asks relief of the overseer, he ceases to be one of us, because he must depend upon the overseer. G. Could not a few men, one in seven, for instance, choose the assembly of law-makers as well as a larger number? F. As conveniently, perhaps; but I would not suffer any man to choose another who was to make laws, by which my money or my life might be taken from me. G. Have you a freehold in any county of forty shillings a year? F. I have nothing in the world but my cattle, implements of husbandry, and household goods, together with my farm, for which I pay a fixed rent to the squire. G. Have you a vote in any city or borough? F. I have no vote at all; but am able, by my honest labour, to support my wife and four children; and whilst I act honestly, I may defy the laws. G. Can you be ignorant, that the Parliament to which members are sent by this county, and by the next market-town, have power to make new laws, by which you and your family may be stripped of your goods, thrown into prison, and even deprived of life? F. A dreadful power! Having business of my own, I never made inquiries concerning the business of Parliament; but imagined the laws had been fixed for many hundred years. G. The common laws to which you refer, are equal, just, and humane; but the King and Parliament may alter them when they please. F. The King ought therefore to be a good man, and the Parliament to consist of men equally good. G. The King alone can do no harm; but who must judge the goodness of Parliament men? F. All those whose property, freedom, and lives, may be affected by their laws. G. Yet six men in seven, who inhabit this kingdom, have, like you, no votes; and 'he petition which I desired you to sign, has nothing for its object but the restoration of you all, to the right of choosing those law-makers, by whom your money or your lives may be taken from you: attend while I read it distinctly. F. Give me your pen. I never wrote my name, ill as it may be written, with greater eagerness. G. I applaud you, and trust that your example will be followed by millions. Another word before we part. Recollect your opinion about your club in the village, and tell me what ought to be the consequence, if the King alone were to insist on making laws, or on altering them at his will and pleasure. F. He too must be expelled. G. Oh! but think of his standing army, and of the militia, which now are his in substance, though ours in form. F. If he were to employ that force against the nation, they would, and ought to resist him, or the state would cease to be a state. G. What if the great accountants, and great lawyers, the Lillys and Spelmans of the nation, were to abuse their trust, and cruelly injure, instead of faithfully serving the public? F. We must request the King to remove them, and make trial of others; but none should implicitly be trusted. G. But what if a few great Lords or wealthy men were to keep the King himself in subjection, yet exert his force, lavish his treasure, and misuse his name, so as to domineer over the people, and manage the Parliament ? F. We must fight for the King and ourselves. G. You talk of fighting, as if you were speaking of some rustic engagement at a wake; but your quarter-staffs would avail you little against bayonets. F. We might easily provide ourselves with better arms. G. Not so easily. When the moment of resistance came, you would be deprived of all arms; and those who should furnish you with them, or exhort you to take them up, would be called traitors, and probably put to death. F. We ought always therefore to be ready, and keep each of us a strong firelock in the corner of his bedroom. G. That would be legal as well as rational. Are you, my honest friend, provided with a musket? F. I will contribute no more to the club, and purchase a firelock with my savings. G. It is not necessary. I have two, and will make you a present of one, with complete accoutrements. F. I accept it thankfully, and will converse with you at your leisure on other subjects of this kind, G. In the meanwhile, spend an hour every morning in the next fortnight, in learning to prime and load expeditiously, and to fire and charge with bayonet firmly and regularly. I say every morning, because if you exercise too late in the evening, you may fall into some of the legal snares, which have been spread for you by those gentlemen, who would rather secure game for their table, than liberty for their nation. F. Some of my neighbours, who have served in the militia, will readily teach me; and perhaps the whole village may be persuaded to procure arms, and learn their exercise. G. It cannot be expected that the villagers should purchase arms; but they might easily be supplied, if the gentry of the nation. would spare a little from their vices and luxury. F. May they turn to some sense of honour and virtue ! G. Farewell, at present, and remember, That a free state is only a more numerous and more powerful club; and that he only is a free man who is a member of such a state. F. Good morning, Sir, you have made me wiser and better than I was yesterday; and yet methinks, I