her-conspirators, and thus to get into their confidence, and even
to suggest to them some new form of conspiracy, in order that their
willingness to accept the suggestion might mark them out as proper
subjects for a Government prosecution and obtain for the informers the
credit of the detection.

[Sidenote: 1820--Origin of the conspiracy]

Thistlewood had been engaged in popular agitation for some sort of
reconstitution of political society, and he had been once put on his
trial for some alleged offence arising out of such an agitation. More
lucky than many other of his contemporaries under similar conditions,
he was brought before a jury who found him not guilty of the charge
made against him. Now, if Thistlewood had been a sane member of even
an Anarchist organization, he might have been softened in his feelings
towards the existing order of things by finding that a jury had
actually recognized the possibility of his being formally charged with
an offence against the Crown and yet not being guilty. But Thistlewood
regarded the bare fact that a charge had been made against him as a
crime calling out for vengeance, and in his frenzy he got the idea into
his head that Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, was the person on whom
he was bound to take revenge. Accordingly, the unfortunate creature
actually sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth, inviting and defying him to
mortal combat. Perhaps Lord Sidmouth would have acted wisely if he had
taken no notice whatever of this preposterous challenge, but, at the
same time, it is only fair to remember that Lord Sidmouth might think
it dangerous to the public peace to allow a person to go unrebuked who
had sent a challenge to a Minister of the Crown. Criminal proceedings
were, therefore, taken against Thistlewood, and, instead of being
committed to the protection of a lunatic asylum, the author of the
challenge was sentenced to a year's imprisonment. When his prison time
was over, Thistlewood came out a man inflamed with a desire for
vengeance on all the ruling classes {17} in general, and on Ministers
of the Crown in particular. Like the murderer in "Macbeth," he thought
himself one whom the vile blows and buffets of the world had so
incensed that he was reckless what he did to spite the world. He soon
got around him a small gang of agitators as ignorant and almost as
crazy as himself, and he initiated them into a grand scheme for dealing
a death-blow to all the ministers at