine man. Fox, the Earl of Suffolk, Sheridan, the Duke of …, M A Taylor, M Grattan, Lord John Russell, Lord Oxford and Mr Whitbread all gave good character evidence for O’Connor.

O’Connor, Binns, Allen and Leary were found not guilty; O’Coigly was found guilty and sentenced to death (executed on Pennenden Heath near Maidstone 7th June. He was hanged for 12 minutes then cut down and beheaded. Only about a thousand people attended the spectacle). On sentence being passed, O’Connor assumed he was a free man and started to leave the dock. The officers rushed at him making use of two swords, exhibits of the case, that had been on the table. O’Connor was beaten down and a new arrest warrant signed by the Duke of Portland was served on him.

Mr Justice Buller said an acquittal did not automatically lead to release in England. He said O’Connor might make an affidavit to the King’s Bench to Shew Cause why he should not be released. In any event the Court’s jurisdiction ceased with the verdict and he could do nothing more.

The other three acquitted men were released. O’Connor was given into the charge of the King’s Messengers and ordered detained in their custody in London.

Lord Holland took-up the result of this case in the Lords on 23rd May. He reminded the Lords that the act suspending Habeas Corpus contained an express clause that it only applied to persons charged with High Treason. He vigorously asserted the absence of any legal power to arrest an acquited man for the same offence.

Lord Sydney accused Holland of intemperate language.

Holland said the present ministry had no respect for persons or property.

Lord Bulkeley said O’Connor should not be allowed to avoid the severest punishment on a legal technicality.

The Lord Chancellor said O’Connor was re-arrested on a second charge and there was no impropriety in government’s actions.

Sat 1st Dec 1798

In May 1798 the British government enacted a new law preventing anyone publishing information that tended to bring contempt on the government.

The names and residential addresses of all the printers, editors and proprietors of published material are to be given to the Stamp Duty office on Oath; every subsequent change is to be sworn; the above affidavits are deemed conclusive proof in law of the information they contain; the proper names and addresses of all employees must be kept; name and address of the printer and publisher to be shown in every publication; stamp duty must be paid on every paper sold; penalties are enacted for sending a newspaper to France or any other King’s enemy; penalties are made for un-named persons selling newspapers – only employees may do so. The novel offence is printing or publishing anything that brings the King, government or Constitution into contempt, even if it has been already printed in another paper.

The American government has now also introduced legislation against press freedom. It seems to be a harsher law than ours - the penalties are severe.

Sat 26th Sept 1801

A Secret Committee of the Lords has reported on Democracy:

When the Act prohibiting Seditious Meetings expired, the democrats started quietly meeting again in March 1800. The Act suspending Habeas Corpus had not yet expired and they took care. Several of the democrats created Benevolent Societies as a mask for their political agenda. These were obviously political because only democrats were eligible for membership and the membership subscriptions were expressly agreed to not form part of the stock of the Society. These Societies were organised with a supervisor for each group of ten members. The hierarchy above the supervisors has not been elucidated.

The Societies no longer repudiate religion as that has proved unpopular. They are unconstitutional as they seek to raise the common people to political power. The organisers took advantage of the recent poor harvests and famine to secure greater membership. Now Habeas Corpus is restored, the members have become bolder. They visit workmen’s and soldier’s clubs where they spread their insidious democratic ideas without revealing their own beliefs. They say food is too expensive and wages are too low. Only the magistrates are able to suppress them but they have to be alert and vigorous which is not always the case.

Our spies have discovered two secret committees of disaffected citizens who are supported by France. They importune the members of these Societies to subvert government. They welcome a French invasion. The Irish are particularly well represented in the membership of Benevolent Societies.

Sat 26th Sept 1801

Secret Committee of House of Commons has also reported on 1st and 2nd April 1801:

The rebellion in Ireland in 1798 was fomented by seditious Societies in league with France. We reported on that in 1799. Those Societies continue to operate secretly and have taken advantage of the high price of food to again stir-up trouble. They wish to procure an invasion of Britain by France and the substitution of our Constitutional monarchy for a Republican government.

Many of these trouble-makers were detained under the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act but are now free again. Our information comes from spies in exposed positions in the seditious Societies – we cannot identify our sources without prejudicing our ability to continue to obtain information. The traitors have learned lessons and no longer prepare writings. We can only obtain details of their plans by joining their Societies.

