Dinner with Joseph Johnson by Daisy Hay

Author:Daisy Hay [Hay, Daisy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473522091
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2022-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Johnson knew his actions were within the law at the time he acted, but only by a slim margin. He also knew that the law itself was vulnerable to retrospective State reinterpretation. When he was called back to court during the trial of Horne Tooke, Johnson was required to explain his role in the publication of Joel Barlow’s work. His evidence followed that of Jordan, who did his best to demonstrate that Johnson had acted as an informal collaborator in the publication of the second part of the Rights of Man. In his summing up, Chief Justice Eyre drew attention to the role played by both booksellers in the dissemination of material of which Hardy and Horne Tooke stood accused. A guilty verdict had the potential to threaten the livelihoods – and, conceivably, the lives – of the booksellers as well as those of the defendants in the dock.

The combined efforts of Erskine and Godwin were successful. In an outcome that surprised many and horrified the government, the jury at Hardy’s trial found him not guilty of treason and sedition. An ecstatic crowd carried Hardy through the streets, although they remained at a respectful distance as he stood alone before the graves of his wife and child. Horne Tooke’s acquittal followed a week later. In response to both judgements the government was forced to release other members of the LCS and SCI. John Thelwall remained in prison because the case against him was said to be particularly strong, but ultimately he too was acquitted. Pitt declared them all to be ‘morally guilty’. The Solicitor General insisted that a not-guilty verdict was not the same as a declaration of innocence.22 Such assertions did nothing to quell the widespread sense of liberal jubilation at the acquittals. It was a good moment in a difficult year, when reason and justice won out over repression. Nevertheless, for the men who had been imprisoned the effects of the trial were devastating. Hardy’s wife and stillborn child had died as a result of his arrest; his business was ruined. Friends helped him re-establish himself in a smaller shop but he remained vulnerable to loyalist crowds carrying flaming torches. Thelwall’s footsteps were dogged by government spies after his release and eventually he left London, hoping to find peace in the isolation of rural Wales. John Horne Tooke remained defiant throughout his imprisonment and trial but by the time he was released he was exhausted and his finances were strained. He had been an articulate and witty combatant at Johnson’s table but in the years following 1794 his voice was muted and the SCI missed the strength of his leadership. After the Treason Trials its members gradually stopped meeting.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.