The Trial of Henry Hetherington Part 4

I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.

Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth numbers of Haslam's Letters. He pleaded _Not Guilty_, but was convicted (after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers), by as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge sentenced him to four months' imprisonment, and a fine of 20. Such was the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine, after five weeks' imprisonment.

The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice of these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty, that Mr. Heywood's prosecution should proceed no further. Mr. Heywood complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own recognizances, to appear when called upon.

Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.

Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same numbers of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had been prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.

Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly p.r.o.nounce a verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated the established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different sentiments against the Government that could inst.i.tute and carry forward prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage "reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of society. The time has pa.s.sed, however, for a renewal of persecution for matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and I tell Her Majesty's Government, that when they interfere with the religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order, for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be pa.s.sed upon me I know not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject of general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion from me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they ever knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act honestly?

I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy of this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly controvert the received opinions of society.

Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply; a privilege which I think he was not ent.i.tled to, as I called no witnesses. Had I antic.i.p.ated he would have claimed the privilege of reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts and arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me up to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his a.s.sertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and a.s.sa.s.sination of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused party, I was in justice, if not in law, ent.i.tled to every opportunity of making the truth apparent to the Jury.

As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there any evidence of BLASPHEMY?

The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There was no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There was no evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and special--was your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought forward for your enlightened consideration--was your verdict in accordance with the terms of your oath? The verdict to which I was ent.i.tled from honest and reasoning men was the following:--either a direct "Not Guilty of blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain book concerning the nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of opinion not being, in fact susceptible of evidence.

H. HETHERINGTON.

I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks to the editor of _The Sun_ for the zeal and ability with which, in a succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry and the Free Publication of Opinions. The _Morning Chronicle_ published an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on the subject. The _Morning Advertiser_ and the _Weekly Chronicle_ also published a fair report of the Trial. The _Weekly Dispatch_ and The _Statesman_ are both ent.i.tled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The three Letters of Publicola, in The _Weekly Dispatch_, are invaluable; and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my own object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a distinct publication. I can only fill up the s.p.a.ce I have left by the insertion of the following excellent article from _The Sun_ of Friday, December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola's Letter to Lord Chief Justice Denman.--H. H.

Extract from The Sun Newspaper

We brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of objections to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust, and absurd, and that the law is partially administered. If we return to the subject, it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable importance. Our whole internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view to support the Church.

The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be founded, on the Bible; but we are now told by the decision of the Jury on Tuesday, that it is a crime to object to its statements. The happiness of society, then, is to be chained and bound by principles and doctrines, which society must not examine; for if men must not object, what is the use of examination?

"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing and coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches are building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy threaten us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which our rulers have followed, while society has been brought into its present condition.

"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed, not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former as displeasing to G.o.d; it then denounced the latter for the same offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for displeasing G.o.d, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the law for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former, at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.

"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His labours were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he will sustain a terrible defeat.

"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions, will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made an admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell inst.i.tuted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed friend of free discussion. The slaves to l.u.s.t have some pleasure for their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.

"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of the indictment, for being 'a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed person, having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament.' Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law, we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge. We care not about its being the customary language of the law, for truth and men's liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such absurdities.

"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.

Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he used arguments to sustain, to be greatly 'to the displeasure of Almighty G.o.d.' Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty G.o.d is displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.' Who is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be punished for having displeased Almighty G.o.d? What name does the Court deserve which, being inst.i.tuted to do justice and protect the people, punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious, more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.

Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was the crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the crime for which the Court will hereafter pa.s.s sentence, undertaking, like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions as displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no displeasure.

"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving _The Sun_ to defend the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it to defend the same sacred and n.o.ble cause when it was a.s.sailed in the person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we should a.s.sail any Tory Attorney-General who had inst.i.tuted such a prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pa.s.s unstigmatized because it has been inst.i.tuted by a Whig Attorney-General.

We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate such proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in many independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of honest indignation."

"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY

Mr Lord Chief Justice.

"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, 'The Queen v.

