[Rarebooks] fa: TRIALS FOR SEDITION of WILLIAM SKIRVING and MAURICE MARGAROT - Edinburgh: 1794

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, July 21. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ngnhewj

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Trial of William Skirving, Secretary to the British Convention, before the High Court of Justiciary, on the 6th and 7th of January, 1794; for Sedition. Containing a full and circumstantial account of all the Proceedings and Speeches, as taken down in Short-Hand, by Mr Ramsey, Short-Hand Writer, from London. Edinburgh: Printed, and sold for William Skirving, by James Robertson, Printer and Bookseller, No. 4, Horse Wynd [etc.], [1794]. [BOUND WITH:] The Trial of Maurice Margarot, Delegate from London, to the British Convention. Before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on the 13th and 14th of January, 1794, for Sedition. Taken in Shorthand by Mr. Ramsey. Carefully corrected, and many Sentences added, which, owing to the low tone of voice used by some of the Witnesses, are omitted in the London Copy. The Public may therefore be assured that this is the Genuine Edition. Edinburgh: Printed for James Robertson [etc.], [1794]. First edition and first edition thus. Two volumes in one, tall 8vo, bound in recent quarter cloth with gilt-lettered morocco spine label; 168 pp.; 195, [1] pp. Goldsmiths’ 16152; ESTC T94667, T122114.

Accounts of two of the earliest sedition trials held in the wake of the French Revolution and the subsequent establishment of sympathetic radical groups in Britain. Skirving had been general secretary of the Edinburgh Society of Friends of the People, Margarot one of the founding members of the London Corresponding Society. Both men were arrested at the first national convention of radical societies and associations held in Edinburgh in 1793. Both were found guilty and transported to Australia. The harsh sentences were meant to serve as an object lesson and in this they succeeded, helping not only to quash Radicalism, but to set back the cause of even moderate parliamentary reform for decades.

Bound without the portraits. Toning and intermittent browning to the leaves (most noticeable to the first and last few leaves of each trial); the second trial with damp-staining to the first 6 leaves and some creases to the last 2 leaves; otherwise sound and firmly bound in a fresh modern binding. A number of page-gatherings are uncut (meaning that the top or fore-edges of the leaves have not been separated), hence unread.