It is extremely unfortunate for the defendant, Mr. Eaton, it is perhaps not less unfortunate for me, that the indisposition of my learned leader Mr. Vaughan, in the first instance, and his delicacy in the second, occasion the task of addressing you this day to de­volve upon me. It is unfortunate for the defendant, because he loses the benefit; of those splendid talents which have been exerted once and again in his behalf, not without success: It is unfortunate for me, because it sets those splendid talents, to a certain degree, in contrast with talents of a very opposite description. But I feel myself consoled, I feel myself animated by this consideration, that, notwithstanding all you have hitherto heard to the defence of this indictment, the meanest talents are more than equal.

If this prosecution could assume a shape other than the most disgusting, it would undoubtedly receive it from the very liberal, able, and eloquent manner in which it has been opened by my learned friend. But to fix an agreeable mask upon it, is not within the compass even of his transcendent abilities.

Gentlemen, it is so common a topic of complaint in these pro­secutions, that I should have been surprised if it had been omitted to-day, that this is peculiarly and emphatically an age of sedition, that the press teems with libels calculated to vilify every thing that is great and good, libels designed to subvert the foundation of all government, to dissolve the bonds of society, and to intro­duce confusion and anarchy. If I had not received the respectable assurance I have upon this subject, if I had been left to form my opinion upon what I see on the record yon have to try. I should have formed an opinion that the fact was totally different. I should have supposed that libels had become so scarce a commodi­ty, that with all the industry of that numerours herd of Spies, In­formers, and Inquisitors, with which this metropolis now abounds, [Page 25]none could be found—not one; and therefore, in onder to keep business alive, these ingenious gentlemen had set themselves to work to make one. For if they had not so done, Mr. Eaton would not now he standing at that bar.

My learned friend has made a liberal use of that talent which he so eminently possesses, of working upon your passions and upon that of the audience, and in so doing he has acted judiciously, be­cause without captivating your passions, he can have no hope of convincing your judgment. But, Gentlemen, sustaining the sa­cred character you do at this moment sustain, I call upon you to set a guard upon those passions which are so liable to seduction, and which, when seduced, lead the judgment captive at their will. I call upon you, to apply to the consideration of this case, a judg­ment equally unimpassioned and unprejudiced. In order that you should do so, it becomes me now to state, that the defence of my client does not impose upon me, as you may have imagined, the necessity of endeavouring to cool the fervour of your affection for the person of the king, or to lessen your attachment to his govern­ment. If the defence of Mr. Eaton had made it requisite to avow that a man has a right to call the king an haughty and sanguinary tyrant, I should have told him he must have recourse to some other counsel, for that in the discharge of my duty as an advocate, I could not forget my duty as an Englishman. No, Gentlemen, I conjure yon with equal earnestness to that of my learned friend, I wish I could do it with equal eloquence, to foster and cherish every sentiment and every feeling of affection for your king, and in the very fervour of your passion I will call upon you, and call upon you with considence of success, to condemn this indictment, and to acquit this defendant.

But this prosecution would have been incomplete, it would have been an anomaly in the prosecutions of the present day, if the af­fairs of France had not been introduced. And why are they in­troduced? Because it is supposed that you will so far forget your duty and your oaths, as to apply any opinion which you may have formed upon them to the injury of the defendant in this cause. If considered rightly, I think the result will not be unfavourable to the defendanr. Whatever disorders may have tarnished the French Revolution, they afford an argument to Englishmen to prize and maintain every liberty they possess, and above all the liberty of the press.

If the French, after having been kept in darkness for ages, were, when the light first beamed upon their astonished fight, dazzled with its lustre, and therefore mistook one object for another, it is not they whom we ought so severely to censure, as the detested monsters who had so long veiled their eyes. If after having been [Page 26]for ages instructed in lessons of barbarity, from the open and un­authorised exercise of which they were restrained, is it so very ex­traordinary that when that restraint was removed, some of them should practise the lessons their former masters had taught them? It in their progress from slavery to freedom they have had to tra­verse a narrow and a slippery path, assailed by idea without and by traitors within, is it to be wondered at that many of them should stumble and should fall?

But is liberty to be descried, because at any time, or upon any occasion, licentiousness has assumed its name? No: it ought rather to stimulate every people who possess it, to preserve it in its pristine purity; above all, it ought to stimulate them to the pre­servation of that part, without which they would sink into a state of stupid ignorance, and consequently of abject slavery.

Gentlemen, in the fulfilment of the solemn and sacred duties of jurymen, there are few case which have a stronger claim upon your attention than prosecution for political libel. A prosecu­tion for a political libel is a charge not of the of a common wrong, but of the abuse of a common right. I do not mean to say, that the abuse of a common right may not amount to the commission of a commonordinary commission wrong, but that it is a charge of a different description, requiring stonger evidence to support it, and to be decided by the application of different prin­ciples. The ordinary commission of a common wrong, is the doing an act which the law has expresly forbidden, and for which therefore, when the party does it, he knows he is amenable to the law. The abuse of a common and acknowledged right, may pro­ceed from a mind deeply impressed with the importance of the right, and eagerly employed in its exercise, not being sufficiently acquainted with its bounds and limits. If there is any common right, into the abuse of which we should not enquire with extra­ordinary rigour, it is that right, the exercise of which is called in question this day, not only on account of its infinite moment to the public, but because its limits have never yet been ascertained with precision. So far indeed are they from having heen ascer­tained with precision, that no two men, no two lawyers, are agreed upon the subject.

But, Gentlemen, I have not in this case to implore mercy or in­dulgence for excess. I have only to clain your justice. For of all the prosecutions for libels that ever came into a court of justice I will venture to say this is the most extraordinary, I will add it is the most alarming. For I have no hesitation to assert, that if it were to succeed, the freedom of the press could not survive a single hour.

[Page 27]Having stated this proposition broadly and boldly, I come im­mediately to the proof of it.

The charge contained in this indictment is, that the defendant, ‘being a malicious, seditious, and evil-disposed person, and greatly disaffected to our lord the king, and to his administra­tion of the government of this kingdom, and unlawfully, mali­ciously, and seditiously contriving, devising, and Intending to scandalize, traduce, and vilify our said lord the king, and the regal power and office established by law within this realm▪ and to represent our said lord the king as sanguinary, tyrannical, oppressive, cruel, and despotic, and thereby to stir up and excite discontents and seditions amongst the subjects of our said lord the king, and to alienate and withdraw the fidelity, affection, and allegiance of his said majesty's subjects from hit said ma­jesty's person and government, unlawfully, maliciously, and seditiously, did publish a certain printed pamphlet, entitled, PO­LITICS FOR THE PEOPLE, or HOG'S WASH, containing cer­tain scandalous, malicious, inflammatory, and seditious matters of and concerning our said lord the king.’

