The Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin vol 2

Mark Philp, Pamela Clemit, Martin Fitzpatrick, William St.Clair

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000748949
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Contains all the major political, philosophical and educational writings of William Godwin, one of the foremost philosophers of his age. His work on government and individual freedom, "Political Justice", made him the chief exponent of English radicalism in the latter half of the 18th century.

THE CHARGE

DELIVERED BY
The right Honourable Sir JAMES EYRE,
Lord Chief justice of His Majesty's Court of Common Plca
And One of the COMMISSIONERS

Named in a Special Commiffion of Oyer and Terminer, iffued
under the Great Seal of Great Britain,

TO ENQUIRE OF CERTAIN
HIGH TREASONS,
AND
MISPRISONS OF TREASON,
Within the County of MIDDLESEX,
To the GRAND JURY,
At the SESSION HOUSE on Clerlenwell Green, on Thursday the 2d Day of October, 1794.

Published at the Requeft of the GRAND JURY;
And printed and fold by DANIEL ISSAC EATON, at the Cocn And Swine, Newgate-ft rect.
1794.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The text comprises four pieces published in October 1794 concerning the prosecution of leading members of the Society for Constitutional Information and the London Corresponding Society on charges of Treason. Most of the defendants had been seized in May 1794 and kept in the Tower of London while the Privy Council conducted their examination. The material was subsequently referred to a Grand Jury, and in October, the Lord Chief Justice, the Right Honourable Sir James Eyre, delivered a Charge to this jury in which he provided them with an interpretation of the statute, 25 Edward III, under which such a change could be brought. The Grand Jury agreed that the accused had a case to answer. Moreover, on 6 October, 1794, a new set of indictments was issued. This identified an additional group of radicals as privy to the Treasonous designs of the societies (including Godwin's closest friend Thomas Holcroft, 1745-1809). The defendants were committed to trial on a charge of High Treason.

The first text is the original charge to the Grand Jury by the Lord Chief Justice. It is set in slightly smaller type to distinguish it from Godwin's work. The charge was originally published in several newspapers. The text reprinted here is taken from an edition of the Charge published by Daniel Isaac Eaton.

The second text, Cursory Strictures on the Charge delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand jury, October 2, 1794 was first published in the Morning Chronicle of 21 October 1794. It was published anonymously. It was subsequently reprinted by several newspapers and was issued as a pamphlet by G. Kearsley. Kearsley discontinued its publication on receiving a warning from the ministry, but it was republished in an expanded form by Daniel Isaac Eaton. Godwin wrote the pamphlet in considerable haste. He was in Warwickshire visiting friends (including Samuel Parr, 1747-1825) when he received the news that Holcroft had been indicted. He returned to London on 13 October and between 17 and 19 October he wrote his Cursory Strictures. The text is printed here in its final form, with the two appendices added to the pamphlet and with annotations to indicate the changes Godwin made from the original newspaper article.

The third text, Answer to Cursory Strictures on a charge delivered to the Grand jury, October 2, 1794 was first published in the Times on 25 October, 1794. It was subsequently republished by Daniel Isaac Eaton, alongside the original Charge and Godwin's reply. It is set in slightly smaller type to distinguish it from Godwin's work. The author was probably Sir Francis Buller (1746-1800), a judge of the King's Bench. Eaton's reference to 'Judge Thumb' on the title page derives from a ruling by Buller that it was legitimate for a man to beat his wife with a stick, as long as it was no thicker than his thumb.'¹

The fourth text is A Reply to an Answer to Cursory Strictures, supposed to be wrote by Judge Buller, by the Author of Cursory Strictures. Godwin wrote the reply on 23 October, 1794. Fearing prosecution the Morning Chronicle refused to publish it. However, it was published alongside the three other pieces by Daniel Isaac Eaton.

The Treason Trials began on 28 October, 1794, with Thomas Hardy (1752-1832), the founder of the London Corresponding Society, being the first to be tried. Hardy was acquitted on 5 November, 1794; John Home Tooke (1736-1812), on 22 November, 1794;² and John Thelwall (1764-1834), on 5 December, 1794. Holcroft was discharged without trial on 1 December, 1794.

