report or opinion of the day, are in a little time unintelligible. Yet the reader will not find himself overloaded with explanations. I was not born to be a commentator, even upon my own works.

It remains to say a few words upon the liberty of the press. The daring spirit, by which these letters are supposed to be distinguished, seems to require that something serious should be said in their defence. I am no lawyer by profession, nor do I pretend to be more deeply read, than every English gentleman should be in the laws of his country. If therefore the principles I maintain are truly constitutional, I shall not think myself answered, though I should be convicted of a mistake in terms, or of misapplying the language of the law. I speak to the plain understanding of the people, and appeal to their honest, liberal construction of me.

Good men, to whom alone I address myself, appear to me to consult their piety as little as their judgment and experience, when they admit the great and essential advantages accruing to society from the freedom of the press, yet indulge themselves in peevish or passionate exclamations against the abuses of it. Betraying an unreasonable expectation of benefits, pure and intire, from any human institution, they in effect arraign the goodness of Providence, and confess that they are dissatisfied with the common lot of humanity. In the present instance they really create to their own minds, or greatly exaggerate the evil they complain of. The laws of England provide, as effectually as any human laws can do, for the protection of the subject, in his reputation, as well as in his person and property. If the characters of private men are insulted or injured, a double remedy is open to them, by action and indictment. If, through indolence, false shame, or indifference, they will not appeal to the laws of their country, they fail in their duty to society, and are unjust to themselves. If, from an unwarrantable distrust of the integrity of juries, they would wish to obtain justice by any mode of proceeding, more summary than a trial by their peers, I do not scruple to affirm, that they are in effect greater enemies to themselves, than to the libeller they prosecute.

With regard to strictures upon the characters of men in office and the measures of government, the case is a little different. A considerable latitude must be allowed in the discussion of public affairs, or the liberty of the press will be of no benefit to society. As the indulgence of private malice and personal slander should be checked and resisted by every legal means, so a constant examination into the cha racters and conduct of ministers and magistrates should be equally promoted and encouraged. They, who conceive that our news papers are no restraint upon bad men, or impediment to the execution of bad measures, know nothing of this country. In that state of abandoned servility and prostitution, to which the undue influence of the crown has reduced the other branches of the legislature, our ministers and magistrates have in reality little punishment to fear, and few difficulties to contend with, beyond the censure of the press, and the spirit of resistance, which it excites among the people. While this censorial power is maintained, to speak in the words of a most ingenious foreigner, both minister and magistrate is compelled, in almost every instance, to choose between his duty and his reputation. A dilemma of this kind, perpetually before him, will not indeed work a miracle upon his heart, but it will assuredly operate, in some degree, upon his conduct. At all events, these are not times to admit of any relaxation in the little discipline we have left.

But it is alledged, that the licentiousness of the press is carried beyond all bounds of decency and truth;-that our excellent ministers are continually exposed to the public hatred or derision;-that, in prosecutions for libels on government, juries are partial to the popular side; and that, in the most flagrant cases, a verdict cannot be obtained for the King. If the premises were admitted, I should deny the conclusion. It is not true that the temper of the times has, in general, an undue influence over the conduct of juries. On the contrary, many signal instances may be produced of verdicts returned from the King, when the inclinations of the people led strongly to an undistinguishing opposition to VOL. I.

B

government. Witness the cases of Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Almon*. In the late prosecutions of the printers of my address to a great personage, the juries were never fairly dealt with. -Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, conscious that the paper in question contained no treasonable or libellous matter, and that the severest parts of it, however painful to the King, or offensive to his servants, were strictly true, would fain have restricted the jury to the finding of special facts, which, as to guilty or not guilty, were merely indifferent. This particular motive, combined with his general purpose to contract the power of juries, will account for the charge he delivered in Woodfall's trialf. He told the jury, in so many words, that

* The case of Wilkes here alluded to is his prosecution, for having written an obscene parody on Pope's Essay on Man, which he called "An Essay on Woman." Almon was prosecuted merely for having sold in a magazine entitled The London Museum, which he did not print, a transcript of JUNIUS's letter to the King, first published in the Public Advertiser, and thence copied into a variety of other newspapers. And the result was a verdict against him, although it did not appear to the court that he was privy to the sale, or even knew that the magazine, sold at his shop, contained the letter to the King. EDIT.

† Memorable as this charge is on various accounts, and especially as having laid the foundation for a very warm and animated discussion both in and out of parliament, it is very extraordinary that it is no where reported in our senatorial documents, and is indeed difficult to be obtained from any other quarter. The fact is, that although it was laid by Lord Mansfield on the table, in the house of lords, when summoned at his request to take it into consideration, yet as he did not make any express motion upon the subject, it was not entered into the journals, and was only left with the clerk for any noble lord to take a copy of it, who was desirous of doing so. The reader, therefore, will feel gratified by being put into possession of the charge, together with Lord Camden's interrogatories in regard to it, proposed to the Lord Chief Justice in his proper place in the upper house, and to which the latter did not chuse to make any reply. To these it may be also advantageous to subjoin a summary of the speeches of the late Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke upon the same subject, when introduced into the House of Commons, as containing, in a conden. sed form, the argument of the opposite sides of the question. Mr. Fox, it is well known, was, at this period, in favour of the ministry; but the political error he then laboured under, he nobly redeemed a few years afterwards, and amply atoned for to the public, by the excellent and truly constitutional bill "to remove doubts respecting the functions of juries in cases of libel," introduced into the senate in the session of 1791, as more particularly noticed in another part of this work, and which, by his inde

fatigable

they had nothing to determine, except the fact of printing and publishing, and whether or no the blanks or innuendoes were properly filled up in the information;-but that, whether the defendant had committed a crime or not, was no matter

fatigable perseverance was at length carried through the legislature, has nullified Lord Mansfield's doctrine, and set the important question completely at rest.

