PROSECUTION AND TRIAL OF HORNE TOOKE, ETC.
Government was so well supported by public opinion, that wonder is excited at the serious notice which it took of some attempts made by a few factious demagogues of creating popular commotion, and of raising themselves into an unenviable celebrity. Among this class John Horne Tooke stood pre-eminently forward. Horne Tooke was first the supporter, and then the rival of John Wilkes, but he had now completely succeeded him in the favour of a certain dubious class of patriots. This was the natural consequence of tilings. John Wilkes having been raised to the dignity of lord mayor, and having regained his seat in parliament, although he was still in some degree a thorn in the sides of ministers, had become more circumspect than heretofore. He no longer harangued at the public meetings of the populace, and was hence looked upon as a renegade, and Horne Tooke stepped into his place. The supplanter proved as bold as the man he had supplanted—stern “patriot” as Wilkes had been. This was seen in the midst of the agitation into which England was thrown by the events which had happened in America. At a meeting of the “Society for Constitutional Information,” which had been formed in the metropolis from the wreck of the “Bill of Rights Club,” Tooke moved, “that a subscription be raised for the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged parents of their American fellow-subjects, who, preferring death to slavery, were, for this reason only, murdered by the king’s troops at Lexington and Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775.” No mention was made of the widows and orphans of the British troops, which had been mown down by the rifles of the Americans from their hiding-places. That was altogether another question: they might or might not be supported by government, since it was clearly evident, from Horne Tooke’s motion, that they had no business to obey the orders of their superiors. Horne Tooke’s humane motion as it stood, therefore, was adopted—a vote of £100 was carried, and ordered to be transmitted to Dr. Franklin. The members, however, generally comprehended the peril of the case, and hesitated to sign the order. But Horne Tooke was as bold as he was humane, and he took all the responsibility on his own shoulders by affixing his name to it. The whole affair was clearly too ridiculous for the notice of government; but he was nevertheless prosecuted, sentenced to pay £200, to be imprisoned one year, and to find securities for good behaviour during three more. This was just the thing the patriot wanted. He had an opportunity of making a sarcastic speech, and his hopes were elated by the prospect of enjoying a still larger share of the popular favour. Probably he felt certain that he should one day carry the city mace, like his ancient friend John Wilkes. The best way to crush a demagogue is to let him pass unnoticed. Notwithstanding, the offence of Tooke was a direct challenge to government, and if it had refused to notice such an insult, its authority might have been despised by the section he headed, and therefore greatly diminished. Government, however, laid itself open to animadversion, by committing Mr. Sayre, an American merchant, to the Tower, on a charge of high-treason. It was declared on oath, by Mr. Richardson, an adjutant in the Guards, that Mr. Sayre had told him he intended to seize the king at noon-day, in his way to the house when it again met, to carry him out of the kingdom, occupy the Tower, and overturn the government. This would have been clearly the labour of “another Hercules,” and the information should have been treated with a sneer of contempt; but Lord Rochford seems to have considered that the enterprise of this most magnanimous American was not impracticable, and he therefore committed him to the Tower. But whether Mr. Sayer proved the adjutant’s statement to be false, or whether the king conceived that he was in no danger, does not appear, but certain it is that the American was set at liberty, after five days’ incarceration, and Lord Rochford had to pay him £1000 damages, on a suit for illegal imprisonment.