My learned friend has animadverted with some severity upon the title of this pamphlet, "Politics for the People, or Hog's Wash." The latter part is a play upon a phrase which has been used to describe the People, not as my learned friend has supposed, an incautious expression in the heat of parliamentary debate, but an expression deliberately and solemnly recorded in a book which has run through ten or twelve editions, and which retains its place in that book to the present hour. Now if the people are the "Swinish Multitude," I do not think Mr. Eaton is deserving of punishment for supplying them with food adapted to their nature. "Politics for the People." Whom are politics for, but for the people? Are politics for placemen and pensioners only? Are they only blessed with understandings fitted to the investigation of this sublime and mysterious science? Or is it not, or at least ought it not to be, a subject within the comprehension of every man? But the price is two-pence, binc illae lachrymae. If it be a crime to sell a political pamhlet cheap, Mr. Eaton must plead guilty to that charge; but so far from confessing it as a crime, I state it as a merit, I challenge for him applause. Political pam­phlets, I think, should be cheap. I am very sure that public or­der and tranquility will never be maintained so well as when every man reads and understands political pamphlets; because there is no obedience to law so exemplary, there is no attachment to a good costitution so strong, as that which results from a knowledge of the reason and obligation of law, and the true; prin­ciples as well as beneficial effects of the constitution.

[Page 28]Gentlemen, you perceive that in the paper which this man has published is not a single syllable "of and concerning our sovereign lord the king;" but that every thing which is said of this famous game cock is charged by the indictment to have been meant of him, and is in words applied to him in a number of pa­rentheses that you will find in the indictment, which parentheses we call inuendos.

Inuendos have in former times gone such lengths as to draw down some degree of ridicule upon them, but never before I be­lieve have they gone the length of the inuendos in this indictment. The sole purpose of an inuendo, is to six the true meaning. An inuendo is not to be an arbitrary thing at the pleasure of the drawer of an indictment: it must be warranted by the context; it must be conformable to the sense of the paper: the sense of the paper must not be forced or strained; it must be the natural, the plain, the obvious, the necessary sense.

This art of drawing indictments, and contriving inuendos, and so manufacturing libels, is indeed a curious art. I do not know, and I really am at a loss to conjecture, who could have been the drawer of this indictment. From its internal evidence, I am led to suppose it must have been the author of the Arabian Nights Entertainment, or some person equally conversant in the wild and extravagant fictions of the east. He must have given unbridled and unbounded licence to an imagination the most wanton and the most heated, before he could have sat down to ascribe mean­ings to this paper so foreign and indeed so ridiculous. All of the inuendos, in my opinion, are far from innocent, but one of them contains the most seditious assertion I have ever seen.

The drawer of this indictment might must as well have employed himself, like Dean Swift's projector, in attempting to extract sun­beams from cucumbers, as in attempting to extract sedition from this story of the game cock.

This story of the game cock appears to have been related at a debating society, in answer to a story that had been told of a ne­gro slave enduring the tortures of a frying-pan. The story was aptly introduced to answer the purpose of the moment, in reply to a preceding speaker. But as the story of the negro stave did naturally introduce the story of the game cock, the allusion to it is not included in this indictment, because it was the business of this indictment to conceal from you the real intention with which the story was introduced, in order to impose upon you a belief that it was then told, and afterwards published, with the criminal intentions imputed. With this view the story of the game cock is not only introduced into the indictment abruptly, but it closes abruptly too; for it stops short at that part which applies it to the [Page 29]preceding story of the slave. These observations will be im­pressed more forcibly upon your minds, if when you retire to de­liberate on your verdict, you take with you the pamphlet itself, and compare it with a copy of the indictment.

But, Gentlemen, I do not mean to contend that the author of this story intended merely to allude to the immediate subject be­fore him, the tyranny exercised on a negro slave. No—the de­fence of my client calls not on me to attempt to circumscribe, far less to explain away any meaning which these words, taken in their utmost latitude, can imply. I will concede that the mind of the speaker, in adverting to one species of tyranny, was naturally, and I maintain laudably led to contemplate tyranny in general, & that this story which he relates was calculated to expose the evil consequences of tyranny, and to point out the just punishment of tyrants. And surely Englishmen must have undergone a strange transformation, if they can endure to hear the right of doing this called in question. Why do we look back to our ancestors with such enthusiasm and veneration? but because in opposing tyranny and tyrants they fought, they bled, they conquered. It was their ardent love of liberty, it was their undaunted courage, it was their unshaken fortitude, it was their profound wisdom, that combined to rear that grand political fabric, the constitution of our country, which we have been accustomed to view with equal reverence and delight, upon the possession of which we have prided ourselves, but which I am sure we shall not transmit to our posterity, if we suffer the liberty of the press, which is its corner-stone, to be rudely torn away; and torn away it will be, if such prosecutions as these can succeed.

What language do our ancestors hold out to us by Magna Charta, by the Habeas Corpus Act, by the Bill of Rights, and above all by the Revolution, but this, "We have found monar­chy, unlimited and unfettered, incompatible with rational freedom and social order; we have therefore prescribed limits to it, that you our posterity may be free and happy." It is not necessary for me to go so far back as the Revolution for this language; it has been held in a feebler tone perhaps, certainly with less effect within the memory of most of us. In the year 1782 the House of Com­mons voted "that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing and ought to be diminished." Whether they followed up that vote with such restrictions as were requisite to curtail and check that increasing influence, is not now a subject of enquiry. But it affords all I want for my argument, that every complaint of unlimited power, or of limited power transgressing the limits assigned to it, every detection of the fact, and every exposure of the consequence, is consistent with the spirit of the constitution, is [Page 30]warranted by precedents the most approved, and is allowed by law. It is not merely allowed, it is commanded by a law that is paramount to all human law, the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man.

