you this task be accomplished?-How may I expect froin what human nature has not made man for the performance of?-How am I to address your reasons, or ask them to pause, amidst the torrent of prejudice which has hurried away the public mind on the subject you are to judge? Was any Englishman ever so brought as a criminal before an English court of justice?—If I were to ask you, Gentlemen of the Jury, what is the choicest fruit that grows upon the tree of English liberty, you would answer, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW. If I were to ask the whole people of England, the return they looked for at the hands of Government, for the burdens under which they bend to support it, I should still be answered, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW; or, in other words, an impartial administration of justice. So sacred, therefore, has the freedom of trial been ever held in England;-so anxiously does Justice guard against every possible bias in her path, that if the public mind has been locally agitated upon any subject in judgment, the forum has either been changed, or the trial postponed. The circulation of any paper that brings, or can be supposed to bring, prejudice, or even well-founded knowledge, within the reach of a British tribunal, on the spur of an occasion, is not only highly criminal, but defeats itself, by leading to put off the trial which its object was to pervert. On this principle, the noble and learned Judge will permit me to remind him, that on the trial of the Dean of St. Asaph for a libel, or ra ther when he was brought to trial, the circulation of books by a society favourable to his defence, was held by his Lordship, as Chief Justice of Chester, to be a reason for not trying the cause *; although they contained no matter relative to the Dean, nor to the object of his trial; being only extracts from ancient authors of high reputation, on the general rights of juries to consider the innocence as well as the guilt of the accused; yet still, as the recollection of these rights was pressed forward with a view to affect the proceedings, the proceedings were postponed. Is the Defendant then to be the only exception to these admirable provisions ?--Is the English law to judge him, stript of the armour with which its universal justice encircles all others?-Shall we, in the very act of judging him for detracting from the English government, furnish him with ample matter for just reprobation, instead of detraction?-Has not his cause been prejudged through a thousand channels?-Has not the work before been daily and publicly reviled, and his person held up to derision and reproach ?-Has not the public mind been excited, by crying down the very phrase and idea of the Rights of Man? Nay, have not associations of gentlemen, I speak it with regret, because I am persuaded, from what I know of some of them, that they, amongst them at least, thought they were you * Vide vol. i. page 139 and 160. из serving the public;-yet have they not, in utter contempt and ignorance of that constitution of which they declare themselves to be the guardians, published the grossest attacks upon the Defendant?Have they not, even while the cause has been standing here for immediate trial, published a direct protest against the very work now before you; advertising in the same paper, though under the general description of seditious libels, a reward on the conviction of any person who should dare to sell the book itself, to which their own publication was an answer?-The Attorney General has spoken of a forced circulation of this work ;-but how have these prejudging papers been circulated ?-we all know how. They have been thrown into our carriages in every street; they have met us at every turnpike ;-and they lie in the areas of all our houses. To complete the triumph of prejudice, that high tribunal, of which I have the honour to be a member (my learned friends know what I say to be true), has been drawn into this vortex of slander; and some of its members, I must not speak of the House itself, have thrown the weight of their stations into the same scale. By all these means I maintain that this cause has been prejudged. It may be said, that I have made no motion to put off the trial for these causes, and that courts of themselves take no cognizance of what passes elsewhere, without facts laid before them. Gentlemen, I know that I should have had equal justice from the Court, if I had brought myself within the rule. But when should I have been better in the present aspect of things? and I only remind you therefore of all these hardships, that you may recollect, that your judgment is to proceed upon that alone which meets you here, upon the evidence in the cause, and not upon suggestions destructive of every principle of justice. Having disposed of these foreign prejudices, I hope you will as little regard some arguments that have been offered to you in Court. The letter which has been so repeatedly pressed upon you, ought to be dismissed even from your recollection.-I have already put it out of the question, as having been written long subsequent to the book, and as being a libel on the King, which no part of the Information charges, and which may hereafter be prosecuted as a distinct offence. I consider that letter besides, and indeed have always heard it treated, as a forgery, contrived to injure the merits of the cause, and to embarrass me personally in its defence. I have a right so to consider it, because it is unsupported by any thing similar at an earlier period. The Defendant's whole deportment, previous to the publication, has been wholly unexceptionable :-he properly desired to be given up as the author of the book, if any inquiry should take place concerning it; and he is not affected in evidence, directly or indirectly, with any illegal or suspicious conduct; not even with having uttered an indiscreet or taunting expression, nor with any one matter or thing, inconsistent with the duty of the best subject in England. His opinions indeed were adverse to our system ;-but I maintain that OPINION is free, and that CONDUCT alone is amenable to the law. You are next desired to judge of the author's mind and intention, by the modes and extent of the circulation of his work. The FIRST Part of the Rights of Man, Mr. Attorney General tells you, he did not prosecute, although it was in circulation through the country for a year and a half together, because it seems it circulated only amongst what he styles the judicious part of the public, who possessed in their capacities and experience an antidote to the poison; but that with regard to the SECOND Part now before you, its circulation had been forced into every corner of society; had been printed and reprinted for cheapness even upon whited brown paper, and had crept into the very nurseries of children, as a wrapper for their sweetmeats. In answer to this statement, which after all stands only upon Mr. Attorney General's own assertion, unsupported by any kind of proof (no witness having proved the author's personal interference with the sale), I still maintain, that, if he had the most anxiously promoted it, the question would remain exactly THE SAME the question would still be, whether at the time when Paine composed his work, and pro moted the most extensive purchase of it, he believed or disbelieved what he had written,-and whether he |