1794 Treason Trials
Encyclopedia
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
, were intended to cripple the British radical movement of the 1790s. Over thirty radicals were initially arrested; three were tried for high treason
High treason in the United Kingdom
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...
: Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (political reformer)
Thomas Hardy was an early Radical, the founder and also the first Secretary of the London Corresponding Society....
, John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
and John Thelwall
John Thelwall
John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...
. In a repudiation of the government's policies, they were exonerated by three separate juries
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
in November 1794 to great public rejoicing. The treason trials were an extension of the sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
trials of 1792 and 1793 against parliamentary reformers in both England and Scotland.
Historical context
The historical backdrop to the Treason Trials is complex: it involves not only the British parliamentary reform efforts of the 1770s and 1780s but also the French revolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. In the 1770s and 1780s, there was an effort among liberal-minded Members of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
to reform the British electoral system. A disproportionately small number of electors voted for MPs and many seats were simply bought. Christopher Wyvill
Christopher Wyvill
Christopher Wyvill was an English political reformer who inspired the formation of the Yorkshire Association movement in 1779.The American Revolutionary War had forced the government of Lord North to increase taxation...
and William Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
argued for additional seats to be added to the House of Commons and the Duke of Richmond
Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond
Field Marshal Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 3rd Duke of Lennox, 3rd Duke of Aubigny, KG, PC, FRS , styled Earl of March until 1750, was a British politician and office holder noteworthy for his advanced views on the issue of parliamentary reform...
and John Cartwright
John Cartwright (political reformer)
John Cartwright was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform...
advocated a more radical reform: "the payment of MPs, an end to corruption and patronage in parliamentary elections, annual parliaments (partly to enable the speedy removal of corrupt MPs) and, preeminently and most controversially, universal manhood suffrage." Both efforts failed and the reform movement appeared moribund in the mid-1780s.
Once the revolution in France began to demonstrate the power of popular agitation, the British reform movement was reinvigorated. Much of the vigorous political debate in the 1790s in Britain was sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Reflections on the Revolution in France , by Edmund Burke, is one of the best-known intellectual attacks against the French Revolution...
(1790). Surprising his friends and enemies alike, Burke, who had supported the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, criticized the French Revolution and the British radicals who had welcomed its early stages. While the radicals saw the revolution as analogous to Britain's own Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
in 1688, which had restricted the powers of the monarchy, Burke argued that the appropriate historical analogy was the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
(1642–1651) in which Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
had been executed in 1649. He viewed the French Revolution as the violent overthrow of a legitimate government. In Reflections he argues that citizens do not have the right to revolt against their government, because civilizations, including governments, are the result of social and political consensus. If a culture's traditions were challenged, the result would be endless anarchy. There was an immediate response from the British supporters of the French revolution, most notably Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
in her Vindication of the Rights of Men and Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
in his Rights of Man
Rights of Man
Rights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...
. In this lively and sometimes vicious pamphlet war, now referred to as the "Revolution Controversy
Revolution Controversy
The Revolution Controversy was a British debate over the French Revolution, lasting from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy...
", British political commentators addressed topics ranging from representative government to human rights to the separation of church and state.
1792 was the "annus mirabilis of eighteenth-century radicalism": its most important texts, such as Rights of Man, were published and the influence of the radical associations was at its height. In fact, it was as a result of the publication of the Rights of Man that such associations began to proliferate. The most significant groups, made up of artisans, merchants and others from the middling and lower sorts, were the Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information, the London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society was a moderate-radical body concentrating on reform of the Parliament of Great Britain, founded on 25 January 1792. The creators of the group were John Frost , an attorney, and Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker and metropolitan Radical...
(LCS) and the Society for Constitutional Information
Society for Constitutional Information
Founded in 1780 by Major John Cartwright to promote parliamentary reform, the Society for Constitutional Information flourished until 1783, but thereafter made little headway...
