The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-29 00:00:00

THE SCOTTISH REFORMERS OF

1793-4.

The contemplated erection of a monumental column
to the memory of the Scottish Reformers of 1793-4,
Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot—
men who in the advancement of the early reform mea-
sures, associated their names with those of Fox, Grey,
and Mackintosh—is one of those measures which
marks:well the strong and independent sense of the day.
These five strenuous Reformers are well known in
the early history of that great Parliamentary, mea-
sure, which has worked out beneficial changes in our
Government policy, but which, nevertheless, is still
too contracted in its limits, and two narrowed in its
present action. Bolder advances must still be made
before the full benefit, or true spirit of its operation,
will be thoroughly seen in our Constitution, and we
cannot, upon the occasion, now that the question of
erecting a monument in' an appropriate site is be-
fire the Marylebone Vestry, do better than adduce
that which occurred upon the trial, not of the whole of
these Reformers, for that would occupy more space
than is at our disposal, but at that of the leader and
principal of the noble-minded men in question, who,
far from holding the principles of Jaeobinism, as by
some attributed to them, gloried only in the ascrip-
tion of being patriotically engaged for the furtherance
of their country's welfare. The trial of Muir alone will
serve as a fair sample and picture of the parts acted
by his four co-associates.
The trial of Thomas Muir, Esq., younger, of
Huntershill, before the High Court of Justiciary at
Edinburgh, took place on the 30th and 31st days of
August, 1793, on the charge of seditious practices.
The indictments charged him with making sedi-
tions speeches at Kirkintilloch and Campsie, vilifying
the Constitution and King by his advocacy of reform
principles, and inflaming the minds of the people to
rebellion. They also charged him with distributing
seditious books, and among them Paine, Volney, the
" Paisley Declaration of Rights," and of having read
in the Convention the address from the Society of
United Irishmen in Dublin.

The Lord Advocate, in stating the case after the
examination of witnesses, appears to have been par-
ticularly offensive and unjustified, in his remarks. He
designated him as "tainted from head to foot, and as
unworthy to live under the protection of the law as
the meanest felon." Speaking of the shop in which
he used to read Paine, "it was there," said the
agent of the Crown, " in that cathedral of sedition,
he sat like a spider, weaving his filthy web to catch
the unwary." He was " a wretched outcast,"
" marked with insanity," one " with all the insignia
of sedition around hims'—" the pest of Scotland."
Mr. Muir defended himself. He addressed the
Jury in a solemn and importunate manner on their
duties. He reviewed the evidence of the witnesses
against him, and pointed out the malignity of various
statements, while he boldly confronted others with
the truth. The invective of the Lord Advocate he
put down in the most strenuous manner, and attacked
him also in the following passage, which finely sets
forth the principles of which he was the unflinching
apostle :
" I smile at the charge of sedition. I know for
what I am brought to this bar : it is for having
strenuously and actively engaged in the cause of
Parliamentary Reform; for having exerted every
effort, by constitutional measures, to procure an equal
representation of the people, in the House of the
People. Let nat the prosecutor skulk in darkness.
Let him come manfully forward, and avow the cause
which has impelled him to bring me here. I will
give you little trouble. I will save you, the Jury,
from the wretched mockery of a trial, the sad neces-
sity of condemning a man, when the cause of his
condemnation must be concealed, and cannot be ex- i
pained. Yes, I plead guilty ; I openly, actively, and
sincerely embarked in the cause of a Parliamentary
Reform, in the vindication and in the restoration of
the rights of the people. Nor will I blush to unfold
to you my motives : they are supported by their own
intrinsic strength, but they are likewise held up by
the great and venerable names of the living and the
dead. I contended for an equal representation of
the people, in what I shall ever call the House of the
People, because I considered it as a measure essen-
tially necessary to the salvation of the State, and to
the stability of your boasted Constitution. Wherein,
then, consists the excellency of that time-tried fabric,
cemented by the blood of your fathers, flowing from
the field and from the scaffold ? It consists in that
due balance of its three impelling powers, King,
Lords, and Commons : if one of these powers
loses its vigour, if one of these powers loses a
shadow of what it ought to be, if it becomes merged
and absorbed into any of the other two, your
Constitution then also becomes a shadow, and is anni-
hilated. And do you not know, and does all the
world not know, that if anywhere the proud struc-
ture of the Constitution has suffered the ravages of time
or corruption, it is in its popular branch? Is it not a
fact indisputable, that the representation of the people
is not such as it once was, and is not such
as, I trust in God, one day it shall be? The man,
then, who sounds the alarm when he discovers the
approach of danger, who summons all who may be
concerned in its reparation, is surely no enemy to the
country, no foe to the Constitution, because he labours
in its preservation and protection.
" Such were the motives of my conduct. If lam
guilty, I have in my guilt many associates—men who
now enjoy the repose of eternity, whom your fathers
admired while living, and to whom you, their chil-
dren, have erected statues. I have no time to run
over the venerable catalogue, but—"
Mr. Muir here recited the names of Locke and
Blackstone, in support of his principles. The words
of the latter were not without effect, even in those
days of political bigotry. " This is the spirit of our
Constitution ; not that I assert it is in fact quite so
perfect as I have here endeavoured to describe it, for,
if any alteration might be wished or suggested in the
present frame of Parliament, it should be in favour of
a more complete representation of the • people. If
Blackstone, then," continued Mr. Muir, ' wished for
a more equal representation of the people, if he dared