The committee recommends an indemnity for spies involved in collecting information and that the Acts (for Prevention of Seditious Meetings and Suspension of Habeas Corpus) be renewed.

1 This refers most likely to the French Declaration defining liberty as the right to do anything so long as it does not inconvenience others.

2 They are both current cabinet members. The Duke is Master General of Ordnance. They were founder members of the ‘London Corresponding Society’ one of the oldest English reform clubs.

3 In remembrance of the first Continental Congress of the 13 US colonies, 5th Nov 1774.

4 Quite apart from the unpublished benefits of being an MP, there is the fact that the job is supposed to be full-time and a failure to get re-elected means unemployment.

5 A reference to the foreign troops in British service – the King’s German Legion etc.

6 The carnage of Austrian, Prussian and British troops in the Low Countries and on the Rhine has been appalling. Conscription has allowed the French to attack repeatedly. Old soldiers fighting for the allies say they have no prior experience of such prolonged and violent battles.

7 Recalling that from the time of Magna Charta to the 18th century, the value of money remained constant as it was represented by gold and silver.

8 This Address was approved by the Strand meeting but not published until the Secret Committee of the Commons found it in the Society’s archives.

9 The Petitions have been either tabled or rejected.

10 Contained in the Bill of Rights, 1689, but restricted to Protestants.

11 In the British system the minister acts for the King who himself can do no wrong.

12 This duplicates the Chinese position – ‘the Emperor rules justly, the people obey; the Emperor rules unjustly, the people rebel’. There appear to be many similarities between the French philosophers and the traditional form of Chinese administration.

13 Lord Eldon was ridiculed by his parliamentary colleagues for his endless address to the Court – they opined it contained all the elements necessary to establish the defendants’ innocence.

14 Printers are closely regulated by government for the protection of the paper currency as well as to deter protests. There is no evidence that Hardy solicited Gale’s letter or responded to it. The pikes are said to have been made by Henry Hill of Sheffield. 6’ – 7’ wooden shafts were made by Moody at 20d a piece. The Bill of Rights confers a right on British Protestants to carry arms for their own defence. Its one of the few rights of citizens, the majority of them belonging to parliament. There is some evidence that the government’s spies provoked violence amongst the reformers, apparently to have a better complaint against them by getting them to arm themselves.

15 Erskine is a master of the light touch. At one point he noted that the British Convention at Edinburgh had received a 5/- donation from an admirer. ‘This surely marks their attachment to a crown’, he said.

16 Windham’s father had a special relationship with George III which may have inured to the son.

17 Pitt’s policies were intended to enhance the interests of the merchants – the practical face of ‘what is to be gained from the war’ given the King’s insistence on it. A union of France and the Netherlands threatened to open the trade of central Europe to them and attract the neutrals - Denmark, Sweden and America – who would then be poised to dominate European maritime trade. These developments, if not checked, would compete with British influence throughout the continent.

18 To get the Bill approved it was necessary for Pitt to exempt legislators from its effects.

19 A reference to Burke’s dramatic gesture of throwing a dagger on the floor of the House which shocked all the country members into submission to the Minister.

20 Not the massacre at the town of Tranent by the Cinque Port Dragoons which occurred at about this time, but another incident involving a lawyer named Tranent which I have failed to identify or elucidate.

21 One of the 1793 sedition defendants in Edinburgh who was banished to Botany Bay but later escaped to America and thence to Paris. The practice of prosecuting democrats was an important means of popular suppression throughout the war. Once sedition and treason had been controlled, the oligarchy dealt with published criticism by prosecutions for libel by the Attorney General acting ex officio on Information. This form of prosecution gave control of the Jury to the Crown and ensured a more certain result.

22 The Judge is unaware that legislators are exempted from the exercise of many of the Constitutional derogations – it is the price of their voting for them.

23 Fox was anathema to George III at least since the spat in 1773. The latest monarchical jest has been to remove Fox from the Privy Council reciting the laughable wordings of Fox’s exclusion from North’s cabinet (I don’t find your name on the list) when he turned-up for a meeting – see the main text for further reporting. This was to punish Fox as well as Norfolk.

It must have irritated Fox who always saw government as a responsibility of parliament, the sort of duty a man might owe to his servants. The King contrarily and primarily saw British citizenship as a boon which entailed a duty on the citizen to do as he was told. He was a religious King with a great affection for the soil and the orderliness of nature and it seems he may have believed in his Divine Right.