The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-17 00:00:00

CHESTER ASSIZES.

(FROM OCR OWN REPORTER. )
TRIAL OF THE REV. MR. STEPHENS.
CIVIL SlDE.—Before Mr. Justice PATTESON.
(Continued from The Sun ( f yesterday.)
Mr. Stephens then rcse to address the Court in his de-
fence amidst the most breathless silence. He said—My
Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury, this day has not over-
taken me unawares, nor does it find me unprepared. I
have long since foreseen its coming. I welcome it now
that it has come. I have often told the poor, my Lord,
in whose behalf rather than my own I am here to plead,
and in whose stead I am willing to suffer, though I have
done nothing worthy of bonds, that the faithful and fear-
less advocacy of their righteous cause would eventually
lead to scenes like this before us. it could not, my
Lord, be otherwise ; for that new species of tyranny,
which in the name and under the forms of law has of
late years endeavoured to overturn the liberties of this 111
country, could only hope for establishment and perma-
nency by wishing to overthrow all those, however bumble,
who had the uprightness and hardihood to oppose it.
This, my Lord, is of the very nature of tyranny. It be-
gins by first of all attacking the weaker and the more de-
fenceless. It draws off the eye, and lulls to sleep the sus-
picion of 1
those who would oppose it the first instance;
and then proceeds, by the promise of some immediate
advantage, and by holding out hopes of greater security
and benefit in its service. But stealthily and insidiously
as it begins, it must, my Lord, as the Hon. and Learned
Attorney-General says, " necessarily and inevitably" go
on, taking us one by one, until, one and all, we have be-
come enclosed within its net, and lie prostrate at its
mercy. You, Gentlemen of the Jury, as well as myself,
are an example and proof of this. You may well ask
yourselves, you may well inquire of one another, how and
for what purpose it is you have been placed in that 'oox.
I need only remind gentlemen of your station and Intel-
ligence, of the origin and professed reason for the esta-
blishment of the Special Jury system, to convince you that
your presence here is only intended, on the part of the
prosecution, to fill up those abundant forms of the law,
without which the hunted quarry cannot yet in England
be handed over to the merciless grasp of its pursuer.
Gentlemen, it is but of yesterday that Special Juries were
known at all in this country ; it is not longer ago, I be-
lieve, than since the reign of George 11. The cause as-
signed for this innovation on our ancient institutions was
that there must arise in the intricate and conflicting nature
of commercial transactions cases which men moving
in the ordinary speres of life would not be capable
thoroughly to investigate and rightly to adjudicate
upon. I may, perhaps, be allowed ,to say, such
is my veneration for all the institutions of my native land,
that it would have been much better in that case, instead
of changing the old use and practice, that use and practice
which for years has been the palladium of our liberttes, to
have insisted that gentlemen engaged in commerce should
have simplified their transactions so as to bring
them within the range of the understanding
of the common array of the country, rather
than introduce any change in the forms of our civil
and criminal proceedings. But allowing, for the sake of
the argument, that this innovation, which 1 am here bold
enough to call a corruption of the institutions of the coun-
try, was just and reasonable for the purpose professed at
the time, you will at least agree with me that this is not a
case which calls for such an extraordinary departure from
the ordinary uses of our Courts of Law. If this were a.
simple case, as the Attorney-General wishes you to be.
lieve--if it were merely a case of attending a meeting, so
clearly unlawful as not to require five words to be spoken
on the subject, and if proof of my having attended that
meeting, and using certain words there, were all that was
necessary to ensure a conviction, then, Gentlemen, I ask
you, and I call on you to put it to your consciences, what
reason on earth was there for your presence on this occa-
sion ? No ; there must be something behind the scenes,
something in this case which yet remains untold ; some-
thing which the Attorney-General has left designedly un-
told ; and it is my duty to withdraw the curtain that holds
it from your vision. In so doinp, I trust I shall receive t''.le
sanction of the Learned Judge, and of every mar, now
before me (for all now before me are in part my 'Judges in
this case). I hope, I say, I shall have the saesetion of the
Judge and the concurrence of the Jury, in my endeavour to
put you in possession of the facts conneeted with this pro-
s, cution. I know not in what manner a Special Jury is
got together—you know not either—the Attorney--General
may know. Suffice it to say that I have not objected to
you. When the list of 48 was sent down to me—how
struck I cannot tell—l made no objection to the list, I
did not strike off a single individual, I expressed no ob-
jection to any gentleman now present—notwithstanding all
the reports, all the rumours, and the more than credible
reports which had reached my ears ; for I felt convinced
that in an English Com t of Justice, presided over by en
English Judge, and before an English Jury, truth, up-
rightness, and honesty will receive the award that it de-
serves. My Lord, I have been advised, urged, and most
seriously importuned to apply to your Lordship for a post-
ponement of this trial, in consequence of the most extra.
ordinary state not only of the public mind in general, but
of the public mind in this very city of Chester, at the pre-
sent moment. It is a matter of notoriety on your walls—
it is within every man's knowledge—that a letter has
been written by the attorney conducting this pro-
secution, instructing the Mayor and authorities of
this ancient, loyal, and peaceable city that a rescue is to
be attempted in the present case—that mobs, mul.