Cursory Strictures was quoted in the Analytical Review, which used it as a basis for calling for an investigation into the irregularity of the whole proceeding,³ The True Briton reviewed the pamphlet, suggesting that it was a piece of 'Jacobin' work, purporting to explain the law of treason to the bench and directing the verdict without evidence. The journal also published a letter signed 'Scrutator' which attacked the pamphlet for ridiculing the venerable law of treason.⁴

NOTES

1. 1. Peter H. Marshall, WiUtam Godwin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 136.
2. 2. Godwin records Home Tooke's reaction on learning that Godwin was the author of Cursory Strictures ... in his autobiographical fragments: The Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1992), Volume 1, pp. 50-1.
3. 3. Analytical Review, or History of Literature, Domestic and Foreign, XX (November, 1794), pp. 300-2.
4. 4. The True Briton (October 22, 1794), p. 3; (October 28, 1794), p. 2.

THE CHARGE

Delivered by The Right Honourable Sir James Eyre^a

GENTLEMEN of the Grand Inquest,

You are assembled under the Authority of the King's Commission, which has been issued for the hearing and determining of the Offences of High Treason and Misprisions of Treason, against the Person and Authority of the King.

That which hath given Occasion for this Commission is that which is declared by a late Statute, namely, 'That a traiterous and detestable Conspiracy has been formed for subverting the existing Laws and Constitution, and for introducing the System of Anarchy and Confusion which has so lately prevailed in France;' A Crime of that deep Malignity which loudly calls upon the Justice of the Nation to interpose, 'for the better Preservation of His Majesty's sacred Person, and for securing the Peace, and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom. '^b

^b 34 Geo.Ill cap.LIV, 'An Act to empower his Majesty to secure and detain such Persons as his Majesty shall suspect are conspiring against his Person and Government' (23 May 1794), in The Statutes at Large, Vol.16 (London, 1794), p.544. The original refers to 'the System of Anarchy and Confusion which has so fatally prevailed in France'.

The first and effective Step in this, as in the ordinary criminal Proceedings, is, that a Grand Jury of the Country should make public Inquisition for the King, should diligently enquire, discover, and bring forward to the View of the criminal Magistrate, those Offences which it is the Object of this special Commission to hear and to determine. /

You are Jurors for our Sovereign Lord the King; you are so stiled in every Indictment which is presented; but let the true Nature of this Service be understood. The King commands you to enter upon this Enquiry; but the Royal Authority in this, as in all its other Functions, is exerted, and operates ultimately for the Benefit of His People. It is the King's Object, His Duty, to vindicate His Peace, His Crown and Dignity, because His Peace, His Crown and Dignity are the Subjects Protection, their Security, and their Happiness.

^a Sir James Eyre (1734-99) acted as John Wilkes' counsel in the Wilkes v. Wood case of 1763, but in 1770 when John Home Tooke drew up a remonstrance to the king for the Corporation of London on the subject of Wilkes' exclusion from parliament, Eyre offended the corporation by refusing to present it. He won ministerial approval over this incident, and was knighted two years later and made a judge on the exchequer bench.

The Charge is reprinted in State Trials, edited by Howell, Vol.24, cols. 200-210, 'Taken in shorthand by Joseph Gumey'.

It is ultimately for them that the Laws have thrown extraordinary Fences around the Person and Authority of the King, and all that Attempts against the one or the other are considered as the highest Crimes which can be committed, and are punished with a Severity which nothing but the Salus populi^a can justify.

^a Public safety, usually in the phrase salus populi suprema lex.

The Business of this Day calls upon me (in order that you may the better understand the Subject which is to come before you) to open to you the Nature of that Offence, which I have before spoken of in general.

An ancient Statute, 25 Edward III^b, has declared and defined it. I shall state to you so much of the Declaration and Definition as appears to me to have any probable Relation to the Business of this Day.

