/ 
LIBERTY o 
ot fuppofed law, on which he had to proceed, we know 
not what elfe it was pofiible for him to declare ; unlefs 
he had declared, that, though fuch was the law, it was a 
law which juries and judges had very often taken the li¬ 
berty of difregarding ; that, as often as they had done fo, 
they had done their country good fervice; and that, in 
general, by executing it, they had done nothing but mif- 
chief. 
Can any contradiction, then, be greater than that which 
exifts between this law and the fentiments and practice 
of the nation ? Is there any man, however inclined to 
fcrew up the fprings.of authority, who reckons ir crimi¬ 
nal to lay before the public, expreffions reflecting upon 
the qualifications or practices of public men ? Hear Mr. 
Windham himfelf, fpeaking direCtly to this very point : 
“ With refpeCt to the abufe of patronage, one of thofe by 
which the interefts of countries will in reality molt fuffer, 
I perfectly agree, that it is likewife one, of which the go¬ 
vernment, properly fo called, that is to fay, perfons in 
the highell offices, are as likely to be guilty, and front 
their opportunities more likely to be guilty, than any 
others. Nothing can exceed the greedinefs, the felffinefs, 
the infatiable voracity, the profligate difregard of all claims 
from merit or l’ervices, that we often fee in perfons in 
high official ftations, when providing for themfelves, their 
relations or dependants. I am as little difpofed as any 
one to defend them in this conduCt. Let it be repro¬ 
bated in terms as harfh as any one pleafes, and much more 
than it commonly is.” Does Mr. Windham here teach 
the legal doCtrine of not touching the feelings of public 
men ? Does he not, in oppofition to it, fay, that they 
cannot be touched too harfhly, when by the abufe of pa¬ 
tronage they have aCted wrong ? Did Mr. Burke think it 
criminal to publifli any thing having a tendency to bring 
the government into difefteem, when he thus wrote ? 
“ No man, I believe, will confider it merely as the lan¬ 
guage of lpleen or difappointment, if I fay, that there is 
lomething particularly alarming in the prefent conjunc¬ 
ture. There is hardly a man in or out of power who 
holds any other language. That government is at once 
dreaded and contemned ; that the laws are defpoiled of all 
their relpeCted and falutary terrors; that their inaSion is a 
fubjeEl of ridicule, and their exertion of abhorrence-, that 
rank, and office, and title, and all the folemn plaufibili- 
ties of the world, have loft their reverence and effeCt; that 
our foreign politics are as much deranged as ourdomeftic 
economy ; that our dependencies are flackened in their 
affeftion, and loofened from their obedience ; that we 
know neither how to yield nor how to enforce ; that 
hardly any thing above or below, abroad or at home, is 
found and entire ; but that difconnexion and confufion, 
in offices, in parties, in families, in parliament, in the 
nation, prevail beyond the diforders of any former time ! 
Thefe are faffs univerfally admitted and lamented.” Did 
he regard the feelings or reputation of minifters in a body, 
when he printed thefe words ? “ The minifters, inltead 
of attending to a duty that was fo urgent on them, em¬ 
ployed themfelves, as usual, in endeavours to dejlroy the repu¬ 
tation of thofe who were bold enough to remind them of it." Did 
he think it wrong to defame the government, when he 
declared, as in the following words, that the lioufe of 
commons had become fo corrupt, that he felt degraded 
by being placed in it? “ But, when I found,” fays he, 
“ that the houfe, furrendering itfelf to the guidance, not 
of an authority grown out of experience, wifdorn, and 
integrity, but of the accidents of court favour, had be¬ 
come the fport of the paffions of men, at once rath and 
pufillanimous ; that it had even got into the habit of re¬ 
futing every thing to reafon, and furrendering every 
thing tq force ; all my power of obliging either my coun¬ 
try or individuals was gone ■, all the luftre of my imagi¬ 
nary rank was tarniffied, and I felt degraded even by my 
elevation.” Did he think it wrong to pour forth the moft 
unmeafured accufations againlt the higheft men, when he 
printed and publitb.ed the following expreffions relating 
Vol. XII. No. 856. 
