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 rather 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.

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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 you 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 serving the public;-yet have they not, in utter contempt or 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.

Gentlemen, Mr. Paine happened to be in England when the French revolution took place, and notwithstanding what he must be supposed and allowed from his own history to have felt upon such a subject, he remained wholly silent and inactive. The people of this country, too, appeared to be indifferent spectators of the animating scene. They saw, without visible emotion,-despotism destroyed, and the King of France, by his own consent, become the first magistrate of a free people.-Certainly, at least, it produced none of those effects which are so deprecated by Government at present; nor, most probably, ever would, if it had not occurred to the celebrated person, whose name I must so often mention, voluntarily to provoke the subject;—a subject which if dangerous to be discussed, HE should not have led

to the discussion of; for, surely, it is not to be endured, that any private man shall publish a creed for a whole nation;-shall tell us that we are not to think for ourselves -shall impose his own fetters upon the human mind-shall dogmatize at discretion-and yet that no man shall sit down to answer him without being guilty of a libel. I assert, that if it be a libel to mistake our constitution-to attempt the support of it by means that tend to destroy it-and to choose the most dangerous season for doing so, Mr. Burke1 is that libeller; but not therefore the object of a criminal prosecution: whilst I am defending the motives of one man, I have neither right nor disposition to criminate the motives of another.-All I contend for, is a fact that cannot be controverted, viz. that this officious interference was the origin of Mr. Paine's book. I put my cause upon its being the origin of it-the avowed origin-as will abundantly appear from the introduction and preface to both Parts, and from the whole body of the work; nay, from the very work of Mr. Burke himself, to which both of them are

answers.

For the history of that celebrated work, I appeal to itself. When the French revolution had arrived at some of its early stages, a few, and but a few, persons (not to be named when compared with the nation) took a visible interest in these mighty events;-an interest well worthy of Englishmen. They saw a pernicious system of government which had led to desolating wars, and had been for ages the scourge of Great Britain, giving way to a system which seemed to promise harmony and peace amongst nations. They saw this with virtuous and peaceable satisfaction; and a reverend divine, eminent for his eloquence, recollecting that the issues of life are in the hands of God, saw no profaneness in mixing the subject with public thanksgiving;-by reminding the people of this country of their own glorious deliverance in former ages. It happened, also, that a society of gentlemen, France being then a neutral nation, and her own monarch swearing almost daily upon her altars to maintain the new

1 Paine's Rights of Man was written in answer to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2 Dr. Price.

constitution, thought they infringed no law by sending a general congratulation. Their numbers, indeed, were very inconsiderable; so much so, that Mr. Burke, with more truth than wisdom, begins his volume with a sarcasm upon their insignificance:

Until very lately he had never heard of such a club. It certainly never occupied a moment of his thoughts; nor, he believed, those of any person out of their own set.'

Why then make their proceedings the subject of alarm throughout England?-There had been no prosecution against them, nor any charge founded even upon suspicion of disaffection against any of their body.-But Mr. Burke thought it was reserved for his eloquence to whip these curs of faction to their kennels.-How he has succeeded I appeal to all that has happened since the introduction of his schism in the British Empire, by giving to the King, whose title was questioned by no man, a title which it is His Majesty's most solemn interest to disclaim.

After having, in his first work, lashed Dr. Price in a strain of eloquent irony for considering the monarchy to be elective, which he could not but know Dr. Price, in the literal sense of election, neither did nor could possibly consider it, Mr. Burke published a second treatise; in which, after reprinting many passages from Mr. Paine's former work, he ridicules and denies the supposed right of the people to change their governments, in the following words:

The French revolution, say they' (speaking of the English societies), was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majority of any other people, the people of England for instance, wish to make the same change, they have the same right; just the same undoubtedly; that is, None at all.

And then, after speaking of the subserviency of will to duty (in which I agree with him), he, in a substantive sentence, maintains the same doctrine; thus:

The constitution of a country being once settled upon some compact, tacit, or expressed, there is no power existing of force to alter it, without the breach of the covenant, or the consent of all the parties. Such is the nature of a contract.'

So that if reason, or even revelation itself, were now to demonstrate to us, that our constitution was mischievous in its effects,-if, to use Mr. Attorney General's expression, we had been insane for the many centuries we have supported it; yet that still, if the King had not forfeited his title to the Crown, nor the Lords their privileges, the universal voice of the people of England could not build up a new government upon a legitimate basis.

Passing by, for the present, the absurdity of such a proposition, and supposing it could, beyond all controversy, be maintained; for Heaven's sake, let wisdom never utter it!Let policy and prudence for ever conceal it! If you seek the stability of the English government, rather put the book of Mr. Paine, which calls it bad, into every hand in the kingdom, than doctrines which bid human nature rebel even against that which is the best.-Say to the people of England, Look at your constitution, there it lies before you the work of your pious fathers,-handed down as a sacred deposit from generation to generation, the result of wisdom and virtue, and its parts cemented together with kindred blood: there are, indeed, a few spots upon its surface; but the same principle which reared the structure will brush them all away:-You may preserve your government-you may destroy it.--To such an address, what would be the answer? A chorus of the nation-YES, WE WILL PRESERVE IT. But say to the same nation-even of the very same constitution, It is yours, such as it is, for better or for worse; it is strapped upon your backs, to carry it as beasts of burden,-you have no jurisdiction to cast it off. Let this be your position, and you instantly raise up (I appeal to every man's consciousness of his own nature) a spirit of uneasiness and discontent. It is this spirit alone, that has pointed most of the passages arraigned before you.

Gentlemen, I have insisted, at great length, upon the origin of governments, and detailed the authorities which you have heard upon the subject, because I consider it to be not only an essential support, but the very foundation of the liberty of the press.--If Mr. Burke be right in His principles