REPLY.

MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL,

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP.

Gentlemen of the Jury,

IN rising, Gentlemen, to address myself to you, on the part of the prosecution, after your attention has been so long rivetted to one of the most splendid displays of eloquence, I ever had occasion to hear; after your understandings have been so long dazzled by the contemplation of that most splendid exhibition, I cannot but fear, that whatever the feeble light of such understandings as mine can. present to you, I can scarcely feel a hope of making any impression on your senses. And if I felt, on this occasion, that there was any necessity to answer much of my learned friend's speech, I should feel myself embarked in an undertaking, in which it was absolutely necessary I should fail. But after giving the

attention the utmost attention, that could be bestowed to the whole of his argument, I think

I may

I

I may venture to say, my task does not present much of my friend's speech to answer. apprehend there are some things to observe upon, some things to apply in my own favour, and some things to give a different application to, than that, which has been attempted to be given by my friend himself. There are, most unquestionably, many topics. on which he has expatiated, which, without any derogation to him, are rather irrelevant to the present discussion. There are some points to be considered.

The points to be considered, respect the character of the prosecutor and the defendant, the character of the prosecution before you, the character of similar prosecutions, as they' ought to be conducted, and as it seems, they are likely to be conducted in this country. And the character of the publication, itself, which is now under your consideration.

Gentleman, with regard to the prosecutor, my learned friend has told you, with what consistency as applied to some part of the observations he addressed to the libels themselves, I must leave to him to reconcile-He' has told you the prosecutor of this information

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is the Chief Magistrate of France. Gentlemen, I deny it. The prosecutor is the Chief Magistrate of the country, in which we live, feebly represented by his unworthy servant in this place. It is the prosecution of the King of Great-Britain, who is capable even at this moment of giving protection, having according to the admission of my friend given most effectual protection to the person even nowstanding for judgment. But it seems the person now under this protection is attempted to be crushed, and trampled upon, and destroyed, Gentlemen, I must beg leave to say, when at the same moment you are told this very emigrant is defended in his asylum in this country, and when it is represented to you, from I know not what authority, but, however, from my friend's authority (and he may have means of knowing the wishes of the Sovereign), that instead of being in the situation of any other defendant, he, it seems, was to be hunted out of the country.—I say when this is the character to be attributed untruly to the administration of the Government of this country, it will deserve the most serious attention of juries. But I think you need not at least apprehend, that at this moment, that fatal period of English liberty is arrived, in which you are to be

called

called

upon in principles new to the administration of English justice, to give a verdict against the defendant, not because they are libels on the principles of law, but because they are offensive to the Chief Magistrate of another country.

With respect to the defendant himself, he stands cloathed with all the advantages and be◄ nefits which the English law can give to an English subject. Protected he has been by the best exertions, and he now stands to be judged not on any new principles, but on those principles which I stated to you in my opening, and which my friend has done me the justice to say, are the principles on which he should be tried.

My learned friend has told you, this prosecution is the first of a long series of prosecutions, which are likely to be instituted against the liberty of free discussion in this country.— I trust in forming your judgment on this prosecution, you will not form it on any apprehension of prosecutions that may hereafter be likely to arise. You will consider not whether there may be at some distant period a number of such prosecutions, but whether this is one of them; whether there is any thing in this case, that can justify any man in saying, it is one of them; whether

whether I can coolly call upon you for a verdict on any principle, on which during the best times of the administration of justice and law in this country, juries have not uniformly given them; and whether in calling on you for this verdict, I endeavour, in the slightest degree, to trench on the freedom of discussion, the privilege of history, which he has done me the justice to say I have distinctly admitted.

Gentlemen, this is a prosecution of the English Press. My friend has told you a great number of truths with respect to this privilege and this liberty. He has told you, that in former times there was no cowardly selfishness, disposing the government of the country or its ministers to restrain free discussion on arbitrary power. Is there any thing in this case like an attempt, that can be characterised as cowardly, much more an attempt to restrain any discussion at all? My friend has told you, it is necessary the freedom of discussion should be preserved entire, and that it is peculiarly necessary to have publications of this sort, to rouze the spirit of the people, and to cloathe them with the armour of anger and indignation against those, who were about to become their enemies, My case to you is, that we may