GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY:

The time is now come for me to address you in behalf of the unfortunate

gentleman who is the defendant on this record.

I must begin with observing, that though I know myself too well to

ascribe to any thing but to the kindness and good nature of my learned

friend, the Attorney-General, the unmerited praises which he has been

pleased to bestow on me, yet, I will venture to say, he has done me

no more than justice in supposing that in this place, and on this

occasion, where I exercise the functions of an inferior minister of

justice, an inferior minister, indeed, but a minister of justice still,

I am incapable of lending myself to the passions of any client, and

that I will not make the proceedings of this court subservient to any

political purpose. Whatever is respected by the laws and government of

my country shall, in this place, be respected by me. In considering

matters that deeply interest the quiet, the safety, and the liberty of

all mankind, it is impossible for me not to feel warmly and strongly;

but I shall make an effort to control my feelings however painful

that effort may be, and where I can not speak out but at the risk of

offending either sincerity or prudence, I shall labor to contain myself

and be silent.

I can not but feel, gentlemen, how much I stand in need of your

favorable attention and indulgence. The charge which I have to defend

is surrounded with the most invidious topics of discussion; but they

are not of my seeking. The case and the topics which are inseparable

from it are brought here by the prosecutor. Here I find them, and here

it is my duty to deal with them, as the interests of Mr. Peltier seem

to me to require. He, by his choice and confidence, has cast on me a

very arduous duty, which I could not decline, and which I can still

less betray. He has a right to expect from me a faithful, a zealous,

and a fearless defence; and this his just expectation, according to

the measure of my humble abilities, shall be fulfilled. I have said a

fearless defence. Perhaps that word was unnecessary in the place where

I now stand. Intrepidity in the discharge of professional duty is so

common a quality at the English bar, that it has, thank God, long

ceased to be a matter of boast or praise. If it had been otherwise,

gentlemen, if the bar could have been silenced or overawed by power, I

may presume to say that an English jury would not this day have been

met to administer justice. Perhaps I need scarce say that my defence

_shall_ be fearless, in a place where fear never entered any heart but

that of a criminal. But you will pardon me for having said so much when

you consider who the real parties before you are.

I. Gentlemen, the real prosecutor is the master of the greatest

empire the civilized world ever saw. The defendant is a defenceless,

proscribed exile. He is a French Royalist, who fled from his country

in the autumn of 1792, at the period of that memorable and awful

emigration, when all the proprietors and magistrates of the greatest

civilized country in Europe were driven from their homes by the

daggers of assassins; when our shores were covered, as with the

wreck of a great tempest, with old men, and women, and children, and

ministers of religion, who fled from the ferocity of their countrymen

as before an army of invading barbarians.

The greatest part of these unfortunate exiles, of those, I mean,

who have been spared by the sword, who have survived the effect of

pestilential climates or broken hearts, have been since permitted to

revisit their country. Though despoiled of their all, they have eagerly

embraced even the sad privilege of being suffered to die in their

native land.

Even this miserable indulgence was to be purchased by compliances, by

declarations of allegiance to the new government, which some of these

suffering Royalists deemed incompatible with their consciences, with

their dearest attachments, and their most sacred duties. Among these

last is Mr. Peltier. I do not presume to blame those who submitted,

and I trust you will not judge harshly of those who refused. You will

not think unfavorably of a man who stands before you as the voluntary

victim of his loyalty and honor. If a revolution (which God avert) were

to drive us into exile, and to cast us on a foreign shore, we should

expect, at least, to be pardoned by generous men, for stubborn loyalty

and unseasonable fidelity to the laws and government of our fathers.

This unfortunate gentleman had devoted a great part of his life to

literature. It was the amusement and ornament of his better days. Since

his own ruin and the desolation of his country, he has been compelled

to employ it as a means of support. For the last ten years he has been

engaged in a variety of publications of considerable importance; but

since the peace he has desisted from serious political discussion,

and confined himself to the obscure journal which is now before you;

the least calculated, surely, of any publication that ever issued

from the press, to rouse the alarms of the most jealous government;

which will not be read in England, because it is not written in our

language; which cannot be read in France, because its entry into that

country is prohibited by a power whose mandates are not very supinely

enforced, nor often evaded with impunity; which can have no other

object than that of amusing the companions of the author’s principles

and misfortunes, by pleasantries and sarcasms on their victorious

enemies. There is, indeed, gentlemen, one remarkable circumstance in

this unfortunate publication; it is the only, or almost the only,

journal which still dares to espouse the cause of that royal and

illustrious family which but fourteen years ago was flattered by every

press and guarded by every tribunal in Europe. Even the court in which

we are met affords an example of the vicissitudes of their fortune.