(SCI). But it was not until these groups formed an alliance with the more genteel Society of the Friends of the People
Friends of the People Society
The Society of the Friends of the People was formed in Great Britain by Whigs at the end of the 18th century as part of a movement seeking radical political reform that would widen electoral enfranchisement at a time when only a wealthy minority had the vote...
that the government became concerned. When this sympathy became known, the government issued a royal proclamation against seditious writings on 21 May 1792. In a dramatic increase compared to the rest of the century, there were over 100 prosecutions for sedition in the 1790s alone. The British government, fearing an uprising similar to the French Revolution, took even more drastic steps to quash the radicals. They made an increasing number of political arrests and infiltrated the radical groups; they threatened to "revoke the licences of publicans who continued to host politicized debating societies and to carry reformist literature;" they seized the mail of "suspected dissidents;" and they supported groups that disrupted radical events and attacked radicals in the press. Radicals saw this period as "the institution of a system of terror, almost as hideous in its features, almost as gigantic in its stature, and infinitely more pernicious in its tendency, than France ever knew".
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
publisher, J. S. Jordan, was indicted for sedition for publishing the Rights of Man
Rights of Man
Rights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...
in May 1792, Paine himself was not charged until the royal proclamation was promulgated. Even then, the government did not actively pursue him, apart from spying on him and continuing its propaganda campaign against "Mad Tom". Paine's trial was delayed until December and he fled to France in the intervening months, apparently with the government's blessing, which was more interested in getting rid of such a troublesome citizen than trying him in person. Moreover, afraid that Paine might use his trial as a political platform, the government may not have wanted to prosecute Paine personally.
When the trial finally took place on 18 December 1792, its outcome was a foregone conclusion. The government, under Pitt's direction, had been lambasting Paine in the papers for months and the trial judge had negotiated the prosecution's arguments with them ahead of time. The radical Thomas Erskine
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine KT PC KC was a British lawyer and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents.-Background and childhood:...
defended Paine by arguing that his pamphlet was part of an honorable English tradition of political philosophy that included the writings of John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
and David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
; he also pointed out that Paine was merely responding to the philosophical work of an MP, Burke. The Attorney-General argued that the pamphlet was clearly aimed at readers "whose minds cannot be supposed to be conversant with subjects of this sort" and cited its cheap price as evidence of its lack of serious intent. The prosecution did not even have to rebut Erskine's arguments; the jury informed the judge they had already decided Paine was guilty.
John Frost
John Frost was a member of the SCI, a former associate of Pitt, an attorney and a friend of Paine's. On 6 November 1792 he got involved in a dispute with a friend over the French revolution in a tavern and was heard to say "Equality, and No King". This dispute was reported by publicans to government informers. When Frost went to Paris later that month, the government declared him an outlaw and encouraged him to stay in France. Frost, challenging the government to act, returned and surrendered himself to the authorities. Suggestions began to float around, from government and radical sources alike, that the government was embarrassed to prosecute Frost because of his former friendship with Pitt. But on 27 May, he was brought to trial for sedition. Erskine defended Frost, arguing that there was no seditious intent to his statement, his client was drunk, he was in a heated argument, and he was in a private space (the tavern). The Attorney-General contended that Frost "was a man whose seditious intent was carried with him wherever he went". The jury convicted him.Daniel Isaac Eaton
Daniel Isaac EatonDaniel Isaac Eaton
Daniel Isaac Eaton was an English radical author, publisher and activist. He was tried eight times for selling radical literature and convicted in 1812 for selling Age of Reason....
, the publisher of the popular periodical Politics for the People, was arrested on 7 December 1793 for publishing a statement by John Thelwall
John Thelwall
John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...
, a radical lecturer and debater. Thelwall had made a speech that included an anecdote about a tyrannical gamecock named "King Chanticleer" who was beheaded for its despotism and Eaton reprinted it. Eaton was imprisoned for three months before his trial in an effort to bankrupt him and his family. In February 1794, he was finally brought to trial and defended by John Gurney. Gurney argued that the comment was an indictment of tyranny in general or of Louis XVI, the king of France, and announced his dismay that anyone could think that the author meant George III. "Gurney went so far as to cheekily suggest that it was the Attorney-General who was guilty of seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
; by supplying those innuendos he, not Eaton or Thelwall, had represented George III as a tyrant." Everyone laughed uproariously and Eaton was acquitted; the membership of the radical societies skyrocketed.