Hetherington,' for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lords.h.i.+p's opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this 'in obedience to the law,' your Lords.h.i.+p might have reflected, that it was not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--'Common-law,' as it is called; and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) 'what religion he was of?' your Lords.h.i.+p expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lords.h.i.+p's sanction, the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial your Lords.h.i.+p's conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced, corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour; but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your reprobation of all such trials.

"If it be true that hope is the last pa.s.sion that leaves a man, equally true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious persecution, is the last pa.s.sion that man deserts, or is willing to abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation or beat.i.tude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the spirit of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you please, bigotry or superst.i.tion--admits of no cure, and of little mitigation. If this h.e.l.lhound were now let loose from the restraints of law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of prisoners, and in another, the fires and f.a.ggots of the olden times would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.

"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two cla.s.ses of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in your Lords.h.i.+p's power to annihilate it by pa.s.sings nominal sentence on the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable; those of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not in existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist, a religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents, who, if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.

"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified. Will a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that of any cla.s.s or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop or check the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are nugatory; the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and experience prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it may, increases that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be called Pope or Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen's Bench, the principle and the result are the same.

"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one G.o.d a protection from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the wors.h.i.+ppers of many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their former persecutors, and this by a.s.suming their own claim to the right of punis.h.i.+ng men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your Lords.h.i.+p is now called upon to punish, against your will, another innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must be--'a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.' Every religion, at its commencement, is but a confluent ma.s.s of blasphemies to the previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse of annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its persecution by the Catholics, and _vice versa_? From the dawn of Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured, burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently, punishment cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and put to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we subst.i.tute for the word soul, the phrase--'_the security of society_,'

or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of Queen's Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.

The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of 'Benefit of Clergy,'

is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more or less than a process for the 'Benefit of Clergy.' Thus, my Lord, have I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual will be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as to call the defendant up for punishment your Lords.h.i.+p will be in the unenviable position of pa.s.sing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty's Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the largest and most enlightened const.i.tuencies of Great Britain--the town of Nottingham--and your const.i.tuents expressed no dissatisfaction at your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large, and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord, shown, to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle on which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the offence--if it be one.

"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture him by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our princ.i.p.al cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our most pious Christian ancestors in 'the good old times'--or let your Lords.h.i.+p pa.s.s the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be the result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue upon the Scriptures _in toto_ or in parts, _en ma.s.se_ or in detail, could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.

Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or was not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days' or six months'

incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A a.s.serts that the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible ought to be burnt. B a.s.serts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be burnt. C a.s.serts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from three, six, twelve, and eighteen months' imprisonment. Here the public mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to the extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--'As burning the Bible is to the acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F, or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting opinions on Scriptures to 'Trial by Jury.' If opinions on a book are to be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of 'Guilty' or 'Not Guilty' amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that the Scriptures are the word of G.o.d; a word is an empty, unintelligible, worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word, and usurp the powers of the Deity. G.o.d may say 'this is my word and commandment,' and a Jury replies, 'the substance utility, intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not yours, but ours.' A Defendant may argue, 'my construction is a matter between my conscience and my G.o.d.' The verdict replies, 'G.o.d has nothing to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, p.a.w.nbrokers, gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still worse description.' My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will induce your Lords.h.i.+p to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.

"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details of business in the b.u.t.ter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade, would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.

Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.

"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details of business in the b.u.t.ter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade, would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.

Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen and jobbing peculating Jurymen called 'Tales.' as totally ignorant of Mr! Haslam's studies and works, as he most probably is of their different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case? Is this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or of the intelligence of our population?

"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic Judges, Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists, and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and yet, when in 'Term time,' a new Trial is moved for, on account of a misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying attached to the Judge's creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in moving the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or opinions were never put upon the briefs.

"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third, had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters; or Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the most ill.u.s.trious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good, and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher, in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing Gibbon's magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious or an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order from the Secretary of State's office. This species of scrutiny expired years ago, and why should it be revived?

"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by pa.s.sing an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.

"PUBLICOLA."