thousand men, and that he was collecting, in the different societies, the names of such persons as could be best depended upon, in order to ascertain what number in the whole could actually be brought into the field upon such an emergency.

When this person was present, there seems to have been a sort of holiday and festival of sedition. Each member strove with his fellow which should express sentiments the most injurious and hostile to the peace and happiness of their country. Dunn, the witness I have already alluded to, will speak to the actual communication of all the several persons who are defendants upon this record in most of the mischievous councils which were then held, and which are the subject of this prosecution. They met during a considerable length of time he attended (and here you will not be called upon to give credit to a loose and casual recollection of a few random expressions, uttered upon one or two accidental occasions, capable of an innocent or doubtful construction), but he attended, I believe, at nearly forty of these meetings. He attended them from about the month of December or January down to the month of June, when, either through compunction for the share he had himself borne in those mischievous proceedings, or whatever else might be his motive-I trust it was an honourable one, and that it will in its effects prove beneficial to his country-he came forward and detailed this business to the magistrates of this county. It became them, having such circumstances related to them, and having it also confirmed by other evidence that there were numerous nightly meetings of this sort held at stated intervals at the house of Mr Walker,-upon having the objects of these meetings detailed and verified to them, it became them, I say, to use means for suppressing a mischief of such extent and magnitude. It was accordingly thought proper to institute this prosecution for the purpose of bringing these enormous proceedings into public discussion and inquiry before a jury of the country, and for the purpose of eventually bringing to condign punishment the persons immediately concerned in them.

Gentlemen, the evidence of this person, the witness I have mentioned, will unquestionably be assailed, and attacked by a great deal of attempted contradiction. His character will, I have no doubt, be arraigned and drawn in question from the earliest period to which the defendants can have any opportunities of access for materials respecting it. Upon nothing but upon the effectual impeachment of the character of this witness can they bottom any probable expectations of acquittal; to that point, therefore, their efforts will be mainly directed. I wish their efforts had been hitherto directed innocently towards the attainment of this object, and that no opportunities had been recently taken, in occasional meetings and conversations, to attempt to tamper with the testimony of this witness. There are other practices which, next to

an actual tampering with the testimony of a witness, are extremely mischievous to the regular course and administration of justice. I mean attempts to lure a witness into conversations respecting the subject of his testimony. Of this we have seen many very blameable instances in the course of the present circuit, where conversations have been set on foot for the purpose of catching at some particular expressions inadvertently dropt by a witness, and of afterwards bringing them forward, separately and detached from the rest of the conversation, in order to give a different colour and complexion to the substance of his evidence, and to weaken the effect and credit of the whole.

Gentlemen, these attempts are too commonly made. Happily, however, for public justice, they are commonly unsuccessful, because they do and must, with every honourable mind, recoil upon the party making them. Private applications to a person not only known to be an adverse witness, but to be the very witness upon whose credit the prosecution most materially depends-private conversations with such a witness, for the purpose of getting from liim declarations which may be afterwards opposed in seeming contradiction to his solemn testimony upon oath, are of themselves so dishonourable, that, with every well-disposed and well-judging mind, they will naturally produce an effect directly contrary to the expectations of the persons who make them.

I know, gentlemen, what I have most to fear upon this occasion; I know the vigour and energy of the mind of my learned friend. I have long felt and admired the powerful effect of his various talents. I know the ingenious sophistry by which he can mislead, and the fascination of that eloquence by which he can subdue, the minds of those to whom he addresses himself. I know what he can do to-day by seeing what he has done upon many other occasions before. But, at the same time, gentlemen, knowing what he is, I am somewhat consoled in knowing you. I have practised for several years in this place; I know the sound discretion and judgment by which your verdicts are generally governed; and, upon the credit of that experience, I trust that it will not be in the power of my friend, by any arts he is able to employ, to seduce you a single step from the sober paths of truth and justice. You will hear the evidence with the attention which becomes men who are deciding on the fate of others. If these defendants be innocent, and my learned friend is able to substantiate their innocence to your satisfaction, for God's sake let them be acquitted; but if that innocence cannot be clearly and satisfactorily established, I stand here, interested as I am in common with him in the acquittal of innocence, at the same time, however, demanding the rights of public justice against the guilty. It imports the safety of yourselves, it imports the safety of our country, it imports the existence and security of everything that is dear to us, if these men be not

innocent, that no considerations of tenderness and humanity, no considerations of any sort short of what the actual abstract justice of the case may require, should prevent the hand of punishment from falling heavy on them.

Having, therefore, gentlemen, given you this short detail and explanation of the principal facts which are about to be laid before you in evidence, I will now close the first part of the trouble I must give you. I shall by and by, when my learned friend has adduced that evidence by which he will attempt to assail the character and credit of the principal witness for the prosecution, have an opportunity of addressing you again, and I trust, in the meantime, whatever attention you may be disposed to pay to the exertions of those who will labour to establish the innocence of the persons now arraigned before you, that you will, at the same time, steadily bear in mind the duties which you owe to yourselves and to your country, recollecting, as I am sure you will, that we all look up to your firmness and integrity at this moment for the protection of that constitution from which we derive every blessing we individually or collectively enjoy.

