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provinces. Since 1809 the greater part of the strong places in Spain have been taken after memorable sieges. The insurgents have been beat in a great number of pitched battles. England has felt that this war was approaching its termination, and that intrigues and gold were no longer sufficient to nourish it. She found herself therefore obliged to change the nature of it, and from an auxiliary she has become a principal. All she has of troops of the line have been sent into the Peninsula. England, Scotland, and Ireland are drained-English blood has at length flowed in torrents, in several actions glorious to the French

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This conflict against Carthage, which seemed as if it would be decided in fields of battle on the ocean, or beyond the seas, wil henceforth be dicided on the plains of Spain! When England shall be exhausted-when she shall at last have felt the evils which for twenty years she has with so much cruelty poured upon the continent, when half her families shall be in mourning, then shall a peal of thunder, put an end to the affairs of the peninsula, the destinies of her armies, and avenge Europe and Asia by finishing this second Punic war.

"Gentlemen Deputies of Departments to the Legislative Body, "I have ordered my minister to Jay before you the accounts of 1809 and 1810. It is the object for which I have called you together. You will see in them the prosperous state of my finances.-Though I have placed within three months 100 millions extraordinary at the disposal of my ministers of war, to defray the expences of new armaments which then appeared necessary, I find myself in the fortunate situation of not having any new taxes to impose upon my people-1 shall not increase any tax-1 have no want of any augmentation in the impost."

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The sitting being terminated, his Majesty rose and retired amidst acclamations.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

[The following well written Memorial was presented by Mr. Drakard to the house of Commons, previous to Lord Folkstone's unsuccessful motion on the subject.”] MEMORIAL;

Humbly sheweth,

That your Memorialist is proprietor, printer, and publisher of a newspaper, called DRAKARD'S Stamford News, which is published in the town of Stamford, in the county of Lincoln; and that he has recently been prosecuted by the King's Attorney-General, on an information ex-officio, for publishing in the said newspaper, an article on military punishment.

Memorialist further states, that he was found guilty at the last assizes for the county of Lincoln, of the charges laid in the information against him; and that, in consequence of his conviction, he has been sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment in the gaol for the said county,-to pay a fine of two hundred pounds to the King, and to give security for his good behaviour for three years, himself in four hundred pounds, and two sureties in two hundred pounds each.

Memorialist deeming himself, and in his person, the principles of the constitution and the security of the subject injured by the proceedings of the law officers against him, brings his complaint and prayer for redress before your honourable house, humbly conceiving that he thereby acts in perfect conformity with the spirit of the British law,―according to which your honourable house, elected by and representing the people, is to be considered as the people's peculiar guardian, and defence

against abuse from whatever quarter it may proceed.

And Memorialist, in justification of the step he has taken, and prompted by a feeling of gratitude, recalls to the recollection of your honourable house, the many former instances in which the Commons of England, assembled in parliament, have interfered with effect in behalf of the liberties of the subject, when endangered by proceedings in the courts of law; of which liberties, it is highly probable, not a vestige would at this day remain, had it been adopted as a principle that the decisions of these courts should ever be permitted to rest undisturbed.

Nevertheless, Memorialist begs to disavow an intention to cast any imputation on the jury by whom he was tried:-he too highly venerates the right of trial by jury to question the integrity of jurymen. But Memorialist submits to your honourable house, that, in cases of prosecution by his Majesty's Attorney General on information ex-officio, the peculiar disadvantages under which the defendant labours, which arise from the practice of the courts, are so many and important, that innocence has but small chance of clearing itself: which circumstance, Memorialist humbly submits, renders it very necessary that your hon. house should exercise a vigilance and controul over the proceedings in such cases, for otherwise the judges, who will allow no one to question or gainsay the practice of their courts, might, under cover of regulations, violate the fundamental principles of the law.

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Memorialist, therefore, without impeaching the verdict of the jury that tried him, grounds a complaint to your hon. house on the following circumstances connected with his prosecution by the King's Attorney General-believing them to evince a determined hostility on the part of certain persons now in power, to the

right of freely discussing the measures of government, which by law belongs to every British subject. And Memorialist prays for such redress as your hon. house may, in its wisdom, think proper to grant, and offers to prove the truth of his several allegations whenever your hon. house may be pleased to call upon him so to do.

