In truth, the Scottish trials were a moral defeat for Pitt and his colleagues. Sympathy with the prisoners and detestation of the judges aroused a general outcry, which became furious when Braxfield declared that he had no idea that his sentence of transportation involved servitude and hard labour.[310] The assertion implies an incredible ignorance in the man who had packed the juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and Gerrald from going to Edinburgh. It was their presence and that of the Irishmen which gave to the Convention almost a national character, and placed it in rivalry to Parliament. Their speeches were by far the most provocative. Finally, as the letter quoted above shows, the initiative in arresting the delegates was taken by Robert Dundas and the Scottish Solicitor-General. On 11th December Henry Dundas wrote to his nephew: "You get great credit here [London] for your attack on the Convention."[311]
Far different was the comment of the London Corresponding Society. On 20th January 1794 that body convened a great meeting which passed protests against the war, the expulsion of the British Convention, and the arrest of delegates. It also resolved that the general committee should sit permanently throughout the ensuing session. Further, that if the Government attacked the liberties of the people in the ways described above, the committee should call "a General Convention of the People for taking such measures under their consideration."[312] Equally threatening were the resolutions of the Constitutional Society of London.[313] Pitt resolved to take up the gauntlet flung down by these two powerful Societies. On 24th February 1794 Eaton, a publisher of Newgate Street, was tried for publishing in his periodical pamphlet, "Politics for the People: or Hogs-wash," a little parable with which that witty lecturer, Thelwall, had delighted a debating society. He told how a gamecock, resplendent with ermine-spotted breast, and crown or cockscomb, lorded it greedily over all the fowls of the farmyard.[314] The parallel to George III was sufficiently close to agitate the official mind; but the jury gave an open verdict, which implied that the King was not hinted at.