William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. V. 1783-1794
Samuel Parr to William Godwin, 10 November 1794
“Your anxiety, dear Mr
Godwin, during Hardy’s trial could not be more intense than mine, your
joy at the close of it was not more rapturous, your approbation of the jury is
not more warm, and your indignation against the judge seems to be less fierce.
Is it possible, my friend, that any baseness can be more foul, any injustice
more ![]()
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pernicious, any treason
more atrocious, than the deliberate, technical, systematic perversion of law?
My bosom glowed with honest rage when I saw the snares that were laid for
men’s lives in that odious address to the Grand Jury; but I doubt whether
the dagger of an assassin, reeking with blood, would have given a more violent
shock to my feelings than the close of Eyre’s speech at the Old Bailey. I can make great
allowances for the projects of statesmen, the errors and prejudices of princes,
and even the outrages of conquerors; but when I see the ministers of public
justice thirsting with canine fury for the blood of a fellow-creature, my soul
is all on fire . . . I very strongly disapproved of the Convention; I would
oppose the doctrine of universal suffrage; I look with a watchful, and perhaps
with an unfriendly, eye upon all political associations; I wish to see the
people enlightened, but not inflamed; I would resist with my pen, and perhaps
with my sword, any attempts to subvert the constitution of this country, but I
am filled with agony when laws, intended for our protection, arc stretched and
distorted for our destruction . . . I am glad the charge was published, because
it has been answered; and as I think the answer luminous in style, powerful in
matter, and solid in principle, I am extremely desirous of knowing who is the
author. He is entitled to my praise as a critic, and my thanks as an
Englishman. I shall not be satisfied till Mr
Fox takes up, in Parliament, the subject of constructive
treason; and I trust that, by perseverance, he will be no less successful than
we have already seen him in vindicating the rights of juries. He is a sound and
sober statesman, a real lover of his country, and a friend to the collective
interests of social man . . . Remember me kindly to Mr Holcroft. Come again to see me at my parsonage, when the
weather is finer, the days longer, the roads cleaner, and the aspect of public
affairs less gloomy.—Believe me, dear sir, with great respect, your well-wisher
and obedient servant,
Sir James Eyre (1734-1799)
Educated at Winchester College, St John's College, Oxford, and Gray's Inn, he was Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas (1793) and presided over the treason trials of Hardy, Tooke,
and Thelwall in 1794.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
William Godwin (1756-1836)
English novelist and political philosopher; author of
An Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Political Justice (1793) and
Caleb
Williams (1794); in 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft.
Thomas Hardy (1752-1832)
English shoemaker and radical who was tried for treason and acquitted in the 1794
trials.
Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809)
English playwright and novelist; a friend of William Godwin indicted for treason in 1794;
author of
The Road to Ruin (1792). His
Memoirs (1816) were completed by William Hazlitt.
