138 The late Proseculioiis againsL the Press. [ACQ- 



science to Machiavel ; so it is not the juries that are in fault in their 

 decisions (occasionally) but the law that renders these decisions, under 

 the direction of the judge, imperative. The juries are but the uncon- 

 scious agents of the infliction— the mere medium of the wrong. A third 

 class impugn the mode of proceeding by which the press is sacrificed to 

 personal or political malice ; as if it were of any consequence whether a 

 man is shot by a pistol or a blunderbuss. All, however, agree that the 

 machinery of the law of libel is defective, anomalous, and insecure ; and 

 that the liberty of the public press cannot be said to be guaranteed to 

 the people until the actual boundaries of its extension are legally marked 

 out. 



The evidence of history abundantly proves that those nations which 

 have exhibited the most enlarged liberality in the encouragement of a 

 free press, have left the fewest examples to posterity of discontent and 

 divisions in their councils, and rebellions or litigation araongst their 

 people. The taciturnity and darkness of the despotic ages favoured the- 

 secret work of insurrection and treason. It was only in the full light of 

 free examination, that the monster physical revolution hid its head. 

 Let not the era of French sentiment, and political hyperbole, be cited as 

 an instance in which the freedom of publication produced the evils of 

 popular anarchy. They never enjoyed a free press in France ; it was 

 the chains of the captive that goaded him into that violence and clamour 

 that has been sometimes mistaken for delirious liberty. When Napo- 

 leon wavered between the adoption of an armed police or a stipendiary 

 priesthood, he terminated his doubts by exclaiming — " Give me the 

 moral police — the priests — they will cost less, and answer my purposes 

 better." The principle was good, but its agency was not the best. The 

 moral power is at all times the safest. Opinion is the true safeguard for 

 integrity ; if a minister be an honest man, he needs not dread the shafts 

 of libel ; they will fall hurtless from him — his life and his works will 

 form tlie best answer to slander. Those whose philosophy is circum- 

 scribed, like the perception of the mole, to the objects immediately 

 surrounding them, and who cannot penetrate to the distant utility and 

 ultimate results of enlightened legislation, see one petty danger in the 

 crowd of great advantages attendant upon the unrestricted expression of 

 opinion. We believe it was Sir Joshua Reynolds who used to relate an 

 anecdote of a connoisseur, who would have admired a fine water-piece 

 of Claude's if it had not been for an unlucky speck that he detected in 

 the corner of the picture ; he damned all the beauties for the sake of a 

 slight blemish which a touch of the brush would have concealed. The 

 danger which rheum-eyed reasoners discover in a free press, is that it 

 may be wielded to the injury of private character, and the agitation of 

 the public mind. We contend, in reply, that this is an evil which 

 corrects itself ; and that it is agitation alone which keeps the public 

 mind pure. Where every man has an equal opportunity of investiga- 

 tion and vindication, the possible injury to individual feelings is reduced 

 to that amomit of -wrong, which in all states, free or enslaved, will be 

 inflicted by malice or the bad passions of men ; but the countervailing 

 influence of that justification, which is rapid and complete in a com- 

 munity of freemen, is the speedy and most secure protection against 

 the assaults of interest or revenge. The temptations to a criminal 

 excess in the exercise of any right, are reduced in proportion as the 

 franchise is confided to the honour of the privileged, who, therefore, incur 

 a higher responsibility in the estimation of society. 