But why is it to be supposed that this game cock, who is de­scribed as an haughty and sanguinary tyrant, nursed from his in­fancy in blood and slaughter, must necessarily mean the present mild and merciful king of Great Britain? If we survey the im­mense continent of Asia, nay if we confine our view to the conti­nent of Europe, shall we find no tyrants whom this game cock may be intended to denote? None "fond of foreign wars," if not of "domestic rebellions?" None who devour "the greater part of the grain scattered" by Providence "for the morning and evening repast" of their fellow-creatures? None who are always "picking and cuffing" at those about them, who have not strength to defend themselves? Shall we find none who have sported with obligations the most solemn, who have trampled on rights the most sacred, who in the pursuit of their fell and foul conspiracies against the peace and happiness of the human race, have disregarded every principle of justice, have outraged every feeling of huma­nity, have defied every mandate of their God?

But this speaker says, he thinks the best thing one could do for men and women is to rid the world of tyrants. It that so crimi­nal? Then I am criminal; for I think so too. Tyrants, in any form, I believe, are much too bad to be mended, and I think the best way of disposing of them is to send them out of a world to which they are a curse, and which they can benefit only by leav­ing it. If this lesson were learned and were practised by every people groaning under tyranny, soon would freedom, which is now confined to a narrow spot, diffuse her blessings through the world.

The first political truth that is engraven on the soul of man, is, that all power flows from the people, and is a trust for their bene­fit, and that when that trust is abused, resistance is not only a right but a duty. The Revolution of 1688 was a practical essay upon that principle. Then was that right exercised, then was that duty fulfilled. The trust reposed in a king was abused, the king be­came a tyrant, the people expelled him; and if he had ever dared to return, he would have expiated, and justly expiated, his crimes upon the scaffold.

But why, I ask again, is it to be supposed that the king of Great Britain is meant by this tyrant of the farm-yard? Is there any thing in the animal selected for this story being a cock? That will not serve the purpose of the prosecution. For never was the king of Great Britain represented by the emblem of a cock. The [Page 31]king of Great Britain has always been denoted by a lion, and the king of France by a cock: the reason of which, I suppose, was, that Ga [...]us, as you well know, is latin for a cock. None of us, I am sure, can have forgot that which we were taught in our youth, that the crowing of the Gallic cock should be silenced by the tremendous roaring of the British lion.

Gentlemen, we have just passed the anniversary of an event to which my learned friend has adverted, I mean the execution of the last monarch of France. The application of this story to that tragical event, cannot fail to strike every mind that pauses a mo­ment for reflection; and if the author had a view to any person in particular, unquestionably it must have been to him: and whate­ver you or I may think of that monarch or his fate, we cannot deny to any man the right of thinking or speaking of him and of his fate as he pleases.

But if when any man publishes a paper on tyranny in general, or Louis the sixteenth in particular, he is to be charged by an inu­endo of this sort with meaning king George the third, what will become of the security and peaceful exercise of the freedom of the, press? If when any man becomes obnoxious to the ministry every thing he says or publishes is to be thus strained and perverted for the purpose of ministerial vengeance, who can be sale? It is not booksellers only who are liable to prosecution for publishing, any of you who may happen to give a book to one of your children may be prosecuted, and your children may be dragged into this court to lay you in gaol by their evidence; and this, perhaps, for giving them a book which no disinterested▪ no impartial man would conjecture to have any tendency to sedition, or even any re­lation to politics.

Upon the principle of this prosecution, if it has any principle, a book which, I dare say, once afforded us much pleasure and in­struction, I mean Aesop's Fables, is the most seditious book that ever was published. Woe to Mr. Eaton, if he has ever sold that book; woe to any man that has sold it, if he has given offence to the ministers, or to any of those spies and informers who now in­fest this country as locusts or the plague do some other. There is scarcely a fable that will not furnish an indictment. One of them occurs to me at this moment: it is the fable of the Ape who was made king. To punish him for his presumption in aspiring to that character, the fox led him into a trap; and when re­proached by the ape for disloyalty, he went off with a sneer, say­ing, "You a king, and not understand trap?" Put this fable into an indictment, and call it "a scandalous, malicious, inflammatory and seditious libel, of and concerning our sovereign lord the king;" state in the inuendoes that the ape is intended to denote our said [Page 32]lord the king; and that not understanding trap, means ignorance of the regal functions; and garnish all this with "against the peace of our said lord the king, his crown and dignity;" and then you have patched up a most notable libel. With this receipt for drawing indictments, I could go through the book, and draw five hundred.

Gentlemen, in this way a man may be prosecuted for publishing the sacred scriptures themselves. For wherever mention is made of a wicked king, and mention is made of many wicked kings, an indictment may be drawn, charging it to be a libel upon the king of Great Britain, and by inuendos applying the expressions to him. But I ask again, what man can be safe, if meanings like these are to be affixed to every thing he publishes, or every thing he says?

Let us look at the language of the story, and see the meanings which are affixed by the indictment.—‘You must know then that I used, together with a variety of youthful attachments, to be very fond of birds poultry; and, among other things of this kind, I had a very fine majestic kind of animal, a game cock (meaning thereby, says the indictment, to denote and repre­sent our said lord the king) an haughty sanguinary tyrant, nursed in blood and slaughter from his infancy, fond of foreign wars and domestic rebellions, into which he would sometimes drive his subjects by his oppressive obstinacy, in hopes that he might increase his power and glory by their suppression. Now this haughty old tyrant—(again, says the indictment, meaning our said lord the king.)’ Never, I believe, since prosecutions for libels had existence, has such an indictment, containing such inuendos as these, made its appearance in an English court of jus­tice. The only ground on which these inuendos can be attempted to be supported, is a ground which the prosecution will not ven­ture to state, a ground which they cannot state; namely, that there is so palpable a resemblance of character and conduct in this game cock so our sovereign lord the king, that that man must be blind who does not see the real object, and the true appli­cation.

If the inuendos had stopped here, I should have thought this in­dictment by no means an innocent production. But what must I think, what must you think, when you find an inuendo in terms the most unequivocal, charging the king with being a tyrant. ‘Yet I had even at that time some lurking principles of aversion to bare-faced despotism struggling at my heart, which would sometimes whisper to me that the best thing one could do either for cocks and hens, or men and women, was to rid the world of tyrants—meaning, the indictment says, our said lord the king, [Page 33] among others.’—Which is the libel now? Not that paper pub­lished by Mr. Eaton: for if all that is charged could be substan­tiated, its guilt would sink into nothing in comparison with the guilt of this indictment, which contains a libel upon record, in a court of justice, that will be handed down to the latest posterity.

