604 LIBERTY or 
■fecurities for Impartiality of choice, that all caufes for 
libel are tried. 
But the power of punching for libel, affumed and ex- 
ercifed by the court of King’s Bench, is neither founded 
•upon, nor guided by, any provifion of the legiflature 
whatfoever. The affent of parliament to it is merely ne¬ 
gative. We affert, that there is not within the ftatute- 
book a Angle form of words, by which it is attempted to 
declare what libelling is, by which any form or degree of 
punifhment is appointed for it, or by which it is fo much 
as forbidden. There is no written ftandard, according to 
which the decifions of the courts are pronounced. The 
power refts on the foie foundation of the practice of the 
court of Star-chamber, in which profecutions for libel firft 
commenced ; and the judges of the court of King’s 
Bench have all along had no other rule whatfoever for 
their conduct, but the decifions pronounced by that ar¬ 
bitrary court, and the decifions of preceding judges who 
followed its example. Yet the punifhments awarded in 
the cafe of libel, fine, and imprifonment for any number 
of years, not to mention the pillory, cannot be regarded 
as light ones. They may happen, and every now and 
then mull happen, to be equal to the greateft ; to involve 
the utter ruin and death of the individual ; death, not in- 
ilantaneous, and therefore eafy; but death by the flow' 
poifon and protrafted torture of a dungeon. Seldom, in¬ 
deed, can it happen, that the injury to a man’s health, 
the detriment to his affairs, the pains of confinement, do 
not amount to fubftantial confifcation and torture. To 
many men, the pains of confinement alone, for any con¬ 
siderable time, are hardly lefs terrible and ffiocking than 
execution itfelf. Lefs capital in appearance than that 
for high treafon, the punifhment for libel is on every 
occafion liable to become more than capital in reality 
and, under the fevere fentences which have been pro- 
aiounced in our own remembrance, muff very often in¬ 
deed, in point of aftual fuffering, approach to it. 
It is unfortunate that the Britifh legiflature has adopted 
a very different conduct with regard to treafon, and with 
xegard to libel. The one it has defined. It has declared, 
in exprefs and folemn words, what fhall be punifhed as 
treafon, and what fhall not. The other it has not de¬ 
fined. It has left, as yet, altogether undeferibed by 
words, what fhall be punifhed as libel, what fhall not. 
The judge, without a ffiadow of a law given him by the 
legiflature, looking only to the practice of the ftar-cham- 
ber, and of his predeceffors who followed the example of 
She ftar-chamber, makes up a rule, according to his own 
■view's, for each particular occafion. 
The law' of libel in this country prefents, indeed, a 
phenomenon, to which we know not that a parallel is to 
be found in the hiftory of mankind. Although founded 
«ntirely upon recent and practical authority, and claim¬ 
ing no reverence for antiquity or legiflative fanftion, it 
is a law at utter variance with the fentiments of every 
clafs and denomination of men, both public and private, 
in the kingdom. Even attorneys-general themfelves, in 
the very aft of arraigning fome unfortunate man fora li¬ 
bel, never fail to declare themfelves friends to the liberty 
jof the prefs. Not a man, probably, could be found in 
the nation capable of underftanding the meaning of the 
terms, who would not declare the freedom of the prefs to 
be one of the firft of political bleffmgs ; to be that fort of 
fecurity for our liberties, without which all other fecuri- 
ties would prove vain and ineffectual. In the celebrated 
trial of John Stockdale in 1789, for a libel on the houfe 
of commons, the attorney-general endeavours to perfuade 
the jury to bring in a verdift of guilty, “ leff a prejudice, 
on account of its licentioufnefs, fhould be railed againft 
the prefs; and leff fomething,” faid he, “ lhould be done, 
in that paroxyfm of difguft, which might be the gradual 
means of Tapping the foundation of that bejl of cur Liber¬ 
ties, a free prefs.” In the trial of Mr. Perry, in 1793, 
the attorney-general, (now lord Eldon,) after a panegyric 
upon the conllitution, as “ a model nearly approaching to 
perfeftion, a conftitution under which a greater degree 
TTIE PRES S: 
of happinefs has been enjoyed than by the fubjefts of 
any other government whatever,” adds, “ thefe bleffings 
have, in a great meafure, fprung froin the properly-regu¬ 
lated freedom of the prefs ; and on maintaining that free¬ 
dom, on its proper principles, chiefly depends our fecu¬ 
rity for the enjoyment of thofe bleffmgs.” “ I never will,” 
he fays, “ difpute the right of any man fully to difeufs 
topics refpefting government, and honeftly to point out 
what he may coniider as a proper remedy of grievances.” 
