An unexpected inquiry cut across the trial of a minister indicted for sedition: what had he thought of the victory at Waterloo? The Crown witnesses were interrogated upon this point, just as they were upon the utterances ascribed to Niel Douglas concerning the King, the Prince Regent, Parliament, and the courts of law. The Lord Justice-Clerk, however, dismissed the question. Waterloo formed no part of the indictment. This limit, established in open court, portended the central difficulty of the proceedings: it was not enough to paint the portrait of a political preacher; the precise words laid to his charge had to be proved.
On 26 May 1817, the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh sat in judgment upon the Reverend Niel Douglas, a Universalist preacher from Glasgow. The report, taken down in shorthand by John Dow and published that same year, opens with an extensive indictment. This instrument was not anchored to a sermon of certain date: it struck at expressions Douglas was alleged to have uttered in January, February, or March, particularly on 6 March, in the hall of the Andersonian Institution in John Street, Glasgow. The assemblies there were described as numerous, composed largely of common folk; the religious setting rendered the words, according to the prosecution, graver still.
The libel divided the charges into three heads. Douglas was alleged to have compared King George III to Nebuchadnezzar, asserting that the monarch had been driven from human society on account of his infidelity and corruption. He was accused of likening the Prince Regent to Belshazzar, reproaching him for failing to take warning from his father’s fate, and styling him a poor infatuated prince, or a devotee of Bacchus. He was further said to have branded the Commons a corrupt body, its members thieves and robbers, and parliamentary seats commodities sold like oxen. Lastly, he was charged with denouncing an administration of justice that condemned subjects without witnesses or trial. These were the allegations of the libel, not yet the conclusions of a jury.
Upon the reading of his name, Douglas pleaded not guilty. His counsel did not immediately challenge the legal relevancy of the libel; they lodged written defences denying that he had uttered those expressions or any phrases of similar import. They offered to establish that he had ever spoken respectfully of the Sovereign and Parliament, praised the laws of the realm, and exhorted his hearers to shun tumult. The debate, therefore, would not hinge solely upon the liberty of the pulpit, but upon the chasm between the words alleged, the construction placed upon them by those who heard them, and the meaning of which the court could legally take cognizance.
Prior to the taking of evidence, the judges sustained the libel as sufficiently specific to go to trial, while reserving to Douglas the right to bring forward any exculpatory facts or mitigating circumstances. The proceedings had run long; the bench deliberated whether to adjourn. The Crown wished to proceed in order to spare the witnesses a second journey, and the defence sought no delay. Despite the misgivings of certain judges regarding fatigue and the other business awaiting them, the trial continued. Citizens of Glasgow, town officers, and several auditors of the sermons were brought forward to be heard.
The first witness, Alexander Gollan, who had served as a town patrolman and claimed to have heard Douglas once or twice, recalled a parallel between George III and Nebuchadnezzar, and between the Prince Regent and Belshazzar, followed by an appeal for reform by petition. Yet his testimony often faltered at the moment when precise phrasing was required. Questioned regarding the House of Commons, he could recollect no particulars; as to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he could say only that Douglas found fault with it. He described the preacher as rapid of speech, at times difficult to follow, and conceded that certain words escaped him. At the bar, a general impression did not invariably amount to a citation whose legal import could be fixed.
Other witnesses for the prosecution offered recollections of uneven weight. James Waddell, a surgeon, spoke of a mere impression: he believed Douglas had compared the Prince Regent to Belshazzar, but could not reconstruct the sentences. A town officer dispatched to the meetings remembered several broad themes, yet declined to specify what had faded from memory. Matthew Lowson, on the other hand, maintained that he had heard the speaker call Parliament corrupt. Alexander Taylor recounted assertions concerning purchased seats and reform, but forgot the specific expressions. Another witness, John Waddell, stated it seemed to him he had heard the Prince likened to a man fitter for the gallows than the throne; yet he offered these words without certainty. Pressed by the court, he acknowledged that the clamour in the room and his own late arrival might have restricted what reached his ears.
