Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
AN AUTHENTIC HISTORY
OF THE
CATO-STREET CONSPIRACY;
WITH THE
TRIALS
AT LARGE
OF THE CONSPIRATORS,
FOR
High Treason and Murder;
A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR
WEAPONS AND COMBUSTIBLE MACHINES,
AND
EVERY PARTICULAR CONNECTED WITH THE RISE, PROGRESS,
DISCOVERY, AND TERMINATION OF THE HORRID PLOT.
With Portraits of all the Conspirators, taken during their Trials, by
Permission, and other Engravings.
By GEORGE THEODORE WILKINSON, Esq.
Editor of the New Newgate Calendar Improved.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THOMAS KELLY, 17, PATERNOSTER-ROW,
And sold by all Booksellers in the United Kingdom.
PREFACE.
To those, who are accustomed to look with an observant eye upon thecauses which lead to the fall and destruction of nations, the presentepoch offers materials for their most weighty consideration. They haveseen their country involved in one of the most destructive and arduouscontests ever recorded in its annals; they have seen the combinedforce of the civilized world directed against its very existence; theyhave witnessed its unexampled and glorious struggle; the loyalty andpatriotism of the people, and finally they have beheld it, rising atthe close of the contest, not subdued nor conquered, but towering withrenovated fame and lustre, and scattering to their loathsome dens thedark demons of anarchy and ruin; they beheld the industrious artisanreturning to the shuttle—the laborious peasant to the plough—thewar-worn soldier was seated at his native hearth telling the storyof his battles, and the weather-beaten sailor, in the fulness ofhis pride, was glorying in the wounds obtained in the defence ofhis country. Peace gave to the nation its blessings, and round theconsecrated altars of our fathers knelt the children of this favouredland in grateful prayer to that God, who had gone[Pg iv] forth with themin the day of battle; and who, in the wreck of surrounding kingdoms,had vouchsafed to spread over this his protecting hand. But, in themidst of these cheering prospects, the pestilential air of Atheism andInfidelity was raging abroad like the blasting heat of the Simoon inthe desert, and throwing its sickening hue over the beautiful formsof Religion and Virtue. Men, if such an exalted name can be giventhem, who have openly thrown off all submission—all reverence—allduty and love to their God; who, in the most blasphemous manner,had reviled and denied their divine Redeemer, considered themselvesenfranchised from every moral and religious duty, from allegiance totheir earthly Sovereign and obedience to the laws of the country. Inthe latter they behel