265 to 103 ; and in the Lords by 113 to 30.="
Armed with these extraordinary powers, Gov
errnnent were not slow in taking the . .
necessary steps to put a slop to the Measures of
insurrection which was rajjidly or- (Jovemment
ganizing in every i)art of the coun- t^fuppress
r MM â– r . 11 llie insurrec-
try. liie information was ihuly i,,,,, „iiiiii
more alarming, and prove
conspiracy was more wide-spread Derby,
and forinidai)le than liad been at •'""'^ '''â–
first imagined. Among the rest, the particular^)
of an oath administered in Glasgow to a seciel
society composed of great numbers of persons
were obtained, which, alter binding tiie person
taking it to entire secrecy, under IIk; penaltv
of death, to be u'flicted on him by any iuemi)ei
of Ihe society, ixiund him to do his utmost to
ol)tain annual parliaments and universal suf
frage, and to support the same " by moral or
phij-siial strength as the case may reijuire." A
HISTORY OF E TROPE.
[Chap. IV
itiotion to omit the worJs " or physical" as load-
inj; ti> roliollion, was iiojjalivid by a larfjo ma-
jority. Iiitolli<;eiH't' ofan immoiliate rising be-
injl in eontomplalion was roi'oivetl at tiio same
tiini" froin Maiichestor, l^olton, Birmingham, and
all the principal mamiracturing towns. On 27th
M.iri'h, Lord Sidmouth addressed a eircidar let-
ter to the lord-lieutenants of counties, calling
tlieir attention to the numerous blasphemous
anl seditious publications which were circu-
lating through the country, and stating that any
justice might issue a warrant to apprehend a
person circulating such publications upon oath,
and hoW him to bail. The legality of the opin-
ion thus expressed was strongly contested at
the time in both Houses of Parliament, but
amply confirmed by the first legal authorities.
EigtU persons were apprehended on a charge
of high treason at Manchester, and eight at
Leicester. The whole of the latter were con-
vic'ted, of whom six suffered the last penalty of
the law. Severe as this example was, it had
not the effect of checking the spirit of disaffec-
tion in the manufacturing counties ; and on the
9th June an insurrection broke out in Derby-
shire which bore marks of an extensive con-
spiracy. It was headed by a man of the name
of John Brandreth, and ere long 500 men were
assembled, who proceeded in military array to
tlie Butterby iron-works near Nottingham, from
whence, being deterred by the preparations
made for defense, they advanced toward Not-
tingham. On the road to that place, however,
they were met by Mr. Rolleston, an intrepid
magistrate of the county, with eighteen of the
15th Hussars, under Captain Phillips, by whom
they were stopped, pursued, and forty prisoners
taken. The native cowardice of guilt, the pow-
er of the law, was never more clearly evinced.
Brandreth escaped at the time, but was soon
after taken, and a special commission having
been sent down to Derby in autumn,
' State Trials ^^ ^^'^ capitaDy convicted, and suf-
xxxii. 327 ; ' fered death with Turner and Lud-
Sidmouth's lam, his two associates ; while elev-
L^ife, iii. 1,9, ^^ others were transported for life,
and eight imprisoned for various
periods.'
The menacing aspect of the manufactur-
ing districts, and the intelligence
El ension of '^^'liich Government had now re-
thc suspen- ceived of the designs and organiza-
sionofiheHa- tion of the conspirators, induced
beas Cori^us ^j^gj^ jq ^^^^y j^ Parliament for an
extension of the period during
which the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act, which had been originally limited to the
sitting of Parhament, should be continued. The
evidence was laid before the same select com-
mittee which had previously reported, by whom
a second report was prepared and laid before
, , both Houses in June. Their report
stated that a plan of a general insurrec-
tion had been organized, which was to break
out in the first instance in Manchester, on Sun-
day 30th March, and to be immediately follow-
e:l by risings in York, Lancaster, Leicester,
Nott ngham, Chester, Stafford, and Glasgow.
It wrs calculated that 50,000 persons would be
ready to join tbern in Manchester alone by
b cai- of day, and with this immense force they
R'K to march to attack the barracks and jails,
liberate the prisonci-s, .» .under tl f nouses of all
the nobility and gentry, seize all the arms in the
gunsmiths' sliops, and issue proclamations ab-
solving tiie people from their allegiance, and
establishing a re|)ublic. The outbreak in Der-
byshire was a i)art of this design, which was
only frustrated there? ami elsewhere by the vig.
ilance and courage of the magistrates, and
prompt appearance and steady conduct of the
military. Upon this report, the truth of which
was abundantly jiroved by the worst acts com-
mitted at the time by the conspirators in variola
parts of the country, the House of i Second Re
Commons, by a majority of 190 to port, June 3
50, continued the suspension of the j.^'' 'j8i-"-4
Habeas Corpus Act and the oper- 62 ,• Pari.Deb
ation of the Seditious Meetings xxxvi. 1198,
Act to the 1st March, 1818, when i^^^-
they finally expired.'