Memorialist submits to your hon. house, that the article, for publishing which he has been convicted and punished, was, with the exception of a few sentences that in no way alter the general import of the whole, copied into another newspaper, the proprietors of which have also been prosecuted for such publication by the King's AttorneyGeneral, but have been, by a jury of their country, fully acquitted of criminality. And Memorialist declares, that after a jury had thus pronounced the article in his newspaper, for publishing which he is now in prison, to be in all its important parts perfectly innocent, it was again put on its trial before another jury, who have pronounced it criminal. Memorialist submits to your hon. house the impropriety and indecency of such a proceeding, tending, as it evidently does, to shake the confidence of the public in trial by jury, by opposing two juries, the one against the other, and leading of necessity, to the conclusion, that an act of injustice has been in one case committed.

Memorialist denies, to your hon. house, what was alledged against him on his trial, namely, that the strongest passages in his publication were omitted by the parties who copied the greater part of it,-and, as a proof of the fallacy of such a plea, submits, that the extracts were prosecuted by the King's Attorney-General as well as the original; which extracts, however, were by a jury acquitted of the guilt which the At torney-General imputed to them:

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and memorialist further submits to your hon. house, that the information filed by the Attorney-General against him, did contain, in several separate counts, the respective passages in the article prosecuted, which were deemed chiefly to evince the criminal intention of the publisher, and that all these passages, so deemed highly criminal, were extracted and published by the parties who were acquitted; and that no one passage which these parties omitted to extract and publish, was included in a separate count of the information filed against your memorialist. Memorialist submits, that this circumstance clearly proves, that in the estimation of the Attorney-General himself, the article convicted at Lincoln, contained nothing of a more dangerous nature than that which was acquitted by a jury in the court of King's Bench at Westminster.

Memorialist feels confident that your hon. house will learn with great concern, that the publication pronounced innocent by one jury, but for which your memorialist is fined and imprisoned, was intended to advocate the propriety of affecting that alteration in the military law of the land, which your hon. house has since, in its wisdom, effected. And it will no doubt excite the just jealousy of your hon. house, which represents the Commons of the country, that the King's Attorney-General, pursuing to certain punish ment the publisher of an argument intended to pave the way for, and to recommend to the public a measure since adopted by parliament. Memorialist submits to your hon. house, that no such thing as free discussion can exist, if the law officers are to take advantage of the zealous manner in which a discussion may be conducted, the principle of which is to attack and expose a long standing but generally acknowledged abuse:

and further, that, whatever blame may attach to such discussion ought

chiefly to fall on those persons concerned in the executive, who, by continuing the abuse, have provoked the warmth of the attack.-Your hon. house will, no doubt, be sensible, that in proportion as such attack is likely to be effectual, it will occasion an irritation and desire of revenge in the breasts of those concerned in the abuse; who, even if compelled to abandon it, will yet exert themselves to punish those by whom they have been driven to so disagreeable an expedient. And memorialist further submits, that the uncertainties and contradictions of the law of libel, with the numerous advantages given by the practice of the court to the King's Attorney-General, in cases of information ex-officio furnish ample means to gratify the displeasure so entertained by persons in power, to the great injury of the subject's right of free discussion, which your hon. house is in a peculiar manner called upon to protect.

Memorialist states to your hon. house, that by severely censuring the frequent infliction of the disgraceful and savage punishment of flogging, as used in the army, before the late alteration in the law,-he has but imitated the example of the first officers in the service who have in publications given by them to the world, described such punishment in glowing language, as destructive of our military strength, and injurious to our national character. These officers have deemed it their duty to enlarge on the horrible and disgusting circumstances attending military flogging, in order to raise public indignation against its conti nuance. They have specified particular regiments as the worst in the service, and have attributed their inferiority to flogging. They have alluded to others as the best, and have traced their pre-eminence to exemption from flogging. In short they have done all that your memo

rialist has done; but they have not been fined and imprisoned; they have on the contrary, been raised to the highest honours of their profession. Memoralist appeals to your honourable house, whether it be consistent with the principles of the British Constitution, that what is deemed laudable in persons of high rank shall be held criminal in one of inferior station. It was stated by the King's Attorney-General, to be truly laughable for the printers of newspapers to expect that the same credit should be given to their motives, which was justly due to the intentions of general officers: but your hon. house, deriving its existence from the people,—and of whom it has been said by a respected statesman, "the virtue, spirit, and es"sence of which consist in its being "the express image of the feelings "of the nation," will deem itself called upon to protect the people from the effects of so unconstitutional a maxim. And your hon. house will doubtless learn with great concern, that the judge who presided at the trial of your Memorialist, countenanced and supported this principle so utterly repugnant to the spirit of freedom,-and further laid it down to the jury, that the measures of the government were not to be censured out of parliament. Memoralist, as the citizen of a free state, protests against this doctrine, as subversive of his legal rights, which he is determined to uphold at all hazards, in humble imitation of the patriots of former times, who, in defiance of prosecutions and punishments, maintained those immunities which by law belong to the subject, but which by lawyers have been frequently questioned and endangered. And Memorialist recalls to the recollection of your honourable house, that those blessings which afford persons in power a subject for panegyric, have only been attained after a hard struggle with

the existing authorities; and that the individuals most instrumental in attaining them, have generally incur red the fate of your Memorialist, by the voice of the judges.