My learned friend has reminded you that the last prosecution tried in

this place, at the instance of a French Government, was for a libel on

that magnanimous princess, who has since been butchered in sight of her

palace.

I do not make these observations with any purpose of questioning the

general principles which have been laid down by my learned friend. I

must admit his right to bring before you those who libel any government

recognized by his Majesty, and at peace with the British empire. I

admit that, whether such a government be of yesterday, or a thousand

years old; whether it be a crude and bloody usurpation, or the most

ancient, just, and paternal authority upon earth, we are _here_ equally

bound, by his Majesty’s recognition, to protect it against libellous

attacks. I admit that if, during our usurpation, Lord Clarendon had

published his history at Paris, or the Marquess of Montrose his verses

on the murder of his sovereign, or Mr. Cowley his “Discourse on

Cromwell’s Government,” and if the English ambassador had complained,

the President De Molí, or any other of the great magistrates who then

adorned the Parliament of Paris, however reluctantly, painfully,

and indignantly, might have been compelled to have condemned these

illustrious men to the punishment of libellers. I say this only for

the sake of bespeaking a favorable attention from your generosity and

compassion to what will be feebly urged in behalf of my unfortunate

client, who has sacrificed his fortune, his hopes, his connections, his

country, to his conscience; who seems marked out for destruction in

this his last asylum.

That he still enjoys the security of this asylum, that he has not

been sacrificed to the resentment of his powerful enemies, is perhaps

owing to the firmness of the King’s government. If that be the fact,

gentlemen; if his Majesty’s ministers have resisted applications to

expel this unfortunate gentleman from England, I should publicly

thank them for their firmness, if it were not unseemly and improper

to suppose that they could have acted otherwise—to thank an English

Government for not violating the most sacred duties of hospitality; for

not bringing indelible disgrace on their country.

But be that as it may, gentlemen, he now comes before you, perfectly

satisfied that an English jury is the most refreshing prospect that the

eye of accused innocence ever met in a human tribunal; and he feels

with me the most fervent gratitude to the Protector of empires that,

surrounded as we are with the ruins of principalities and powers, we

still continue to meet together, after the manner of our fathers, to

administer justice in this, her ancient sanctuary.

II. There is another point of view in which this case seems to me to

merit your most serious attention. I consider it as the first of a long

series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world and the

only free press remaining in Europe. No man living is more thoroughly

convinced than I am that my learned friend, Mr. Attorney-General, will

never degrade his excellent character; that he will never disgrace

his high magistracy by mean compliances, by an immoderate and

unconscientious exercise of power; yet I am convinced, by circumstances

which I shall now abstain from discussing, that I am to consider

this as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest

power in the world and the only free press now remaining in Europe.

Gentlemen, this distinction of the English press is new; it is a proud

and melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French

Revolution had swallowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the

continent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than others;

but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In great monarchies, the press has

always been considered as too formidable an engine to be intrusted to

unlicensed individuals. But in other continental countries, either by

the laws of the state, or by long habits of liberality and toleration

in magistrates, a liberty of discussion has been enjoyed, perhaps

sufficient for most useful purposes. It existed, in fact, where it

was not protected by law; and the wise and generous connivance of

governments was daily more and more secured by the growing civilization

of their subjects. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns

of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free.

Holland and Switzerland are no more; and since the commencement of

this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list

of independent states by one dash of the pen. Three or four still

preserve a precarious and trembling existence. I will not say by what

compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the

feebleness of states, whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore.

