but too little of its benefits. They, too, who pronounce its panegyrics, are those who alone prevent the entire public from acceding to them;-the eulogium comes from a suspected quarter, when it is pronounced by persons enjoying every honour from the Crown, and treating the people upon all occasions with suspicion and contempt. The three estates of the kingdom are co-ordinate, all alike representing the dignity, and jointly executing the authority of the nation; yet all our loyalty seems to be wasted upon one of them. How happens it else, that we are so exquisitely sensible, so tremblingly alive to every attack upon the CROWN, OR THE NOBLES that surround it, yet so completely careless of what regards THE ONCE RESPECTED AND AWFUL COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN ? If Mr. Frost had gone into every coffee-house, from Charing-cross to the Exchange, lamenting the dangers of popular government, reprobating the peevishness of opposition in Parliament, and wishing in the most advised terms, that we could look up to the Throne and its excel lent Ministers alone, for quiet and comfortable government, do you think that we should have had an indictment?I ask pardon for the supposition; I can discover that you are laughing at me for its absurdity. Indeed, I might ask you whether it is not the notorious language of the highest men, in and out of Parliament, to justify the alienation of the popular part of the Government from the spirit and principle of its trust and office, and to prognosticate the very ruin and downfall of England, from a free and uncorrupted representation of the great body of the people? I solemnly declare to you, that I think the whole of this system leads inevitably to the dangers we seek to avert ;-it divides the higher and the lower classes of the nation into adverse parties, instead of uniting and compounding them into one harmonious whole ;-it embitters the people against authority, which, when they are made to feel and know is but their own security, they must, from the very nature of man, unite to support and cherish. I do not believe that there is any set of men to be named in England, I might say, that I de not know an individual, who seriously wishes to touch the Crown, or any branch of our excellent constitution; and when we hear peevish and disrespectful expressions concerning any of its functions, depend upon it, it proceeds from some practical variance between its theory and its practice. These variances are the fatal springs of disorder and disgust ;-they lost America, and in that unfortu nate separation laid the foundation of all that we have to fear; yet, instead of treading back our steps, we seek recovery in the system which brought us into peril. Let government in England always take care to make its administration correspond with the true spirit of our genuine constitution, and nothing will ever endanger it. Let it seek to maintain its corruptions by severity and coercion,—and neither laws nor arms will support it;-These are my sentiments and I advise you, however unpopular they may be at this moment, to consider them, before you repel them. If the Defendant, amongst others, has judged too lightly of the advantages of our government, reform his errors by a beneficial experience of them; above all, let him feel its excellence to-day in its beneficence ;-let him compare in his trial the condition of an English subject with that of a citizen of France, which he is supposed in theory to prefer. These are the true criterions by which, in the long run, individuals and nations become affectionate to governments, or revolt against them ;-for men are neither to be talked nor written into the belief of happiness and security, when they do not practically feel them, nor talked or written out of them, when they are in the full enjoyment of their blessings; but if you condemn the Defendant upon this sort of evidence, depend upon it, he must have his adherents, and, as far as that goes, I must be one of them. Gentlemen, I will detain you no longer, being satisfied to leave you, as conscientious men, to judge the Defendant as you yourselves would be judged; and if there be any amongst you, who can say to the rest, that he has no weak or inconsiderate moments,—that all his words and actions, even in the most thoughtless passages of his life, are fit for the inspection of God and man, he will be the fittest person to take the lead in a judgment of Guilty, and the properest Foreman to deliver it with good faith and firmness to the Court. I know the privilege that belongs to the Attorney General to reply to all that has been said; but perhaps, as I have called no witnesses, he may think it a privilege to be waived. It is, however, pleasant to recollect, that if it should be exercised, even with his superior talents, his honour and candour will guard it from abuse. REPLY. MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, THE experience of some years has taught me, that in the useful administration of justice, as it is administered by the Juries in this country, little more is necessary than to lay before them correctly the facts upon which they are to form their judgment, with such observations as naturally arise out of those facts. Gentlemen, feeling that very strongly at present, I am certainly bound in some measure to account to you, why I feel it my duty in this stage of this proceeding to avail myself of that liberty which my learned friend has stated to belong to me in addressing you again. Gentlemen, my learned friend has thought proper to state this prosecution as the prosecution of informers,-of men whom he cannot call mercenary informers, but certainly whom he has been anxious to represent as officious informers, as a prosecution which it was my duty, independently of any consirations that I might feel myself upon the subject, to bring before you, that it was what I could not approve of, but what I was bound to persevere in till I received your verdict. Gentlemen, with respect to bringing