Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

As public attention has been excited by the trial and execution of Colonel Despard and his associates, we trust that the following charge of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough to the jurors, on summing up the evidence given against Colonel Despard, and his solemn and affecting address to the prisoners on passing sentence, will not be uninteresting.

(N. Y. pap.)

Lord Ellenborough summed up nearly as follows: Gentlemen of the jury, the evidence on both sides, and the arguments of counsel being concluded, it only now remains for me to discharge my duty. An irksome duty it certainly is, but considering with what minds you come prepared, for I have observed your deep attention to all parts of the case, it will facilitate my means of doing it. Those means are by a faithful detail of the evidence, and such faithful observations upon it, as I am best able to make. Gentlemen, the prisoner stands charged with high treason, of three sorts, not very different in their nature: 1st, For compassing the death of the king; 2dly, For compassing to seize his person; and 3dly, For conspiring to depose him. The first of these is treason, by the statute of Edward III.: the two last, by a recent statute of the present reign. Eight distinct overt acts are stated as evidence of this intention. It is not necessary to do more than to state the substance of them. Gentlemen, the overt acts are the holding conversations for effecting those malignant purposes of heart. Before I state the evidence of the overt act, I think fit to say a word or two on the topics urged respecting the nature of the proof. It is said, by the defendant's counsel, to consist only of words and that it cannot be treason. If it consisted only of loose words, the ebullition of an irritated or crazy mind, it would not be treason, because it would be too much to infer such a purpose as the destruction of the king from words so spoken. But when words are spoken at a public meeting, and addressed to others, exciting and persuading them to that purpose, it never was doubted by any one English lawyer; it never will be doubted but that they amount to treason. Another subject upon which I wish to say a few words is, the nature of evidence by accomplices. That he is a competent witness, upon whose testimony you may found a conclusion, cannot be doubted. If it were not so, it would be a dereliction of duty in the judges sitting here, and those who have formerly sat in courts of justice not to have repealed such witnesses from the oath, and have told the jury that they were not fit to be credited. But they are always received and although sullied with the contamination of the crime which they impute to others, they are credible, though their testimony must be received with caution and attention. They may be confirmed by various circumstances, by the clearness of their own narration, or by the narration of others. They may be confirmed by the coincidence of external circumstance, and broken in upon by no one fact of adverse circumstance. In the case before us, when so many scenes are laid, all of which if untrue, may be falsified, and it is falsified in no one instance; if a person so situated is not to be believed, it would form a case by which conspiracies would always be protected, because conspiracies can never be known but through some who were participators in the crime. But the case would be otherwise as it regarded some who are not strictly accomplices. Such as I take it, is the case of Windsor. I do not think strictly that he can be called an accomplice, though, without question, a great degree of blame attaches to him for his conduct in repeatedly going to these meetings. Gentlemen, having made these observations, and if each evidence is corroborated, is consistent, is uncontradicted, and more especially confirmed from pure sources, it ought to be credited. I shall now proceed to detail the evidence itself. His lordship here read verbatim the whole of the evidence taken through the day. In commenting upon the form of oath he observed, that it appeared on the face of it to have an ulterior purpose, which was to be carried by the conflicts of arms, and not as reason or argument, or why was there a provision to be made "for the families of those heroes who should fall in the contest?" and if Despard was found distributing these papers, and acting with those printed in that fond, it formed strong indicia of the purposes of his mind. Having gone over the evidence, his Lordship continued, "Gentlemen this is the whole of the evidence: and you have been properly told, there is no question of law in this case. It is admitted that a traitorous scheme did exist: but it is denied that it was the prisoner's. If it was not his treason, whose was it? If the witnesses produced upon their oath were not to be believed, it was open to impeach them; but no such thing is done. Then, with respect to accomplices, we find in the law books particularly in the case of King, Charnock, and another, that the evidence was wholly that of accomplices, without half so many circumstances of corroboration as are found in this case. The main circumstance of the case is confirmed--that of the treason. Then who is the traitor? The prisoner is found in the society of those most unfit for his rank and situation, no account is given why he attended those meetings: we find him sitting down and associating with common soldiers, and partaking of their ordinary fare. No other explanation is given of this but his former character: happy, indeed, would it have been for him if he had preserved that character down to this moment of peril. Now, gentlemen. this is the whole evidence on the one side, and on the other; see how it applies to the charge: first, with respect to an overt act, committed within the county. It is proved at the Oakley Arms, and at the Flying Horse; that point of law is therefore satisfied. The only remaining consideration is, whether you will believe the evidence of Blades, Windsor, Emblin, and Francis, or either of them? If you have any hesitation you will look at the circumstances of the confirmation. When he was taken with them, they had about them the mischievous furniture of their designs, I mean the printed papers. He was found almost in the act of command. and they of obedience. "Follow me, one and all," was the language he used. It was in confirmation that he was at the Coach and Horses, in Whitechapel, by Campbell and Dean, two soldiers totally unconnected with the conspirators, and independent witnesses. Their testimony perfectly agreed with that of Windsor. If you, therefore, believe Emblin and Windsor for there is an end of the question. You have also heard the high character given of him by a man, on whom to pronounce an eulogy were to waste words; but you are to consider whether a change has not taken place since the period he speaks of. If you do not believe the witnesses, then he will stand exempted from the consequences of the charge imputed to him; but if you do believe them, then, as there is no question upon the law, so there will be none upon the fact. Gentlemen, you will consider of your verdict."

