The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-11 00:00:00

HIGH TREASON.

TO THE MARQUIS OF NORMANBY.
Beware ! beware ! beware !

My Loma —lf I were not afraid that my gallantry might
be called in question, from the nature of the subject,-this
let ee should have been addrtssed to your Lady, not only
because you and your colleagues owe your present exist-
ence, as Ministers, to her good sense, spirit, and knowledge
-Of cur constitution, but because I believe her Ladyship
possesses more of those qualities than all your Cabinet
• Council (r. 4 it is called) put together. I also believe that
she will rend what I Write ; and she knows that, when yeu
Were so factiously and unjustly attacked, after tranquillizing
'lreland,- I drew my pen, without fee or reward, or expecte.
• tion of either, direct or indirect, in your defence.
My Lord, I have been requested to republish that series
of letters 1- addressed to you in the News, by those who
,care of opinion that, if yOu had bad the spirit to act upon
the counsel therein given, in refusing your aid to Ministers,
except -for 'the purpose of immediately redressing the
grievances of the people, and of bringing about a reetora-
tion of our real Constitution as settled at the Revolution,
these Chartist outbreaks, which have been so improperly
elevated to the rank and dignity of HIGH TREASON,
never would have occurred, and because it has beers
thought useful that these notes and observations on passing
events, in illustration of the doctrines aed conduct of my
great master should be pub:ished in a light, separate forte,
before my life of that great man can appear. My Lord, if
what I read in the public prints be true respeeting the
manner in which the reprieve and commutation of the
sentence of death have been carried into exceuti n in the
dead of night at AL.nmeuth, upon the three unhappy in-
dividuals convicted of high treason under Special Com-
mission, I have much to say to your Lordship for having
Lnt your name, esen against your will, to such proceedings.
As one of the oldest English barristers that are left,
and totallyunacqueirited with there unhappy individuals, or
haying ever been, directly or indirect'y, consulted uu their
b b ill, I must say that I have been horror-struck at the
reports that have re aehed the public eye upon this
affair; and if it be true, as is reported, that this
commutation of the sentence to ti ar.sportetion for life is
to be carried into execution egeinst the consent of the
prisoners, it will be in, my humble opinion, under all the
extraordinary circumstances of this extraordinary case, ono
of the moat menstreve and bare feced violations of tire old
Laws of England, that in all my long life and lamentable.
experience of the eubversion and perversion of the wise
and free laws and constitution of this country, I have
hitherto observed, and I cannot but agree with the opinion
said to be delivered by the ex-Lord Chancellor Brougham,
from whose opinions-relating to the old laws and liberties
of England I have in general the great misfortune
very materially to differ, as I also did in his at-
tack upon yourself ; but I cannot • • but agree with
that learned, highly-gift( d, and eccentric Lord, that, " in
the whole cuutse of my professional experience, a stronger
caeo for absolute acquittal I have never known."
It is true that I have long retired from active practicein
my profeessioe ; hut I hate not been an inattentive ob-
server of judicial proceedings, and especially in cases of a
nature ; nor aria I a novice" in such cases. I took
a deep interest in the State Trials in 1794, and sat in the
same students'-box with my now Learned Fricos! Daniel
O'Connell,. and where I have reason to believe he first
shook fi the Tory or Jacobite notLns which most Ca-
tholics of that day were educated. [Lying been !I:yell
engaged as Counsel in the State Trials at Maidstone in
1790, and lia.vine- there succeeded, with the blesrine of
God, is defending nn innocent youth against the morotrous
charge cf High Treason, on which occasion I declared
to the Jury that, •‘iu the event of their finding
a verdict of Guilty, I should nit ve r cease to think that it
would be the coat:heist judicial murder ever committed
in England," I now feel myself bound in the duty I owe
to her itiejeet's person and of the love I have
ever felt for the free constitution of my country, to
declare that, according thereto, the Crown bas no right to
eom:nute the sr»tenee of death in a case of high treason
intn .transpoitation for life, irittout the conseid of the pri-
sodir, ne more then it has to commute such sentence into
the punishment of the rack or wheel; with the exception
of the coup- de grace, or death-blow upon the breast. I
speak not of any modern boroughmonger acts in abrogation
of our old lairs, though I believe there 13 none that go.
to this; hut unless each right has teen given by Act o.
Parliement in the case of High Treason, there can be no
pretence for eaying that such right exists at common law.
My Lord, there is a' clear understanding in: the public
mind, which never splits hairs, that whatever may be the
guilt of those prisoners, they never did mean to " compass
or imigiae the death 4.r deposition of the Queen," and that
the torsos arid securities of the law, in this greatest of all
crimes., have not been complied with, that the Judges either
did riot know the law or (Id not decide upon it at the trial,
as they ought to have dune.
What must be the inevitable consequence of such an
impression ? Look at the immense number of petitions
on behalf of men convicted of High Treason? Dots
this net speak volumes ?''
My Lord, ask your Lady, who, they say, is more deeply
read than yourself, whether if historians informed us that
among " the illegal and cruel panihments" inflicted under
the reign of the Stuarts, which was one of Lot the least
causi.s alleged at the Revolution, as my great master said,
for tl.c dethronement of a guilty King, and the extirpation
of his guiltless family"—that the unjust sentence of death
passed upon the immortal Algernon Sidney and the great
Lord Russell had been commuted, against their consent,
to transportation for life to a penal colony—a hell within
a hell—if such a place had then existed—and that for fear,
as the historian conjectured, of their being rescued by the
bargemen of the Thames, they had been taken from their
beds at the dead of night, and privately hurried away
down the River, that the ship had teen wrecked, and
nobody lost but the prisoners, what should we think of
the administration of justice in those days, and how
could any mortal wonder that such a mode of execu.iirg
the MERCY OF -THE CROWN, instead of being
accepted with gratitude, and as an earnest of a change of
policy in the ruling powers instead of quieting and
appeasing the people, was so speedily followed by all'
that afterwards took place?
Arc we to learn nothing from history ?
Will your party go on from the days of Sheridan in
building up a wall to run their own heads against, and
even allow the Welsh Ch7rtits—the wildest of all wild
Sergeants, that ever "spied a brother," or poor trades-
man, like the brave and uoneet Sticials of London and
Middlesex, to be your architects and instruments in built -
ing this wall higher and higher, till it shall eclipse tnis
party from all sight and regard of their only friends—the
industrious classes ? The Church is against you—the
nobility are against you—tire squicratehy arc against you
—the learned profe:sions -are against you--the shepocracy
are nearly divided between you and your rivals for office;
for all this thanks to your own jealous, new-!'anglei, Re-
form Bill l—(nec lex justbr ulla, quern necis artifices arte
perire sea.) isti..r vri:l any new humbug or deco...duck
mend the matter.

