The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-06 00:00:00

• TRIAL BY JURY.
FIFTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY DINNER TO CO4IME-
MRATE 'FHE ACQUITTAL OF HORNE TOOKE
D HAR DY.
Yesterday about one hundred gentlemen assembled at din-
ner at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, to corn-
momorate the fifty-first anniversary of the acquittal of Home
'llooke and Hardy. Dr. Bowring, M.P., presided.

When the cloth was removed,
The CHAIRMAN proposp,d, as the first toast, " The Sove-
reignty of the People." In doing so, he said he proposed
that toast first, because the multitude were not made for the
monarchs, but the monarchs for the multitude.
In proposing the health of " The Queen," be expressed
Ape that the Sovereign who was placed at the summit of
the Government of this great empire would cause- her reign
6be marked-by a desire to consult the happiness of the com-
munity over which she ruled.
The CHAIRMAN said the next toast was " Trial by -Jury."
—(Chefs.) He would observe, in offering this toast to the
aosembly,,,that all experience had taught mankind that very
often great events arose out of discouraging circumstances;
and the history of man could point to as many resultsisof
great importance arising from light causes, as could the
tory of philOsophy for its most valuable discoveries.—(Hear,
hear.) What the discovery of attraction and gravitation
was in the world of matter, the importance of trial
by jury was in the world of mind.—(Hear, hear.)
It was the victory of political philosophy that gained
for the peQple of this country that glorious pri-
vilege which they knew so well how to value, and
which they would never surrender.—(Cheers.) The
great institution of trial by jury was an invaluable boon to
the people, and was so regarded by the enlightened portion
of the community.—(Hear.) It was that battering-ram
which protected individuals against tyrannical penal laws,
and which eventually broke them down.—(Cheers.) With
these observations, he begged to give them the inviolable
privilege of Trial by Jury."—Drank with all the honours.
The CHAIRMAN, in proposin, the next toast, said he had
now come to the great toast of day, the object of which
was to bring back their recollections to bear upon the me-
mory of those great and immortal men who, in the dark days
of dagger and persecution, had braved the storm, and were
prepatid to suffer all the consequences of penal enactments in
the great cause of public liberty.—(Cheers.) Removed as
those whom he now saw around him were from the times in
which those illustrious men lived, they could scarcely appre-
ciate the many hardahips, vexations, and persecutions they
underwent in their efforts to assert a great principle.—(Hear,
hear.) But they endured all those because they were sup-
ported by pdblic opinion, and. with that, to back them they
were prepared even to "walk through the valley of the
shadow of death," rather than abandon the position they
had taken.—(Cheers.) But the present age was beginning
to do them Justice ; the future would certainly do so, because
time ever came to the aid of the grateful recollection of the
..virtuous and patriotic.—(Cheers.) In the present day there
was no doubt on the public mind as to the positions which
Sydney and Hampden should occupy in the estimation of
their country.—(Hear, hear.) Inquiries had been made
as to whether Cromwell should have a statue ; but
be the result of that what it might, no man could
deny a statue to John Milton, for he was enshrined in the
hearts of the people, and regarded as deserving of a place
amongst the best of men, both by Parliament and by people:
—(Cheers.) On the death of Sohn Milton, a certain writer
said that the fame of that great man had gone out like the
snuff of a candle, and left no agreeable odour after it ; but he
(the Chairman) begged to say, that so far from the result
verifying that assertion. that candle" had illuminated the
whole world, and the memory of it was held as sacred as that
of a consecrated saint. He (the Chairman) had made
those observations in order to show that the people of this
country were not slow to consecrate the memory of the
great who had passed away, and they looked with a deep
and fervid intent upon those who still lived, and who had
been associated with them.—(Hear, hear.) There were some
few in that room who still well remembered the memorable day
they had this evening met to commemorate, and who had taken
a part RI the proceedings then going forward ; and it would
be the boast and the privilege of the youngest now in thin
room, to be able to declare, at a future day; that though they
had not the good fortune to live in the times of Hooke and
Hardy, and those other illustrious men, they at least could
say those who had mingled with them were not unknown to
them, and that they hung with delight upon the accounts
they had heard of the manner in which these great men
bore up against adversity, had struggled with the waters,
whtch were about to overwhelm them and had arisen front
the ordeal invigorated and resolute.:—(Cheers.) Such he
trusted would be the conduct of the young men of the preS
sent day at any moment when _the liberties of the country,
alto be imperilled, or tyrannical laws be attempted to bet
enfaiVat —(Loud cheernr)
Mr. PARRYWRS calfedlipon to speak to the next toast, which
wax" The memory of the three juries who, in 1797, accquitted
Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwell on a charge of high treason, and of
Erskine and Gibbs, the able and gratuitous counsel of the
,accused." In rising to propose the toast, he said he felt
4,4)1161:wed by having been chosen for the performance of sq
agreeable 0 duty. He had only been attending those meet,
ings for a few years, but he felt convinced that a more
portant public duty he could not discharge, and he also felt
gratified for the manner in which he had always been received
at them by those who now surrounded him.—(Hear, hear.)
