The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-27 00:00:00

HIGH TREASON.

TO THOMAS ATTWOOD, EsQ.

MY DEAR ATTWOOD,

I have read with great regret your farewell letter
to your constituents in the Birmingham Journal,
of the 21st inst., forwarded to me, no doubt, by
your kind order.

I do not wonder, my friend, since neither the
governors nor the governed appeared inclined to
listen to your sage counsels, that you should wish
to withdraw from Politics, instead of sacri-
ficing your health, as I know you were doing,
in trying to convince those who were inca-
pable of understanding you, or of justly appre-
ciating your transcendant merits ; but the thing
is impossible. You can no more abstract
yourself from politics than my old friend, Sir Astley
'Cooper could abstract himself from practice, and
become a gentleman at large. I wish I had ac-
cepted your kind invitation to Jersey, some months
ago; I think I should have prevailed with you to
have retained your seat, at least till the general
election ; for as true as " God's in Glo'ster," as
Sir Pepper Arden used to say, the next Session
will exhibit to the world the complete triumph of
all your currency predictions and doctrines ; be-
sides, though you do not seem to be aware of it, you
never were so important in the House of Com-
mons, as you were at the close of the last Session.
I am, however, glad to see that our mutual
friend, Frederick Muntz, has consented to be put in
nomination for your seat. He is able, bold, and
active, and above all, honest. Many of the men
of Birmingham have miserably disgraced themselves
"in running after strange gods ;" but they will now
disgrace themselves past all redemption if they do not
return Muntz without his asking them for their votes,
and without putting him to a single farthing of
expense. I believe I have impressed him, as I
know I have you, with the great wisdom and beauty
of our ancient Constitution, and how little good can
ever be expected from the new-fangled, modern,
jimcrank affair that is now hurrying the country so
rapidly to ruin. Cobbett used to call it " The
Thing," and it is the same " Thing " now that it
was then.

In your last private letter to me you say you
" would willingly lay down your life to see the
people of England as free from poverty and distress
as the people are in the happy island you are in."
Why there is no reason under heaven why they
should not. They were formerly as happy and as
free from poverty, and what makes them otherwise
now but bad laws ?

You tell me "if I can forget politics and go to
Jersey, I shall prolong my life, and that my small
income will be more than double for all necessary
comforts." Forget politics ! I mist first forget to live.
I was early taught by my great master that " They
who have well considered that kingdoms rise or fall,
and that their inhabitants are happy or miserable—
not so much from any local or accidental advantages
or disadvantages, but accordingly as they are well
or ill governed, may best determine how far a virtuous
mind can be neutral in politics."
I see as plainly as you do the tempest before us ;
I know the ship is sinking ; but, though both the
temptations you hold out are most acceptable in
my eyes, the seas that surround Guernsey and Jersey
are too much charged with blood of mine already,
and I am somewhat superstitious on that subject.
Besides, I have made up my mind that as long as a
plank is left of our old Constitution,on which I can
put my foot, I will never cease working at the pumps,
till I see we are out of danger, or sink with 0-Id
England to her watery grave.
High Treason is now the order of the day 1 ! !
What do the boys that govern us know about
high treason ? Read the indictment lately pre-
ferred against Frost and " his bewildered Welch
Chartists for their Babyism," as it has been well
called by an old Correspondent of mine—as pious
a clergyman of our Church as ever walked the
earth or preached the Gospel, who signs himself in
The Sun of the 7th inst. "H. P." Now, if the
Duke of Wellington had been bold enough to
have prosecuted you for high treason, when he suc-
ceeded Lord Grey as Prime Minister, I would
have felt myself bound to have put on my wig and
gown once more, and have defended you after the
following fashion, as I was your adviser upon every
point of the great Petition of Rights passed at
Newhall Hill, in 1830, though not in that which
was called the National Petition, passed at Hol-
loway,l7lead in 1838. Whoever wrote that paper
was a seiolist in our old laws and constitutions, and
ignorant of the real meaning of the word RIGHT ;
otherwise there would not have been such sins of
omission and of commission ; but all sins, as
Prince 'Metternich maintains, are not crimes, and
there certainly is nothing treasonable or even illegal
in that petition—otherwise it never would have
passed the ordeal of two Speakers, or have been
received by the House of Commons.
I hope what I am going to say will injure no
man on the awful trials that are approaching ; I
would sooner cut off the hand that holds my pen
than do so, and I cannot sufficiently praise the
Editors of The Sun and of the Standard for the hu-
mane and true Englishman-like manner in which
they have distinguished themselves, in bespeaking
a fair trial for our unhappy and deluded fellow-
subjects. I know that if it is possible
to satisfy a jury that their offence has been
" Babyism," or anything else than high treason, it
will be done by my Learned Friend Sir F. Pollock
better than by any man I have lately observed in
my old profession. I should, in the first place,
have brought forward again my old objection to the
challenges of the Crown without cause, which the
Whig lawyers have allowed, along with all the other
laws the Whigs once so factiously and violently op-
posed, to remain just where they were in everything
that relates to the abrogation of the liberties and
securities of the subject—whether they are "Judge-
made laws," or " Boroughmonger-made laws."
However, here goes

