that he could not tell but that a man meant good when he had heard even him express a wish to overthrow the government? would you pull a feather out of a sparrow's wing upon the oath of a man, who swears that he believed a person to have been a good subject in the very moment he was telling him of an intended rebellion? But why should I fight a phantom with argument ?-Could any man but a driveller, have possibly given such an answer, as is put into Mr. Walker's mouth, to a man he had never seen in his life? However many may differ from Mr. Walker in opinion, every body, I believe, will admit that he is an acute intelligent man, with an extensive knowledge of the world, and not at all likely to have conducted himself like an idiot. What follows next?-another night he went into the warehouse, where he saw Mr. Yorke called to the chair, who said he was going the tour of the kingdom, in order to try the strength of the different societies, to join fifty thousand men that were expected to land from France in this country, and that Mr. Walker then said, "Damn all kings-I know our King has "seventeen millions of money in the Bank of “Vienna, although he won't afford any of it to the "poor." Gentlemen, is this the language of a man of sense and education? If Mr. Walker had the malignity of a demon, would he think of giving effect to it by such a senseless lie?-When we know that, from the immense expense attending His Majesty's numerous and illustrious family and the great

necessities of the state, he has been obliged over and over again to have recourse to the generosity and justice of Parliament to maintain the dignity of the Crown, could Mr. Walker ever have thought of inventing this nonsense about the Bank of Vienna, when there is a Bank too in our own country, where he might legally invest his property for himself and his heirs? But Mr. Walker did not stop there ;-he went on and said, "I should think no more of taking "off the King's head than I should of tearing this "piece of paper." All this happened soon after his admission; yet this man, who represents himself to you upon his oath this day, as having been uniformly a friend to the constitution, as far as he understood it;-as having left the society as soon as he saw their mischievous inclinations, and as having voluntarily informed against them, I say this same friend of the constitution tells you, almost in the same breath, that he continued to attend their meetings from thirty to forty times, where high treason was committing with open doors; and that, instead of giving information of his own free choice, he was arrested in the very act of distributing some seditious publication.

Gentlemen, it is really a serious consideration, that upon such testimony a man should even be put upon his defence in the courts of this country;— upon such principles what man is safe? I was indeed but ill at ease myself when Mr. Dunn told me he knew me better than I supposed. What security have I at this moment that he should not swear that

he had met me under some gateway in Lancaster, and that I had said to him, "Well, Dunn, I hope you will "not swear against Mr. Walker, but that you will "stick to the good cause: damn all kings: damn "the constitution:" if the witness were now to swear this, into gaol I must go ; and if my Client is in danger from what has been sworn against him, what safety would there be for me?→→the evidence would be equally positive, and I am equally an object of suspicion as Mr. Walker: it is said of him, that he has been a member of a society for the reform of Parliament; so have 1, and so am I at this moment, and so at all hazards I will continue to be, and I will tell you why, Gentlemen-because I hold it to be essential to the preservation of all the ranks and orders of the state,-alike essential to the prince and to the people I have the honour to be allied to His Majesty in blood, and my family has been for centuries a part of what is now called the aristocracy of the country; I can therefore have no interest in the destruction of the constitution.

In pursuing the probability of this story (since it must be pursued), let us next advert to whether any thing appears to have been done in other places which might have been exposed by this man's information. The whole kingdom is under the eye and dominion of magistracy, awakened at that time to an extraordinary vigilance; yet has any one man been arrested even upon the suspicion of any correspondence with the societies of Manchester, good, bad, or

indifferent? or has any person within the four seas come to swear that any such correspondence existed? So that you are desired to believe, upon Mr. Dunn's single declaration, that gentlemen of the description I am representing, without any end or object, or concert with others, were resolved to put their lives into the hands of any miscreant who might be disposed to swear them away, by holding public meetings of conspiracy with open doors, and in the presence of all mankind, liable to be handed over to justice every moment of their lives, since every tap at the door might have introduced a constable as readily as a member; and, to finish the absurdity, these gentlemen are made to discourse in a manner that would disgrace the lowest and most uninformed classes of the community.

Let us next see what interest Mr. Walker has in the proposed invasion of this peaceable country: has Mr. Law proved that Mr. Walker had any reason to expect protection from the French from any secret correspondence or communication more than you or I have, or that he had prepared any means of resisting the troops of this country?-how was he to have welcomed these strangers into our land?-what, with this dozen of rusty muskets, or with those conspirators whom he exercised?but who are they?-they are, it seems," to the Jurors unknown," as my -learned friend has called them who drew this Indictment, and he might have added, who will ever Temain unknown to them.But has Mr. Walker no

thing to lose, like other men who dread an invasion? He has long had the acquaintance and friendship of some of the best men in this kingdom, who would be destroyed if such an invasion should take place.Has he, like other men, no ties of a nearer description? Alas, Gentlemen! I feel at this moment that he has many: Mr. Dunn told you that I was with Mr. Walker, at Manchester; and it enables me to say, of my own knowledge, that it is impossible he could have had the designs imputed to him. I have been under his roof, where I have seen him the husband of an amiable and affectionate woman, and the happy parent of six engaging children; and it hurts me not a little to think what they must feel at this moment. Before prosecutions are set on foot, those things ought to be considered ;-we ought not, like the fool in the Proverbs, to scatter firebrands and death, and say, "Am I not in sport?" Could we look at this moment into the dwelling of this unfortunate gentleman, for so I must call him, I am persuaded the scene would distress us;—his family cannot but be unhappy; --they have seen prosecutions equally unjust as even this is, attended with a success of equal injustice, and we have seen those proceedings, I am afraid by those who are at the bottom of this Indictment, put forward for your imitation. I saw to my astonishment, at Preston, where, as a traveller, I called for a newspaper, that this immaculate society (the Manchester Church and King Club) had a meeting lately, and had published to the world the toasts and senti