THOMAS HARDY, OF “THE STATE TRIALS.”
The “gentle craft.” has been as prolific of fiery politicians as of peaceful poets. We have to speak now of two men who were connected respectively with the political agitations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In the year 1794, when the events of the French Revolution had convulsed the whole of Europe, society in England was stirred to its depths, and grave fears were entertained by the King and his Parliament lest the spirit of revolution should break loose in this country. Such fears were not altogether unfounded. Societies sprang up whose object was reform, by legitimate means if possible, but if not, by violence and bloodshed. One of the strongest of these societies existed in London, and had carried its proceedings to such a pitch that four of its leading members were brought to trial on a charge of treason and sedition. It is a remarkable fact that of these four men—Hardy, Horne-Tooke, Thelwall, and Holcroft—the first and last belonged to the class of shoemakers.[179]
Thomas Hardy was the secretary of the Association, and had to bear the brunt of the trial, in which he was defended by the Honorable Thomas Erskine. Speaking of these famous state trials, Henry Crabb Robinson, who was then living at Colchester, says, “I felt an intense interest in them. During the first trial I was in a state of agitation that rendered me unfit for business. I used to beset the post-office early, and one morning at six I obtained the London paper with not guilty printed in letters an inch in height, recording the issue of Hardy’s trial. I ran about the town knocking at people’s doors and screaming out the joyful words. Thomas Hardy, who was a shoemaker, made a sort of circuit, and obtained, of course, many an order in the way of his trade.... Hardy was a good-hearted, simple, and honest man. He had neither the talents nor the vices which might be supposed to belong to an acquitted traitor. He lived to an advanced age and died universally respected.”[180] Hardy died in the year 1831, in his eighty-second year, having been born in 1751. At the close of his life he was connected with the Wesleyan Methodists. His monument may still be seen in the Bunhill Fields Burying Ground, opposite the City Road Chapel, London.