had some knowledge in my own mind of this great subject, and have been a politician all my life without perceiving it. This Dialogue (as above set forth verbatim from the indictment,) with the intentions, as alleged in the introductory part, constituted the charge, and the publication of it by the Dean's direction constituted the proof. On the Dean's part, the abovementioned advertisement prefixed to it, was given in evidence to show with what intention he published it; and his conduct in general relating to it was proved. Witnesses were also called to his general character as a good subject. Mr. Bearcroft, as Counsel for the Crown, having addressed the Jury in a very able and judicious speech, and the evidence being closed for the Crown, Mr. Erskine spoke as follows for the Dean of St. Asaph. SPEECH FOR THE DEAN OF ST. ASAPH. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, My learned and respectable friend having informed the the Court that he means to call no other witnesses to support prosecution, you are now in possession of the whole of the evidence, on which the Prosecutor has ventured to charge my reverend Client, the Dean of St. Asaph, with a seditious purpose to excite disloyalty and disaffection to the person of his King, and an armed rebellion against the state and constitution of his country; which evidence is nothing more than his direction to another to publish this Dialogue, containing in itself nothing seditious, with an advertisement prefixed to it, containing a solemn protest against all sedition. The only difficulty therefore, which I feel in resisting so false and malevolent an accusation, is to be able to repress the feeling excited by its folly and injustice, within those bounds which may leave my faculties their natural and unclouded operations; for I solemnly declare to you, that if he had been indicted as a libeller of our holy religion, only for publishing that the world was made by its Almighty Author, my astonishment could not have been greater than it is at this moment, to see the little book, which I hold in my hand, presented by a Grand Jury of English subjects, as a libel upon the government of England. Every sentiment contained in it (if the interpretations of words are to be settled, not according to fancy, but by the common rules of language) is to be found in the brightest pages of English literature, and in the most sacred volumes of English laws; if any one sentence from the beginning to the end of it be seditious or li bellous, the Bill of Rights (to use the language of the advertisement prefixed to it) was a seditious libel;-the Revolution was a wicked rebellion ;-the existing government is a traitorous conspiracy against the hereditary monarchy of England; and our gracious Sovereign, whose title, I am persuaded, we are all of us prepared to defend with our blood, is an usurper of the crowns of these kingdoms. That all these absurd, preposterous, and treasonable conclusions, follow necessarily and unavoidably from a conclusion upon this evidence, that this Dialogue is a libel,-following the example of my learned friend, who has pledged his personal veracity in support of his sentiments, I assert, upon my honour, to be my unaltered, and I believe I may say, unalterable opinion, formed upon the most mature deliberation; and I choose to place that opinion in the very front of my address to you, that you may not, in the course of it, mistake the energies of truth and freedom for the zeal of professional duty. This declaration of my own sentiments, even if my friend had not set me the example by giving you his, I should have considered to be my duty in this cause; for although, in ordinary cases, where the private right of the party accused is alone in discussion, and no general consequences can follow from the decision, the advocate and the private man ought in sound discretion to be kept asunder; yet there are occasions, when such separation would be treachery and meanness. In a case where the dearest rights of society are involved in the resistance of a prosecution,-where the party accused is (as in this instance) but a mere name,-where the whole community is wounded through his sides, and where the conviction of the private individual is the subversion or surrender of public privileges, the advocate has a more extensive charge-the duty of the patriot citizen then mixes itself with his obligation to his client, and he disgraces himself, dishonours his profession, and betrays his country, if he does not step forth in his personal character, and vindicate the right of all his fellow-citizens, which are attacked through the medium of the man he is defending. Gentlemen, I do not mean to shrink from that responsibility upon this occasion; I desire to be considered the fellow-criminal of the Defendant, if by your verdict he should be found one, by publishing in advised speaking (which is substantially equal in guilt to the publication that he is accused of before you,) my hearty approbation of every sentiment contained in this little book; promising here, in the face of the world, to pub |