re-organising the whole discussion of moral and
political questions. The first step, he thought, was to compile a
dictionary in which all the terms required in such debates would receive
an authoritative definition. But this dictionary, he urged, must be
composed in the English language, and published first in England, for
only there was discussion free, and the press unfettered. In the
reaction over which Pitt and Dundas presided, that envied liberty was
totally eclipsed. The _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended; the Privy
Council sat as a sort of Star Chamber to question political suspects,
and there was even talk of importing Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries
to check an insurrection which nowhere showed its head. The frailest of
all human endowments is the sense of humour. The sense of proportion had
been eclipsed in the panic, and most of the cases which may be studied
to-day in the State trials impress the modern reader as tasteless and
cruel farces. Men were tried and sentenced never for deeds, but always
for words. For a sermon closely resembling Dr. Price's, a dissenting
minister named Winterbotham was tried at Exeter, and sentenced to four
years' imprisonment and a fine of L200. The attorney, John Frost,
returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a
coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without
kings; he was imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls.
One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had
heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he
would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper"
(evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would
cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" (case
against Thomas Hardy). The climax of really entertaining absurdity was
reached when two debtors imprisoned in the Fleet were tried and
sentenced for nailing a seditious libel to its doors. The libel was a
notice that "This house is to let," that "infamous bastilles are no
longer necessary in Europe," and that "peaceable possession" would be
secured "on or before the first day of January, 1793, being the
commencement of the first year of liberty in Great Britain."

The farce of this panic became a tragedy when the reformers of Scotland
ventured to summon a Convention at Edinburgh to voice the demand for
shorter Parliaments and universal male suffrage. It met in Octobe