Memorialist further submits to your hon. house, that it was falsely represented to his jury, for the purpose of prejudicing their minds against him, that he had manifested an attachment to the cause and person of the enemy of his country, Napoleon Bonaparte: Memorialist did, in consequence, bring forward, in an affidavit, made by him in mitigation of punishment, numerous and convincing proofs to the contrary; and that the said Napoleon Bonaparte had ever been held out to abhorrence in Memorialist's newspaper, as the foe of liberty and of human happiness:-and in consequence of certain other charges falsely brought against your Memorialist, he further proved in his affidavit, by extracts from his newspaper, that he was warmly attached to, and had ever inculcated a high respect for, the constitution of his go.. verament, including the kingly of fice as one of its most essential parts:

and in contradiction to other calumnies urged against Memorialist to his jury, and which no doubt bad the effect of unduly prejudicing their minds against him, his counsel being, by the 'practice of the courts, denied leave to refute them at the time,-Memorialist further proved in his affidavit, by extracts from his newspaper, that he was no common libeller,-that the liberty of the press had never been disho noured in his hands,—but that the discussion in his newspaper had ever been conducted in an impartial manner, according to your Memorialist's sincere conviction, without regard to pecuniary profit.

Your hon. house will learn with surprise, that this affidavit, containing passages in reprobation of the relentless despotism which now op

presses Europe, induced the judges of the court of King's Bench, when passing sentence on your Memorialist, to accuse him of a new and unheard of offence-the offence of having published libels against an alien power with whom this country is now at war. Your hon. house must be sensible that this charge cannot be warranted by law; and your Memorialist appeals against the injustice of accusing him, when on his trial, of being a friend to Bonaparte, and, in consequence of his refuting the calumny, charging him when brought up to be sentenced, with libelling that person.

Your hon. house will perceive that the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, by accusing Memorialist of having libelled the enemy, inasmuch as he has disapproved in strong language of the despotic principles practised by the government of France, have declared their opinion as to what constitutes the crime of libelling; which opinion doubtless regulates the charges given by them to juries when questions of Irbel come before them. And Memorialist submits that this declaration contains a sentence of death against free dis cussion; for if it be libelling to censure so great a tyranny as that exercised by Bonaparte, what hope is left that we shall be permitted to expose the faults of our own government; and if we have no such permission, how can we be said to possess the right of free discussion?

Memorialist further submits to -your hon. house, that the opinions of the judges are conveyed to juries in very strong, and frequently in passionate language, which is calculated to overawe the minds of those to whom it is addressed; and that if juries shall by any means be induced to conform their verdicts to the sentiment conveyed from the Bench when your Memorialist was sentenced, namely, that it is libellous to censure tyranny even in an

enemy, it is very possible that a person in your Memorialist's, situation shall be severely punished for rendering an essential service to his country, and to the cause of truth and virtue.

Your hon. house will regard' this possibility with extreme concern ; for what effect must it have on the public mind to know that individuals are liable to heavy fine and imprisonment, for doing that which common sense, religion, and mora lity, will justify. Yet while the present interpretations of the law of libel are persisted in, it cannot be pretended that to publish what is called a libel is in every case a moral crime.

Memorialist doth instance to your hon. house, as a proof of what he avers, the case of a person recently prosecuted by the Attorney-General, on an information ex-officio for libel. -This person was told by the present Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, that his publica. tion was not less calumnious-and consequently not less guilty-because it might be true. But when brought up to receive the sentence of the court, it was declared from the Bench that if the libel, of which he stood convicted, were true, it would prove the individual libelled, who was at that time a member of the administration, to be unfit_to enter the presence of his Sovereign, and indeed unworthy of honourable society.

Memorialist need not point out to your hon. house the extreme hardship of refusing an accused individual permission to prove the truth of his publication, while the absence of proof to that effect is urged against him to justify the severity of his punishment. Neither will your Memorialist take up the time of your hon. bouse by dwelling upon that perversion of language and violation of moral feeling, ineluded in pronouncing an individual

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