APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 



273 



and also digressed to such free 

 strictures on the books of Scrip- 

 ture and their authors, that he was 

 several times interrupted by Lord 

 Ellenborough. At length his lord- 

 ship said, that upon mature deli- 

 beration he thought the public 

 would be better served by letting 

 him read every line he had written. 

 When the defendant had finished 

 his paper, he personally addressed 

 the jury, stating that the work had 

 been six or seven years in circula- 

 tion in America without being 

 prosecuted, and mentioning the 

 hardships he himself had un- 

 dergone from six former prosecu- 

 tions. 



Lord Ellenborough made a short 

 address to the jury, in which he 

 said that the defence from the 

 beginning to the end had been a 

 tissue of opprobrious reviling of the 

 books of the Old and New Testa- 

 ment. He confirmed the law laid 

 down by the Attorney-General, and 

 said that though it was competent 

 for America or any other inde- 

 pendent state, to administer their 

 laws as they pleased, yet in this 

 country the Christian religion was 

 strongly fenced about by the laws 

 of the land. He should leave it 

 to the jury, as Christian men sworn 

 upon the Gospel of Clirist, to say 

 whether the present was not an 

 atrocious libel on the Christian 

 religion. 



The jury immediately found the 

 defendant guilty ; and on the mo- 

 tion of the Attorney-General, he 

 was committed. 



On April 30th the Attorney- 

 General prayed the judgment of 

 the court against Daniel Isaac 

 Eaton, who was brought up in 

 custody. The defendant put in the 



Vol. LIV. 



affidavits of five respectable persons, 

 stating that they had been acquaint- 

 ed with him several years, during 

 which he had conducted himself as 

 a peaceable moral man, who never 

 in conversation attempted to en- 

 force his own particular opinions 

 either in politics or religion. He 

 also put in an affidavit by himself, 

 stating that he published the libel 

 without any evil intention, or de- 

 sign to disturb the peace, or affect 

 the dishonour of God, as charged ; 

 and mentioning that the pamphlet 

 in question contained many pas- 

 sages in which the perfections of 

 the Deity were deduced, and praise 

 was given to the morality of the 

 Gospel — together with other alle- 

 gations tending to excite the n::iercy 

 of the court. 



Mr. Prince Smith thenaddressed 

 the court at considerable length in 

 mitigation of punishment. He 

 said he did not deny the existence 

 or propriety of the law upon which 

 the information was filed, but all 

 human laws were founded upon 

 circumstances, and changed with 

 the lapse of time, and the charac- 

 ter and manners of a people. He 

 then proceeded to show how the 

 rigour of ancient intolerance had 

 been gradually softened, and that 

 in the last century great latitude 

 had been allowed to the discussion 

 of religious doctrines. He con- 

 tended for the right of this free 

 discussion, and adverted to the ad- 

 vantage which had accrued to the 

 Christian religion by the attacks 

 upon it, as having given rise to so 

 many excellent defences. He said 

 it would have been better to have 

 answered the pamphlet in question, 

 than to have prosecuted it, since 

 the latter proceeding might be 



T thought 