The effect of these vigorous measures was
great and decisive, and it was much is.
aided by the favorable harvest. Restoration
which, though not very abundant, of confidence
' ^, ° ^y ^, ' and improved
was greatly more so than the one prospects to-
of the preceding year had been, ward the close
Prices in consequence rapidly fell, °' ^''^ >'^*'"-
and in autumn confidence began to be generally
restored, and industry to resume its wonted la-
bors.* As the distress of 1816, and of the first
half of 1817, had been mainly owing to the rapid
contraction of the currency and consequent fall
in the price of produce of every kind, agricul-
tural and manufacturing, so the first symptoms
of amendment appeared in the enlarged ad-
vances of the country bankers, encouraged by
the suppression of the efforts of the disaffected,
and the great rise, compared with 1816, which
had taken place in the price of rural produce.
Prosperity — and it is a markworthy circum-
stance — began with a rise of prices, even though
that rise was owing to a scarcity in the pre-
ceding year. The importation of wheat in this
year was considerable, compared with what ii
had been in former years : it amounted to
1 ,020,000 quarters ; whereas the average for
six years before had little exceeded 300,000.+
The exports were above an average ; they
amounted to £40,011,000 — a clear proof that
the distress among the manufacturing classes
* "In Devonshire every article of life is falling, the
panic among the farmers wearing away, and, above all,
that hitherto marketable article, discontent, is everj- where
disappearing. I have every reason to unite my voice
with my neighbors to say we owe our present peaceful
and happy prospects to your firmness and prompt exer-
tions in keeping down tlie democrats." — Lord Esmouth
to Lord SiD.MouTH, lOth Sept. 1817. " We can not, in-
deed, be sufficiently thankful for an improvement in our
situation and prospects, in every respect far exceeding our
most sanguine, and even the most presumptuous hopes.
A public and general expression of gratitude must be re-
quired in due season by an order in Council." — Lord Sid-
mouth to Lord Ke.nyon, Sept. 30, 1S17. Sidmmith's Life,
iii. 198, 199.
t l.MPOKTATION OF WHEAT AND WhEAT-FLOUR, VS-OH
1811 TO 1818.
Years. Qrs. 7-sn. Qr<..
1811 ... 2.^8,366 1817 ... 1,020.*49
1812 ... 244,385 1818 ... 1^»J,518
1813 ... 425,599
1814 ... 681,.S33
1815 ... none.
1616 ... 225,26 3
6)1,814,946
Average of six years, 302,491
— Porter's Progress of the Salion, 1J9, 3J fiht
1817.J
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
105
' Pari. Deb.
xxxvi. 27,
5(1 ; Ann.
Reg. 1817,
15,47; Sid-
mnutU's
Life, iii.
I'js, lyy.
was owing to the failure of the home market,
even then at least double all foreign markets
put together, from the effects of a contracted
currency and general suspension of credit and
-uinous fall of prices. Government acted alike
ivith wisdom and liberality in proposing and
c.T'.'ying a proposal on 28th April, to advance
f 500,000 in Great Britain, and £250,000 in Ire-
land, by the issue of Exchequer bills,
on proper security, to relieve the
general distress — a measure which
passed without opposition, and had
a surprising effect both in alleviating
distress by restoring confidence, and
diminishing discontent by showing
sympathy.^
This was a very trying year to the exchequer
17. of the empire, for it had to contend
Finance at once with a diminution in the or-
isn^corn- binary sources of revenue, in conse-
pared with quence of the general distress and
1SS16. the huge gap in the public income,
arising from the taking off of the income-tax and
w-ar malt-tax in the preceding year. The total
revenue, which in 1816 had been £62,264,000, in
1817 fell to £52,195,000 ; the war taxes amount-
ed only to £14,365,000, instead of £10,665,000,
as in the preceding year. The total produce
of the taxes, irrespective of loans, was, in 1816,
£57,300,000 for Great Britain alone; in 1817,
£55,783,259 for Great Britain and Ireland to- !
gether, even with the aid of arrears of war-taxes. '
On the other hand, the public expenditure of
1817 amounted to £68,875,000, of which no less
than £44,108,000 w^as for the interest of the
public debt and the sinking fund, being for the
united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.*
In these circumstances, a very considerable loan,
in some form or another, became indispensable ;
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided
for the deficiency by issuing Exchequer bills to
the extent of £9,000,000, trusting to a gradual
improvement in the revenue to make up the re-
j p. p A . mainder. The sum applied this
counts, 1817 â– year to the reduction of debt was
Pari. Ueb. ' £14,514,000 ; SO powerful did the
xxxvi. 2, sinking fund still continue, not-
xxxviii^46 withstanding all that had been done
App. Porter's to cripple its operations, so that
Pari. Tables, after taking into view the sum bor-
'■'■rowed, above £5,000,000 was re-
ally applied to the reduction of debt.'
