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speaking of that visionary Equality of Property, the practical assertion of which
would desolate the world... but that Equality we claim is to make the Slave a
Man, the Man a Citizen, and the Citizen an integral part of the State, to make
him a joint Sovereign, and not a Subject.” At Sheffield, the Address continued,
people wanted a state in which rich plunderers would not go unscathed—where
the same law would apply to all. Joseph Gales, the probable author, soon fled to
Hamburg, from which he passed on to America. Here he astonished the natives by
producing a verbatim record of speeches in Congress, having brought with him the
Old World art of shorthand; he lived many years as a democratic journalist in
North Carolina.
In 1794 the government struck back against radicalism in England, as in Scot-
land in 1793. The talk of a Convention amounted to talk of an Anti- Parliament, of
a body claiming more representative validity and more rightful authority than Par-
liament itself. In addition, so much agitation against the war was undesirable after
a year of hostilities. The war against France would seem more necessary, and be-
come more popular, if it could be proved that seditious Britons, in conjunction
with the French, meant to revolutionize Britain itself. Conservatives would be
mollified by the prosecution of persons bold enough to desire change in the insti-
tutions of England.
Pitt’s government therefore put on the State Trials of 1794. Indictments for
treason were issued against various persons—Thomas Hardy as head of the Lon-
don Corresponding Society, Horne Tooke and John Thelwall as radicals and club-
bists over many years, Thomas Walker of Manchester, and others. Beginning in
September 1794, the trials were simultaneous with the last operations of the
Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris and with the initiation of the Jacobin trials in
Vienna, to both of which they offered a refreshing contrast; for, though the gov-
ernment tried hard to obtain the conviction of men whom it regarded as enemies
of the state, as it had successfully done in Scotland, it had now to go through the
procedures of English law, which meant that the proceedings were public, the
jury was independent, and competent counsel was available to the accused. Hardy
and the others were defended by Thomas Erskine, who had defended Paine in
absentia in 1792. He showed that some of the evidence brought in by the govern-
ment was fabricated. No serious intent of armed rebellion, or of collusion with
the French, could be proved. The jury, composed of substantial London business
men, such as brewers and wholesale grocers, acquitted Thomas Hardy after only
two hours of deliberation. All the other defendants were acquitted also. The pros-
ecution of these critics of the established order, though legally unsuccessful, was
not without effects of the kind intended. The fear of similar proceedings, with the
disgrace and the expense that they involved, helped to drive men of standing out
of the radical movement, which became more clearly identified than ever with
certain elements of the working classes. The state trials also hastened the process,
evident since 1792, by which, in the Parliamentary classes, the Whig Party fell
to pieces. It is indeed from early in 1792 that the pre- history of what became the
Conservative and Liberal parties half a century later can first be traced. Some
Whigs, such as Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and the Earl of Lauderdale, had held firm
for neutrality, advised against domestic repression, thought that a little Parlia-