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

After a considerable number of challenges, both on the part of the crown and of the prisoner, the following jury was finally impanelled and sworn:

Charles Palmer,
William Moore,
Thomas Beecham,
John Beck,
Benjamin Rogers,
James Carey,
George Smith,
James Eade,
Benjamin Blythe,
William Percy,
John Young,
William Edgecombe.

Mr. Shelton then proceeded to read the indictment against the prisoner, which was the same already described in the case of Arthur Thistlewood.

Mr. Bolland, at a few minutes after ten, opened the indictment in the usual way to the Jury.

The Solicitor-General rose at ten o’clock to address the Jury for the prosecution. “It was hardly necessary for him, he said, to entreat their serious and patient attention to the statement he had to make to them in the performance of his duty: they owed it to themselves, to their country, and, above all, to the prisoner at the bar. In justice to him, there was one fact now known, and to which he might without impropriety allude. One of the parties in this conspiracy had been already convicted. That circumstance they were bound not to let operate to the prejudice of this prisoner; towards his part of the offence they were bound to look, not through the medium of any thing that had already passed in that Court, but solely through that which would this day be laid before them in evidence; to that alone they were to direct their attention, and by that must they form their opinion of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. On the law of the case it would be unnecessary for him to make a single observation, for upon it not a single objection, not a single doubt, had been stated since this commission had sat. The charge against the prisoner, divested of all technicalities, was simply this, that he had conspired with others, by force and violence, to overthrow the laws and constitution of the country. This was to be effected by an extensive plan of assassination, and by other means which he should hereafter mention.

“In behalf of the prosecution, he would plainly and simply narrate the facts as he knew they would be proved in evidence. He would narrate them without the smallest exaggeration or distortion of facts. The best gift and pride of the people was the pure and impartial administration of the laws of this country, and he would state the facts as they would soon hear them in evidence, and leave them to decide upon their applicability to the prisoner.”

The Solicitor-General then detailed the evidence he had to adduce against the prisoner; it was exactly as it is subsequently given by the witnesses, and corresponded entirely with that given already on the trial of Thistlewood. When the learned gentleman came to that part of the evidence which described the conflagration that was to have been made on the night of the intended assassination, and the proclamations which were to have been posted up on the night of the intended assassination, calling on the friends of liberty to meet, for their tyrants, meaning the members of his Majesty’s government, were murdered, and in which they were called upon to rally round the provisional government which was then sitting; he observed, “what would not have been the situation of this great metropolis if this dreadful project had been carried into effect?

“The people would have seen pieces of artillery moving in different directions; they would have seen a general conflagration; they would have heard of a provisional government, and that too rendered perhaps more terrible by the ignorance of the people who were to compose it. It was impossible to judge what would have been the result of such a notification. He was, indeed, willing to believe, that the people of this country were too sound to be effectively invited to rally round men whose projects were introduced to them by the horrible and atrocious crimes of assassination and murder. He trusted that hitherto, at least the natural indignation of Englishmen would revolt at any propositions coming from such a source, and to be sustained by such diabolical means.”

After detailing very minutely the evidence he meant to give against the prisoners (as it is hereafter detailed), he informed the Jury they must hear it from one or more accomplices; on the extent of whose credibility he made similar observations to those made by the Attorney-General in his opening speech on Thistlewood’s trial, and dwelt on the comparative impunity with which dark and secret conspiracies would escape, if the evidence of an accomplice were not admissible.