The Chief Justice called the courtroom to order, announced the case and said, “George Washington, do you have any statement to make before sentence is imposed?”
Like everyone else in the courtroom, Hobhouse waited to hear what, if anything, Washington would say. He had offered to assist Washington with his statement, and the offer had been politely declined. He glanced around and saw that the courtroom was full, with an entire section set aside for reporters. He also saw Abbott, wearing a bright green waistcoat; North’s assistant, Hartleb; and, to his surprise, Edmund Burke.
Washington had been granted permission by the court to be seated in the dock. Now he rose and said, “My Lord, I have been brought here against my will, captured at my headquarters. I am a prisoner of war, not a criminal, engaged in lawful combat for my country, much as every general who wears British red is doing at this very moment across the sea in America.
“But if I must nonetheless provide a defence for my actions, it is this. Every Englishman born in the King’s realm is guaranteed certain rights of life and liberty. In America, those rights were taken from us, and that sundered the bonds that once connected us, and made His Majesty’s former colonies into free and independent states.”
Hobhouse looked over at the Attorney General, who looked apoplectic that this treason was being spoken aloud in a British courtroom for all the world to hear. The Chief Justice could stop it as inappropriate, of course, but he did not.
“The King,” Washington continued, “whom I respect and honour in his person, acting through his government, which I concede he does not entirely control, being a limited monarch, has taxed us without our consent, cut off our trade with all parts of the world, suspended our legislatures and our laws, quartered armed troops amongst us and in our homes, and deprived us in many cases of the precious right to trial by jury.”
He paused. “I commend this court for providing me the sacred right to a jury trial, although I am being tried for a crime I could not under law have committed. I am a soldier of another country, now a prisoner of war, arrested for the lawful act of defending that country.”
Hobhouse was impressed. Washington had managed to list many of the main grievances set forth in the rebels’ Declaration of Independence while moving the blame away from the King. Were the court to recommend clemency to the Crown, it might well help persuade the King to sign the document. But blaming the government, which was actually in charge of granting clemency, might do exactly the opposite.
Washington was finishing up. “For those who wish a complete list of the grievances which have sundered our relationship, you need look no further than our Congress’s declaration of our independence, which was promulgated in July of 1776.
“I thank the court for its consideration for me and its kindnesses, including permitting an ageing man to stay seated during the trial. God bless you and God bless the King.” He sat down.
Hobhouse smiled. He had always known that Washington was a great general. He had not known that he was also a wily politician. No speech could have been better crafted to persuade the judges to grant clemency while letting the King off the hook. Indeed, he knew that was so because three of the four had spoken privately of their support for the rebels’ cause. His father-in-law, who dined regularly with many of the judges who sat in the Bailey, some of whom were old friends, had told him so. In the meantime Washington’s speech would encourage British reporters to go and read the Declaration of Independence again. Washington had in effect repromulgated it to the world.
The Chief Justice said nothing in response. As he was about to speak, presumably to hand down the sentence, the Attorney General, without rising, started to say something that Hobhouse could not make out. The Chief Justice must have heard, though, because he said, rather sharply, “Mr. Attorney General, the Crown is not entitled to make a reply to a prisoner’s statement before sentence is imposed.
“I will now impose sentence. The prisoner will please rise.”
Washington rose and looked, so far as Hobhouse could tell, at peace with himself and with the world. Hobhouse felt as much as heard a hush descend on the courtroom.
The Chief Justice looked down at a piece of paper in his hand, as if the sentence were unfamiliar to him and he needed to remind himself of it. He looked directly at Washington, standing now in the dock, and said, “George Washington, you have been found guilty by a jury of the crime of high treason against our sovereign Lord George III, King, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, as the crime is stated in the treason statute of 1708, 7 William III, chapter 3.
“The court chooses, due to the severity of the offence and the need to make an example to others, not to recommend clemency.”
He paused, looked down again at the paper and said, “Pursuant to our laws, you are to be drawn to Tyburn three days hence and there hanged, cut down before you have died, disembowelled until you be dead, quartered, your head severed, the parts to be distributed according to the wishes of the King.”
Hobhouse looked at Washington and saw only calm in his face.
The Chief Justice said, “Does the prisoner wish to say anything further?”
“No, my Lord. I have said what I wished to say.”
The Chief Justice looked to the Sheriff, who was in the courtroom loaded down with all of his silver and gold medallions and seals of office, and said, “The Sheriff is to take the prisoner to a secure place and remove him three days hence to Tyburn for the sentence to be carried out at dawn. God save the King.”
Hobhouse watched Washington being taken from the dock under guard. He knew Washington would be going back to the Tower. Abbott had told him earlier that morning that he had persuaded North there was still a chance, if Washington were treated with great respect until the end, that he might change his mind and bless the agreement.
The courtroom was by then in an uproar of noise and argument. Hobhouse heard one man say to another that Washington’s speech had been a masterful statement of the colonists’ case, while at the same time contrite. The man he was talking to laughed uproariously and said, “Contrite? No, it was a simple ‘I spit on your laws.’”
For himself, he could only think that his chambers’s tradition would require him to go and witness the gory event.