Ireland, being wholly an agricultural country,
suffered, as might well be imagined,
Hjr. Peel's beyond any other, from the disastrous
Irish inmir- fall of prices produced by an artificial
rectioiiAct. scarcity of money, and the subse-
March 11. fjyppj ^j^p^ owing to a real scarcity
in the supply, which had taken place in the last
* The expenditure of Great Oritain and Ireland for 1817
was as Tollows :
Interest of debt and sinkine; fund £44,108,233
Do. on Exchequer bilJH 1,815,926
Other charges on consolidated fund 2,303,002
Civil government of Scotland 130,046
Lesser expenses 451,403
Navy 0,473,002
Ordnance 1 ,435,401
Army, deducting troo'>8 in France 9,614,664
Foreign loans 33,272
Local issues 42,565
Miscclluiieous 2,466,483
i;68,875,477'
'Pari neb. xxx-'iii. 26, Pari Rev.
two years. So serious did the agi ai lan disturb-
ances in that country become that, on the 11th
March, Government brought forward a meas
ure intended for their permanent coercion, am
which has been attended by the very best ef-
fects. It was introduced by Mr. Peel, the Secre-
tary for Ireland, afterward Sir Robert Peel,
whose measures will occupy so large and import-
ant a place in this history. His character, how-
ever, will come in more appropriately after the
great changes which he introduced into our com-
mercial policy, and their effects, are considered.
The object of the bill was to establish a general
police force capable of acting together in any
county which the Lord-Lieutenant might direct,
that officer having the power of determining
what portion of tlie expense w^as to be laid on the
inhabitants. The measure met with general ap-
probation, and proved so efficacious that Gov-
ernment did not find it necessary to extend the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act to Ireland,
and were able to reduce the military , „ . p^j^
force in that country from 25,000 to xxxv. 9b2 ;
22,000 men, and the artillery from Ann. Reg.'
400 to 200 guns.' 181". 43.
English legislation, in this instance, undoubt-
edly conferred a very great boon upon jg
Ireland ; but the same can not be said Trial by
of a measure introduced by English jury in ciy-
influence into Scotland, and which i} causes in
. . .- â– ., â– Scotland,
came mto operation in this year —
viz., the extension of jury trial to civil causes
Scotland, from the remotest period, has had
laws, institutions, and courts of its own. Its
inhabitants may well be proud of them, for the
greatest improvements which, during the last
eighty years, have been introduced into the law
of England, or which its wisest legislators are
now anxiously laboring to effect, are nothing
but transcripts of the statutes which, a hundred
and fifty years before, had been inserted on the
statute-book of its northern and comparatively
barbarous neighbors.* In 1816, however, the
Anglomania was very ardent ; and, partly to aid
the progress of Liberal ideas and the Liberal
party in Scotland, partly to procure a dignified
and easy retirement for a very amiable man and
agreeable companion, t who had long been on
intimate terms with the Prince-R("gent, a bill
was passed introducing jury trial, without lim-
itation, in all cases where oral evidence was
required or might bo anticipated, in Scotland,
and establishing a court, specially witli an En-
glish lawyer at its head, for the (lis|)()sal of such
cases. Great was the joy of tlie ])opidar lead-
ers in the northern part of the island at this
change, which was an entire innovation ; for
though Scotland, from tlic earliest ages, had
been familiar with jury trial in criminal cases,
it had never been known or atteiiiijled in civil
causes. Unbounded were the anticiiiations of
the blessings to the country, and the training
of its inhabitants to their social duties, which
would result from the change. It in every re-
spect received fair i)lay. The judges on the
bench gave it every possible encouragement ;
the ablest counsel at the bar, and they were
* See Alison's Essays, vol. il. 035, "The old Scottish
Parliament," where this extraordinary fact is fully de-
rnonstrateil.
t William Adam, Esij. of Blair-Adam, who was mada
the l«ad of the new court
106
HISTOllV or EUROPE.
