There has been no counsel at the English bar, in modern times, whose reply was more dreaded by an opponent than Sir Thomas Wilde; and that reply, in Frost's case, abundantly shows how well founded was that apprehension.
Thus, then, the counsel on both sides having played out their parts in the case, it stood awaiting the intervention of the Lord Chief-Justice--the very model of judicial excellence. Tranquil, grave, patient; exact, ready, profound in legal knowledge, and of perfect impartiality--all these high qualities and qualifications were exhibited by him in his luminous and masterly summing-up on this occasion. In order to give all due weight to the sole substantial suggestion offered on behalf of the prisoner--_i. e._, that his object had been the liberation of Vincent--the Lord Chief-Justice read to the jury the following important passage from that great authority, Sir Matthew Hale--"If men levy war to break prisons, to deliver _one or more particular persons_ out of prison, this was ruled, on advice of the judges, to be not high treason, but only a great riot; but if it was to break prisons, or deliver _persons generally_ out of prison, this is treason."[12] Having taken at once a minute and comprehensive view of the evidence, he left the following as the exact question for their determination,--"Whether it was Frost's object, by the terror which bodies of armed men would inspire, to seize and keep possession of the town of Newport, making this a beginning of an extensive rebellion, _which would be high treason_; or whether he had no more in view than to effect, by the display of physical force, the amelioration of the condition of Vincent and his companions in Monmouth jail, if not their liberation, _which would be a dangerous misdemeanour only_; and the jury were to look at the evidence with all possible candour and fairness, and see if the Crown had conclusively disproved this limited object and design."[13] We conceive that neither Frost nor any one of his ten thousand dupes, on that "day of dupes" which led to this inquiry, could have taken objection to this mode of submitting the all-critical question to his jury--a jury of his peers, with the selection of whom he himself had had as much concern as the Crown.