At Edinburgh, in August 1793, during the trial of Thomas Muir, one witness testified to a copy of Thomas Paine’s works which the accused had carried within the folds of his greatcoat. Henry Freeland, president of a local reform society, stated that he had expressed a desire to read the text following a gathering near Campsie. Muir delivered the volume into his hands; Freeland testified that he read it and subsequently lent it to several neighbours. In the view of the Crown, this transaction constituted the dissemination of seditious writings. Muir did not deny that he encouraged the reading of treatises on constitutional reform, yet he maintained that he consistently exhorted such societies to pursue their redress solely through constitutional avenues.
The indictment comprehended several distinct charges. Muir stood accused of haranguing assemblies at Kirkintilloch and Campsie in November 1792, of inciting persons to purchase and read Paine and other publications, of circulating these writings, and of having read aloud at a convention an address from the United Irishmen to the Scottish reformers. He denied the facts as framed in the libel. He had no wish, he declared, to dispute the technicalities of the indictment; he had already submitted a written defence and would maintain that his conduct had ever been governed by constitutional principles.
Before the first witness was called, the prisoner challenged the composition of the jury. Every man impanelled, he argued, belonged to the association of Goldsmiths’ Hall, which had offered a pecuniary reward for the detection of persons circulating writings deemed seditious. In his estimation, they had already prejudged the cause. The Solicitor-General countered that the judges themselves held the writings of Paine in condemnation. The court repelled the objection unanimously.
Alexander Johnston, a bleacher of Kincaid, deposed that he had heard Muir deliver an address at Kirkintilloch. The accused had censured the unequal representation of the people in Parliament, compared the public finances of Great Britain with those of France, and urged the assemblage to petition Parliament and publish the proceedings of their society. Under cross-examination, Johnston conceded that Muir had counselled peace and warned his hearers that any tumultuous act would prove fatal to their cause. Robert Widdel, vice-president of the society, recalled the prisoner’s strictures upon the system of representation; he stated further that Muir had observed that Paine’s writings did not properly apply to their purpose.
A clergyman from Campsie was also summoned to depose, but it transpired that he had attended the precognition, taken notes, and put questions to the witnesses. Several individuals were examined upon this irregularity, whereupon the Lord Advocate deemed it prudent to abandon the witness. In a prosecution founded upon utterances made within debating societies, the impartiality of those tasked with collecting such spoken words became itself a matter of fierce contest.
Freeland maintained that Muir had entrusted the volume to him, and that he had thereafter sent it into circulation. Another witness, William Muir, initially declined to take the oath, pleading religious scruples; having conferred with the Reverend Mr. Dun, he consented to testify. He swore that he had seen Freeland take the book from Thomas Muir’s pocket. He added that the accused had given him a copy of the Political Progress and ten or twelve numbers of the Patriot, desiring him to show them to the members of his society without requiring their return.
Muir made no attempt to conceal having recommended such readings; he resisted only the inference that this act amounted to an incitement to rebellion. In his closing address, he pursued this line without evasion: had he been indicted merely for advocating parliamentary reform, he would have pleaded guilty. He entreated the jury not to substitute a political design for the precise charge laid against him, nor to condemn him for the political opinions he had avowed.
The deposition of Ann Fisher carried the inquiry into the household of Muir’s father. Formerly a servant there, she stated that she had observed Thomas reading and writing continually throughout the preceding autumn. She testified that she had carried to a printer a declaration of rights, marked with his corrections for a revised edition. She had likewise purchased several copies of the Rights of Man at his bidding, and had heard him speak approvingly of the work, remarking that it had refuted Burke. She recounted domestic conversations touching upon the reform of representation and the prospect of his being returned as member for Calder. Her evidence wove together private readings, household conversations, and political ambitions; it fell to the jury to measure the true import of these domestic details.
Other witnesses directed their testimony to the convention of delegates held in December. James Campbell and James Denholm testified that Muir had read aloud an address received from the United Irishmen and moved that a reply be returned. Other delegates had opposed the measure, and the motion was rejected. Muir conceded that certain speeches delivered at Edinburgh and Stranraer were his own. He likewise acknowledged the papers discovered upon his person. The defence rested not upon a disavowal of words spoken, but upon their construction and the manner in which the officers of the Crown had marshalled them into an instrument of accusation.
William Skirving, secretary to the general convention, explained that Muir had travelled to London, and thence to France, in order to attend certain meetings and, as some believed, to exert his influence to prevent the execution of the French King. Skirving had received a letter from Paris in which Muir announced his return. He had never heard the prisoner utter a word contrary to the British constitution; on the contrary, he had always heard him praise it. James Campbell produced two letters written from France. Several witnesses for the defence affirmed that Muir held the constitution in high reverence and constantly urged moderation. One witness recalled him characterizing Paine’s works as dangerous to minds of weaker understanding.
The Lord Advocate drew the threads of the prosecution together in terms of vehement condemnation. He portrayed Muir as a man who, under the specious pretext of reform, sought to transplant French anarchy onto Scottish soil. He denounced in him a “diabolical malice” and demanded a verdict faithful to the jury’s duty toward the nation and its laws. The prisoner replied that sedition was merely a pretext. His real crime, he asserted, was having championed the cause of reform—a cause once embraced by William Pitt and the Duke of Richmond. He denied having undertaken any political mission in France, maintaining that his only desire had been to avert the shedding of blood.
The court adjourned at two o'clock in the morning. At noon, the jury returned with a verdict of guilty. The sentence of the court was fourteen years’ transportation beyond the seas. Muir declared that he would have received a sentence of death with equal composure, so entirely was he persuaded of the rectitude of his conduct. He was forthwith remanded to prison.
A few months later, as Borrow relates, Muir was conveyed alongside the Reverend Thomas Palmer to the prison hulks at Woolwich. There he was put in irons among common felons and condemned to hard labour upon the banks of the Thames. The intercessions of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and other members of Parliament to obtain a remission of the sentence proved unavailing.
The prisoner effected a clandestine departure from New South Wales in February 1796. Having presented a petition to Governor Hunter—who deemed himself without legal authority to detain him by force—Muir seized an opportunity to put to sea in a small boat with two convict servants, being taken aboard the American vessel Otter. His subsequent wanderings took him through Vancouver, California, and Mexico; he endured imprisonment at Havana, and in 1797 was severely wounded, losing his left eye, during a naval engagement off Cadiz. He finally reached France in November 1797, and died at Chantilly on the 26th of January 1799, in the thirty-fourth year of his age.