Gentlemen, I now come to the close of this indictment, and it is a close worthy of it. A little detached sentence of three lines is logged in to bolster up this miserable prosecution. ‘Kings are wolf shepherds. Homer styles them devourers of the people, and they do not appear to have lost their original taste.’ To the four first words of this, "Kings are Wolf Shepherds," the indictment has applied an inuendo, "meaning, among othters, our sovereign lord the king." Never was a proposition stated more evidently false than that a general remark must have an universal application. If I speak of kings in general, am I to be under­stood to speak of all kings? Certainly not. My omitting to say al kings, demonstrates that I mean to exclude some; if to exclude any, clearly to exclude those to whom the remark is no longer ap­plicable.

The Empress of Russia is the shepherdess of a vast flock; but as it was not sufficiently numerous for the exercise of her boundless philanthropy, she has lately, by a little gentle compulsion, aug­mented it by a considerable number of the Polish breed. She, and our worthy ally the king of Prussia, have gone hand in hand in this blessed work of increasing their flocks. Possibly neither you nor I should chuse to call these two monarchs "Wolf Shepherds;" but I fancy we should none of us be disposed to punish very se­verely the man who did.

All mankind have found by fatal experience that kings are wolf shepherds, if they are suffered to possess unlimited power; and therefore our ancestors employed themselves very wisely in fasten­ing limitations on their power. But it is of kings whose power is not limited that this sentence speaks. For it is illustrated by an expression of Homer's, "devourers of the people," which applies to kings whose powers are not limited as the powers of the king of Great Britain are. The king of Great Britain sustains a cha­racter totally different from that of any other king, and therefore general observations upon kings never have been, and never can be understood to apply to him. On the contrary, they necessarily exclude him. It is not long since such an application would have been considered as libellous, and I rely with confidence on the spi­rit and loyalty of Britons for repelling an application so unfounded and a comparison so degrading—degrading not only to the king, but to the people. For if it were admitted that cur king resembled kings in general, it would be admitted that he was a despot, from [Page 34]which it would follow, as a necessary consequence, that the people were slaves.

I have bestowed some pains in searching for an indictment like the present, and I can find none even in that sink of iniquity, the collection of indictments in the reign of Charles the second. I believe neither the records of the Star chamber, nor the annals of Jefferies, will furnish an indictment in which a general reflection upon the nature and tendency of tyranny, or the desert of tyrants, has been deemed a libel upon the king of Great Britain.

Gentlemen of the Jury, In every case where a charge is made, that an act has been done which the law forbids, after it has been ascertained that the act has been done, and done by the party ac­cused, the next question is, with what intention he did the act. It is the intention which clothes the act with innocence or guilt. If you try a man for murder, you do not content yourselves with as­certaining the fact of the deceased having been killed, and killed by the prisoner you are trying; but you examine into the cir­cumstances of the case, to know the intention with which he killed him. If you find his intention was malicious, you pronounce him guilty of murder; if he was provoked by a certain degree of irrita­tion, you pronounce him guilty of manslaughter; but if you find he did it accidentally, or in self-defence, you pronounce him not guilty. If this be so in a matter of such deep importance to he public as the loss of a citizen, and where prima facie so black a crime as murder has been perpetrated, how much more in the case of a misdemeanor, a misbehaviour, which is an offence of the most trivial nature that the law takes cognizance of? If this be so in a matter where at first view the motives are the most diabolical that can predominate in the human breast, how much more in a case where the intention is on the first blush indifferent, and where it is always with hesitation and doubt that a jury will pronounce it to be criminal? In a case where though one may consider it to be criminal, another will think it innocent, and a third will believe it to be meritorious, according to the different political principles they have embraced, according to the extent and range which in their respective opinions ought to be allowed to political discussion.

Gentlemen, when you are travelling in this dark and intricate road, you will proceed with the utmost possible circumspection, left you should be entangled in an inextricable labyrinth. When you are called upon to penetrate into the inmost recesses of a man's soul, and decide on what passes there, with what awe will you ad­dress yourselves to the task?

Recollect what is required of you by the prosecutors. You are required to determine upon the inspection of this paper, that the [Page 35]defendant ‘maliciously and seditiously contriving, devising, and intending to scandalize, traduce, and vilify our lord the king. and the regal power and office established by law within this realm, and to represent our said lord the king as sanguinary. tyrannical, oppressive, cruel, and despotic; and thereby to stir up and excite discontents and seditions amongst the subjects of our said lord the king, and to alienate and withdraw the fidelity affection and allegiance of his said majesty's subjects from his said majesty's person and government, unlawfully, maliciously, and seditiously’ did publish this pamphlet. Can you, as honest and conscientious men, can you, as men who have duties to fulfil, as men who have rights to guard, bring your minds to propositi­ons so monstrous and so extravagant?

But if this construction were not so evidently ridiculous and absurd, if it were only doubtful, and doubtful in the mind of any one of you, then you are bound to acquit the defendant. By that admirable institution, Trial by Jury, no man can be found guilty but by the unanimous, the decided, and undoubting opinion of twelve of his equals. Where there exists a particle of doubt, it is your duty, as you have been frequently told from the bench, to lean to the side of mercy.

Gentlemen, some cases have lately occurred which make it in­cumbent on me to say a word or two respecting the verdicts of ju­ries in cases of libel.

Whenever the exercise of a right has suffered interruption, its revival is attended with some inconveniences and some errors. That has been the case with respect to the functions of juries in cases of libel. The ancient law of libel did not differ from other criminal law, but when the invention of printing had introduced political discussion, and when seditious publications (that is to say, publica­tions exposing the corruptions and abuses of government, and the profligacy of ministers) made their appearance, the controul of the press was placed in admirable hands, a licenser, the king's attorney general, and a court of inquisition called the Star Chamber. The licenser was to stifle in its birth every thing obnoxious to the mi­nisters. But if any thing happened to escape his hands, then the attorney-general, by his information ex officio, carried the unfor­tunate author or publisher before the board of inquisitors, who never failed to administer a sentence adapted by its severity to de­ter others from similar efforts to enlighten the people.

It was in that infernal inquisition that the purity of the law of libel was debauched. It was there that that monstrous maxim was firstbroached, that Truth could be a false, scandalous, ma­licious, and seditious libel.

