come the object firft of cold indifference to this infidious statesman, then of dislike, and at length of fear, of hatred, and of horror. "Friends of the miferable," fays a writer of fenfibility and genius,* "you who prefented Mr. Pitt with your confidence, because you expected he would realize your humane wifhes, refer the influence this man has, exerted upon his age to the ftandard of your feelings, and in his actions try if you can discover not the habit, but a few cafual fallies of goodness." When fuch a man bore sway it cannot be a matter of wonder that the perfecuted and oppreffed fhould be ardently defirous to withdraw far be yond the sphere of his baleful influence; though this could not in the nature of things be effected without making great and mournful facrifices. It is true that philosophy, though it cannot and ought not to destroy the finer feelings of human nature,―nay, though it adds to their force and fervor, affords confolations in adverfity, which, to grofs and vulgar minds, muft remain for ever unknown. "A wife man," fays a celebrated writer, who was, at the time he penned thefe beautiful reflections, an exile from his native land, looks upon himself as a citizen of the world; and when you ask him where his country lies, points, like Anaxagoras, with his finger to the heavens.-Let us march therefore intrepid wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. On what coaft foever we are thrown by them we shall not find ourselves abfolute strangers. We fhall meet with beings endowed with the fame faculties, and fubject to the fame laws of nature We shall fee the fame virtues and vices varied in a thousand different modes. We fhall feel the fame revolution of the seasons, and the fame fun and moon will guide the course of the year. The fame azure vault, befpangled with stars, will be spread over our heads; and whilst our minds are occupied with high and philofophical contemplations, it

VOL. III.

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imports

"Effay on the public Merits of Mr. Pitt," by Dr. BEDDOES.

imports us little what ground we may happen to tread upon."* BOLINGBROKE's Letters on Hiftory, vol. ii. p. 246.

The perfons who in the month of May had been committed to prison, on the charge of a democratic confpiracy to overturn the government, were kept in close confinement the whole of the fummer. It also happened that two men, Watt and Downie, on grounds totally different, were brought to trial in Scotland for high-treason at this juncture; and this incident might be regarded as the prologue to the fearful and bloody tragedy which it was in contemplation of the administration to perform in England; and their conviction might be fuppofed to have a powerful effect on the minds of the English juries. Watt was a spy employed by government, of a character infamously profligate; and he was inftructed to enter himself as a member of the popular focieties, in order to detect their fecret machinations, and to give information against them when

ever

The language and fentiments of the bigots who pretend to candor are well defcribed by the celebrated Wieland in his Tract on Liberty of Reasoning. "We wish not to tyrannize over confciences; you are at liberty to believe what you can, only get out from among us; lay down your offices, give up your incomes; quit your habitations; forfake your country; renounce your whole civil existence. Go and look out for a place in the fandy wilds of Africa, or in the defolated islands of the Southern Ocean, where you may philofophize and be hungry as much as you pleafe."

Although the general reception which Dr. Priestley met with in America was fuch as his high character so justly merited, he foon had occasion to see and feel that bigotry and malevolence were not confined to England. In a letter from Mr. Jefferson, dated Jan. 18, 1800, that distinguished statesman and patriot thus expreffes himself: "How deeply, have I been chagrined at the perfecutions which fanaticifm and monarchy have excited against you even here. I regretted that your friend, before he had fixed a choice of pofition, did not vifit the valleys on each fide the Blue Ridge in Virginia. — You would have found there equal foil, the finest climate and most healthy on the earth, the homage of universal reverence and love, and the power of the country spread over you as a shield."

ever called upon. It appears from the trial that he deemed his services not fufficiently rewarded by government, and that he went fo far beyond his commiffion as to propose, in all appearance seriously, treasonable designs,-such as feizing the castle of Edinburgh, the public bank, and the perfons of the judges, &c.-to fome of his affociates, who pofitively rejected to adopt any measures for the attainment of their purposes" which might disturb the public peace, This informer, or fhed the blood of their countrymen."

being himself informed against, was apprehended and tried for this offence; and though he alleged with plausibility that he had spoken and acted with no other view than to discover the fecret purposes of those whofe conduct he was ordered to obferve, the proofs againft him were fuch as to induce the jury to return without hesitation a verdict of guilty, and he was soon after executed ;-this government spy being the only man convicted and punished for the crime he was employed to detect. The fecond delinquent, Downie, was a weak illiterate mechanic, who had been foolish and culpable enough to listen in stupid filence, and probably astonishment, to the wild fuggeftions of Watt, without any active concurrence whatever. The jury found him also guilty, although the offence could amount to no more than misprifion of treason; but they thought proper to recommend him to mercy, and he afterwards received a pardon from the king.