^b The Statute of Treasons of 1352, 25 Edward III st.5 c.2, then one of the very few crimes defined by statute. See The Statutes at Large by Danby Pickering (Cambridge, 1762), Vol.2, pp.50-3, 'A declaration which offences shall be adjudged treason'.

By that Statute it is declared to be HIGH TREASON to compass or imagine the Death of the King,^c provided such Compassing and Imagination be manifested by some Act or Acts proved (by Two Witnesses) to have been done by the Party accused in Prosecution of that Compassing and Imagination; that is, from the Moment that this wicked Imagination of the Heart is acted upon, that any Steps are taken in any Manner conducing to the bringing about and effecting the Design, the Intention becomes the Crime, and the Measure of it is full.

^c 'When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King ...' Statutes at Large, Vol.2, p.51.

These Acts or Steps are technically denominated Overt Acts; and the Forms of Proceeding in Cases of this Nature require that these Overt Acts should be particularly set forth in every Indictment of Treason; and, from the Nature of them, they must constitute the principal Head of Enquiry for the Grand Jury. /

These Overt Acts involve in them Two distinct Considerations; 1st. The Matter of Fact of which they consist; in the next Place, the Relation of that Fact to the Design.

With respect to the mere Matter of Fact, it will be for the Grand Jury to enquire into the true State of it; and I can have very little to offer to your Consideration respecting it: And with respect to the Question, whether the Fact has Relation to the Design so as to constitute an Overt Act of this Species of Treason, which involves Considerations both of Fact and of Law, it is impossible that any certain Rule should be laid down for your Government; Overt Acts being in their Nature all the possible Means which may be used in the Prosecution of the End proposed; they can be no otherwise defined, and must remain for ever infinitely various.

Thus far I can inform you: that Occasions have unhappily, but too frequently, brought Overt Acts of this Species of Treason under Consideration; in consequence of which we are furnished with judicial Opinions upon many of them; and we are also furnished with Opinions (drawn from these Sources) of Text Writers'^d - some of the wisest and most enlightened Men of their Time, whose Integrity has been always considered as the most prominent Feature of their Character, and whose Doctrines do now form great Landmarks, by which Posterity will be enabled to trace, with a great Degree of Certainty, the boundary Lines between High Treason, and Offences of a lower Order and Degree.

It is a fortunate Circumstance that we are thus assisted; for it is not to be dissembled that, though the Crime of High Treason is 'the greatest Crime against Faith, Duty, and Human Society,' and though 'the Public is deeply interested in every Prosecution of this Kind well founded,' there hath been, in the best Times, a considerable Degree of Jealousy on the Subject of Prosecutions for High Treason; they are State Prosecutions, and the Consequences to the Party accused are Penal in the Extreme

Jurors ana Judges ought to feel an extraordinary Anxiety that Prosecutions of this Nature should proceed upon solid Grounds. I can / easily conceive, therefore, that it must be a great Relief to Jurors placed in the responsible Situation in which you now stand, bound to do Justice to their Country and to the Persons accused, and anxious to discharge this trust faithfully; sure I am that it is Consolation and Comfort to us, who have upon us the Responsibility of declaring what the Law is in Cases in which the Public and the Individual are so deeply interested; to have such Men as the great Sir Matthew Hale, and an eminent Judge of our own Times who, with the Experience of a Century, concurs with him in Opinion, Sir Michael Foster, for our Guides.^a

^a Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76), Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1670, and Lord Chief Justice of England, 1671-6. His legal works include the Historia Placitorum Coron, or History of the Pleas of the Crown, and the History of the Common Law...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Political Letters 1791-4
• Essay against reopening the war with France
• Cursory strictures on the charge delivered by Lord Chief Justice Eyre to the Grand Jury
• Considerations on Lord Grenville's and Mr Pitt's Bills, concerning treasonable and seditious practices, and unlawful assemblies
• Thoughts occasioned by the perusal of Dr Parr's Spital Sermon
• Introduction to a history of the administration of 1806
• Letters of Verax
• Enquiry concerning population