[Page 36]Thank God, iniquity always defeats itself. The intolerable oppression of this inquisition brought on its violent, I cannot say untimely death. But unfortunately some of its practices survived it. The attorney-general was allowed still to carry his informa­tions ex officio into the court of King's Bench, and the doctrines of the Star Chamber were after a very long interval revived, and con­tinued in existence till within these two years, when they were, I trust, completely destroyed by that act of parliament, for which we are indebted to the bright ornament of the English bar, and the model of its eloquence—an act which has assured and confirmed to every Englishman the right of being tried by a jury of his equals, when accused of having written or published a libel.

Gentlemen, That act of parliament enacts, that a jury may give a verdict "upon the whole matter put in issue by the indictment," Of what does that "whole matter" consist? It proposes four questions to the consideration of the jury.

The first question you are asked is, Did the defendant publish the pamphlet that has been produced in evidence? If he did not, you must acquit him.

Secondly, Is the sense ascribed to the passage inserted in the in­dictment by the inuendos, the true, the genuine, the necessary sense? If it is not, you must acquit him.

Thirdly, Is the pamphlet, even if that sense be the proper one, a "scandalous, malicious, inflammatory, and seditious" libel? If it is not, you must acquit him.

Fourthly and lastly, Did the defendant publish the pamphlet with the criminal motives and intentions imputed by this indict­ment? If he did not, even then you must acquit him.

Gentlemen, In saying this, I am sure I shall not he contradicted by the bench, that a verdict of guilty must be compounded of an answer to each of those four questions in the affirmative, and that if you disbelieve any one of the imputations, nay if you doubt any one, you are bound to acquit the defendant.

It is the practice that had obtained before the passing of the libel bill, that has introduced any confusion into this plain and simple matter. Juries were directed by the judges to find the defendant guilty, if the fact of publication was proved, and they believed the meaning assigned by the inuendos was correct, and thence juries have erroneously thought that if the fact of publication was proved they were bound to find the defendant guilty of publishing. Gentlemen, there is no guilt in publishing. Merely publishing a paper is in itself innocent. It is only the bad quality of the paper published, and the evil intention with which it is published, that can make a publication criminal. Therefore it is the duty of a [Page 37]jury, unless they are clearly convinced, not only of the fact of publication, but of the truth of the inuendos, and of the paper be­ing a libel, and of the intention of the defendant being criminal, to pronounce him not guilty.

Gentlemen, these prosecutions are totally unlike all other prose­cutions that come before you. All those indictments that you have hitherto tried, were preferred for purposes of public justice, to vindicate offended law, and punish the violation of public order and private property. These prosecutions are always brought for­ward to answer the temporary and interested purpose of the party in possession of power; and if it should so happen that that party before it had attained its power had propagated principles to which their present practices are hostile, the publication of those principles is then deemed seditious, and the publishers are prose­cuted. The prosecutions of the present day are indeed part of the ways and means of carrying on this disastrous war. They were not opened by the minister with his budget, because they are means which he has not yet the courage to avow.

I understand that the reason why Mr. Eaton is singled out and prosecuted with such unexampled severity, is, that he has commit­ted that sin which is not to be forgiven. Convinced by Mr. Pitt's speeches and the Duke of Richmond's letters that the poli­tical salvation of this country depends on a parliamentary reform, he has frankly declared that conviction. That has been caught up by one of these sedition hunters, who are hired to prowl about the streets, who dropped the information into the lion's mouth at the Crown and Anchor.

Gentlemen, we look back to the prosecutions for sedition in the reigns of the Stuarts with detestation and horror. Are we absolutely certain that our posterity will look back upon the pro­secutions of the present day with very favourable sentiments? There was then the same cry of sedition, there was then the same pretence of conspiracies and plots, when all the time the sedition was the sedition of the ministers against the people, and the conspi­racies and plots were theirs, to subvert the constitutional liberty of the country.

Has this prodigious dread of sedition slept from the time of Charles the second until now, and is it to awake precisely at the present moment? Were libels so abundant then? Have they been so scarce from that time to this? and do they now suddenly abound again? No such thing. Publications reprobating ty­ranny and tyrants, and arraigning the conduct of ministers, have never failed to issue from the press. But it is not all ministers who have been troubled with the same irritability of temper, or been [Page 38]haunted with the same dread of a free discussion of their merits and demerits.

It is a bad omen when ministers wish to stop the current of free enquiry. It is a sure sign that their conduct is such as will not stand the test of that enquiry. There have been ministers of this country who have thought a free press their best safeguard, who have seared no libels, because their conduct challenged investiga­tion, and would pass the fiery ordeal with honour. If this is no longer the case, if the ministers of the present day dread the conse­quence of a rigid examination and comparison of their professions and their actions, if they wish to shut out the sun because they cannot bear the light, let them be open and honest, let them avow their meaning, let them speak out; let them not, because the great pillar that supports the British constitution is hateful to them, seek, upon false pretences, to level the glorious fabric with the dust.

But I am sure the lofty and intrepid spirit of Britons is not to be subdued by any such means. I am sure the means are very ill adapted to the end. Never yet was the frequency of political pub­lications lessened by prosecution, but on the contrary they have al­ways been increased ten-fold.

If the ministers wish to extract the sting from these publications, they should adopt a system exactly the reverse of that which has provoked them. Let them not cherish every canker that has crept into the constitution, which mars its beauty, and is eating out its vitals. Let them not cling to every corruption and every abuse, as if corruption and abuse were the end and perfection of govern­ment. Let them not pursue those measures which induce the ne­cessity of increasing that heavy load of taxes which extorts from the poor the scanty subsistence that their labour can procure. Above all, let them not pursue those measures which deprive the industrious poor of those very means of subsistence, and throw them upon the benevolence of a generous public for their very bread. If they will avoid splitting upon these rocks, they will disarm political publications of every thing offensive, and we shall then hear no more of the prevalence of libels.

But allow me to enquire why prosecutions are all on one side, why it is that those pamphlets only are prosecuted as libels which reflect or are supposed to reflect upon the regal or aristocratical branches of the constitution? Does it not hence appear that to prosecute libels upon the constitution is no part of the system of admi­nistration? For if a man will but exalt the regal and aristocratical parts of the constitution at the expence of the democratical part, he may libel the constitution with impunity. The democratical [Page 39]part of the constitution is not a favourite sufficient, at present, with those who have the management of affairs, to induce them to stand forward as it avengers.

