Excerpt from Speeches of Thomas Lord Erskine, Vol. 2 of 2: Reprinted From the Five Volume Octavo, Edition of 1810 In support of this indictment it will be seen by the following speeches that the evidence for the Crown was divided into two distinct branches, viz. To establish, first, that such a conspiracy existed, and, secondly, to prove that the prisoners were parties to it. This course of proceeding had been sanctioned by the opinions of the judges upon other trials, but the adoption of it upon this occasion, however legal, undoubtedly exposed the prisoners to great peril of prejudgment, because almost the whole nf the evidence given by the Crown against them hsd'been collected by both Houses of Parliament just before the trial, and printed by their authority; and a statute' had even been passed, declaring that the treschemns con spiracy, which constituted the first and very imporhnt branch of the evidence, did tu tact exist within the kingdom. We say a very important branch of the evidence, because undoubtedly if the jury hsd considmd that the evidenee supported the truth of the preamble to the Act of Parliament, the prisonene must have been in a manner without a defence. Authority was also given to detein, .witho11t bsil, persons already in custody, on snepieien of being engaged in the above conspiracy, or who should be themefter committed on that account. With regard to this Act of Parliament, it is impossible, on the one hand, to deny the constitutional competency of Parliament to declare the existence of a dangerous and extended conspiracy, endangerin not only the safety. But the very existence of the state. On the other d, the persons who may become obnoxious to suspicion, and be subjected to a. Public prosecution in cnnsequenoe of such a legislative prooeeding, con1e to a trial under seemingly insurmountable disadvantages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.