Treason Trials of 1794
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
to decide on how to summon "a great Body of the People" to convince Parliament to reform, since it did not seem willing to reform itself. The government viewed this assembly as an attempt to set up an anti-parliament. In Scotland, three leaders of the convention were tried for sedition and sentenced to fourteen years of service in Botany Bay
Botany Bay
Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
. Such harsh sentences shocked the nation and while initially the societies believed that an insurrection might be necessary to resist such an overbearing government, they rhetoric never materialized into an actual armed rebellion. Plans were made by some of the societies to meet again if the government became more hostile (e.g. if they suspended habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
). In 1794, a plan was circulated to convene again, but it never got off the ground. The government, frightened however, arrested six members of the SCI and 13 members of the LCS on suspicion of "treasonable practices" in conspiring to assume "a pretended general convention of the people, in contempt and defiance of the authority of parliament, and on principles subversive of the existing laws and constitution, and directly tending to the introduction of that system of anarchy and confusion which has fatally prevailed in France". Over thirty men were arrested in all. Of the people arrested were Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (political reformer)
Thomas Hardy was an early Radical, the founder and also the first Secretary of the London Corresponding Society....
, secretary of the LCS; the linguist John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
; the novelist and dramatist Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer.-Early life:He was born in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London. His father had a shoemaker's shop, and kept riding horses for hire; but having fallen into difficulties was reduced to the status of hawking peddler...
(arrested in October); the Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
minister Jeremiah Joyce
Jeremiah Joyce
-Life:He was born 24 February 1763 at Mildred's Court London. He became a glazier, but on the death of his father he used his inheritance to study for the Unitarian ministry, where he became proficient in mathematics and Latin...
; writer and lecturer John Thelwall
John Thelwall
John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...
; bookseller and pamphleteer Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land.-Life:Spence was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England and was the son of a Scottish net and shoe maker....
, and silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
; and later, historian John Baxter.
After the arrests, the government formed two secret committees to study the papers they had seized from the radicals' houses. After the first committee report, the government introduced a bill in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
to suspend habeas corpus; thus, those arrested on suspicion of treason could be held without bail or charge until February 1795. In June 1794 the committee issued a second report, asserting that the radical societies had been planning at least to "over-awe" the sovereign and Parliament by the show of "a great Body of the People" if not to overthrow the government and install a French-style republic. They claimed that the societies had attempted to assemble a large armory for this purpose, but no evidence could be found for it, in the end. They were eventually charged with an assortment of crimes, but seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
were the most severe. The government propagated the notion that the radicals had committed a new kind of treason, what they called "modern" or "French" treason. While previous defendants had tried to replace one king with another from another dynasty, these democrats wanted to overthrow the entire monarchical system and remove the king entirely. "Modern French treason, it seemed, was different from, was worse than, old-fashioned English treason". Unfortunately for the prosecution, the treason statute, that of the Act of Edward III from 1351
Treason Act 1351
The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England which codified and curtailed the common law offence of treason. No new offences were created by the statute. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has been very significantly amended. It was extended to...
, did not apply very well to this new kind of treason. The Attorney-General Sir John Scott, who would prosecute Hardy and Horne Took, "decided to base the indictment on the charge that the societies had been engaged in a conspiracy to levy war against the king, that they intended to subvert the constitution, to depose the King, and put him to death; and for that purpose, and
Initially the men were confined to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
, but they were eventually moved to Newgate prison
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
. Those charged with treason faced the brutal punishment of hanging, drawing and quartering if convicted: each would have been "hanged by the neck, cut down while still alive, disembowelled (and his entrails burned before his face) and then beheaded and quartered." The entire radical movement was also on trial; there were supposedly 800 warrants that were ready to be acted upon when the government won its case.
Thomas Hardy
Hardy'sThomas Hardy (political reformer)
Thomas Hardy was an early Radical, the founder and also the first Secretary of the London Corresponding Society....
trial was first; his wife had died while he was in prison, generating support for him among the populace. Thomas Erskine
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine KT PC KC was a British lawyer and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents.-Background and childhood:...
, defending again, argued that the radicals had proposed nothing more than the Duke of Richmond (now an anti-reformer) had in the 1780s and "their plan for a convention of delegates was borrowed from a similar plan advanced by Pitt himself". The government could provide no real evidence of an armed insurrection. The Attorney-General's opening statement lasted nine hours, leading the former Lord Chancellor Lord Thurlow to comment that "there was no treason". Treason must be "clear and obvious"; the great legal theorist Edward Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...
had argued that treason was to be determined "not upon conjecturall [sic] presumptions, or inferences, or strains of wit, but upon good and sufficient proof". Part of Erskine's effective defense was to dismiss the prosecution's case, as it was based on "strains of wit" or "imagination" (a play on words of the statute itself). He claimed, as he had in the earlier trials, that it was the prosecution that was "imagining the king's death" rather than the defense. His cross-examination of the prosecution's spies also helped demolish their case; he "cross-examined these witnesses in a tone of contemptuous disbelief and managed to discredit much of their evidence." After a nine-day trial, which was exceptionally long for the time, he was acquitted. The foreman of the jury fainted after delivering his 'Not Guilty', and the crowd enthusiastically carried Hardy through the streets of London.