titudes, armed arrays of men, are on their march
to the City of Chester for the purpose of rescu-
ing voluntary defendants, and involuntary prisoners
out of the bands of justice, even in the presence of sr, I
English Judge. I ask whether this is feir ? I ask
whether, in any other place, or any other presence than
that of a Constitutional Judge, or before any other array
than that of an honest English Jury, it woWid be possible
for any one situated as I am, to have a fair and impartial
trial ? When I came into this city, I came unbound,
without any obligation, pains, pene!.ties, fetters, or disa-
bilities against me. I have three indictments hanging over
my head ; the first is the one to which lam called this
day to speak. Each of these indictments, if their
allegations be substantiated, hands me over to
a sentence of imprisonment for life, or it may
be three imprisonments, accompanied by such a fine
as will render those imprisonments as long as the term
of my natural life. And yet, though I have three indict-
ments over my bead, I have not been held to bail on any
one of them. Since the month of March I have been a
free man. What is the inference I draw from this—only
this natural and inevitable one, that the Crown does not
consider me to be that dangerous person which the Attor.
ney- General represents me to be, and that I am not treat
criminal person whose motives, acts, purposes, and inten-
tions are such as have been represented in the speech of the •
Hon. and Learned Attorney-General. This is :impossible,
for, otherwise, they would not have allowed me to go at
large in the way I have. This, my Lord, as the Hon.
and Learned Attorney-General says, is the only natural
inference, necessary and inevitable from the premises,
that the Government wished me quietly and peaceably
to walk away and escape these indictments. But though I
I have other reasons than this inference merely for belies,.
yetso
ing that this was the wish of the Government,
confident am I of being able to convince the Jury of my
innocence, that, without bonds, without liability toappear,
I have this day thrown myself, not on the mercy, but
on the intelligence, and on the sense of justice that prevades
this Court on the present occasion. I ask the Hon. and
Learned Attorney-General how it is that I am tried here?
It is tight that you should know. As to the subject mat-
ter of this present charge I was as ignorant of it till I
heard it out of the mouths of the witnesses to-day, and out
of the speech of the Attorney-General, as you gentlemen
in that box. Although this meeting took place so long
ago as the month of November last, nine mouths ago, yet
even out of the evidence, you have heard that no alarm
was entertained, no fears or apprehensions felt, even by
the witnesses themselves. But even supposing those wit.
nesses were alarmed—supposing all the exaggerations of the
Attorney- General were dry dull matters of fact, how
happens it that in the face of such alarming meetings, with
banners and torches, and all the rest of it, and with such
inflammatory discourses delivered as these witnesses would
have you believe, that no information at all ever found its
way to the Magistrates of Hyde? How was it that these
individuals were not alarmed for their own property?
Without stopping to inquire how it was that they had not
such a patriotic regard for the property el others
as would induce them to give information which
might lead to the taking of stets for its pro.
tection, how, I ask, was it that no information
was ever given to the Magistrates of Hyde ?
One of the witnesses told you that it was only two months
ago that he was called on to make any statement regarding
this meeting. Another said that it was only three weeks
ago that he was first called on to give evidence by the At-
torney
conducting this prosecution. It was evident, there-.
fore, that no such alarm and danger as the Attorn.ay.
General had represented had occurred, or rasons
so strongly interested in the preservation of the
peace would, at an early stage of the but.iness, have
found it their duty to give information to the Ma-
gistrates. Besides, My Lord,'ll hold it as one of the
rights of the subject, the.t property should be protected,
and it is one of your most solemn duties here to-day that
you should guard all property, however small, and
no matter how bumble the individual to whom it belongs. ,
If that, my Lord, be your duty with regard to property,
is it not much more the duty of the administrators of the
law to guard the privileges and the rights of persons in this
realm t The witnesses who have appeared to-day, had no
doubt a clear right to complain of any alarm as to persons
or property—they had a right to unbosom themselves to
the Judge and to the jury, and to call on you to protect
their persons and their property. At the same time I
have a right no less clear ; it is to call on you to enforce
the law which protects my liberties. Now one essential
part of the liberty of the subject is, that no time should be
lost in acquainting the prisoner with the charge against
him, and that no time should be lost in giving him, all that
that I ever asked, a clear stage and no favour,
and to meet his accusers face to face. But no
such meeting has taken place isi this instance. I have never
been called before the Magistrates of Hyde. I have never
had the opportunity of confronting those witnesses. No,
the Crown knew better than that. The Attorney-Gene.
ral knew that if this investigation took place at the time,
on the spot, or in the neighbourhood of these transactions,
that I should have had an opportunity of disproving these
statements, and of dispelling this dark cloud which now
hangs over me, and of once more beholding the bread and
clear blue of peace and tranquillity. The Crown in this
case bad thoueht it necessary to proceed by way of indict.
ment, and the Crown was entitled to adopt that course.
But the nature and intention of this form of proceed.
ing was, that the individual charged should know
fully the offence with which he was charged. Now, I air,
charged for words spoken, and the indictment sets firth
that divers seditious ar.d inflammatory, and I don't know
what besides see t of speeches, were delivered by tee, but the
indictment does not contain. one single word of all that la
so contradictorily deposed to. Search the indictment
through from beginning to end and you will net find the
assertion of a single word that I am said to },aye used on
this occasion. I will give you a reason, not a general but
a particular one, why it was- requisite tbnt this rule, that
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