MR ERSKINE'S SPEECH.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,-I listened with the greatest attention (and in honour of my learned friend I must say with the greatest approbation) to much of his address to you in the opening of this cause; it was candid and manly, and contained many truths which I have no interest to deny; one in particular which involves in it indeed the very principle of the defence, the value of that happy constitution of Government which has so long existed in this island. I hope that none of us will ever forget the gratitude which we owe to the Divine Providence, and, under its blessing, to the wisdom of our forefathers, for the happy establishment of law and justice under which we live, and under which, thank God, my clients are this day to be judged. Great, indeed, will be the condemnation of any man who does not feel and act as he ought to do upon this subject; for surely if there be one privilege greater than another which the benevolent Author of our being has been pleased to dispense to His creatures since the existence of the earth which we inhabit, it is to have cast our lots in this age and country. For myself, I would in spirit prostrate myself daily and hourly before Heaven to acknowledge it, and instead of coming from the house of Mr Walker, and accompanying him at Preston (the only truths which the witness has uttered since he came into Court), if I believed him capable of committing the crimes he is charged with,

I would rather have gone into my grave than have been found as a friend under his roof.

Gentlemen, the crime imputed to the defendant is a serious one indeed. Mr Law has told you, and told you truly, that this indictment has not at all for its object to condemn or to question the particular opinions which Mr Walker and the other defendants may entertain concerning the principles of this Government, or the reforms which the wisest governments may from time to time require. He is indeed a man of too enlarged a mind to think for a moment that his country can be served by interrupting the current of liberal opinion, or overawing the legal freedom of English sentiment by the terrors of criminal prosecution. He openly disavows such a system, and has, I think, even more than hinted to us that there may be seasons when an attention to reform may be salutary, and that every individual under our happy establishment has a right, upon this important subject, to think for himself.

The defendants, therefore, are not arraigned before you, nor even censured in observation, for having associated at Manchester to promote what they felt to be the cause of religious and civil liberty; -nor are they arraigned or censured for seeking to collect the sentiments of their neighbours and the public concerning the necessity of a reform in the constitution of Parliament. These sentiments and objects are wholly out of the question: but they are charged with having unlawfully confederated and conspired to destroy and overthrow the Government of the kingdom by OPEN FORCE AND REBELLION, and that to effect this wicked purpose they exercised the King's subjects with arms, perverting that which is our birthright, for the protection of our lives and property, to the malignant purpose of supporting the enemies of this kingdom in case of an invasion in order, as my friend has truly said (for I admit the consequence if the fact be established), in order to make our country that scene of confusion and desolation which fills every man's heart with dismay and horror when he only reads or thinks of what is transacting at a distance upon the bloody theatre of the war that is now desolating the world. This, and nothing different or less than this, is the charge which is made upon the defendants, at the head of whom stands before you a merchant of honour, property, character, and respect, who has long enjoyed the countenance and friendship of many of the worthiest and most illustrious persons in the kingdom, and whose principles and conduct have more than once been publicly and gratefully acknowledged by the community of which he is a member, as the friend of their commerce and liberties, and the protector of the most essential privileges which Englishmen can enjoy under the laws.

Gentlemen, such a prosecution against such a person ought to have had a strong foundation. Putting private justice and all respect of persons wholly out of the question, it should not, but

upon the most clear conviction and the most urgent necessity, have been instituted at all. We are at this moment in a most awful and fearful crisis of affairs. We are told authentically by the Sovereign from the throne that our enemies in France are meditating an invasion, and the kingdom from one end to another is in motion to repel it. In such a state of things, and when the public transactions of government and justice in the two countries pass and repass from one another as if upon the wings of the wind, is it politic to prepare this solemn array of justice upon such a dangerous subject, without a reasonable foundation, or rather without an urgent call? At a time when it is our common interest that France should believe us to be, what we are and ever have been, one heart and soul to protect our country and our constitution,-is it wise or prudent, putting private justice wholly out of the question, that it should appear to the councils of France-apt enough to exaggerate advantagesthat the Judge representing the Government in the northern district of this kingdom should be sitting here in judgment, in the presence of all the gentlemen whose property lies in this great county, to trace and to punish the existence of a rebellious conspiracy to support an invasion from France,-a conspiracy not existing in a single district alone, but maintaining itself by criminal concert and correspondence in every district, town, and city in the kingdom,projecting nothing less than the utter destruction and subversion of the Government? Good God! can it be for the interest of Government that such an account of the state of this country should go forth? Unfortunately, the rumour and effect of this day's business will spread where the evidence may not travel with it to serve as an antidote to the mischief; for certainly the scene which we have this day witnessed can never be imagined in France or in Europe, where the spirit of our law is known and understood;-it never will be credited that all this serious process has no foundation either in fact or probability, and that it stands upon the single evidence of a common soldier, or rather a common vagabond, discharged as unfit to be a soldier ;-of a wretch, lost to all reverence for God and religion, who avows that he has none for either, and who is incapable of observing even common decency as a witness in the court. This will never be believed; and the country, whose best strength at home and abroad is the soundness of all its members, will suffer from the very credit which Government will receive for the justice of this proceeding.

What, then, can be more beneficial than that you should make haste, as public and private men, to undeceive the world, to do justice to your fellow-subjects, and to vindicate your country? What can be more beneficial than that you, as honest men, should upon your oaths pronounce and record by your verdict that, however Englishmen may differ in religious opinions, which in such a land of thinking ever must be the case;-that, however they may