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

EVEN ENG EDITION.

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the witnesses witnesses swears that I said .I had been at Bolton, and
some other place. When I put the question to him,
he said he could not swear that this was
the fact. You perceive, therefore, that ;if the
words had been set forth in the indictment, I should have
been able-to: have been prepared with evidence to prove,
what was the fact; that I never was at Bolton on that
day, and that I never was at Bolton during the whole se-
ries of transactions to which the Attornew- General alluded.
This, thoug)i it is a compairatively insignificant portion of
the oa.z.-e, will convince you, Gentlemen of the Jury, bow
unieirly and unconstitutionally I am treated on the present
occasion. This indictment has been carefully drawn, and
its contents sedulously put together, for the purpose, as it

. .
wdSild appear, of putting it entirely out of my tiower to b ring
witnesses forward to rebut the allegations of the witnesses for
the Crown. One of the witnesses said I was at Wigan and
Bury, others said I was at Leigh, another at Bolton, and
others deposed to different other towns, and doubtless
had you had a few witnesses more it would, 1 suppose,
have turned out that I had been in every town in Lanca-
shire on that one day. ' I ask you then, Gentlemen of the
Jury, whether, on an indictment thus vaguely prepared, with
evidence produced in Court which it is impossible to antici-
pate or rebut, a defendant can have a fair trial. But,
my Lord, there is a reason why I am tried at Chester.
There is, a reason why all those usual forms that guard
our constitutional liberties and protect the subject in his
rights ban been departed from. It will probably be in
your remeenbrince that a fire took place at Ashton-under-
Line. That fire it is notorious wee laid to my charge.
Three days after the leadeng Whig journal of Manchester
said that the factory had been fired at the instigation of
persons who were in the habit of addressing the people of
Ashton. It was distinctly stated that the fire was burning
when ~Kas addressing the people at Bury. The article
was belied " Torch-light Meetings and their Conse
quences." I need not remind you that this transaction,
the fire in question was spoken of in all directions—ac-
counts of it through the press were circulated throughout
all the country, and that it was ascribed to me not only
in general charges of this nature, but that it was specifically
charged to my account as appears from the public newspapers.
A member of her Majesty's Government, the Hon. Fox
Mettle, in a speech reported to have been delivered by him
at Perth in Scotland, distinctly stated that the Govern.
ment had not interfered with public meetings, nor had not
interrupted the progress of free discussion, until their den-
gerOus and pernicious doctrines had been realized in prac-
tice, as in the instance of the burning of factories at Ash-
ton-limiter-Line ; and that then, so soon as these doctrines
had been reduced to practice— so soon as property had
I been destroyed by the inflammatory addresses of Mr.
Stephens and such mere then the Government had thought
I proper to interfere. My Lord, it is notorious that a coin-
ratnication had been made from Ashton to the Govern-
meet—the placards had been posted throueheut the dis-
trict, headed with the Queen's arms, and offering a reward
I of 3001., ore hundred from the Secretary of State, one hun-
dred from the oocupiers of the mills, and one bundled from.,'
the ate/imitated mill-owners of the district, for the offocovery
';of tb incendiary of that factory; and yet up tothis hour,
although I have been specifically charged with the firing of
rt*lacto:y, although my name has been sent round the
country as an incendiary, wishing property to be de-
, stroyed, the lives of the millowners to be sacrificed, and
theenills burned down—up to this hour no further notice
hai sfieen taken of this transaction. My Lord, I have
on this oecasion subpoenaed as a witness the Secretary of
State for the Home Department. I have called upon
hiffllay writ to appear in the box, and produce all such
documents, information, and other evidence, as may bo
in his possession, with reference to the burning of that
factory, in order not only that the real author of the fire
may be known to the public, and the crime punished as
it deserves, but that my name, and the character and
tendency of my public exertions, may be rescued from the
infamy which is attempted to be attached to it. Whether
he will appear I know not, but I have many other ques-
tions to put to him, eallich may tend to unravel the mys-
tery in which this case is wrapped. My Lord, I contend
J have a right to call for that evidence, in order to dis-
abetse the,, minds of the jury of statements which have
a tendeety to warp their judgments. I have
I a right that the Secretary of State, who -is
reported to have been my public libeller within a week of
the opening of the Assizes at Chester, and to have re-
hearsed the speech the Attorney- General has just delivered,
few the purpose of prejudicing the minds of the Jury—l
hi, ve a rigieit thet that distinguished individual should be pre.
Rh t, in order to give a reason why he has put forward, and
perverted, and distorted from whatevermotives, the language
which has been impated to me. In the latter end of Decem-
ber, shortly after the burning of the factory, I was arrested
under the most extraordinary circumstances, by Bow-street
, officers, one of whom held in his pocket authority to call
out the whole military force of the district. I was hurried
away (under the authority of a warrant charging me with
a speech tending to destroy life and property) from Ashton
to Wortley and Leigh, where the speech was delivered.
When I arrived there, it was found that there was no Ma-
gistrate nor no witnesses. I was then dragged to Manches-
ter in the dead of the night, escorted by a troop of dra-
goons, and consigned to the Yew Bailey prison. When I
etude before the Court, one of the Magistrates
who had endorsed the warrant could with difficulty
be obtained, or induced to appear on that occasion. On
the second examination he would not appear at all. On
my examination, one of the most extraordinary that had
ever been witnessed in an English court of justice, the
forms of the Court were so far departed from that no
cross-examination of the witnesses would be allowed tone-
pear. All that was stated against me was there—all that
was surfed in my favour was omitted. 'Proceedings alto-
gether so singular, so extraordinary, so irregular, and so