The lord president addressed the prisoners to the following effect:

"You, Edward Marcus Despard; you John Wood; you, Thomas Broughton; you, John Francis; you, Thomas Newman; you Daniel Tyndall; you, John Sedgwick Wrattan; you, William Lander: you, Arthur Graham; and you, John M'Namara, have been severally indicted for having traitorously conspired against his majesty's person, his crown, and government, for the purposes of subverting the same, and changing the government of this realm. To this indictment you have severally pleaded not guilty, and put yourselves for trial upon God and your country, which country has found you guilty. After a long, patient, and I hope, just and impartial trial, you have been all and severally convicted, by a most respectable jury of your country, upon the several crimes laid to your charge. In the course of evidence upon your trial, such disclosures have been made, as to prove beyond the possibility of doubt, that the objects of your atrocious, abominable, and traitorous conspiracy, were to overthrow the government and to seize upon and destroy the sacred persons of our august and revered sovereign, and the illustrious branches of his royal house, which some of you, by the most solemn bond of your oath of allegiance, were pledged, and all of you, as his majesty's subjects, were indispensably bound, by your duty, to defend; to overthrow that constitution, its established freedom, and boasted usages, which have so long maintained amongst us that just and rational equality of rights and security of property, which have been for so many ages the envy and admiration of the world; and to erect upon its ruins a wild system of anarchy and bloodshed, having for its object the subversion of all property and the massacre of its proprietors; the annihilation of all legitimate authority and established order: for such must be the import of that promise held out by the leaders of this atrocious conspiracy, of ample provision for the families of "those heroes who should fall in the struggle." The more effectually to ensure success in those diabolical machinations, and to encourage those who were to be seduced to their support, endeavours have been made by you and your accomplices, to seduce from their allegiance to their sovereign, the soldiers of his majesty; measures which, though they appear to have been, in too many instances, successful, yet I hope falsely said to be in that extent which has been stated in evidence. Equally false, I hope, has been another assertion, that two thirds of the inhabitants of this country were ready for a change, and prepared to support and adopt such measures as were likely to be most effectual for obtaining it; a change, by which no less was contemplated, than the subversion of all the sources of law, order and public justice, and the substitution of massacre, anarchy, and all their dire effects. It has, however. pleased that divine Providence, which has mercifully watched over the safety of the nation, to defeat your wicked and abominable purpose by arresting your projects in their dark and dangerous progress, and thus averting that danger which your machinations had suspended over our heads; and by your timely detections seizure and submission to public justice, to afford time for the many thousands of his majesty's innocent and loyal subjects, the intended victims of your atrocious and sanguinary purpose, to escape that danger which so recently menaced them and which I trust, has not yet become too formidable for utter defeat. Happily for the families, and the persons of thousands of your wicked and deluded accomplices, your detection has in time I hope. served to avert the calamities in which they would have inevitably involved themselves. as well as their innocent fellow citizens. The vigilance of that government, unceasingly directed to the public security, was not to be eluded by the dark and mysterious secrecy under which you endeavored to mask your wicked designs; your very endeavors to propagate and promote your projects have been the sources of your defeat: and thus it has happened, that when you imagined your vile purposes to be nearest their completion, they have been fortunately discovered by the very means through which you intended to put them in execution; and thus the intended victims who were on the eve of being involved in all the horrors of your projects, have fresh cause to acknowledge with gratitude the goodness of that all provident God, who has thus timely, and I hope for ever, put a stop to your diabolical plans.

