Church was in the least danger from the administration. Moreover, his counsel evaded rather than met the charges. Upon the right of nations in any case to resist their sovereign the language of the Church had been unequivocal; royalty was so eminently a divine institution, they had claimed, that no tyranny could justify resistance. But Sachevereir« Tory defenders admitted the right of resistance in extreme cases, and one of them even maintained, in direct opposition to Tory theology, the supremacy of Parlia ment. In the great case of Lord George Gordon, in 1780 (21 St. Tr. 485), the doctrine of con structive treason received a blow from which it never recovered. Lord Gordon was an enthusiastic and erratic young Scotch noble man who had been elected president of the Protestant Association, an organization de signed to secure the repeal of the lately en acted statutes relieving Roman Catholics from some of the onerous penalties to which they had long been subject. As president of the association Lord Gordon brought about a gathering of some forty thousand adherents in London on June 2, 1780, a~d led them to the Parliament House to present a petition for the repeal of the obnoxious acts. This great concourse of people blocked all the avenues to Parliament; they were not armed and most of them were orderly, al though individuals among them insulted some members of Parliment who were pass ing into the building, requiring them to put blue cockades on their hats and to cry "no popery." Lord Gordon presented the peti tion to the House of Commons, but it was promptly rejected by a vote of 192 to 6. When this vote was announced the crowd became disorderly, and the whole affair as sumed a serious turn. The proceedings of the next few days have been made familiar by Dickens' Barnaby Radge. The Catholic chapels at the residences of the foreign min isters were demolished; the city prisons were
broken open; thirty-six fires were started at various points throughout the city; Lord Mansfield's house and all its priceless con tents were destroyed; breweries and distil leries weie broken open, and for several days the city was at the mercy of an infuriated mob. When at length order was restored, nearly five hundred persons had been killed or wounded. Lord Gordon was promptly arraigned for high treason. Lord Mansfield presided at the trial; Erskine and Kenyon defended the prisoner. The prosecution con tended that the prisoner, in assembling the multitude, if he did so with a view to overawe and intimidate Parliament, was guilty of levying war, within the terms of the statute of treason—a doctrine which was fully con firmed by the court. Moreover, it was contended that the overt acts proved might fairly be construed into such a design; they were, in fact, the only evidence by which a treasonable design could be shown. On be half of the defendant considerable evidence was introduced to show the prisoner's loy alty and orderly demeanor. It appeared that he had counselled order and had suggested that riotous persons should be delivered to the constable. It was proved that the bulk of the people around Parliament House and in the lobby were idlers, vagabonds and pick pockets who had thrust themselves into the assembly. The Earl of Lonsdale, who took Gordon home in his carriage, testified that Gordon, in reply to inquiries from the great multitude as to the fate of the petition, an swered that it was uncertain, and earnestly entreated them to retire to their homes and remain quiet. Long after midnight Erskine made his remarkable maiden speech to a jury in defence of the prisoner. He did not take direct issue with the authorities as to what constituted treason. "If it had been proved," he said, "that the same multitude, under the direction of Lord George Gordon, had afterwards attacked the bank, broken open the prisons and set London in a conflagra
