Monthly Chronicle.

was perfectand absolute impartiality between the crown and the subject , the accusers and accused . In the discharge of the task imposed in common upon the judge * and jury , it was a pleasing circumstance , tendingatonce to lighten both their burthens , by the definitive and precise terms by which the crime of high treason was defined , not merely and alone by the several statutes enacted for that purpose , but likewise by the operation of those statutes , and the several decisions made thereon , under the wisest and brightest ornaments of the British jurisprudence . Here his lordship entered into a discussion and enumeration of the statutes ,

particularly the statute Of the 25 th Edward HI . on which his lordship expatiated at considerable length . In the application of those laws to the present times , his lordship proceeded to comment in general terms upon those cases which would probably be sub ? mined to their consideration .- He by no means intended , or wished to be so misunderstood , as denying the rights of the people to assemble together tq discuss , decide , or to obtain such reform as wisdom might suggest , or necessity dictatethat beingper seno substantive crime ; but this was to be done in a

, , , temperate and legal manner . This manner could only be done by peaceable and temperate petition to that legislature , consisting of king , lords , and commons , in whom conjointly and exclusively was vested the right , and in whom , he hoped , ever would be vested the power of altering , continuing , or amending , the laws which bindsociety together . All attempts at innovation , extraneous from this old and constitutional mode , were to be held highly culpable , entirely illegal , and strictly coining under the description and character of high treason ; because it had been held-sound law by the soundest decisionsthat to come within the

, meaning of the charge of compassing or imagining the death of the king , it was not necessary that conspiracy should have that nefarious project immediately in view ; but all attempts to abridge his legal authority , by forcibly depriving him of those powers vested in him , by the constitution , compelling him to any act otherwise than by the law of the land , or seizing on his person , or , in short ,

any act which might tend . ultimately to endanger the life of the King , was that crifne , for which those charged were called on to answer with their lives . In this view of the laws of high treason it would become their duty to weigh well , whether certain recent transactions about to be , submitted to them , were or not of that nature which , by intending or attempting to overawe or controul the legislature , must in their consequences have inevitably tended to produce those evils to guard and trench against which the laws against high treason were fitlanil wiselframedThe king held to be the centre ivot round which

y y . was p all the movements ' of that enviable and admirably constructed machine the British Constitution revolved . To press , therefore , upon the more external parts , to interrupt the functions of parliament , was to press upon that centre , endanger the whole machine , and , finally , introduce anarchy and confusion . It was to hazard the overthrow of that glorious fabric which it had been the work of ages to rear —which had been cemented bj r the best blood of our ancestors — and which has drawn forth the euSogiums of tlie greatest and wisest men Europe had

produced . His lordship observed to the gentlemen of the grand jury , that it could not be unknown to them , that associations had taken place in Various parts of the ^ kingdom , whose ostensible purpose was to obtain a parliamentary reform ; but circumstances subsequently occurred which unfortunately made it but too pal T pable that this was neither their sole nor real object of pursuit . In better times , perhaps , such conduct it might have been advisable to have either passed over altogether in silenceor to have checked it by a milder remedy .

, But , contemplating , as they all must have done , the miseries and calamities which have desolated a neighbouring state ( and of which his lordship drew a very forcible and melancholy picture ) ' and recollecting that , in a distant part of the united kingdom , certain persons had proceeded to the culpable lengths of assuming legislative functions , of avowedly overawing the parliament , and had actually affected the phrases , the forms , and the very spirit of the French Convention ; it must be apparent to all , that it was the bounden duty of his Majesty ' s