" Once more upon the waters."

Gentlemen of the Jury—When, in an evil hour,
Mr. Pitt thought proper to order his Attorney-Ge-
neral to file against our illustrious countivman
John Horne Tooke, what he always called " a
Bill in Chancery against his life," so little was the
law of high treason understood, that Abbot, the
fidus Achates of the Attorney-General, took it, as
the Solicitor of the Treasury told me, to his
patron, Judge Buller, to settle, as it is
called—and when Mr. Tooke, who intended
to plead his own cause, till the Whigs solicited
the honour of defending him, sent my friend
Felix Vaughan to retain Mr. Gibbs to assist
on points of practice, this great lawyer (for so
he was) declared that he knew nothing of the law
of high treason, never having had occasion to study
it, and his speech afterwards, which I shall have
occasion to quote to you, was the effect of
his condescending to be as much as possible with
his client, and making himself master of his
client's learning and opinions. Gentlemen, I at-
tended this trial, not as Counsel for Mr. Tooke,
for I was then a student at law, but I rose
every morning at four o'clock and went to the Old
Bailey, and amply was I rewarded ; for my mind
was kept in a roar of laughter for a whole week.
Mr. Tooke maintained that high treason was a
crime of that short, clear, and distinct nature that
" it laid in the palm of a man's hand."
Now, gentlemen, in like manner, in an evil hour,
has Mr. Attorney been ordered by his masters T.
bring this charge of high treason against my Vie
What, are the overt acts charged, from which
actoo
are to infer the treasonable mind ?
If
the
17;r from
is in itself an innocent act, you cannot
it a treasonable mind. If the overt act i
infer from is
ille-
gal, but not treasonable, you cannot :
it a treasonable mind—if a man is tried for mur-
der, you cannot convict
proved is stealing a horse-0r .e a man employs
illegal means to get others to joie him in advocating
that is not itself treason-
able,or declaring for anything
are not overt acts of treason
such illegal acts
you
have no evidence that there was treason in
nfaeit reum
the mind, for, actus no , t mens sit rea.
Before many of you were bo.rn, I was Counsel at
the state trials at Maidstone, in 1798, for a young
man, charged with high treason. There are many
things in those trials known to the public, and
some not known to the public, though well worthy
of your attention, and of the attention of every jury
engaged in the awful question, whether there has
been any treason in the mind or not. The overt
act laid against O'Connor was his setting off to
go to France, then the enemy of England ; but
this, though an illegal act, was not an overt
act of treason, and
on,
of that day, one of the greatest lawyers that any
country ever produced—l mean the late Lord El-
don, tried hard to connect O'Connor with an un-
doubtedly treasonable paper that was found in the