On April 14th The London Corresponding Society elected
delegates in public. One event attracted 4000 spectators. In fact the societies
weren’t being seditious at all; they continuously tried to promote their
issues legally. Hardy had
repeatedly sent letters to Parliament reminding the Crown that they
were loyal. At least three spies were present at
this meeting. John Thelwell, a member of the society, recognized them
and called out, “I suppose you will give a
good account to-morrow of our proceedings to-day and let the government
know all how and about it.” The crowds
began to hiss. Later the promoters went out drinking after supper.
Another spy was with them and he reported that
they “toasted the lamp-iron in Parliament street” and that Thelwell
blowing the head off his beer said “So should all
tyrants be served.”1
Soon Hardy and Tooke were arrested on May 12. Their papers
were confiscated. The government pathetically tried
to link these men with a letter of insurrection written by
Robert Watt, a minor radical who also served as an
informant. Later Watt was hanged and beheaded resulting in the only
execution during this conspiracy scare.
Hardy’s house was mobbed by Crown supporters. His pregnant wife narrowly
escaped harm. Their child was
stillborn and she died shortly after while he was in prison. In court
Hardy maintained that they had done nothing in
secret and the records proved that they violated no law. Due to the
publicly denounced atrocities of Braxfield, a
new judge was appointed to the case. The trial lasted nine days riveting
the attention of England. If Hardy went
down they were all doomed. He was finally proclaimed “not guilty”
and he calmly thanked the jury.
Horne Tooke worked on his diaries while under arrest.
He, too, was aquitted of charges .The releases showed the prosecutor’s
complete lack of evidence. P.A. Brown wonderfully translates the type of
character he was: “Erskine [a prosecutor] was almost overshadowed by the
formidable prisoner who, old, and diseased as he was, enjoyed
the triumph of his life, outfacing the judge, taunting the Attorney-General,
and playing with a long string of witnesses
which included a bishop and most of the great politicians. Pitt was
made to look foolish. Adams and Sharp of the
Constitutional Society, whom the Crown produced as evidence against
their old ally, were turned by him into
witnesses for the defense. He abounded in gibes and jokes, wished to
hum a song to show whether the tune
were treasonable, and asked the Bishop of Gloucestor whether a Master
of Arts degree would not be given by
Cambridge University to any creature that could answer a rational question.
Through the cheering crowds
Tooke went off to supper with his surgeon.”2
There could never be a revolution like France in England.
The government was too strong to allow a violent
social disruption. The stronghold of landowners was so intricately
tied to its politics that it would take the
Industrial Revolution to shift representative power beyond the landowner.
Also illiteracy prevented most of the
poorer classes from ever participating in the myth of revolution. Curiously
enough Paine remained in France
but was criticized for not supporting the execution of the king. This
man who had helped galvanize the troops in
America and incite English attempts at reform was too conservative
for the French radicals.
The French Revolution created the “mythic present.”
It created a new language of renewal and regeneration that
struck at the core of humanity. This demonstration of changing
reality became a symbol of modernity itself. The
invention of revolutionary symbols or the “master fiction”,
because of its universality had a messianic impact on
the rest of the world. It revealed new forms of political power; mass
propaganda, political mobilization of the lower
classes and the politicization of every day life. Though the aims of
the revolution served the bourgeoisie it opened up government and
for the first time a man of talent could rise up in the political world
regardless of heredity or class.
The French Revolution has become a symbol to awaken possibilities in
humanity.
Notes
(1)
4. P.A. Brown, The French Revolution in English History, 1918
back
(2)Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak, British Literature, 1996.back