TRIALS OF DRS. HENSEY AND SHEBBEARE

In the month of June, Florence Hensey, an obscure physician, and native of Ireland, who had been apprehended for treasonable practices, was tried in the court of king’s-bench, on an indictment for high treason. In the course of the trial it appeared that he had been employed as a spy for the French ministry; to which, in consideration of a paltry pension, he sent intelligence of every material occurrence in Great Britain. The correspondence was managed by his brother, a Jesuit, who acted as chaplain and secretary to the Spanish ambassador at the Hague. The British resident at that court having learned from the Spanish minister some secrets relating to England, even before they were communicated to him from the English ministry, was induced to set on foot an inquiry touching the source of this information, and soon received an assurance, that the secretary of the Spanish ambassador had a brother, a physician in London. The suspicion naturally arising from this circumstance being imparted to the ministry of England, Hensey was narrowly watched, and twenty-nine of his letters were intercepted. From the contents of these he was convicted of having given the French court the first notice of the expedition to North America, the capture of the two ships, the Alcide and Lys, the sailing and destination of every squadron and armament, and the difficulties that occurred in raising money for the service of the public. He had even informed them, that the secret expedition of the foregoing year was intended against Eochefort, and advised a descent upon Great Britain, at a certain time and place, as the most effectual method of distressing the government, and affecting the public credit. After a long trial he was found guilty of treason, and received the sentence of death usually pronounced on such occasions; but whether he earned forgiveness by some material discovery, or the minister found him so insensible and insignificant that he was ashamed to take his life, he escaped execution, and was pardoned, on condition of going into perpetual exile. The severity of the government was much about the same period exercised on Dr. Shebbeare, a public writer, who, in a series of printed letters to the people of England, had animadverted on the conduct of the ministry in the most acrimonious terms, stigmatized some great names with all the virulence of censure, and even assaulted the throne itself with oblique insinuation and ironical satire. The ministry, incensed at the boldness, and still more enraged at the success of this author, whose writings were bought with avidity by the public, determined to punish him severely for his arrogance and abuse, and he was apprehended by a warrant from the secretary’s office. His sixth letter to the people of England was pitched upon as the foundation of a prosecution. After a short trial in the court of king’s bench, he was found guilty of having written the sixth letter to the people of England, adjudged a libellous pamphlet, sentenced to stand in the pillory, to pay a small fine, to be imprisoned three years, and give security for his future good behaviour; so that, in effect, this good man suffered more for having given vent to the unguarded effusions of mistaken zeal, couched in the language of passion and scurrility, than was inflicted upon Hensey, a convicted traitor, who had acted as spy for France, and betrayed his own country for hire.