The Trial of James Ripley, Richard Burton, Robert Hebert...
A Deadly Riot at the Home of a Future Prime Minister [Trial]. Ripley, James, Primary Defendant. The Trial of James Ripley, Richard Burton, Robert Hebert, And Richard Matthews, For the Murder of Jane Watson, At the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, On Saturday the 8th of April, 1815. Taken in Short Hand by Mr. W.B. Gurney, Short-Hand Writer to Both Houses of Parliament. London: Printed for J. Hatchard, 1815. 100 pp. Octavo (8" x 5"). Stab-stitched pamphlet, disbound and recently resewn, spine reinforced with tissue. Light toning, occasional light foxing, small stains to a few leaves. $350. * Only edition. Ripley was a butler and his fellow defendants soldiers. All were called upon to defend the house of Frederick John Robinson, a senior trade minister and future Prime Minister, after an angry mob gathered at his house; Robinson was the target of public ire for his sponsorship of the Corn Laws of 1815, which led to high grain prices that disproportionately burdened the poor. A woman was shot in the chaos and later died of her wounds. Ripley pled self-defense, citing Hale, Hawkins and Mansfield among others. He and his fellow defendants were acquitted. OCLC locates 7 copies of this title, 2 in law libraries (Library of Congress, Harvard). British Museum Catalogue (Compact Edition) 21:691.
Price: $350.00
Book number 78645