The judge himfelf, (lord Kenyon,) in the opening of his 
charge to the jury on the fame trial, faid, “ The liberty of 
the prefs has always been, and has juftly been, a favourite 
topic with Englilhmen. Gentlemen,” he continued, “ it 
is placed as the fentinel to alarm us, when any attempt is 
made on our liberties.” Even fir Vicary Gibbs himfelf 
declared, and we doubt not with perfeft fincerity, on the 
trial of Mr. Perry, February 24-th, 1810, “ a free, full, 
and open, difeuffion of every meafure connected with the 
public affairs of the country, and into the conduit and 
meafures of government, he was far from refuting to the 
conduftors of the public prints. An attempt to control 
the free exercife of this right, he fliould admit, would be 
improper and unjuft. On that liberty, fome of our belt 
privileges depended. It had been inflrumental, in former 
days, in eftablifhing and fecuring our free conftitution ; 
and it might, when properly direfted, be the means of 
preferving to us the fame invaluable bleffmgs in time to 
come.” 
Honourable, however, as thefe declarations are to the 
eminent perfons who pronounced them, we cannot hefi- 
tate in faying, that they are all of them at variance with 
the law. That liberty of the prefs, fo uniformly extolled, 
the law entirely difallows. There is not a conceivable 
expreffion, palling cenfure upon any inftitution, any mea¬ 
fure, or any member, of government, which the all-com¬ 
prehending law of libel places not within the verge of pu¬ 
nifhment; of punifhment fliort of life, and liable to any 
degree of feverity the judges pleafe. The author of the Di- 
geft of Libel Law, quoting for his authorities Bacon’s 
Abridgement and Hawkins’s Pleas of the Crown, ftates 
it as the law, “ that words, if publifhed in writing, and 
tending in any degree to the di/credit of a man, are libel¬ 
lous, whether fuch words defame private perfons only, or 
perfons employed in a public capacity ; in which latter 
cafe, they are faid to receive an aggravation, as they tend 
to fcandalize the government, by reflefting on thofe who 
areentrufted with the adminiftration of public affairs.” 
But if every thing that rfletts on thofe entrufted with the 
adminiftration of public affairs, if every thing tending to 
the diferedit of any one of them be an aggravated libel, 
it is abfurd and ridiculous to fpeak of the liberty of the 
prefs. Under the preffure, however, of this law, lord El- 
lenborough found himfelf conftrained, in the cafe of Cob- 
bett to which we have already alluded, not only to declare, 
that every thing which tends to bring the government 
into difefteem is libellous, but to fay, that, “ by the lavr 
of England, there is no impunity to any perfon publifh- 
ing any thing that is injurious to the feelings and happi¬ 
nefs of an individualand, in perfeft conformity with 
this principle, to. enumerate among the different libellous 
paffages which the writing in queftion contained, that 
which queftioned the fitnefs of lord Hardvvicke for the 
fituaticn of lord-lieutenant of Ireland “ He admits (fays 
his lordffiip) this noble perfon to be celebrated for under¬ 
ftanding the modern method of fatting a flieep as well as 
any man in Cambridgefliire. Now, gentlemen, what does 
this mean ? Does it not clearly mean to infer, that lord 
Hardwicke is ill-placed in his high fituation, and that he 
is only fit for the common walks of life ?” There can be 
no doubt, that to pronounce a man in a high fituation 
unfit for his office, would be difagreeable to his feelings j 
but, if the prefs nuift not fo much asrinfinuate that any 
public funftionary is only fit for the private walks of life, 
it is but an idle mockery to tell us we have a free prefs. 
We are far, however, from blaming lord Ellenborough 
for thefe declarations j for, upon the only ground of law, 
or 
