276 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1812. 



was certainly not sufficient for men 

 of good appetites, and that their 

 meat was often bad, but this af- 

 forded no source of profit to the 

 Transport Board," &c. &c. 



The affidavit further stated, 

 " that the defendant had several 

 times inserted an advertisement in 

 his paper offering a reward of 50/. 

 forthediscoveryof theauthor of the 

 letter in question, which he cha- 

 racterized as false and scandalous, 

 and announced the exhibition of its 

 liand-writing at the office of his 

 paper; that on the 29th of May, 

 he inserted a regular apology to 

 the honourable the commissioners, 

 and offered to make any other sub- 

 mission which they might require ; 

 and that he inclosed them extracts 

 from former numbers of his paper, 

 written during the negociation for 

 exchange of prisoners, highly ap- 

 proving the conduct of the board, 

 and directly opposing the opinions 

 of the libel." 



The affidavit set out all these 

 extracts and concluded with ex- 

 pressing the sorrow he had always 

 felt at the publication of the libel 

 which must have been written by 

 some secret enemy to ruin him, 

 and his invariable convictions that 

 the charges against the honourable 

 the commissioners were ground- 

 less ; that his long imprisonment 

 hitherto had caused great confu- 

 sion in his affairs, and had mate- 

 rially injured his health. 



There were also affidavits of Mr. 

 Houston, and James Swan, jun. 

 the printer of the statesman, con- 

 firming the defendant's affidavit : 

 the latter stated, that the defend- 

 ant had frequently requested him, 

 for God's sake, not to insert any 

 libellous matter in the paper ; but 

 Mr. Swan threw the blame of the 

 present libel on the editor, the 



printer seldom or never reading the 

 articles. There was further, the 

 affidavit of Mr. Anderson, apo- 

 thecary, of Fleet-street, stating, 

 that the defendant had since his 

 present imprisonment, been afflict- 

 ed with a spitting of blood, and 

 that his general health would, 

 doubtless become much impaired, 

 should he be further deprived of 

 air and exercise. 



Mr. Brougham addressed the 

 court in mitigation of punishment. 

 He dwelt upon the extreme folly of 

 the libel, which rendered the 

 charge in it utterly incredible ; 

 upon the contrary opinions main- 

 tained in the same paper ; upon 

 the defendant's statement of igno- 

 rance of (he publication, and his 

 willingness to do away all the im- 

 pression it might have made ; and 

 upon the indulgence due to the si- 

 tuation in which he stood as being 

 a prisoner at the time. 



The Solicitor-General, in reply, 

 adverted to the mischievous ten- 

 dency and criminal nature of the 

 libel, and upon the improbability 

 that the defendant should not have 

 known of its insertion from the 

 19th of March to the 14th of April 

 following ; and said, that the sim- 

 ple state of the case was, whether 

 a person intrusting his publicatioa 

 to agents, was or was not respon- 

 sible for all the extent of a libel 

 which had probably been the cause 

 of much mischief. 



Mr. Justice Le Blanc (in the 

 absence of Mr. Justice Grose) pro- 

 nounced the judgment of theCouit. 

 He stated the publication simply 

 as a libel, without any epithets, 

 leaving it open to any person who 

 had heard it read to apply to it ei- 

 ther the epithets, false, scandalous, 

 and malicious, or foolish, nonsen- 

 sical, and ridiculous (comprehend- 

 ed 