While this matter ftill continued to agitate in fome degree the public mind, another fubject of alarm arose, and a dreadful rumor was on a fudden raised of an attempt to affaffinate the king. The perfons implicated in this charge were one Le Maitre, apprentice to a watchmaker in Denmark-street, William Higgins, apprentice to a chemift in Fleet-street, and a man of the name of Smith, who kept a Their accufer book-stall in the vicinity of Lincoln's-inn. was one Upton, alfo an apprentice or journeyman to a watchmaker.

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watchmaker. The confpirators were apprehended, by a warrant from the duke of Portland, on the 27th of September, and underwent feveral examinations before the privy-council. It was depofed by the informer, Upton, that an instrument was to have been constructed in the form of a walking-ftick, in which was to have been inferted a brass tube, through which a poisoned dart was to have been blown, at fome convenient opportunity, by the villain Le Maitre, at his majesty; but when or where was not determined upon. This marvellous story, more fit for the Arabian Tales than ferious hiftory, feemed for a time to be credited by the miniftry, and the perfons accused were committed for trial; but, after a long and fevere imprisonment, the evidence against them was found fo inconfiftent, abfurd, and incredible, that the whole affair fell into contempt, and the men were, without any trial, declared innocent of the charge, and fet at liberty.

Under the first impression made by this ridiculous fable, the fpecial commiffion of Oyer and Terminer, 'iffued for the trial of the ftate prisoners confined in the Tower of London on a charge of high-treason, was opened at the Seffions-Houfe, Clerkenwell, by the prefident, lord chiefjuftice Eyre, in an elaborate charge to the grand jury, which, in the course of their proceedings, found a bill of indictment against Thomas Hardy, John Thelwall, John Horne Tooke, and ten other perfons,-John Holcroft, one of the number, who, by concealment, had escaped the prévious tædium of confinement, voluntarily surrendering himfelf in court upon the occafion; and on the 25th of the fame month they were arraigned before the Special Commiflion at the Old-Bailey. The members of the jury fworn to try the general iffue of this memorable caufe were not only very zealous friends of the government, but adherents of the administration, and most of them members of the loyal affociations in and near London; but, through the admirable precautions of the law, they were also men impartial, intelligent, and of characters highly respectable.

The

.

The indictment was of uncommon length, and contained no less than nine overt-acts of high-treafon, all refolvable into the general charge, that these perfons did confpire to fummon delegates to a național convention with a view to fubvert the government of the country and to levy war against the king.

By a long-established construction of law, the attempt to levy war against the government, or, in other words, any confpiracy against the government, is no lefs high-treason than the actual levying of war, which is declared to be treafon by the original statute of Edward III. because it is, by no very harsh interpretation, prefumed to involve in it a de£gn against the life of the king, neceffarily endangered by such an attempt, and which is also declared to be treason by the exprefs words of that famous ftatute. The real crime, therefore, divested of the technical phrafeology of the law, charged upon these people, was their confpiring to employ means of coercion and force against the government in order to accomplish its abfolute fubverfion, or at least to effect a material change and alteration in it. The attorney-general, fir John Scott, spoke no less than nine hours in confirmation of the accufation, and with the view of proving the overt-acts charged against them in the indictment, which confifted merely in a tedious recapitulation of the whole proceedings of the two affociations, which had been long known to the nation at large, and were publicly advertised in the common news-papers. Thefe proceedings, from their palpable want of decorum, temper, and judgment had excited the extreme difapprobation of all intelligent perfons, and of none more than the advocates of liberal and rational reform; but that they amounted to the crime of high-treason was an idea too extravagant to enter into the head of any man but that of an apoftate patriot or a courtlawyer.

Thomas Hardy, fhoemaker, the formidable chief of this pretended confpiracy, was the first person brought to the bar; and against him was the elaborate oration of the at

torney