The "MAJESTY OF THE PUBLIC"-(Gentlemen, I am not using an expresson coined by the republicans and levellers of the day, if any such there be; I am using the expression of that great lawyer Mr. Justice Blackstone, whose authority is constantly appealed to on these occasions by the counsel for the crown)— "The Majesty of the Public" may be libelled. "The Majesty of the Public" has no attorney—general to file informations ex offi­cio against the libeller. The sacred rights of the people may be insulted, degraded, and vilified, and no prosecution is thought of. Yet let but a sarcasm be thought to fall on the power and autho­rity of kings or nobles, and ministerial vengeance is instantly hurled at the head of the unfortunate offender.

Gentlemen, are such prosecutions as these for calling tyranny by its name, intended to spread that torpor over the mind which is requisite to its introduction? Are they designed "to stop the cur­rent of all the passioas but fear?" Let us then resolve rather to cease to live than live in chains.

View in ancient history the glorious effects of freedom. See the heroic actions it inspired. See the consequences in the perfection of every art and science that could confer dignity on man, or con­tribute to his comfort. Observe the dreadful contrast that is now exhibited by those countries which have lost it. Where you saw blooming fields slately edifices, commercial cities, you now see a desart. Where you saw a people, adorned by every manly and social excellence, whose examples we to this day hold up to our youth as objects of admiration and imitation, you now see a de­generate race of beings, possessing the form indeed, bat devoid of the principles and feelings of men.

To what is it was owe the unexampled elevation which we have attained, but that transcendent freedom which has made us the envy and admiration of the world?

What is it that enables North America to proceed with such gigantic strides to a state of prosperity at which Europe will soon gaze with wonder and astonishment, but the invincible energies of freedom? What is it that renders South America such a dreadful reverse of that happy state, but the ignorance and consequent sla­very in which the people are held by their unfeeling tyrants?

To attack the freedom of the press, and I conceive it is attacked most violently by this prosecution, is to aim a fatal stroke at li­berty itself.

And is it now at the close of the eighteenth century, in an age [Page 40]which boasts of being the most enlightened the world ever saw, that liberty is to be proscribed in its most favoured residence? No, Gentlemen, so long as we preserve those bulwarks of our constitu­tion, the liberty of the press, and trial by jury, and juries preserve their independence, I am sure all the efforts of tyranny to obtain a footing in this island will prove abortive.

Gentlemen, this is not vain and empty declamation. The ex­istence of every right we possess depends in the first instance upon the freedom of the press. While we possess that unimpaired, we can never be enslaved. If we lose it we cannot be free. While the press, which has been beautifully and emphatically styled ‘the eye of the political body,’ continues to inspect and watch with di­ligence the administration of public affairs, some hope remains that those affairs may be administered with some attention to the public interest. But if it is destroyed, or constantly harrassed in the performance of its necessary functions, we may abandon our­selves to despondency and despair.

Gentlemen, if you find the defendant guilty, consider what you determine, under the awful sanction of an attestation of the Su­preme Being. You swear to the truth of every word and syllable in this indictment. You swear that by this game cock, this haughty and sanguinary tyrant, nursed from his infancy in blood and slaughter, is meant the king of Great-Britain, and no other. You swear too that that king is a tyrant, for so the indictment charges him to be. You swear that an observation on kings in general must necessarily include him. Besides that, you not only swear that you so understand all this, but that so did the defendant mean.

Can you lay your hands upon your hearts, and swear all this? Can you lie down upon your pillows without feeling thorns in the reflection, that that man who has already been imprisoned near three months upon this indictment, is to be imprisoned two or three years longer, and his wife and children reduced to beggary and want, because you have fancied that a sense prima facie so fo­reign, may possibly belong to this paper?

Why is it that that institution, Trial by Jury, has challenged such universal admiration? Because men are called upon to try others by the same law by which they may themselves be tried, and therefore it is concluded that no man would be so mad or so wicked as to wrest the law either for acquittal or conviction; be­cause in the former case he would suffer as a member of that poli­tical society which cannot exist if its laws are not inforced; in the latter Case he would be exposed to the hazard of suffering as an in­dividual, and becoming the victim of his own guilt.

[Page 41]Where that man stands to-day, you yourselves may stand to­morrow. For there is not a word you utter which may not be tortured into sedition, with as much reason as the paper now under your consideration.

In pronouncing your verdict upon this case, you will recollect that ever-applicable precept of the great Author of our religion— "Do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you." Sit­ting in the judgment seat, you will mete out to the defendant the same measure of justice which you would think he ought to mete out to you, were you in his situation and he in yours. If you were standing at that bar, accused of having uttered general ex­pressions, prompted by the generous feelings of your hearts, in de­testation of tyranny and tyrants, to which the despotic ingenuity of a Special Pleader had affixed a seditious meaning by such inu­endos as appear upon this indictment, would you not claim as a first principle of justice that your words should be taken in the most favourable sense, and not be perverted from their primary meaning, for the purpose of incarcerating you in that strong man­sion? I am sure you would, and therefore I claim the same justice for the defendant. I claim it of YOU, because the verdict must be yours, and yours alone, as you will answer it to your country, to your consciences, and your God.

Gentlemen, I have endeavoured to discharge my duty. I fear I have done it feebly and imperfectly. You will nevertheless do yours; and I am confident you will add to the number of shining instances we have lately witnessed, that an innocent individual is never more safe than when his conduct is submitted to the enlight­ened and impartial judgment of an English jury.

THIS is an indictment against Daniel Isaac Eaton, who is charged with having published this libel. It cannot be necessary for me to state the charge, you have heard it opened by the learned counsel for the prosecution, and you have afterwards heard those parts which are offensive, and which charge sedition upon the pri­soner, particularly stated and read to you. The pamphlet has been produced, and it will be put into your hands, therefore it would be a mere waste of time for me to run over the words of the charge, I shall take for granted that you are perfectly masters of them; and being so, the first part of my duty I conceive to be to state to you what is the evidence in support of this prosecution; and when I have done that, I shall state more particularly what I conceive to be the gift of the crime.