In his speeches, Erskine emphasized that the radical organizations, primarily the London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society
London Corresponding Society was a moderate-radical body concentrating on reform of the Parliament of Great Britain, founded on 25 January 1792. The creators of the group were John Frost , an attorney, and Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker and metropolitan Radical...
and the Society for Constitutional Information
Society for Constitutional Information
Founded in 1780 by Major John Cartwright to promote parliamentary reform, the Society for Constitutional Information flourished until 1783, but thereafter made little headway...
, were dedicated to a revolution of ideas, not a violent revolution—they embodied the new ideals of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. Erskine was helped in his defense by pamphlets such as William Godwin's
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
Cursory Strictures on the Charge Delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand Jury, 2 October 1794.
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke'sJohn Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
trial followed Hardy's, in which Pitt was forced to testify and admit that he had attended radical meetings himself. Throughout the trial Horne Tooke "combined the affectation of boredom with irreverent wit." One observer noted that when asked by the court if he would be tried "by God and his Country," he "eyed the court for some seconds with an air of significancy few men are so well able to assume, and shaking his head, emphatically answered 'I would be tried by God and my country, but—!'" After a long trial, he too was acquitted.
All of the other members of the SCI were released after these two trials, as it became obvious to the government that they would not gain any convictions.
John Thelwall
John ThelwallJohn Thelwall
John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...
was tried last; the government felt forced to try him because the loyalist press had argued that his case was particularly strong. While awaiting trial, he wrote and published poetry indicting the entire process. He was also acquitted, after which the rest of the cases were dismissed.
Trial literature
All of these trials, both those from 1792 and those from 1794, were published as part of an 18th-century genre called "trial literature". Often, multiple versions of famous trials would be published and since the shorthand takers were not always precise, the accounts disagree. Moreover, the accounts were sometimes altered deliberately by one side or another. Importantly, those in the courtroom knew that their words would be published. In Scotland, one of the accused ringleaders of the plot said: "What I say this day will not be confined within these walls, but will spread far and wide". Indeed, the government may have resisted trying Paine until he had left the country because of the notorious power of his pen.Aftermath
William Windham
William Windham PC, PC was a British Whig statesman.-Early life:Windham was a member of an ancient Norfolk family and a great-great-grandson of Sir John Wyndham. He was the son of William Windham, Sr. of Felbrigg Hall and his second wife, Sarah Lukin...
referred to the radicals as "acquitted felon[s]" and William Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and the Attorney-General called them "morally guilty". There was widespread agreement that they had gotten off because the treason statute was outdated. When, in October 1795, crowds threw refuse at the king and insulted him, demanding a cessation of the war with France
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
and lower bread prices, the Parliament immediately passed the "gagging acts" (the Seditious Meetings Act
Seditious Meetings Act 1795
The Seditious Meetings Act 1795, approved by the British Parliament in November 1795, was the second of the well known "Two Acts" , the other being the Treason Act 1795. Its purpose was to restrict the size of public meetings to fifty persons...
and the Treasonable Practices Act
Treasonable Practices Act
The Treason Act 1795 was one of the Two Acts introduced by the British government in the wake of the stoning of King George III on his way to open Parliament in 1795, the other being the Seditious Meetings Act 1795...
, also known as the "Two Acts"). Under these new laws, it was almost impossible to have a public meeting and speech at such meetings was severely curtailed. British "radicalism encountered a severe set-back" during these years and it was not until a generation later that any real reform could be enacted. The trials, although they were not government victories, served the purpose for which they were intended—all of these men, except Thelwall, withdrew from active radical politics as did many others fearful of governmental retribution. Few took their place.
External links
- Eighteenth-century chronology from 1794
- The Trial of John Horne Tooke for High Treason (1795) full-text at google books
- The Trial of Thomas Hardy for High Treason (1796) full-text at google books