LCiiAP. IV
inui\y anil powerful at that tiino, supported it
by tin ir euen;y, and adorned it by tlieir talents ;
and a elause was introdueeil into a subsetiuiMit
art. pissed a few years alter, autlioriziii;^ the
trans.'erenee by sinipl(> niolion of all actions in-
volvir.j: parole proof from inferior courts, when
the demand of the plaint ill' was above £40 stcr-
' 46 Goo ^'"S- l^iHliTtliose enactments, if the
III. c. 117; mode of trial had been suited to the
»nd Juilica- people, nearly the whole legal busi-
ture .\ci for ,j^..j.g of the country should have been
earned mto the jury court.'
Nevertheless, it turned out quite the reverse ;
20. and the attempt to introduce jury trial
Its entire in civil cases into Scotland remains a
lailure. lastin;; and instructive proof of the
imposj.ibility of transplantin<»institutions from
one country to another witliout the greatest
risk of entire failure, or ruinous disasters to the
state into which they are introduced. Jury
trial has been, and still is, a total failure in
Scotland ; and the opinion has become general
among its most experienced practitioners, that
it is one of the greatest curses that ever has
been inflicted upon the country. The reason
is, that it is totally at variance with the habits,
institutions, and wishes of the people. Jury
trial succeeds in England, because it is not the
trial of the jury, but the trial of the judge ; it
has failed in Scotland, because it is not the trial
of the judge, but the trial of the jury. Long
habit, centuries of practice, have accustomed
the English juries to follow the suggestions of
the bench ; and, except in a few cases which
violently excite the public mind, those sugges-
tions are never disregarded. In Scotland, where
the native turn of the people is opinionative and
pugnacious, and the great object of ambition
with all is to get their own way, the first prin-
ciple wth juries has too often been to assert
their independence by disregarding the bench,
and show their superiority to others by throw-
ing overboard the witnesses. Thus chance and
prejudice have come so often to sway their ver-
dicts, that it has passed into a common saying
that the issue of a jury trial is as subject to
hazard as the game of rouge-et-noir, and that
nothing is certain in it but delay and expense.
The popular leaders have not courage to admit
in public the entire failure of their favorite sys-
tem of training the national mind ; but their
sense of its unsuitableness to Scotland has al-
ready been evinced by an Act of Parliament
giving litigants the means of escaping the
much-dreaded ordeal ;* and so strongly has the
national feeling on the subject been declared,
that after six-and-thirty years of training and
bolstering up, the cases tried by jury in all Scot-
land have dwindled away to twenty or thirty in
a year ; and instead of the Court of Session
being overwhelmed, as was expected, with
hundreds of cases brought from the sheriffcourts
to obtain the blessings of jury trial, the sheriff
courts are overwhelmed with as many thousand
cases, brought before them to escape the cer-
tain expense and uncertain issue of that species
oi" decision.t
* The Act 10 and 11 Victoria, introduced by Lord-Ad-
rocate Rutherfurd. one of the iblest and most accomplish-
ed of the S(!Ot(h Bar, whom the author is proud to call his
ear.y and stealy friend.
r Trie cases brought into 'he sheriff court of Lanark.
The uncertainty of jury trial, in cases which
strongly excited the pul)lic mind, was jj
strikingly evinced in England itself Acnuiiial
during this very year. Watson, the fa- of Watson
Iher of the culprit who had shot the "'"^ ^'°"*'-
gunsmith who dcfeniled his shop in the Spa-
fields riot on December 2d, was tried for high
treason at Westminster Hall, and acquitted by
the verdict of a London jury. This decision is
perhaps not to be regretted, as the acts with
which they were charged, though amounting to
sedition and riot of the most aggravated kind,
could scarcely be held, in reason at least, what
ever it might be in law, to amount to high trea
son, or a design to overturn the Government ;
and the indictment was brought for the heavier
offense, mainly in consequence of the English
law recognizing at that period no medium be-
tween riot or sedition, which were misdemean-
ors punishable only by fine and imprisonment,
and high treason, which was chastised by death.
The wiser and more humane Scotch law recog-
nized transportation as the appropriate punish-
ment for aggravated cases of riot, and sedition
bordering on treason — a punishment which has
since, by special statute, been introduced into
England and Ireland for such offenses. But
the same can not be said of another memorable
trial, which took place in the same year in the
Court of King's Bench — of Mr. Hone, for blas-
phemous libel. He was tried three times — once
before Mr. Justice Abbott, and twice -before
Chief- Justice Ellenborough — and on all these
occasions exhibited a union of self- i state Trials
possession, readiness, and talent, xxxii. 471,
worthy of a better cause.' He was ^^a; Hughes
on all the three acquitted ; on the '*"• ^^^' ^'^^•
two last chiefly in consequence of the overbear
ing manner of the presiding judge, who unfor
tunately was as remarkable for the haste of his
temper as for the power of his intellect.