These governments were in many respects one of the most interesting

parts of the ancient system of Europe. Unfortunately for the repose of

mankind, great states are compelled, by regard to their own safety, to

consider the military spirit and martial habits of their people as one

of the main objects of their policy. Frequent hostilities seem almost

the necessary condition of their greatness; and, without being great,

they cannot long remain safe. Smaller states exempted from this cruel

necessity—a hard condition of greatness, a bitter satire on human

nature—devoted themselves to the arts of peace, to the cultivation of

literature, and the improvement of reason. They became places of refuge

for free and fearless discussion; they were the impartial spectators

and judges of the various contests of ambition which from time to time

disturbed the quiet of the world. They thus became peculiarly qualified

to be the organs of that public opinion which converted Europe into

a great republic, with laws which mitigated, though they could not

extinguish, ambition; and with moral tribunals to which even the most

despotic sovereigns were amenable. If wars of aggrandizement were

undertaken, their authors were arraigned in the face of Europe. If acts

of internal tyranny were perpetrated, they resounded from a thousand

presses throughout all civilized countries. Princes, on whose will

there were no legal checks, thus found a moral restraint which the most

powerful of them could not brave with absolute impunity. They acted

before a vast audience, to whose applause or condemnation they could

not be utterly indifferent. The very constitution of human nature, the

unalterable laws of the mind of man, against which all rebellion is

fruitless, subjected the proudest tyrants to this control. No elevation

of power, no depravity however consummate, no innocence however

spotless, can render man wholly independent of the praise or blame of

his fellow-men.

These governments were, in other respects, one of the most beautiful

and interesting parts of our ancient system. The perfect security of

such inconsiderable and feeble states, their undisturbed tranquillity

amid the wars and conquests that surrounded them, attested, beyond

any other part of the European system, the moderation, the justice,

the civilization to which Christian Europe had reached in modern

times. Their weakness was protected only by the habitual reverence

for justice, which, during a long series of ages, had grown up in

Christendom. This was the only fortification which defended them

against those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so easy a prey.

And till the French Revolution, this was sufficient. Consider, for

instance, the situation of the Republic of Geneva. Think of her

defenceless position, in the very jaws of France; but think also of her

undisturbed security, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant success

with which she applied to industry and literature, while Louis XIV.

was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates. Call to mind, if

ages crowded into years have not effaced them from your memory, that

happy period, when we scarcely dreamed more of the subjugation of the

feeblest republic of Europe than of the conquest of her mightiest

empire; and tell me if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful to

the moral eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the noblest

principles of true civilization.

These feeble states—these monuments of the justice of Europe—the

asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature—the organs of public

reason—the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have

perished with those ancient principles which were their sole guardians

and protectors. They have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion

which has shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed

and gone forever.

One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one

spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most

important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment

on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of

England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our

forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and

I trust I may venture to say that if it be to fall, it will fall only

under the ruins of the British empire.

It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of

European liberty has perished. That ancient fabric which has been

gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers still stands.

It stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire; but it stands alone, and

it stands amid ruins.

In these extraordinary circumstances, I repeat that I must consider

this as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest

power in the world and the only free press remaining in Europe. And

I trust that you will consider yourselves as the advanced guard

of liberty, as having this day to fight the first battle of free

discussion against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered.

You will therefore excuse me, if, on so important an occasion, I remind

you, at more length than is usual, of those general principles of law

and policy on this subject which have been handed down to us by our

ancestors.

III. Those who slowly built up the fabric of our laws never attempted

any thing so absurd as to define, by any precise rule, the obscure and

shifting boundaries which divide libel from history or discussion.

It is a subject which, from its nature, admits neither rules nor

definitions. The same words may be perfectly innocent in one case, and

most mischievous and libellous in another. A change of circumstances,

often apparently slight, is sufficient to make the whole difference.

These changes, which may be as numerous as the variety of human

intentions and conditions, can never be foreseen nor comprehended under

any legal definitions, and the framers of our law have never attempted

to subject them to such definitions. They left such ridiculous attempts

to those who call themselves philosophers, but who have, in fact,

proved themselves most grossly and stupidly ignorant of that philosophy

which is conversant with human affairs.

The principles of the law of England on the subject of political libel

are few and simple, and they are necessarily so broad, that, without

a habitually mild administration of justice, they might encroach

materially on the liberty of political discussion. Every publication

which is intended to vilify either our own government or the government

of any foreign state in amity with this kingdom, is, by the law of

England, a libel.

