Newport Chartists Vol.23a, p.12

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to deter the established law, and change religion,
to inhance the price of all labor, or to open all
prisons; all risings in order to effect these
innovations of a public and general concern by
an armed force, are, in construction of Law, High
Treason, within the clause of levying war; for
though not levelled at the person of the King, they
are against his Royal Majesty; and besides they
have a direct tendency to dissolve the bounds of
Society, and to destroy all property and all
government too, by numbers and an armed force.
Insurrections likewise, for redressing National
grievances, or for the reformation of real or
imaginary evils, of a public nature and in which
the Insurgents have no special interest, risings
to effect these ends by force and numbers, are by
construction of Law within the clause of
levying War; for they are levelled at the Kings Crown
and Royal Dignity. And accordingly it was held in the
time of Queen Anne, that a large body of men tumultuously
rising and assembled together with the avowed purpose
of putting down all the meeting Houses of Protestant
Dissenters, and proceeding to pull down several, until prevented
by force, brought the parties who were guilty of that act,
within the branch of the Statute of levying war against
the Queen. And in a more recent case, where a riotous
multitude headed by Lord George Gordon, and acting
in concert, with the declared design of pulling down
or destroying all Chapels belonging to those of the
Roman Catholic persuasion, proceeded to put
that design in force, there was no doubt but
that the facts, if proved, against the party accused
amounted to the offence of
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