To prove the publication they only call one witness. He says he bought it at the shop which is kept by the defendant in Bi­shopsgate-street, on the 18th of November; it is number 8. Upon the cross-examination, he says, he is not an informer, but a man who lives by carrying about newspapers. This is the whole evi­dence of the publication.

Before I state to you the question of publication, for of that you must be satisfied upon the evidence, I will state what I conceive to be particularly the nature of the crime, the nature of the sedition imputed to the prisoner. It is, as charged in the indictment, that of vilifying and traducing the king and the regal office, as esta­blished by law.

Now as to the first, traducing the king, the last count in the in­dictment seems to apply particularly to that: the part I allude to is this—‘Kings are wolf shepherds: Homer stiles them devourers of the people, and they do not appear to have lost their original taste.’

Now, Gentlemen, as to this part of the question, by the consti­tution of this country, and by the settled law of this country, to write any thing positively and decidedly disrespectful, to vilify or traduce, to render ignoble, or disgrace in the eyes of the people who are governed, the first branch of the legislature, the king, is by the law of the land an offence, and this is the offence imputed to the prisoner. The fort of sedition imputed to him is, that he endeavoured thereby to weaken the hands of government.

You know very well, Gentlemen, that this constitution is formed of King, Lords, and Commons; and it is very necessary, the law [Page 43]has considered it such, and wisdom and policy require that it should be so, that every branch of the legislature should be held in equal respect. I have no doubt to state to you, that in a state of civil society, where there exists a government, there must be supe­rioriry and inferiority; it is for the advantage and the good of the whole that it should exist; and it is for that reason that the constitution and the law of this country have fortified and given a particular and strong protection to the character which commands as the chief magistrate, and controuls those who are governed in this country. I do not enlarge upon this subject, because I am sure the learned advocate for the defendant cannot controvert this; that being so, you will be to judge whether, upon the reading this pamphlet, which you ought to read, in my opinion, with your minds not all heated either with the address of the counsel on the part of the prosecution, or with the address of the counsel on the part of the defendant, but you should read the book precisely in the way as if you had it in your own private chamber, and wished to make yourselves completely matters of the whole subject: see what the impression on your minds is then, and see whether a per­son using the language which is used in this second count, does or does not mean to vilify and traduce that branch of the constitution which the defendant is charged with doing in the indictment.

You are not only to read the passages charged to be libellous, but to read the whole pamphlet; and if, upon reading the whole, you can apply this to any thing but the government of this coun­try, and that branch of it named—to be sure it does not impute any thing to the defendant.

An observation occurred to the counsel for the defendant which he urged with great ingenuity; he thought it his duty to state to you that this has so general an application that it is not to be ap­plied to the government of this country. Now you should read a pamphlet of this fort, charged to be a libel, with exactly the same indifference as you would any other book; then see how you are to apply that language in the way it is here stated. "The re­flections of a True Briton. Kings are wolf shepherds," and so on. Whether you would not apply them to all kings?

The learned counsel has told you that the word ALL should have been used for you to have put that construction upon it. Now that is entirely a matter of fact upon which you are to decide; but the observation really strikes me the other way; because it strikes me that if a person uses the general term in that way, and makes no exception, that it is applicable to all persons of that description. It appears therefore to me, and you will judge of that, reading this with the whole of the pamphlet, whether you do not consider [Page 44]this as a direct attack upon one branch of the legislature, and that the person who wrote this (I shall come to the publisher by and by) did not thereby mean to say that kings, this description of people, were devourers of the people, and so on;—whether being in that general way, it is not in the common construction of lan­guage to be applied to the government of this country? If you think it is, then it is by the law of the land indisputably a libel: and how far the prisoner may be answerable for it, it is for you to consider.

I shall make one more observation to you upon this part of the case, that it is your duty certainly to read the whole pamphlet, be­cause the inuendos, the sense that is imputed to the person who writes this book, is entirely to be decided by you. So much for that part of the case which imputes sedition to the government of this country.

It appears to me that sedition is imputed in another way, and that is upon the personal executive power, upon the king himself. This indictment charges the author of this pamphlet with charg­ing the king of England, among others, with being a tyrant; and after stating that such a tyrant is guilty of oppression by taxation, and so on, he seems to intimate pretty broadly as his opinion, that such a person should suffer death by the guillotine. And he says afterwards, describing all this by the figure of a cock, that such a person, when his trappings were stripped off, was found to be rank with the pollution of his luxurious vices, and so on. The second count only makes a part of the same charge; it will be for you to consider, reading the book in an indifferent manner; for [...] is no evidence given in explanation of the book one way or other; you have nothing but the speeches of the learned counsel upon it. As to what passes in the world, you are competent and fair judges. Then reading this book, called Politics for the Peo­ple, and the Reflections of a True Briton, and so on, considering the time when it is published, you will be to decide upon all the observations you have heard on both sides, whether this is fairly or not imputable, as it is charged in this indictment, to the king of this country, and whether the author who wrote it meant to apply it to the king of this country.

With respect to inuendos, it must be a fact always for a jury to decide what is the sense and meaning of a libel; for a man in the highest extravagance of compliment, beyond a doubt may write such a pamphlet as shall be a gross libel. A man may use such language as in the plain terms of it at first may appear to be no libel: but yet, perhaps, by looking into some other expression, or taking the intention of the party in the whole of the book, it [Page 45] will be impossibie not to see, that though he uses language that is ironical, yet that you perfectly understand he means exactly the reverse of what he says; and if from the whole of the work you can collect, and think yourselves bound to collect, reading it fairly, that such was the intention of the party, that will be a libel.

Gentlemen, it is in matters of sedition as it is in other crimes. Few men are bold and hardy enough to use language of such sort as will subject them to very severe penalties, without some sort of cover. God forbid that I should (for it is not my province) im­pute that to the defendant upon the present occasion: but it is my duty to state to you that if a pamphlet is written in that way, you have a right to take off the mask, if you think it is a mask; and it is your duty, reading it with indifference and with temper, to see what the intention is, whatever the veil may be, whatever the cover may be, whether it is under an ape, or whether it is by alle­gory, or a figure; whatever colour or complexion the book may take, it is entirely for you to decide what is the fair meaning of that book, and what is the sense in which the author wrote it.

Gentlemen, you see here is a figurative description of a cock, and so on; and this is imputed by the indictment to apply to the fovereign of this country, and to impute to him taxation, and other things, as oppression; and that he ought to be taken off by the guillotine.

