HIGH TREASON TRIALS

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXX, Issue 14579, 1 June 1916, Page 4

HIGH TREASON TRIALS

It is worthy of note that trials for high treason in England aro happily rare. There was a notable old case away back in 1782,, when David Tyrio was convicted. His treason consisted iv writing from Gosport divers letters, to inform "Louis, the French King" (the British Sovereign was then styled "King of Franco") of tho stations of tho British 6hips of war. The letters were intercepted, but the writing and despatching of them were held to be overt acts of compassing the King's death, and also of adhering to the Kind's enemies. Since the trial of Had fie Id for shooting at King George HI., iii 1800, there have been only eleven trials for high treason in England, and of these only six have taken place since the trial of tho Cato street conspirators in 1820. Of these last halfdozen tho first was that in connection with the Newport riots, in 1539, and tho next three belonged to a sinister class of themselves, all tho accused Edward Oxford (1840), John Francis (.1842), and Roderick Maclean (1882) having attempted the life of Queen Victoria. Tho fifth was the trial of "Colonel" Lynch, now a member of the. British House of Commons, in connection with his part in the Boer Avar. That trial took place in January, 190., and sentence of death was pronounced. The capital sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life, but Lynch was released on license in .1904 and received a free pardon in 1907. Tho last trial for high treason in England was that of Nicholans Emil Herman Adolf Ahlers, a German Consul in ono of tho provincial towns, which took placo shortly after the present war began. His offence lay in assisting Germans to leave England; but lie claimed to havo acted in good faith, as he was continuing to do as German Consul acts which ho had been lawfully doing for some days previously, and ho believed that international usage would sanction it. Ho was convicted at tho trial, but tho conviction, was subsequently quashed on appeal. The result of this appeal was widely quoted abroad at tho time as an indication of how a bench of British Judges, sitting amid the passions enkindled by the present war, could not be deflected from the strict line of law and justice.