“I will call a witness before you,Gentlemen, named Adams, an accomplice, as you will find, and he being in the full confidence of the conspirators, will prove to you the nature of all their proceedings from time to time, and of the different plans and communications which were made between him and them. I will call another man to you, Gentlemen, who was the first to make known the diabolical plans of the conspirators, to my Lord Harrowby; but this man was not much known to them, nor did he therefore rank high in their councils.
“This man in fact, when he heard the dreadful plan related of visiting his Majesty’s ministers with destruction and death, his heart shuddered, his conscience smote him, and he could hold out no longer. Some men, you know, have very strong minds, and are not to be deterred from the most wicked purpose. Others are less firm, and more easily shaken in the accomplishment of a cruel or immoral design. The witness whom I shall produce to you, Gentlemen, and whose name is Hiden, is one of this description.
“A third witness I shall produce to you, is an individual who was rather more in confidence with the conspirators. His name is Dwyer, and you will find that Thistlewood and Davidson applied to him for his advice and assistance towards the execution of their murderous purpose. You will even find that they solicited his aid on the very day in which that purpose was to be put into execution. This witness, however, horror-struck at the intended massacre, and feeling it to be his bounden duty, ran almost instantly and communicated the fact to others. He first communicated it to his wife, and next to an officer in the army, named James, with a view that it might be immediately conveyed to his Majesty’s ministers. This, under the special order of Providence, was done.
“And now let me again ask you, Gentlemen, is this testimony to be rejected? Surely it never can by enlightened men such as you are. But this even does not furnish my case for the prosecution; for I assure you it does not rest upon the testimony of Adams, Hiden, and Dwyer; but there are facts in this case which, I fear, the prisoner will not be able to answer. Why, I would ask, were these men assembled in Cato-street, and why at night? There were none of them related to each other, yet they were all armed with deadly weapons, and found in close deliberation in an obscure stable. There were also found there a quantity of destructive grenades and fire-balls, together with a large portion of ammunition. But this is not all. At the houses of two others of the conspirators, namely, Brunt and Tidd, there were found similar articles of destruction, particularly ammunition. The weight found of the latter, gentlemen, amounted to between eleven and twelve hundred pounds; and I would ask, in the name of God, what object could these men have had in the possession of such a quantity of ammunition? Surely it could not even be for an individual murder! No, gentlemen, it was the destruction of his Majesty’s ministers in the first place, the burning and levelling of public barracks and edifices in the next, and finally, the establishment of a revolution, and the appointment of a Provisional Government.
“These men, Gentlemen, could never have been unfriendly towards ministers as individuals. It must have been a hatred of them in the character of their office alone, and their design was more particularly levelled at Lord Harrowby, because his Lordship was President of the Council. Can you doubt, that after this dreadful blow was made, and it had succeeded, that it was the intention of these conspirators to have established a provisional government, and thus spread anarchy and confusion around. In fact, that was the eventual blow meant to be carried into execution. I say, therefore, that even if the learned counsel for the prisoners were to contend most successfully against the evidence of the accomplices, the facts I shall produce to you by other testimony, will answer the purposes of this just and necessary prosecution.
“What was the conduct of the prisoners when they were discovered in Cato-street? I want not, Gentlemen, by a repetition of this term, to inflame your minds: but it will be extremely important for you to remember, that when the officers entered the loft there, and said, ‘we are officers,’ they submitted not to their authority, but resisted them even in the most ferocious manner, and one officer, as you have before heard, unfortunately lost his life. The prisoner at the bar, however, is not under trial for that offence, nor should the fatal circumstance operate in the present case against him. But I must again ask you, what became of the prisoner on the 23d, the intended night of blood and slaughter? Why he flies from the desperate scene, not to his own home, as you have already been told, but to an obscure place of concealment. These, then, Gentlemen, are the facts of this momentous case; and once more I ask you, what possible conclusion can you draw from such facts, if they be supported in evidence?
“Gentlemen, I repeat it, that this is a momentous and important case, and if these plots of the conspirators, and of the prisoner in particular, be proved to have existed—if the means had been used which I have described to you for effecting the nefarious and diabolical plans they had formed, then I call upon you, in the name of justice, to give that verdict which will best satisfy the laws of your country, and tend to protect the lives of your fellow-creatures. Commiseration (if I may use the term) towards a prisoner, I never should withhold; and God forbid, Gentlemen, that you should not give to the man at the bar the advantage of every, even the slightest, circumstance of doubt which may arise in his favour. If these doubts also should predominate, it will be your duty to acquit the prisoner; but if, on the other hand, the facts which I have laid before you be substantiated, and you feel in your consciences that the charge is made out, it will then become your painful but bounden duty to convict him. Should these facts, I say, for the last time, be brought home to the prisoner, it will then be your duty, as men, as citizens, and as fathers—as men desirous of maintaining the laws, and of acting under the solemn obligation of your oaths, to pronounce him guilty.”
The learned gentleman’s speech occupied the attention of the Jury for nearly two hours.
Before the first witness for the prosecution was put into the box, all the prisoners named in the indictment were brought up, with the view, we suppose, of having an opportunity of hearing the evidence, it being principally the same which is to be adduced against most of them. They entered the Court with much apparent indifference.