My Lord, if the law ellicera of the Crown, either fr,m
mist k a notions of policy on the part of their master, ur
from their own exce,sive ignor..nee c,f cur old laws (which
were solemnly declined in that great Act of Sediment
which ulonc conferred o.i the present Royal Family their
right and title to the throne of these realms, " to
be the birthright cf the people thereof") hare so
blundered and mingled the Monmouth proceedings from
from first to last, in their haste to obtain a conviction of
111011 TREASON. when they had a clear case of riot and
outrage, punishable with death wit Lout benefit of clergy
—if the public believe that all the guards, provided by the
transcendent wisdom of our forefathers in this greatest of
all crimes, have not been 11:erally and scrupulously ob-
served, I do implore your Lordship to pause, and rather
resign your office, than tareishtne.laurels you acquired in
Ireland ;- for ! have no hesitation in declaring that, if all
the proceedings and doctrines • I have lately read arc to
continue to be acted upon, as to the objection taken by tho
accuici to the challenges of the Crown without cause—
as to the violation of tne Act regarding the lists of jury_
in 11 ; and, shove all, it this Stew practice is to continue Uf
the seLiaration of juries, which has b.en rendered neces-
srry by nothing but the mode, n attempts to convert other
offences into the crime of thou TREASON—a crime that
was truly said by my great master,
." to lay in the palm of
a man's say, I do declare it to be any opinion, as
an old
lawyer, that the life of no man that takes a part in
poi:tics is safe, but is, from henceforth, at the mere) of the
present and all future Ministers. By the common law
" the omission of any nec.siary part of the judgment foi
treason is error, s-i.fficient to reverse the attainder, as it is
more severe and formidable in treason than any other
crime."-2 Salk, 652. And this principle rappli:s to every
part of the proceedings fionn first to last. See, my Lori],
to what a dangerous precedent may lead in the bawls of
any future bad ministers, and allow me to wisper into the ears
of the present Ministers the beautitul admonition. left to all
posterity by the grea Roman conqueror, the Nit ellington of
his day, and something more, inasmuch as he was the most
accomplished of his countrymen—"omniamala exempla
ex taus domesticis orta sent, sed übi imperium ad ignaros
aut minus bonos perseuit, novum illud exemplum ab
dignis et idoncis, ad incl!grios t non idoneos transfertur.'
A DISCIPLE OF JOHN HORNE TOOKE.
Feb. 5, 1340.