F THE PRESS. 605 
to Mr. Pitt and lord Melville ? ee With a knowledge of 
this difpofition, a Britith chancellor of the exchequer, 
and treafurer of the navy, impelled by no public necef- 
lity, in a llrain of the mojl wanton perfidy which has ever 
ttained the annals of mankind, have delivered over to 
plunder, imprifonment, exile, and death itfelf, according 
to the mercy of fuch execrable tyrants as Amir al Omra. 
and Paul Benfield, the unhappy and deluded fouls, who, 
untaught by uniform example, were ftill weak enough to 
put their truft in Engliffi faith.” Or, when, in the fame 
fpeech, he declared, by one of the moft cutting expref¬ 
fions which the language afforded, that Mr. Pitt, by a 
fpeciflc attraction, gravitated to every intriguing and ra¬ 
pacious character ? Or, when he acculed the lame cele¬ 
brated minifter of facrificing all the natural interefts of 
this kingdom to an intriguing connexion with Mr. Ben¬ 
field ? “A Angle Benfield,” he fays, “outweighs them 
ail ; a criminal, who long fince ought to have fattened 
the region kites with his offal, is, by his majelty’s minif¬ 
ters, enthroned in the government of a great kingdom, 
and enfeoffed with an eftate, which in the companion el- 
faces the Iplendotir of all the nobility of Europe.” And 
laftly, only a few weeks ago, (March 5.) in a debate, in 
the houfe of commons, upon the ufage the princefs of 
Wales had experienced almoft ever iince her arrival in. 
this country, Mr. Wortley expreffed himfelf “ very lorry 
that we had a family on the throne who do not take warn¬ 
ing from what is faid and thought concerning them. 
They teemed to be the only perfons in the country who were 
wholly regardlefs of their own refpebiability. He would not 
have the regent lay the flattering unCtion to his foul, and 
think his conduCt will bear him harmlefs through all theie 
tranfactions.” 
It feems to have been generally underftood, that no¬ 
thing fpoken by a barrifter in defence of his client, or by 
a member of parliament in his place, could be made the 
fubjeCt of a criminal profecution ; and that the liberty of 
the prefs extended to the publfhing of all fuch fpeeches. 
However, at the laft Lancafter affifes, (March 1813.) a 
cafe occurred which we cannot help noticing in this place. 
It was an indiftment for a libel, preferred by Mr. Kirk¬ 
patrick, a collector of taxes for Lancafter. The libel, it 
appears, was contained in the Liverpool Mercury, in the 
ffiape of a fpeech, faid to have been made by Mr. Creevey 
in the houfe of commons. It ftated the fudden conver- 
fion of an attorney in the town to the character of an in- 
fpeCtor of taxes; that he was not the moft eminent of his 
profeffion; that he had l'uggefted to the chancellor of the 
exchequer a new department, equally beneficial to the 
ltate and to himfelf: this new profeffion was, that he 
ffiould turn informer againlt his neighbours, and, by 
fcrewing up their affeffments, he ffiould obtain an an¬ 
nuity as a recompence; See. See. After Mr. Parke had 
fpoken of the propriety of protecting the collectors of 
the revenue againlt attacks which held them up to ridi¬ 
cule and odium, the editor of the Mercury proved his 
having received the fpeech from Mr. Creevey himfelf, 
with a requeit to inlert it in his paper. Mr. Brougham, 
for the defendant, contended, that any perfon had a right 
to publifli correCt accounts of proceedings in parliament 
that a member of the houfe of commons had a ftill more 
clear right to give the county which he reprefented an ac¬ 
count of what he faid and did in the difeharge of his de¬ 
legated duty 5 and that in the prefent cale the object was 
proved in evidence to have been a correction of former 
mifreprefentations of defendant’s fpeech. Mr. B. obferved, 
that, if fuch proceedings as thefe fucceeded, there would 
be an end of all publication of parliamentary debates ; 
that then parliament would only be known by the taxes 
they inflicted ■, and, that the fyltem of doled doors and 
increaling taxes could not long be proceeded in. Was it 
to be endured that any portion of the public prints, un¬ 
der the influence and in the aftual pay, fuppole of the 
government, was wilfully to mifreprefent the fpeech of 
any member, of parliament, the lubitance of which was 
7 P likely 
