extended, I might appeal to the multitudes who surround us, and ask, which of them all, except the few connected in office with the Crown, ever heard of its existence. But with regard to myself, every man within hearing at this moment, nay, the whole people of England, have been witnesses to the calumnious clamour that, by every art, has been raised and kept up against me: in every place, where business or pleasure collect the public together, day after day my name and character have been the topics of injurious reflection. And for what?-only for not having shrunk from the discharge of a duty, which no personal advantage recommended, and which a thousand difficulties repelled. But, Gentlemen, I have no complaint to make, either against the printers of these libels, nor even against their authors-the greater part of them, hurried perhaps away by honest prejudices, may have believed they were serving their country by rendering me the object of its suspicion and contempt; and if there have been amongst them others who have mixed in it from personal malice and unkindness, I thank God I can forgive them also.-Little indeed did they know me, who thought that such calumnies would influence my conduct: I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the ENGLISH BAR; without which, impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say, that he will or will

not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in the Court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end. If the advocate refuses to defend, from what he may think of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the Judge; nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment; and in pro portion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of, perhaps, a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favour the bene volent principle of English law makes all presump tions, and which commands the very Judge to be his Counsel.

Gentlemen, it is now my duty to address myself without digression to the defence.

The first thing which presents itself in the dis cussion of any subject, is to state distinctly, and with precision, what the question is, and, where prejudice and misrepresentation have been exerted, to distinguish it accurately from what it is Not. The question then is NOT, whether the constitution of our fathers, under which we live-under which I present myself before you, and under which alone you have any jurisdiction to hear me-be or be not preferable to the constitution of America or France, or any other human constitution. For upon what principle can a Court, constituted by the authority of any government, and administering a positive system of law, under it, pronounce a decision against

the constitution which creates its authority; or the rule of action which its jurisdiction is to enforce ?The common sense of the most uninformed person must revolt at such an absurd supposition.

I have no difficulty, therefore, in admitting, that if by accident some or all of you were alienated in opinion and affection from the forms and principles of the English government, and were impressed with the value of that unmixed representative constitution which this work recommends and inculcates, you could not, on that account, acquit the Defendant. Nay, to speak out plainly, I freely admit that even if you were avowed enemies to monarchy, and devoted to republicanism, you would be nevertheless bound by your oaths, as a Jury sworn to administer justice according to the English law, to convict the author of The Rights of Man, if it were brought home to your consciences, that he had exceeded those widely extended bounds which the ancient wisdom and liberal policy of the English constitution have allotted to the range of a free press. I freely concede this, because you have no jurisdiction to judge either the author or the work, by any rule but that of English law, which is the source of your authority. But having made this large concession, it follows, by a consequence so inevitable as to be invulnerable to all argument or artifice, that if, on the other hand, you should be impressed (which I know you to be) not only with a dutiful regard, but with an enthusiasm, for the whole form and substance

of your own government; and though you should think that this work, in its circulation amongst classes of men unequal to political researches, may tend to alienate opinion; still you cannot, upon such grounds, without a similar breach of duty, convict the Defendant of a libel,-unless he has clearly stepped beyond that extended rage of communication which the same ancient wisdom and liberal policy of the British constitution has allotted for the liberty of the press.

Gentlemen, I admit, with the Attorney General, that in every case where a Court has to estimate the quality of a writing, the mind and intention of the writer must be taken into the account;-the bona, or mala fides, as lawyers express it, must be examined for a writing may undoubtedly proceed from a motive, and be directed to a purpose, not to be deciphered by the mere construction of the thing written. But wherever a writing is arraigned as seditious or slanderous, not upon its ordinary construction in language, nor from the necessary consequences of its publication, under any circumstances and at all times, but that the criminality springs from some extrinsic matter, not visible upon the page itself, nor universally operative, but capable only of being connected with it by evidence, so as to demonstrate the effect of the publication, and the design of the publisher; such a writing, not libellous PER SE, cannot be arraigned as the author's work is arraigned upon the record before the Court. I

maintain, without the hazard of contradiction, that the law of England positively requires, for the security of the subject, that every charge of a libel complicated with extrinsic facts and circumstances, dehors the writing, must appear literally upon the record by an averment of such extrinsic facts and circumstances, that the Defendant may know what crime he is called upon to answer, and how to stand upon his defence. What crime is it that the Defendant comes to answer for to-day ?-what is the notice that I, who am his Counsel, have from this parchment of the crime alleged against him?-I come to defend his having written this book. The record states nothing else:-the general charge of sedition in the introduction is notoriously paper and pack thread; because the innuendos cannot enlarge the sense, or natural construction of the text. The record does not state any one extrinsic fact or circumstance, to render the work criminal, at one time more than another; it states no peculiarity of time or season, or intention, not proveable from the writing itself, which is the naked charge upon record. There is nothing therefore which gives you any jurisdiction beyond the construction of the work itself; and you cannot be justified in finding it criminal because published at this time, unless it would have been a criminal publication under any circumstances, or at any other time.

The law of England then, both in its forms and substance, being the only rule by which the author