The Sun.
London, England, 1820-04-29 00:00:00

THE STATE PRISONERS.

[further Particulars respecting these Conspirators.]
‘Vhen M. SHELTON, the Clerk of the Arraigns,
aodressed Thistlewood, after the sentence had been
passed, and asked him what he had to say against it,
Thistlewood immediately stood forward with se-
vet al sheets of paper, closely written, in his hand,
'and which were evidently prepared for the (nets.
simi by some other person.—From this manu-
script he read an address to the Court. He
said, that ne had been asked what he had to say
why judgment of death should not be passed upon
him. To this he would answer, that if he had
been prepared with evidence, however pure, and
that that evidence ha 4 been enforced by the elo-
(pence of a Cicero, he was still satisfied that he
could not escape the vengeance of Lords Sid-
mouth and Castlereagh. He entertained no
hopes front the sense of justice which existed
in that Court. The prisoner then continued
to inveigh in strong terms against the man-
ner in which his trial had been conducted.
He said, that he bad been precluded from exa-
mining witnesses to prove the infamy of Adams,
of Hyden, and of Dwyer, who had been called
on the part of the Crown. He had applied to
have those witnesses called into Court before
the Solicitor-General rose to make his reply ; but
the Court inhumanly refused his request ; this, be
contended, was inconsistent with that spirit of
• British justice, which on all other occasions, ex-
cept the present, be had no doubt would have pre-
vailed. He challenged the Learned Judges on the
Bench to say, whether he had been fairly tried ;
and if not, whether, if execution should take
place, he were not cruelly murdered. He could
have called witnesses to prove that Dwyer had
been guilty of the most atrocious offences.—
He could have proved that Adams was a swind-
ler and the blackest of characters ; and of
Hyden, he could have produced persons who
would have spoken in terms of equal reprobation.
These were the only persons by whom the charge
against him had been supported ; and upon their
testimony alone was he sacrificed to the ven-
geance of the Ministers. He denied, notwith-
standing the manner in which he had been
plundered by Lord Sidmouth, that in what be had
done he had been actuated by any personal motives
towards him. He disclaimed every selfish feeling—
be was actuated only by a desire for the prosperity
of his country. His object was to avenge the death
of those unhappy:people who bad been inhumanly
cut down and massacred at Manchester; and by sa-
crificing the lives of •the guilty, as it were chant
a requiem over the -souls of murdered innocence.
He next proceeded to advert to Itdwards (whose
name has been so frignently alluded to in the
course of the Trials), and to urge a variety of cir-
curv.stances, which, in his estimation, placed that
indivAual in a more criminal point of view than
those who, with • him, stood to receive the judg-
ment of the law. He afterwards entered into a
justification of the crime of assassination, and in-
stanced the historical fact of BauTos and Cas-
sius, who had been landed to the skies for the
-assassination of C.Essn, as an-extenuation of the
project which he had himself entertained.
Chief Jostice ABBOTT interposed here, and
that he could not listen to any individual ihus