"CONSTITUTION.

"The independence of Great Britain and
Ireland. An equalisation of civil, political, and
religious rights. An ample provision for the
families of the heroes who shall fall in the
contest. A liberal reward for distinguished merit.
These are the objects for which we contend;
and to obtain these objects we swear to be
united. In the awful presence of Almighty
God, I, A. B., do voluntarily declare that I will
endeavour, to the utmost of my power, to
obtain the objects of this union; namely, to
recover those rights which the Supreme Being, in
His infinite bounty, has given to all men; that
neither hopes nor fears, rewards nor punishments,
shall ever induce me to give any
information, directly or indirectly, concerning the
business, or of any member of this or any
similar society. So help me God."

Wood, a soldier, and one of the most desperate
of the gang, had proposed a wild scheme.
On the north side of the parade, in St. James's
Park, there still stands, flanking the Treasury,
a long Egyptian gun, taken by us at
Alexandria. We have most of us carelessly passed
it a thousand times in the sun and rain.
Wood proposed to secretly load this gun, adjust
it, then get himself placed sentinel over it on the
day when parliament was opened, and fire it at
the king's coach. To use the very words,
afterwards sworn to at the trial, this desperate man
said at the Oakley Arms, openly before his
comrades, and with their approval: "I will post
myself sentry over the great gun in the park,
and load it, and fire at his Majesty's carriage as
it passes in going to the House." Wood was a
soldier, and in the course of his duty might
sometimes be sentinel at that gun. He also
spoke of the Mall, between the private gate of
his Majesty and Buckingham House, as being
the most proper place in which to attack the
king, because there would be no Horse Guards
there when his Majesty came out of his
private gate, after levee-day, to go to Buckingham
House.

Broughton then drew aside Emblin, the new
comer, and said, " My boy, we have the
completest plan in the world, which will do the
business without any trouble. It is to load the
great gun in the Park with four balls, or chainshot,
and fire it at his Majesty as he returns from
the House." Then, with a kind of sneer, he
said, "He would be d—d if that did not send
them to h—."

Emblin, unaccustomed to blood, replied,
"Good God! do you consider how many people
will be in the Park that day, and how many
lives you will take away?" Wood said, "Let
them get out of the way; it will play h—
with the houses at the Treasury and round
about there." Some other soldier then
observed, "The cannon might be too low;"
another said, " It might be easily raised an inch;"
and a third man remarked, "But if it misses his
Majesty?" Broughton replied, " hen, d— n
him, we must man-handle him."

All the rough men assembled in the smoking-
room of the suburban tavern round the grim
disguised leader, applauded the scheme, and
agreed that it must be done before the man-
eaters (parliament) met. At the Coach and
Horses, Whitechapel, and the Tyger, on Tower
Hill, other meetings were held; and it was
decided by Despard first to kill the king, then
attack the Parliament House and the Tower.
The colonel was generally spoken of among the
other conspirators by the playful synonym of
"the nice man." The men were desperate,
the plot was ripe, parliament was soon to meet,
and the  gun on the parade was ready for the
chainshot.

On the 16th of November, 1802, the conspirators
met in an upper room of the Oakley Arms,
in an obscure part of that dim damp brick-
kiln region of Lambeth. There were about
thirty soldiers and Irishmen of the humblest
class in the room, surrounding a stern-faced
thick-set man in shabby clothes, and with a plaid
cotton handkerchief wound round his neck.

Their clamorous talk is about cutting
telegraphs, attacking the Tower and India House,
and blowing the King to perdition. Wood is
earnest about putting plenty of balls in the gun
on the parade, and the plan of attack on the
coach, if the desperate shot failed, is arranged.
Suddenly a diabolical fury seems to seize Colonel
Despard. He leaps from his chair, eager at once
to fall on his persecutors with the sword. He
shouts "One and all!" and the thirty men push
for the door; but a cluster of rough armed
men stop them there, and leap in among them.
It is the patrol. There is a scuffle with the
colonel about searching him, and on him, when
searched, nothing is found; there is a great
calling of coaches, and forcing refractory men
in; and then twelve of Despard' s men are driven
to the Tothill-fields Bridewell, and twenty to
the new prison at Clerkenwell. Ten other
persons, trapped in another room, and proved to
have no connexion with the colonel's party, were
at once discharged. The colonel remained
obstinately silent.

The king's evidence was a spy named Windsor,
a private in the Grenadier Guards (First
Battalion). He had been drawn in by Francis,
who swore him in at a meeting at a public-house
in St. Giles's. Francis informed Mr. Bownas,
an army agent, who had given him directions
what to do.

The privy council instantly issued a special
commission, composed of four judges, which
was opened at the new court-house, at
Horsemonger-lane, Southwark, January 20, 1803.

The commissioners were Lord Chief Justice
Ellenborough, lord president; Sir Alexander
Thomson, Sir Simon Le Blanc, Sir Alan
Chambre, Sir John William Rose, Serjeants
Remmington, Bailey, and Onslow.

Lord Ellenborough delivered his charge on
the 21st to the grand jury. The same day the
jury returned a true bill for high treason against
Edward Marcus Despard, John Wood, Thomas
Broughton, John Francis, Thomas Phillips,
Thomas Newman, Daniel Tyndall, John Doyle,