“Justice could not be attained without reasonable delay”

Last month I left John Frith in Newgate prison, about to be put on trial for treason after people had seen him throw a rock at King George III’s coach on 21 Jan 1790.

As you recall, Frith had been a lieutenant in the royal army during the American War and after, but was cashiered after he had a divine revelation that Jamaica wasn’t real. Or, if we adopt his commanders’ narrow perspective, after he went mad.

Frith’s trial began on 17 April. Three judges presided: Baron Kenyon, the Lord Chief Justice of England (shown here); John Heath, known for handling criminal trials; and Sir Beaumont Hotham, who was a baron of the exchequer but would eventually become a baron in the House of Lords, just to confuse matters.

The defense attorneys were Samuel Shepherd and William Garrow. They both turned thirty that month, but they were well regarded; each would eventually serve as attorney general of the U.K. They started by asking for a postponement, saying, “we think there is some very important evidence which might be procured before the next sessions.”

However, when the lawyers broached that idea with Frith himself, he responded, “I object to it, on account of my health, being in a bad state through long confinement. I should rather meet it now: it is depriving a subject of his liberty, and endangering his health.”

The attorney general, Sir Archibald McDonald, said he was fine with a postponement: “I shall have no objection to give the gentlemen such time as will enable them to collect such evidence as they may chuse.” He was being assisted by the solicitor general, Sir John Scott; the appropriately named attorney Edward Law; and John Silvester, soon to be made a judge in London. Both Scott and Law eventually became Britain’s lord chief justice.

Frith still insisted on going through with the trial. He added, “whoever dares to oppose me in that respect, I will represent him to the legislature, or some member of parliament; either to General North, or some gentleman whom I have the honour of knowing.” (I can’t identify “General North.”)

The judges themselves then stepped in and ruled, “because justice could not be attained without reasonable delay interposing, therefore it must stand over till next sessions.”

And Frith declared:

I do not admit of it. And I shall make an application to parliament, that I have been here three months in disagreeable confinement; and the king has broke the mutual obligation between him and the subject: and the assault is of such a simple kind of manner; and what I have met with is of such a nature, that I desire to speak by way of extenuation, and to plead guilty or not guilty to the facts. I then shall make an application as being illegally detained in prison, that you will not admit a British subject to plead to the indictment: I therefore shall make an application to the legislature, that you are violating the laws of this kingdom. I will not put it in the power of the gentlemen that are employed for me to put it off.

A significant portion of the kingdom’s top legal minds were in that courtroom agreeing that the trial should be delayed for the defendant’s sake, and Frith absolutely refused. So the judges took another approach. Lord Chief Justice Kenyon stated:

I think there ought now to be an enquiry made, touching the sanity of this man at this time; whether he is in a situation of mind to say what his grounds of defence here are. I know it is untrodden ground, though it is constitutional: then get a jury together to enquire into the present state of his mind: the twelve men that are there, will do.

The criminal trial thus turned into an inquiry on whether Frith was sane.

TOMORROW: Testimony.

(Incidentally, Wikipedia tells us that Sir Archibald Macdonald was the first baronet of his line, as well as the son of a seventh baronet and brother of an eighth. How was that possible? Because Macdonald’s brother, father, and ancestors were baronets of Nova Scotia, but for his services Sir Archibald was given the same title within the English peerage.)