places anything to do with Reform, or this prisoner's 'philippics' on the subject? they might bundle and take themselves off in a jiffey. The Constitution was matchless, and could not be improved on the face of time."

If anybody doubts this, we just give the following special part of the charge of the Justice-Clerk to the Jury, in his own words:-"The panel (says the Justice-Clerk), might have known that no attention could be paid to the Petitions of such rabbles. What right had they to representation? The panel should have told them that Parliament would never listen to their Petitions. How could they think of it. A Government in every country (continued the Justice-Clerk), should just be like a CORPORATION and in this country it was made up of the landed interest, who alone had a right to be represented. As for the rabble (his Lordship continued), who had nothing but personal property, what hold had the nation of them? What security for the payment of their taxes? They might (added his Lordship), pack up all their property on their backs, and leave the country in the twinkling of an eye, but landed property cannot be removed." The other Judges cordially concurred. These then, were the elements of their decision in 1793. They all unanimously decided and declared against Reform. The simple advocacy of it was by them declared to be SEDITION.

It is now for us humbly but emphatically to declare through these pages, that from first to last, in the course of that Trial, no human being was brought forward on the part of the Crown, to testify that so much even as one single solitary drop of blood had been shed in any quarter in all broad Scotland at that period, or that even so much as one single particle of injury had been done to any human being in any place in this realm, through the

speeches or the actions of Thomas Muir himself, or any of his associates.

We can now hardly refrain from giving a few passages of his brilliant speech to the Jury. The whole of it was indeed admirable; but the following passages may be read :

"Gentlemen of the Jury,-What, pray, is my offence? I tell you that I actively and sincerely embarked in the cause of Parliamentary Reform, in the vindication and in the restoration of the rights of the People. Nor do I hesitate to unfold to you my motives. They are supported by their own intrinsic strength, and they are sanctioned by the great and venerable names of the living and the dead. Gentlemen, I have boldly contended for an equal representation of the people, in what I shall now call 'the House of the People;' because I consider it to be a measure essentially necessary to the salvation of the State, and to the stability of our boasted Constitution. Gentlemen, I ask, in what consists the excellency of that time-honoured fabric cemented by the blood of our fathers, flowing on the field, and from the scaffold? I will tell you. It consists in the just balance of the three great impelling powers of King, Lords, and Commons. If one of these powers lose its vigour, the efficacy of the Constitution is proportionally impaired; if one of these is absolved by another the Constitution is gone-is annihilated. Is it not known to you, gentlemen, and acknowledged by all the world, that the popular branch of the Constitution has suffered the ravages of time and of corruption? The fact is indisputable. The representation of the People is not what it once was, and is not such, as I trust in God, one day it shall be."

Here some of the Jury actually manifested symptoms

of impatience and disapprobation, whereupon Muir burst out upon them as follows:

"Gentlemen,-If, whether right or wrong, you have come here determined to find me guilty, say so boldly, openly; and let me add, honestly. Resort not to idle pretexts and expedients to justify a stretch of power. The unprejudiced eye will soon penetrate into those pretexts, and the determination will soon receive the contempt and indignation of mankind.”

What prophetic words! But he ended in this strain:-"Gentlemen of the Jury,-This is perhaps the last time that I shall address my country. I have explored the tenor of my past life. Nothing shall tear me from the record of my former days. The enemies of Reform have scrutinized in a manner hitherto unexampled in Scotland, every action I may have performed, every word I may have uttered; of crimes most foul and horrible, have I been accused; of attempting to rear the standard of civil war; to plunge this land in blood, and to cover it with desolation. At every step as the evidence of the Crown advanced, my innocency has brightened. So far from inflaming the minds of men to sedition and to outrage, all the witnesses have concurred that my only anxiety was to impress upon them the necessity of peace, good order, and good morals. And my only crime is for having dared to be, according to the measure of my feeble abilities, a strenuous and active advocate for an equal representation of the People in the House of the People. It is a good cause. It shall ultimately prevail-it shall finally triumph. Say then openly by you verdict, if you do condemn me, that it is for this cause I suffer."

The following were the last thrilling words of his appeal to the Jury, but they sulkily disregarded it:

"Gentlemen,--The time will come when men must stand or fall by their actions; when all human pageantry shall cease; when the hearts of all shall be laid open. If you regard your most important interests-if you wish that your conscience should whisper to you words of consolation, or speak to you in the terrible language of remorse— weigh well the verdict you are to pronounce. As for me, I am careless and indifferent to my fate. I can look danger, and I can look death in the face; for I am shielded by the consciousness of my own rectitude. I may be condemned to languish in the recesses of a dungeon-I may be doomed to ascend the scaffold. Nothing can deprive me of the recollection of the past-nothing can destroy my inward peace of mind, arising from the remembrance of having discharged my duty."

He then sat down on his seat much exhausted, having spoken for nearly three hours; commencing his address at ten at night, and finishing about one in the morning— a long sederunt, certainly.

At the close of that address, the enrapt audience gazing on him with anxiety and delight, were impelled by their feelings to clap their hands, and cheer him thrice over.

We were told some years ago, by several eye-witnesses of that scene, but the fact has never yet been published -there was some danger of doing it-that while this was the state of the audience, the Lord Advocate, with the Crown Counsel, and the whole of the Judges, were literally shaking their heads and clenching their fists with perfect rage.

JUSTICE-CLERK, (starting from his seat scowlingly)— Macers; Macers, I say; take the disturbers of the Court into custody. Seize them instantly.

SENIOR MACER, Sic orig.-"My Lords, they are aw (all)

cheering and stamping with their feet, and clapping their hauns (hands); so you see my Lords, it's perfectly impossible for me to tak (take) them aw into custody.'

The Court, however, was speedily cleared. The Jury were directed to be enclosed, to meet next morning, (Saturday at noon,) to deliver their verdict: and Thomas Muir, in closer custody now, was taken from the bar back to the Tolbooth.

When the Court did re-assemble, to receive the verdict and pronounce sentence on Saturday morning, all Edinburgh, if in a state of excitement the day previous, was in a state absolutely of the greatest excitement now. The Parliament Square leading to the inner recesses of the ancient "Fyfteen," then composing the number of our Supreme Judges, at their green table, which some yet may remember, was literally besieged with anxious and eager crowds. The very statue of King Charles the Second, still standing in that Square, was bestrid with young lads ready to fly like carrier-pigeons, so soon as the doors of the Justiciary Hall were thrown open, to reveal the verdict, and to carry the news to anxious parties in the Canongate, or the Meadows, or the Netherbow, or the Lawnmarket, or down to "auld Holyrood," or across the earthen Mound, intersecting the old with the new town of Edinburgh, then beginning to boast of its Princes Street, and Forth Street, &c. There were no telegraph wires in those days; indeed, such things were scarcely dreamt of in any one's philosophy; and there were no penny newspapers to proclaim the news forthwith to the public. The only papers then in existence in Edinburgh, we think, were three, viz., the Caledonian Mercury, the Courant, and the Advertiser, published at intervals, and at not less than sixpence or sevenpence for