Mr. Woodfall, as a party concerned, modestly forbore to offer any statement of this celebrated trial in the Public Advertiser, in consequence of which the writer is obliged to avail himself of the following extract, though very imperfectly given, from a contemporary journal.

An account of the trial at Guildhall of the original publisher of Junius's Letter to the King.

Yesterday morning, [June 13, 1770,] about nine o'clock, came on before Lord Mansfield, in the Court of King's-bench at Guildhall, the trial of Mr. Woodfall, the original printer of JUNIUS's letter in the Public Advertiser of December 19. Only seven of the special jury attended, viz. William Bond, foreman; Peter Cazalet, Alexander Peter Allen, Frederick Commerell, Hermen Meyer, John Thomas, and Barrington Buggin. Upon which the following five talesmen were taken out of the box, viz. William Hannard, Paul Verges, William Sibley, William Willet, and William Davis.

The trial was opened by Mr. Wallis.

Nathaniel Crowder swore he bought the paper of Mr. Woodfall's publishing servant, whom he named.

Mr. Harris proved that the duty for the advertisements and stamps were paid by Mr. Woodfall. And

A Clerk of Sir John Fielding's proved, by a receipt from Mr. Woodfall, his concern in and for the paper.

The publication and direction of the paper by Mr. Woodfall being thus proved,

Lord Mansfield, in his charge, told the jury, That there were only two points for their consideration: the first the printing and publishing the paper in question; the second, the sense and meaning of it: That as to the charges of its being malicious, seditious, &c. they were inferences in law about which no evidence need be given, any more than that part of an indictment need be proved by evidence, which charges a man with being moved by the instigation of the Devil: That therefore the printing and sense of the paper were alone what the jury had to consider of; and that if the paper should really contain no breach of the law, that was a matter which might afterwards be moved in arrest of judgment: That he had no evidence to sum up to them, as the defendant's counsel admitted the printing and publication to be well proved: That as to the sense, they had not called in doubt the manner in which the dashes in the paper were filled up in the record, by giving any other sense to the passages; if they

had,

of consideration to twelve men, who yet, upon their oaths, were to pronounce their peer guilty, or not guilty. When we hear such nonsense delivered from the bench, and find it supported by a laboured train of sophistry, which a plain

bad, the jury would have been to consider which application was the true one, that charged in the information, or suggested by the defendant. That the jury might now compare the paper with the information: That if they did not find the application wrong, they must find the defendant guilty; and if they did find it wrong, they must acquit him: That this was not the time for alleviation or aggravation, that being for future consideration: That every subject was under the controul of the law, and had a right to expect from it protection for his person, his property, and his good name: That if any man offended the laws, he was amenable to them, and was not to be censured or punished, but in a legal course: That any person libelled had a right either to bring a civil or a criminal prosecution: That in the latter, which is by information or indictment, it is immaterial whether the publication be false or true: That it is no defence to say it is true, because it is a breach of the peace, and therefore criminal; but in a civil prosecution, it is a defence to say the charges in the publication are true; because the plaintiff there sues only for a pecuniary satisfaction to himself; and that this is the distinction as to that nature of defence.- His Lordship said, he was afraid it was too true that few characters in the kingdom escaped libels: That many were very injuriously treated-and if so, that the best way to prevent it was by an application to the law, which is open to every man: That the liberty of the press consisted in every man having the power to publish his sentiments without first applying for a licence to any one; but if any man published what was against law, he did it at his peril, and was answerable for it in the same manner as he who suffers his hand to commit an assault, or his tongue to utter blasphemy."

Between eleven and twelve the jury withdrew; at four the court adjourned; and a little after nine the jury waited on Lord Mansfield at his house in Bloomsbury-square, with their verdict, which was Guilty of PRINTING and PUBLISHING ONLY.

This charge having been laid upon the table of the House of Lords, December 10, 1770, by the Lord Chief Justice, the following questions were put to him, in his place, by Lord Camden, on the day ensuing.

1. Does the opinion mean to declare, that upon the general issue of Not Guilty, in the case of a seditious libel, the jury have no right, by law, to examine the innocence or criminality of the paper, if they think fit, and to form their verdict upon such examination?

2. Does the opinion mean to declare, that in the case abovementioned, when the jury have delivered in their verdict, Guilty, that this verdict has found the fact only and not the law?

3. Is it to be understood by this opinion, that if the jury come to the bar, and say that they find the printing and publishing, but that the paper

is