the cause before the Court, my learned friend has not confined his observations to that point. He has stated also, and every thing that falls from him, and more especially in a case that concerns the Crown and an individual, deserves, and must have an answer from me,-He has given you a comment upon words, upon which I likewise offered you some humble observations ;I mean the words, "otherwise well-disposed." I remarked, that where words in their natural meaning did import a seditious mind, it would be competent to a Defendant to show upon a general principle, that, whatever might be the words uttered, the circumstances attending the expression of them might be stated to the Jury, in order to give a different sense to them from their primary import. Gentlemen, I hold it to be my duty, standing here responsible to the public for the acts that I do-deeply impressed with a consciousness that I am so responsible, to state to you, that I must be extremely guilty of a breach of my duty, if I should now call upon you for a verdict, or if I should now take your opinion; because there is not a single tittle of evidence before you which was not before me when the Indictment was laid. I protest against that doctrine, that the Attorney General of England is bound to prosecute because some other set of men choose to recommend it to him to prosecute, he disapproving of that prosecution. I know he has it in his power to choose whether he will or not, and he will act according to his sense of duty. Do not understand me to be using a language so impertinent, as to say, that the opinions of sober-minded persons in any station in life, as to the necessity that calls for a prosecution, ought not deeply to affect his judgment. But I say, it is his duty to regulate his judgment by a conscientious pursuance of that which is recommended to him to do. And if any thing is recommended to him, which is thought by other persons to be for the good of the country, but which he thinks is not for the good of the country, no man ought to be in the office who would hesitate to say, My conscience must direct me, your judgment shall not direct me. And I know I can do this-I can retire into a situation in which I shall enjoy, what, under the blessings of that constitution thus reviled, is perhaps the best proof of its being a valuable constitution,-I mean the fair fruits of an humble industry, anxiously and conscientiously exercised in the fair and honourable pursuits of life. I state, therefore, to my learned friend, that I cannot accept that compliment which he paid me, when he supposed it was not my act to bring this prosecution before you; because it was not what I myself could approve. Certainly, this prosecution was not instituted by me- but it was instituted by a person, whose conduct in the human exercise of his duty is well known; and I speak in the presence of many who have been long and often witnesses to it: and when it devolved upon me to examine the merits of this prosecution, it was my bounden duty to examine, and it was my bounden duty to see if this was a breach of the sweet confidences of private life. If this is a story brought from behind this gentleman's chair by his servants, I can hardly figure to myself the case in which the public necessity and expediency of a prosecution should be so strong as to break in upon the rela tions of private life. But, good God! is this prosecution to be so represented when a man goes into a coffee-house, who is from his profession certainly not ignorant of the respect which the laws of his country require from him, as much as from any other man; and when he, in that public coffee-house (provided it was an advised speaking,) uses a language, which I admit it is clear upon the evidence given you to-day, provoked the indignation (if you please so to call it) of all who heard it-when persons, one, two, three, or more, come to ask him what he meant by it, when he gives them the explanation, and when he makes the offensive words still more offensive by the explanation that he repeatedly gives-will any man tell me, that if he goes into a public coffee-house, whether he comes into it from up stairs, or whether he goes into it from the street, that he is entitled to the protection that belongs to the confidences of private life, or that it is a breach of the duties that result out of the confidences of private life? Gentlemen, I call upon you seriously to consider the case, to act with candour, to act with indulgence to him, if you please, but at the same time to act with firmness as between him and the country. My learned friend has tried me in some measure to-day; now I avow it again-when respectable persons will state to me that such circumstances did pass, I will not take upon myself to say, that it is consistent with my duty to the king, or that it is consistent with my duty to the country, for whose benefit it is that he is King, that I should hear that such things have passed unnoticed. And when it is stated by such men as these are,-unimpeached,―feeling something, though their political theories are not the same as those of this Defendant, surely they may be allowed to feel and to express at least with zeal their indignation, if not to assert with industry their right to what they enjoyed through the blessing of Providence, and the constitution under which they lived. It was a case which excited the honest zeal and the fair and reasonable indignation of a great number of gentlemen ;-all respectable men, and competent to sit in that jury-box, as between this or any other individual and the justice of the country. But, Gentlemen, according to my learned friend, I was to do one of these things I was to say to Mr. Frost, which I certainly should have been glad to have said to him, or any man who stands in the situation of a Defendant, if I could do it with propriety, What is this story, Mr. Frost? Can I ask a Defendant, whom I am to prosecute upon the prima facie evidence laid before, me what he is to say for himself in that : |