The toast entrusted to him to propose was one which might
easily have fallen to the lot of some one more competent to
do justice to its merits than he was. There might be some in
that room to-night who still preserved a vivid recollection of
all the painful circumstances attending those extraordinary
trials—who had witnessed the anxious attention of those
three remarkable juries while they were addressed in the
powerful and forcible eloquence of the Attorney-General
of that day, who called the accused " those great
State criminals."—(Hear hear.) The excitement in-
separable from all the circumstances attending these
trials—the crowded and concerned audience by which the
juries and the prisoners were surrounded—the excitement
arising from the naturally intense anxiety that existed in.
the public mind to know what fate awaited men who were
on trial for their lives—the excitement of the able counsel
who defended the prisoners, and who denounced, as odious
and infamous, that law which would jeopardise the lives of
men by what was called " constructive treason"—(Cheers)
—instead of having laws so plain that no man could mistake,
and all might shun the breach of—(Cheers)—that state of
excitement which even amongst the jury was so strong, that
when the foreman came into Court to return his verdict, he
cupid scarce articulate it, and when he had done so, fainted
assay—an unprecedented circumstance—but thereby stamped
that verdict as the result of a state of insecurity to the liber-
ties of the people the memory of which should never die
away—(Cheers)—the excitement attendant upon the
fact that Erskine and Gibbs, the prisoners' counsel, had de-
feaded them gratuitously, as if to say there never was a time
when a lawyer could do anything for nothing.—(Laughter.)
It was not even all these circumstances combined that made
bins look back with pleasure to the result of these trials, but
it was the additional one, namely, the assertion of that great
and eternal principle for which those men had risked all to
uphold.—(Cheers.) Men of the present day were so much
absorbed by other matters, and had given themselves so
little trouble about this, that one would almost imagine the
people lived under the very best form of government it was
possible to have—(Laughter)—and he would venture to as-
sert that even the present Government had not yet deemed
the consideration of this great principle of importance.—
(Cheers.) However, he would beg to remind this meeting
that if those assemblies were to be of any real value, they
. should not only express their approbation of the men whose
memories they had met to commemorate, but they should also
never lose sight of the necessity for upholding the principle
those men fought for. Yes, there would be no use in their
meeting there unless they were resolved to follow up the
assertion of that principle, and to adopt the example of those
great men who had fought for it so bravely, even unto the
very threshold of martyrdom.—(Loud cheers. )
The toast was then put from the chair, and hailed -with
all the honours and protracted applause.
Mr. W. J. Fox was called upon to propose the next
toast. He said he had been anticipated in a great deal he
had intended to say by Mr. Parry, in his very able speech.
He concurred with him that if they meant to carry out
their object, they should not only do honour to the men, but
to the principle.—(Hear, hear.) The men were bound up
with the principle ; and though the men whose memory they
had met that night to honour were no longer living, yet
there were young men rising up around them who, like Mr.
Parry, stoad as it were in the place of those who were gone,
and had the same duty to perform.—(Hear, hear.) He
(air. Fox) was not present at those trials during that event
61 period, but he remembered it well. He was living at
Norwich M the time, and the news of the acquittal arrived
is that town on the day attelet was made known in Lon
gist. "it was announced in one of the churches while a clergy-
man wa.4 in the act of delivering a discourse; and it was
bailed by a psalm of thanksgiving, that could not have been
surpassed in the loftiest cathedral, or by the grandest aspi-
rations of consecrated eloquence.—(Cheers.) He remem-
bered well that at that time men who, in their own locality,
wore esteemed good and virtuous men, were regarded as
men of very different character at the seat of Government
atilt' the change of place changed their character; and they
were dragged from their homes and their beds without being
permitted to put on their shces, as if there might be some-
thing treasonable even in contact with those articles.—
(Laughter.) Tooke, and those who were tried with him,
• were very near being hanged for saying that the Gievern-
ment was corrupt ; and yet, in a little time after, the same
bxly reformed themselves, and in a way, too, that most
corruptkodies effect reformation.—(Cheers, and laughter.)
. 'kis speaker next alluded to the discussions that had ap-
peared in the public prints about certain statues which were
to be placed in the new Houses) of Parliament; but he
. treated that the time was coming when the people would
have a Parliament that would not be held in any palace in
which there should not be a statue erected to honest Tom
)lardy:—(Loud cheers.) He next adverted to a speech re-
. pot id of Lord John Russell upon his receiving the liberty of
Molilibisrgh, and commented in a very humorous strain
upon ids Lordship's expressions, to the effect that he was
anxious to give the people extensive immunities, but that
he wished to do it " constitutionally ;" but he (Mr. F.) con-
tended that no extension of the people's privileges would be
worth having while they were still compelled to submit to
ecclesiastical tyranny, or be servile to a monarchy. He
coesluded by proposing the toast, " Radical reform of
all abuses, and a fair representation of the people of
the British empire in Parliament,"; which was drank with
loud applause.
Mr. Taxi..on proposed the " Memory of the martyrs who
isutlesed in Scotland in 1794," which was drunk in solemn
.silence, and which was followed by several other toasts,
and the company separated, after having protracted their
sitting to a late hour, and spent a very agreeable evening.