Upon the observations made on both sides of the question, and considering that the book is entitled, "Politics for the People," and "The Reflections of a True Briton," you will be to judge whether that is fairly imputable to the sovereign of this country; if it is not, certainly it is not a libel; if it is, on the other hand, it is indisputably a libel, and you will find the defendant guilty of that count.

Gentlemen, you have heard a great many observations in this case respecting the liberty of the press. I am sure I think it my duty to state, that the liberty of the press is the greatest blessing this country can enjoy: but on the other hand I must state to you that the licentiousness of the press is the greatest curse. And I am sure your good sense will teach you this, that if men are permitted to say any thing, they will very soon go the length of doing any thing; and where that is the situation of affairs in any country, there is an end to all government. And therefore you must judge in a case of this sort of the sense of the libel, of the intention, of the party, and your decison on this indictment one way or other will not, in my opinion, affect that question which has been staced to you of the liberty of the press.

[Page 46]This, you see, is not charged to be a libel upon ministers, but it is a direct charge, in one part of it, upon one branch of the go­vernment, and in another part of it in an oppressive exercise of the duties of that branch of the government; and therefore if it fairly applies to the king of this country, it seems to me very diffi­cult for any jury to say, that a person who writes a book with an intention to make a direct attack upon the government, or to charge the executive government of this country with oppression, it seems very difficult to say that that comes within the liberty or the press. I conceive the law to be completely otherwise, and that the executive government of the country is protected by the law, that every individual is protected from such an attack, and the exe­cutive goverment of a country, the first magistrate, a character that stand so high, must necessarily be so protected; therefore it comes, and always must come to the quesion, whether a direct of­fensive attack is made upon that government.

If you shal1 be of opinion that this is not written in a mere spe­culative way, but that it is written with the intention charged in the indictment, to render contemptible that character, and to change that character with oppression, it seems to me that this is no ques­tion of speculation which involves the liberty of the press, but it seems to be that sort of question which gives the go by to it; and that you must be decided entirely in your opinion upon the evi­dence which is before you.

Gentlemen, much has been said about the cheapness of the libel; that is out of the question; if you should be satisfied upon the whole that it is a libel applied to the government of this country, it must be an aggravation of the offence, but that cannot decide the question of libel one way or the other. But then there is ano­ther question for your consideration, and that is the intention of the party. Now you will observe the person before you is the publisher, and not the author of the libel: but as to the qnestion of the sedition in the libel, that must first be disposed of; and it is my duty to state to you, that if you should think this applicable to the government of this country, that then the publisher of it, if it is a libel, is answerable for the consequences of that publication; and it will he very difficult, in my opinion, for you to say, when once the fact is settled that the work is libelous, that the person who sends into the world that sort of publication to disturb the peace of the country, could do it with any very good intention.

The learned counsel for the defendant has told you, that scince the act of parliament has taken place, this is to be decided in the same way as any other crime, and he has thought fit to put the crime of murder as the example. Now taking that as the exam­ple, [Page 47]how would it be? Suppose a man commits a murder with a very offensive weapon, I take it to be clear and settled law that his evil intent will thereby be presumed; and if the law in the case where a murder is committed with a very offensive weapon, would presume that the party using it had an intention to do the mischief, I should think if a man sends poison into the world that may do a great deal of mischief, that a jury would not go any great length in presuming upon the evidence, unless he could on nis part shew some evidence to get rid of the presumption that he was influenced by that criminal intention which the law presumes, in that case, as it does in the case of libel.

It will be for you, therefore, first to make up your minds upon this pamphlet, whether it does apply to the king and the govern­ment of this country; and if it does, then the next question for you to consider is, whether the prisoner is the publisher of it. Now as to that, he certainly is answerable in law as the publisher, if it is sold in his shop. There has been nothing proved on the part of the prisoner to shew that he is not at all responsible for it; and unless he disproves the fact of publication, it is a publication for which he is bound to answer; and as to his intention, I shall cer­tainly leave it to you to determine upon the case stated by the counsel, if you are satisfied that this is a libellous work, and if you are satisfied that these inuendos are proper inuendos, and fairly made out, whether you can think a man publishing such a pamphlet as this, charged to have, and having in your opinion a seditious tendency, does it with such an innocent intention as the law will support.

There is one more observation that has been made by the coun­sel for the desendant. You have heard a good deal about the Star Chamber, and so on; now I think it is but fair to say that this has been brought before you by a grand jury. God forbid that you should decide the question against the prisoner because a grand jury has found the bill; but so far as concerns the attorney gene­ral, it is on the part of the public certainly the mildest method of proceeding, because it is giving the prisoner the most favourable opportunity of being tried by his equals. I cannot, therefore, con­ceive that this prosecution can in any way be considered to look at all like any of those prosecutions of which we have heard so much, because I think all that is done away by the manner in which the present attorney-general has thought fit to prosecure this man.

There was another observation made by the counsel for the de­fendant, respecting the taxes and administration, and so on. I can only say that I think that observation was a little unfortunate, be­cause [Page 48]the whole of the defence seemed to me upon this occasion in to turn upon this; and it is the strongest part of the argument which has been put by the counsel for the defendant, that these inuendos, applying these passages to the king and government of this coun­try, are not fairly applied. Now it seems to me, in such a de­fence are that, rather an awkward circumstance; and it looks as if the mind, in reading this pamphlet, could not but feel that it is meant to convey sentiments unfavourable to the government of this country; and what strengthens that opinion is, that in the subsequent part something further is stated respecting those taxes mentioned in this very libel.

You have had another observation made with respect to the state of this man's family. Now as all that is to be considered as an attack upon your passions, either on one side or the other, you have too much good sensc to attend to it. You are to consider the situation of the country at large, the good government of the Country on one hand, and the situation of the defendant on the other and I have no doubt that you will do justice between them both, and that you will not be hurried away by the idea of a fa­mily, or any thing of that sort, which in a criminal case can make no consideration at all. All that the prosecutor can ask of you, and all that I can ask of you, is this, to read this book as you would read it if you wanted to make yourselves matters of it in your own private chambers, see what the impression is on your minds, and if you think these inuendos are fairly made out, as ap­plied to this pamphlet, they certainly charge the defendant with publishing a seditious libel. You will judge of the whole. If you think him guilty, you will find him so; if you think this is not made out to be applicable to the king and government of this country, you will then acquit him.