to the great hindrance of public juftice, to the contempt and interruption of the Juftices and Commiffioners laft above named, and others their fellows aforefaid, to the manifeft difturbance' and violation of the peace of our faid Lord the King, to the great terror of all the liege and peaceable fubjects of our faid Lord the King there being, in contempt of our faid Lord the King and his laws, to the evil example of all others in the like. cafe offending, and against the peace of our faid Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

And the faid Attorney General of our faid Lord the King, for our faid Lord the King, further giveth the Court here to understand and be informed, that the faid Sackville Earl of Thanet, Robert Ferguffon, Thomas Gunter Browne, Dennis O'Brien, and Thomas Thompson, unlawfully and maliciously devifing and intending to break the peace of our faid Lord the King, did, together with divers other ill-difpofed perfons, whofe names are to the faid Attorney General as yet unknown, on the twenty-first day of May, in the thirty-eighth year aforefaid, at Maidstone aforefaid, in the county of Kent, unlawfully, riotoufly, routoufly, and tumultuously affemble and gather themfelves together to break the peace of our faid Lord the King; and being fo affembled and gathered together, did then and there, with force and arms, unlawfully, riotoufly, routoufly, and tumultuously make and raise, and cause and procure to be made and raised, another very great noife, rout, tumult, riot, and disturbance, to the manifeft disturbance and violation of the peace of our faid Lord the King, to the great terror of all the liege and peaceable fubjects of our faid Lord the King there inhabiting and being, in contempt of our faid Lord the King and his laws, to the evil example of all others in the like cafe offending, and against the peace of our faid Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

Whereupon the faid Attorney General of our faid Lord the King, who for our faid Lord the King in this behalf profecuteth for our faid Lord the King, prayeth the confideration of the Court here in the premifes, and that due process of law may be awarded against them the said Sackville Earl of Thanet, Robert Ferguffon, Thomas Gunter Browne, Dennis O'Brien, and Thomas Thompson, in this behalf, to make them anfwer to our faid Lord the King touching and concerning the premises aforefaid.

Wherefore the Sheriff of the faid county of Kent was commanded that he fhould not forbear, by reafon of any liberty in his bailiwick, but that he should cause them to come to answer to our faid Lord the King touching and concerning the premifes aforefaid.

And now, that is to fay, on Wednesday next after the octave of Saint Hilary in this fame term, before our faid Lord the King at Westminster, come the faid Sackville Earl of Tha

MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL.

May it please your Lordships, and Gentlemen of the Jury— I can very unfeignedly affure you, that I should have felt infi. nite fatisfaction, if, in any view that I could take of what my country required of me, I could have determined not to have inftituted the present profecution.

Gentlemen, many reafons would have influenced me to act upon that wish. The first and the most important is, that I am obliged, by this Information, to impute to a Nobleman who is one of the defendants, and to the Gentlemen whose names occur upon this record as the other defendants, an offence which appears to me to be one of the most heinous, the confideration of which has been offered, in the history of our law, to the de cifion of a Jury.

Gentlemen, in fo viewing the subject, I hope I may be allowed, though I am the prosecutor of this Nobleman and these Gentlemen, to exprefs my regret that I am to make fuch an im putation in a Court of Juftice with refpect to any of them : but, Gentlemen, when I confider that the pure administration of law in this country is the great fecurity upon which all the public bleffings known to the country reft; when I recollect that it is abfolutely neceffary for the free and uncontroled adminiftration of that juftice, that those who have duties relative to any part of it should act under the impression that they are perfectly fecure in the adminiftration of the juftice of the country, it is quite impoffible for me to act upon any other principle but this, namely, that it must be known that the Attorney-General of the country is bound, where there is a probable cause to impute to individuals that they have grofsly violated that principle which requires that the administration of juftice fhould be fafe, to put upon them at least the neceffity of fatisfying a Jury of the country that they are innocent of that charge.

Gentlemen, I agree that the charge is not to be made upon light grounds; that circumftances ought to be laid before the Officer of the Crown, which may justify him in the exercise of a fair and honourable difcretion to bring forward the accufation and I fhall go along with my learned friends in admitting, that the circumstance of the accufation being made, by no means decides that it is justly made: It is for you carefully and anxiously

;

to

Information ftates, that the Jury had found four of the Defendants, Mr. O'Connor being one of the four, not guilty of the offence with which they were charged. The Information states, that before he was discharged, thefe Defendants (and you will give me leave to point out particularly to you the fubstance of the different charges in this Information) did, in open Court, and before any discharge, make a riot, and attempt to rescue him out of the cuftody of the Sheriff; that they affaulted three perfons named in the first count of the Information, John Rivett, Edward Fugion, and Thomas Adams; that they riotously im peded and obftructed the Commiffioners of His Majesty in the due and lawful holding of the Seffion: The fecond count charges them with having, before the discharge of Mr. O'Connor, affifted him to rescue himself out of the cuftody of the Sheriff, and having affaulted Thomas Adams, who was acting in aid of the Sheriff: The third count charges them with having made a riot in open Court, and been guilty of the affault: The fourth count charges them with a riot in open Court, without the circumstance of the affault; and the laft count charges them with a riot, without any addition of circumstances: And it will be for you to determine whether they are guilty of all or any of the charges ftated in this Information.

