nswerable facts. It had
one disadvantage, it was overwhelmingly long; it lasted nine hours, a
period, if not beyond the strength of the advocate, palpably beyond any
power of attention in the jury. But even this disadvantage arose from an
honourable public feeling. The judges who examined the papers declared
them to be high treason. The warrants of commitment had declared them to
be high treason. Lord Eldon, in his "anecdotes" of this period, says,
that, "after this, he did not think himself at liberty to _let down_ the
character of the offence." An additional and still stronger reason is
given, that "unless the _whole_ evidence was laid before the jury, it
would have been impossible that the country should have ever been made
fully acquainted with the danger to which it was exposed. And it
appeared to him more essential to the public safety that the whole of
those transactions should be published, than _that any of these
individuals should be convicted_." This was a sentiment which does
honour to the memory of a great man. He had been urged by his fellow
counsel, and probably by others, to bring the accused to trial only for
a misdemeanour, in the expectation of thus being sure of a verdict. But
he determined to bring the case before the jury in its true shape, be
the result what it might. It has been rumoured that this, too, was the
opinion of Pitt, in contradiction to that of some of the cabinet. With
that pre-eminent man the blood of these criminals could never have been
the object. No servant of the British crown was ever less chargeable
with cruelty. But the true object was, to expose the treason; to prove
to the nation the actual hazards of revolutionary intrigue, and to
extinguish conspiracy, however the conspirators might escape. The
consequence amply justified this bold and candid determination. _The_
conspiracy was crushed; all conspiracy was crushed. Nothing of the same
degree of guilt, nor even of the same shape of guilt, ever recurred. The
lesson was not the less complete, for its sparing the country the sight
of the abhorred scaffold. The conspirators, though successively
acquitted, were so warned by their peril that they never sinned again.
All, if not converted, sank into total obscurity. The nation, freed from
this nightmare, started up in fresh vigour, and began, with a unanimity
in its heart, and irresistible strength in its hands, that illustrious
battle for Europe, which accomplished the liberation o