"As to you, deluded victims of a desperate and abandoned conspiracy, before I conclude the awful task which remains for me to perform, I wish to say a few words to you on the enormity of those crimes which have brought you to your present melancholy and ignominious situation. And first, you Edward Marcus Despard, in whom the dignified pride of birth, the advantages of a liberal education, & the habits of intercourse in that rank in which your conduct was once so highly honorable, and from whom the testimony borne of your former conduct, by the honorable companions of your early pursuits, adduced in this court as witnesses for your character, should have induced us to expect widely different conduct and principles. How grossly have you misapplied and abused the talents and opportunities which you enjoyed for honorable distinction in society; and how have you degraded yourself to the association of those unfortunate and wretched companions, by whom you are now surrounded, in whose ignominious fate you so justly share; but who are the unhappy victims of your seductive persuasion and example. I do not wish, at this awful moment, to urge any thing to you, and the degrading companions by whom you are surrounded, to sharpen the bitterness of your feelings. under the ignominy of your fate; but I would most earnestly wish to impress your mind, during the short period of your remaining life, with a due sense of your awful situation, and of the criminal conduct which has involved you in your present ignominious state; I would earnestly entreat you zealously to endeavor to subdue the callous insensibility of heart, of which in an ill fated moment, you have boasted--and regain that sensitive affection of the mind, which may prepare your soul for that salvation, which, by the infinite mercy of God, I beseech of that God you may obtain.

"And as to you, other unhappy prisoners, the wretched victims of his seduction and example, to what a dreadful and ignominious fate you have brought yourselves, and what sorrow and affliction have been entailed upon your families, by the atrocity of your crimes, and your purposed and sanguinary attempts to subvert that happy constitution and government, under the mild protection of which you might have continued to pursue industrious avocations, and enjoy with comfort, the fruits of your honest and peaceful labors; and the unexampled mildness and merciful tendency of whose laws you have this day experienced in a long, a patient, a fair and most impartial trial. before that respectable and discerning jury, who have convicted you on the fullest and most uncontroverted evidence of your guilt. May the awful and impressive example of your untimely fate, prove a warning to your wicked associates and accomplices, in every quarter of this realm, and induce them to abandon those machinations which have brought you to this disgraceful catastrophe. May they learn to avoid your fate, by cultivating the blessings of that constitution which you have calumniated and endeavored to subvert: and by pursuing their honest and industrious avocations, and avoiding political cabals and seditious conspiracies, avoid also those dreadful consequences in which they themselves would most probably be amongst the first victims.

"The same earnest advice I have just given to your unfortunate leader and seducer. I now offer to you, which is. to make the best use of the short period of life now remaining, to make your peace with an offended God for your crimes. and seek mercy in another life, which the interest of your fellow creatures will not suffer to be extended to you here."