An Authentic History of the Cato-Street Conspiracy / With the trials at large of the conspirators, for high treason and murder, a description of their weapons and combustible machines, and every particular connected with the rise, progress, discovery, and termination of the horrid plot

by George Theodore Wilkinson

His Lordship then proceeded with his address. “Thistlewood,” he observed, “had complained that the Court had refused to receive the testimony of some witnesses, after the evidence had closed on both sides. But he should recollect that his trial was conducted according to the law, as it had been administered in this country for ages. The witnesses whom he proposed to call were for the purpose of impugning the testimony of a man of the name of Dwyer, and no other. His learned counsel had previously called witnesses to the same effect. It could not be allowed to him, according to the ordinary course of proceeding, to do more. Indeed, even if he had been allowed so to do, it could have been productive of no advantage, because his case did not depend upon the evidence of that witness alone. This observation was confirmed by the fact, that in subsequent cases, where the evidence of Dwyer was altogether omitted, a similar verdict of guilty was returned.

“Some of them had thought fit to say much of the character of a person who had not appeared as a witness upon this occasion. The Court could proceed only upon the evidence which was brought before it. Of the person, therefore, to whom they alluded, or of the practices of which he had been guilty, they could have no knowledge. Upon the testimony, however, which had been adduced against them, there was abundantly sufficient to induce a Jury of their country to come to a conclusion, that the whole of them had taken an active part in the crimes imputed in the indictment.

“From all that had appeared in the course of these trials, as well as from much of that which they had then heard, it was plain to see, that they did not embark in their wicked designs until they had first suffered their minds to be corrupted and inflamed by those seditious and irreligious publications, with which, unhappily for this country, the press had but too long teemed. He did not make these remarks to aggravate their guilt, or to enhance the sufferings of persons in their situation. He made them as a warning to all who might hear of their unfortunate fate, that they might benefit by their example, and avoid those dangerous instruments of sedition, by which their hearts and minds were inflamed, and by which they were drawn from every feeling of morality, from every sense of obligation towards their Creator, and of justice towards society.

“The treason of which they were charged, and found guilty, was that of compassing and imagining to levy war against his majesty, for the purpose of inducing him to change his measures and Ministers; the first step towards effecting which was to have been the assassination of Ministers themselves. They had endeavoured now to complain of the testimony of those persons who had been examined as witnesses on the part of the prosecution. Some of them were accomplices in their guilt.

“It had here happened, as it had upon other occasions, that the principal instruments in the hands of justice were partners in their wickedness: he trusted that circumstance would have its due weight and consideration with all those, who became acquainted with their situation, and with the circumstances of their trial. He hoped that, for the sake of their own personal safety, if they could not be restrained by any other consideration, they would abstain from evil communications and from evil connexions, such as had brought the prisoners to the unhappy position in which they stood.

“Some of them had avowed their intention to have taken away the lives, and to have steeped their hands in the blood of fourteen persons, to many of them unknown. It was without a precedent to see Englishmen laying aside their national character, and contriving and agreeing on the assassination, in cold blood, of fourteen individuals, who had never offended any of them. This was a crime which hitherto was a stranger to our country, and he trusted it would, after the melancholy example of the prisoners, be unknown amongst us.

“It now,” he said, “only remained for him to pass upon them the awful sentence of the law; but before he did so, he exhorted them, he implored them, to employ the time yet left to them in this life in endeavouring, by prayer, to obtain mercy from that Almighty Power before whom they would shortly appear. The mercy of heaven might be obtained by all those who would unfeignedly, and with humility, express contrition for their offences, and seek that mercy through the merits of their blessed Redeemer.”

This awful appeal, delivered by the judge in the most impressive manner, was wholly lost on Thistlewood, who, with apparent careless indifference, pulled out his snuff-box, some of the contents of which he took, casting his eyes round the court, as if he were entering a theatre. His indifference was the more conspicuous when contrasted with the solemn manner in which the Lord Chief-Justice addressed the prisoners.

His Lordship continued.

“Whether the prisoners would profit by the advice which he thus sincerely gave them he could not say, but he once again begged that they might not allow themselves to be led away by such feelings and opinions as seemed hitherto to have influenced them.