evidently of a persecuting rather than of a prosecuting
nature, that, before the Magistrates committed me the
keened Counsel *ho conducted the case distinctly stated
1 th 6 he might as well Inform the dGfendant that it was his
I intention to prosecute him for a conspiracy, along with
others, to obstruct the laws, but more especially the Poor-
-4 law Amendment Act. I went down to Liverpool, bound
is the *m of 2,0001.—a most unconstitutional bail in any
(
cage of the kind, but more especially in the case of a person
situated and circumstanced as I was. I went to Liverpool
to appear and answer the charge made against me.
A true bill was found, and afterwards a second true
trill, of Of?'&41 likewise no previews intimation had been
gin nv. The:circumstances said to have transpired in that
Bill occurred Ik-, the Month of December, and yet, as in
the ogee of the pgh sent indictment, there were no devosi-
then, no examination, no information laid before the Ma-
gfistraeas, and no opportunity of meeting my accusers face
to face. When the bill was found I applied to the Court
foe. a copy of the indictmeut, and was informed that it bad
been removed by e.ertiorari into the Court of Queen's
Bench. At considerable expense and inconvenience I
was obliged to appear and plead to these indictments in
' London, one pf which is the indictment you are called
upon to try: Nov: how happens it—waiving all previous
objections—that the fit.m. and Learned Attorney-General,
who wishes flee Jury to believe that he only appears for
the purpose of vindicating the law—how comes it that he
has not thapght proper to proceed against me at Liverpool
on the indictment which had been first found, and relating
Ito facts occurring first in point of time ? Why, because
the cause brUke-down ; it was so evidently a made up case
that the Hon. and Learned Gentleman would not venture
to proceed upon it. He hag dragged me into a part of the
country wheee the strongest prejudices exist against me,
' and in order that the minds of all might be impressed with
' the idea that because there were two other indictments
I agafriSt n.e—if there was only one I might be taken to be
' innocent, but because there were two others there must be
some ground for the charges—and to save the Liverpool Jury
the troebie, and the Attorney- General the disgrace of going
into the other case, you ore to give him a verdict, and hand
me over to the judgment of the Court. You will ask further
why it is that I art tried et all—a man, as the Attorney-
Gene, al told you, sustaining the character, and fulfilling the
offices of a minister of religion—a man known to advocate
nu pTilitical theories whatever—to belong to no political
• party—a ratan who has no connexion with any political party
in this country--a man who has studiously, and from Chris.
t tin principles, stood aloof from all the questions that agi-
tate the public mind ? If my life, and my humble talents,
which the Attorney-General has been pleased to complio
tent, hate been spent and employed in writing and speak-
inie against the Constitution of this country.—against the
Monarchy,b and the Lords and Commons—against the in.
stitutions of this country—if I were a meta whose public
conduct was of this descripelba, then I might well have
been marked cut as a fitting subject for a criminal prosecu-
tion. Bee it is notorious to the whole country so far as my
proceedinge have attracted the notice of the public, that so
far from adfocating any system, or laying down any plan to
effect political changes, to overthrow the Constitu-
tion, to subvert the institutions of the country, and
substitute new forms and institutions in their place—
so far from this one of my principal endeavours has
been, by reasons from Scripture, by authorities taken
out of the law books of God's own word, to disabuse
the public mind cf all, the prejudices which the party to
whbm the Attorney-Gencral belongs have mainly contri-
buted to consign the people of this country. My Lord, I
Jive in a district which for seven years has been the scene
of infidelity—which has heen overrun with the principles,
religious and political, of Carlilc and Paine, and the rest
of tiaat school—a district in which the people were imbued
with the false and \ dangerous notion of' " the greatest
happiness to the greatest number," as if it was not equally
eridninal and filj-ut to ask for hap Foss at the expense of
of the few as at the expense of many.an.y. For seven years I
have lifted up ray.
notions—those voice against those false and Benthamite
- Less all oceasionsiTebleral notions—those reforming notions.
trio people that heavete c-inhr4ced the opportunity of show-
ingeroromeires and doctrines of liberal-
. nSism and reform are the
- taipt:4l, I have shown therta this instead of altering our
iestitetious I have been labouring
of nee, And novel institutions,ing to amend them. Instead
have looked back to
what the wisdom of our forelatla
down as the principles of all civil andersoriginally laid
religious liberty.
asofthe Attorney •
I have taught, that so tar from the pesoopolreo
General's party asserts) being the
wordall political
power, I held, out of the Bible and the God,
that " all power is of God—tliat the powers thatofb
ordaiaed of God." I have taught that there are certain
I
immeitahle,princ,
principles of justice and truth, which no time
an inodify or coanoe. I have
maintained that these lot
routeale and everlasting principles of trutheoannti
daroiegdhtienott
„Jess, and brotherly kindness and charity,
, Scriptures, if found any where en earth out of the word
'of God, are to be found in this country—if w any Con-
are to be found in the
• of the globe,
If their inspiration is to be
,fution on the face
anstitution of England.
found in any institutions breathing, in any customs or any
. usages, conferring happiness and peac, upon the people,
and
they are to be found in Mae y institutions, the customs,
M Lord, I scruple not to
,the usages of our forefathers. I
% say that it is for this—that it is because am a man of
this
deteription—because I hate from my heart and my soul (t
was bred is me, and has grown With my growth, and
strengthened. with my strength, and is if poeetble s!r,ongerf
been to-day since I have a living witness of the ant...us .
tbIS prosecution)--.it is because in my
.heart and soul i
hat.' any thing like an invasion of the institutions of my
country-se-ft is because I have said that the law of God, as
laid down in the word df God, is the standard of all law
tin every man's breast, for 1110 Apostle tells us that the law
is written in every man's breast; it is given to us as
intelligent, reflective, reasoning creelarcs ; we are not