The Crown attempted to connect the sermons to broader matters, including Waterloo. The defence objected, contending that an opinion upon a battle, however extravagant, could not substantiate any of the charges libelled. Lord Hermand and Lord Gillies observed that the indictment was divided into distinct accusations: against the King, against the Regent, against the Commons, and against the administration of justice. The proof could not be enlarged to embrace every sentiment distasteful to the prosecutor. The Lord Justice-Clerk concurred that the question was irrelevant under the libel as framed. The court had thus traced a boundary between the trial of a specific crime and the moral indictment of a man.
The bench likewise laid down a rule for the examination of witnesses. Where a witness recalled only an impression, counsel were not permitted to suggest the exact language of the indictment and ask whether he had heard it. He must first be invited to narrate what remained in his memory; precision might follow thereafter. This ruling proved of consequence, for the ordeal did not turn upon a preserved manuscript of the sermon, but upon recollections gathered after the fact. The witnesses were examined upon gatherings where Douglas had spoken rapidly, at times within a noisy room, through running commentaries upon diverse chapters of Scripture.
The declarations made by Douglas before the Sheriff of Glasgow in March were subsequently read. Therein he admitted to having mingled reflections upon public affairs with his readings from the Book of Daniel, and to having censured the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. He acknowledged having likened Great Britain to mystical Babylon, after the manner of commentators who found in the biblical text a reference beyond Rome. He nevertheless denied several expressions set forth in the libel, particularly those portraying the members of the Commons as thieves. He maintained that reform ought to be sought by petition and condemned all violence, justifying his political commentary as an obligation of conscience when interpreting Scripture. His declarations were no simple confession: they comprised admissions, disavowals, and corrections entered from one examination to the next.
The witnesses for the defence were, in large measure, regular members of the congregation. Several auditors recounted sermons in which Douglas prayed for the King, wished for his recovery, and counselled obedience to the laws. They denied having heard him call the Regent infatuated, liken members of Parliament to robbers, or advocate violence; they portrayed him as a champion of constitutional reform by petition, hostile to riot and disorder. One witness, however, offered a qualifying note: he recalled that Douglas had mentioned press reports stating that seats were sold, though he could not reproduce the details. The defence did not present a written text to conclude the debate; it set against mere impressions other recollections, framed by those far more conversant with the preacher’s voice and manner.
The Solicitor-General addressed the court following the testimony. He censured with vigour the notion that a clergyman might canvass the measures of government from the pulpit, pronouncing the biblical parallels indiscreet, if not seditious. He submitted that, while one charge lacked proof, two others appeared to him substantiated by the evidence. Yet he added that he would not ask the jury to return a verdict of guilty against Douglas upon any part of the libel. He judged the depositions too precarious, the recollections too impaired by time, and invited the jurors to consider whether their finding ought to be "not guilty" or merely "not proven." This retreat did not transform his rhetoric into legal proof: it laid bare the rift between his moral censure of the sermons and what he believed he might lawfully demand of a jury.
Francis Jeffrey, for the defence, claimed an absolute acquittal. He dwelt upon the hesitation of the Crown witnesses and their difficulty in following a speaker whose voice, accent, and rapidity unsettled those unaccustomed to him. The faithful called by the defence, he urged, had attended his ministry for months and were better equipped to comprehend his references. He recalled, too, Douglas’s own conduct: when his son had been condemned in another matter, the minister had publicly praised the impartiality of the law. The Crown, while portraying a man who assailed the courts, herself acknowledged the absence of proof under the third charge touching the administration of justice.
The Lord Justice-Clerk left the verdict to the jurors without urging the prosecutor’s distinction between "not guilty" and "not proven." After a brief deliberation, the jury returned unanimously: Not Guilty. The court pronounced Douglas acquitted without reserve and dismissed him from the bar. The verdict did not validate every competing account of the sermons; it signified that the charge of sedition had not been established against him upon that evidence. The judge nonetheless addressed an admonition to the panel: though liberated, he ought to choose his texts in such fashion as to avoid provoking a seditious construction. Douglas thanked the court and professed his loyalty to the King and the royal house. The judgment put an end to the prosecution, without resolving the discord over the meaning of his words.