The contradictory nature of the verdicts ob-
tained in three state trials in the 22.
same year, and in regard to crimes Reflections on
of substantially the same descrip- E^ora't'^that
tion, suggests considerations of the period in the
highest importance for the right English law.
government of mankind. Brandreth and twen-
ty-three of his associates were sentenced to
death at Derby for exactly the same crime for
which Watson and his accomplices were ac-
quitted in London. There can be no doubt that
there was a great defect both in the law and
institutions of the countr)', when at the same
time, and on so momentous a crisis, the same
criminals shared so different a fate. Nor is it
difficult to see what this defect is. So far as
the law is concerned, it consisted chiefly in the
absurdity of the English law, which admitted
no medium between high treason, punishable
with death and its terrible penalties, and sedi-
tion, which could be coerced only by fine or im-
prisonment. It was to evade this difliculty that
shire alone, on written pleadings, are now about 7500 an-
nually ; in the small debt court, in the same county, which
decides, on oral pleadings, cases under £S 6a. bd. above
15,000. The county courts of England, which have be-
come so popular, and risen to such importance in so
short a time, have mainly succeeded by the suitors avoid-
ing Jury trial ; and if their jurisdiction is extended, like
that of th6 sheriffs in Scotland, to cases of debt and con
tract of any amount, it is easy to see they will drain
away nearly all the business from Westminster Ilall and
the circuit assizes.
1817.]
HISTORY OF r.UROPE.
10'4
tho astuteness of the English lawyers invented
the doctrine oi constructive treason, or the infer-
ence as to an intent to depose, kill, or levy war
against the sovereign, from acts of a seditious
tendency. But although this doctrine is firmly
established in the decisions and dicta of the En-
glish judges, it has often been resisted by the
common sense and just feelings of the English
juries, and always combated by all the elo-
quence and ability of the English bar. It is
next to impossible to persuade a jurj' that the
leaders of a mob, which engages in the most
outrageous acts of pillage, violence, and depre-
dation, have a design to dethrone or assassinate
the sovereign. To get drunk or fill their pock-
ets is probably their ultimatum. It was this
which led to Watson's acquittal, as it had done
to the escape of Hardy, Thelwall, Home Tooke,
and many of the most dangerous state crimin-
als recorded in English histor>'. Indicted for
sedition and riot, they could not by possibility
have escaped ; and if transported, they would
have suffered a punishment suitable, and not
excessive, for their crimes. In prosecution,
the wisest course always is to select the minor
offense, unless the major has, beyond all doubt,
been incurred ; in legislation, to affix no pun-
ishment to crimes but such as the general feel-
ings of the country will permit to be carried rig-
orously into execution.
The salutary effect of the suspension of the
23 Habeas Corpus Act in this year, and
Good effects the death-biuw which it gave in a
of the sus- short time to the machinations and
pension of efforts of the disaffected, suggests
lll6 Jl'ibcis
Corpus p ct. the defect m our mstitutions to
which this distressing uncertainty
•in the conviction of state crimes is to be as-
cribed. This is in the idea, so plausible and
unhappily so prevalent, that their prosecution
should be left to the unaided efforts of the com-
mon law. It no doubt sounds well to say that
Government seeks for no extraordinary pow-
ers, and combats sedition and treason with no
otlier weapons but those of the common and
statute law ; and loud cheers seldom fail to fol-
low such an announcement in the House of
Commons. Nevertheless, it is founded on an
entire fallacy ; and perhaps nothing has con-
tributed so much to perpetuate disorder, dis-
tru.st, and consequent misery, both in Great
Britain and Ireland, as this miserable delusion.
Extraordinary cases require extraonUnary rem-
edies ; it is in vain to attem|)t to conil)at tliem
v^ith ordinary ones. Jury trial, and thr; trial by
that means of subordinate criminals, does very
well in common crimes, or passing local disor-
ders ; but it is wholly unsuitable to tliosc more
serious exigences, when a large party in the
state is banded for some conmKJti jjolitical jiur-
pose which is to be brought about liy violence
and intimidation. To leave every thing to the
ordinary remedies of tlie law in sucli cases, is
to leave it to be worked by rnen liable to l)e in-
fluenced by prejudice or iiitiniidation. It is, in
effect, little else but proclaMniiii; inipiiiiily to