Trials for Treason and Sedition, 1792–1794
Editors: John Barrell and Jon Mee
978 1 85196 732 2: 234x156mm: £450.00/$795.00
978 1 85196 811 4: 234x156mm: £275.00/$495.00
978 1 84893 129 9: 234x156mm: £725.00/$1290.00
The period 1792–4 witnessed the emergence of the first genuinely popular radical movement in Britain. After the phenomenal success of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791–2), the government moved swiftly to prevent French republican ideas taking hold in Britain , beginning with the prosecution of Paine himself in absentia. There followed a spate of trials for seditious libel, often against booksellers in London who were selling cheap copies of Paine’s book. Finally, in May 1794, the government took the step of accusing the movement of treason, arresting its leaders, among them Thomas Hardy, Secretary of the London Corresponding Society, John Horne Tooke, the veteran gentleman radical, and the lecturer and poet John Thelwall. In particular, the movement was accused of conspiring to set up a convention that – as the government argued – was aimed at usurping the authority of Parliament. Their acquittal at the end of 1794 was regarded as a triumph for the jury system and gave new hope to the radical movement. In response, the government introduced a series of draconian new treason laws which effectively stamped out radical and populist movements until the Reform bills of the 1830s.
This eight-volume facsimile edition reproduces, for the first time, the collected, unabridged literature relating to all the treason trials between 1792 and 1794. The original court documents and published transcripts are rare, fragile and increasingly difficult to access.
- Includes a substantial general introduction, notes on legal procedure, full editorial annotation, biographical notes on the key figures, and an index in the final volume
- Each facsimile page is digitally cleaned and enhanced, significantly improving on the quality and legibility of the original
- The first time all complete trial transcripts have been reproduced together
Sample pages
- Trial of Daniel Isaac Eaton (1794)
- Trial of Daniel Isaac Eaton: editorial notes
- Trials for Treason and Sedition: index
Contents
Volume 1
The Whole Proceedings on the Trial...against Thomas Paine (1793); The Trial of John Frost, for Seditious Words (1794); The Trial of Daniel Isaac Eaton, for Publishing a Supposed Libel (1794)
Volumes 2, 3, 4 and 5
The Trial of Thomas Hardy for High Treason (1794)
Volumes 6 and 7
The Trial of John Horne Tooke for High Treason (1795)
Volume 8
The Trial of John Thelwall in State Trials for High Treason (1794); John Thelwall, The Natural and Constitutional Rights of Britons ...intended to have been delivered at the Bar of the OLD BAILEY (1795); Thomas Holcroft, A Narrative of Facts, relating to a Prosecution for High Treason (1795); Jeremiah Joyce, An Account of the Author’s Arrest for "Treasonable Practices" (1795); Thomas Hardy, Memoirs (1832); John Thelwall, Life (1837)
Reviews
'a welcome new offering ... Barrell and Mee’s introduction establishes the ground perfectly for curious but inexpert readers … but readers will miss a lot if they just read the first volume’s introduction, profound as it is. For these "trials" constitute a fleeting sub-genre of their own, a kind of legal-literary performance art … [they are] essential reading.’
– Kenneth R Johnston, The Wordsworth Circle
'Those who have squinted at versions of these trials on Eighteenth-Century Collections Online will be pleased to find the facsimiles here 'digitally cleaned and enhanced'. No less welcome is Barrell and Mee's stellar editorial apparatus, which includes a general introduction that maps out a history of the reform movement before explaining the vagaries of the statutes for seditious libel and treason, as well as annotations to each trial that, taken together, could have filled a ninth volume.'
– John Bugg, The Huntington Library Quarterly