Gentlemen, I will endeavour now to open to you as much of this cafe as may enable you to understand as much of this evidence as is offered to you; not entering into the minutia of the evidence, but endeavouring to affift you in the information you will presently receive from the witneffes, by ftating fo much of the cafe as may make it intelligible to you, without prefuming to state more to you; because, perhaps, in all cafes where justice is to be adminiftered, more particularly in criminal cafes, it would be my wish that the Jury should learn it from those who are to state it upon their oaths, rather than receive any impreffion from the person standing in the fituation in which I have the honour to address you.

Gentlemen, the trial at Maidstone was, as I need not tell thofe to whom I have the honour to addrefs myself, an extremely long one. The witnesses on both fides had been defired to with draw from the Court previous to the commencement of the trial. In the natural courfe of proceeding, the witneffes for the de fendants were called after the witneffes for the profecution; and

the

more intelligible. Give me leave to reprefent His Majesty's Commiffioners to fit in the place where the learned Judges now fit; you will confider the Jury as fitting very nearly in the pofition, with respect to the Judges, as you now fit with relation to the Judges who now fit here. The Counsel for the prosecution fat, I think, in that part of the Court where that Gentleman is now fitting with a yellow waistcoat; and above them was a place in which the feveral witneffes were examined. The witneffes were therefore directly oppofite the Jury, and the prisoners at the bar were removed fomewhat behind the Counsel, who fat, as it were, in the place where I am now standing, there being fome little distance between them and the prifoners, who were in

the bar behind.

Gentlemen, after the feveral witneffes had been examined for the prifoners, moft of them, I believe, remained in Court; and I fhould not make the obfervation, if it did not appear to me material with reference to the prefent cafe. Indeed, I fhould not be justified in making the obfervation, if I did not find it to be material to the prefent cafe; for the circumftance of the witneffes having been removed out of Court before the trial began was extremely favourable, I do not mean to fay otherwise than justly fo, to the prifoners, becaufe, after the cafe had been proved, fuch as it was, on the part of the profecution, one feels it a little difficult to believe, that if that evidence had been heard, by the witneffes for the defendants, which had been given by the witneffes for the profecution, the evidence that was given for the defendants could have been given; and this is material in this point of view, because with respect to the Noble Lord who is one of the defendants upon this record, and with respect to fome other defendants upon this record, although they had not heard the evidence in the courfe in which it was offered to the attention of the Jury, yet, before the circumftances happened which are charged in this Information as circumftances of criminal guilt, no one of the defendants, as far as I know, I mean, could have been ignorant of the circumftances actually proved with refpect to Mr. O'Connor, as that evidence applied to his relation to England or his relation to Ireland; and I will ftate prefently the ufe I mean to make of that circumftance. Gentlemen, in the courfe of the afternoon which preceded the conclufion of the trial, I have reafon to believe that Lord Thanet, and the other perfons upon this record, very ftudioufly and anxiously placed themselves

in

:

in that part of the Court in which they could act with effect with refpect to the refcue of Mr. O'Connor. Gentlemen, with refpect to one of the defendants, whom, as a gentleman in the profeffion to which I belong, I certainly profecute with all the regret that can belong to that circumftance, but which, at the fame time, muft not fuperfede the obligations I owe to the Public-that gentleman had been in Court during the whole of the trial he had been Counfel for fome or one of the prisoners; and he was placed, in confequence of the duty he had to discharge, in a fituation in which, if he chofe fo to exert himself, he certainly could be useful in this attempt to refcue Mr. O'Connor. With refpect to the Noble Lord, I need not, I am fure, in this place, ftate to you, that he holds in this country the character of an hereditary member of the Constitution; and with refpect to the laft gentleman whom I mentioned, Mr. Ferguffon, I take leave to fay, befides the general duty he owed to the Public in a matter of this nature, there was another very high duty imposed upon him, which I hope and truft Gentlemen who fit behind me will never forget-that that Gentleman, as a barrister, owed a duty to the Court-that it is their bounden duty, that it is a very facred duty of their's, instead of interrupting the courfe of justice, to affift it in every fair, honorable and effectual

way.

Gentlemen, a verdict of Not Guilty was given in the cafe of Mr. O'Connor; and here I am very ready to admit this, that if I could have perfuaded myself that the circumftances which then took place, namely, that Mr. O'Connor, in confe. quence of that verdict, mifconceiving that he was discharged, and acting under that impulfe, had intended merely to mix himfelf with the rest of the Court, and that those who had been charged with the care of his interefts, or those who thought well of him, had acted upon the impulse of the feelings of that moment, which might certainly have been fuch as to have misled men who, upon better confideration, would not have fo acted, it would have become me to have hesitated before I determined, confiftently with an attention to the public fafety and to the public interefts, to have inftituted this profecution.

Now, Gentlemen, before I proceed to ftate to you the circumftances to which I beg your ferious attention, I will state to you the motives with which I do it. When I ftate the cir. cumftance of a warrant having been iffued to apprehend Mr. O'Connor, conceiving, as I do, that fome perfons either knew, or believed or conjectured, that there might be fome other demand of justice upon O'Connor, and that therefore they were determined he should not remain in Court till he was regularly discharged, for the purpose of preventing that other demand of justice being made upon him I fay the offence, even in that way, is of fo aggravated a

na.

ture,