To protect political discussion from the danger to which it would be

exposed by these wide principles, if they were severely and literally

enforced, our ancestors trusted to various securities—some growing out

of the law and constitution, and others arising from the character of

those public officers whom the constitution had formed, and to whom

its administration is committed. They trusted, in the first place, to

the moderation of the legal officers of the crown, educated in the

maxims and imbued with the spirit of a free government; controlled by

the superintending power of Parliament, and peculiarly watched in all

political prosecutions by the reasonable and wholesome jealousy of

their fellow-subjects. And I am bound to admit that, since the glorious

era of the Revolution [1688], making due allowance for the frailties,

the faults, and the occasional vices of men, they have, upon the whole,

not been disappointed. I know that in the hands of my learned friend

that trust will never be abused. But, above all, they confided in the

moderation and good sense of juries, popular in their origin, popular

in their feelings, popular in their very prejudices, taken from the

mass of the people, and immediately returning to that mass again. By

these checks and temperaments they hoped that they should sufficiently

repress malignant libels, without endangering that freedom of inquiry

which is the first security of a free state. They knew that the offence

of a political libel is of a very peculiar nature, and differing in

the most important particulars from all other crimes. In all other

cases, the most severe execution of law can only spread terror among

the guilty; but in political libels it inspires even the innocent with

fear. This striking peculiarity arises from the same circumstances

which make it impossible to define the limits of libel and innocent

discussion; which make it impossible for a man of the purest and most

honorable mind to be always perfectly certain whether he be within the

territory of fair argument and honest narrative, or whether he may not

have unwittingly over stepped the faint and varying line which bounds

them. But, gentlemen, I will go further. This is the only offence where

severe and frequent punishments not only intimidate the innocent, but

deter men from the most meritorious acts, and from rendering the most

important services to their country. They indispose and disqualify

men for the discharge of the most sacred duties which they owe to

mankind. To inform the public on the conduct of those who administer

public affairs requires courage and conscious security. It is always

an invidious and obnoxious office; but it is often the most necessary

of all public duties. If it is not done boldly, it can not be done

effectually, and it is not from writers trembling under the uplifted

scourge that we are to hope for it.

There are other matters, gentlemen, to which I am desirous of

particularly calling your attention. These are the circumstances in

the condition of this country which have induced our ancestors, at

all times, to handle with more than ordinary tenderness that branch

of the liberty of discussion which is applied to the conduct of

foreign states. The relation of this kingdom to the commonwealth

of Europe is so peculiar, that no history, I think, furnishes a

parallel to it. From the moment in which we abandoned all projects

of continental aggrandizement, we could have no interest respecting

the state of the continent but the interests of national safety and

of commercial prosperity. The paramount interest of every state—that

which comprehends every other—is _security_. And the security of Great

Britain requires nothing on the continent but the uniform observance

of justice. It requires nothing but the inviolability of ancient

boundaries and the sacredness of ancient possessions, which, on these

subjects, is but another form of words for justice. A nation which is

herself shut out from the possibility of continental aggrandizement

can have no interest but that of preventing such aggrandizement in

others. We can have no interest of safety but the preventing of those

encroachments which, by their immediate effects, or by their example,

may be dangerous to ourselves. We can have no interest of ambition

respecting the continent. So that neither our real nor even our

apparent interests can ever be at variance with justice.

As to commercial prosperity, it is, indeed, a secondary, but it is

still a very important, branch of our national interests, and it

requires nothing on the continent of Europe but the _maintenance of

peace_, as far as the paramount interest of security will allow.[29]

Whatever ignorant or prejudiced men may affirm, no war was ever gainful

to a commercial nation. Losses may be less in some, and incidental

profits may arise in others. But no such profits ever formed an

adequate compensation for the waste of capital and industry which all

wars must produce. Next to peace, our commercial greatness depends

chiefly on the affluence and prosperity of our neighbors. A commercial

nation has, indeed, the same interest in the wealth of her neighbors

that a tradesman has in the wealth of his customers. The prosperity of

England has been chiefly owing to the general progress of civilized

nations in the arts and improvements of social life. Not an acre of

land has been brought into cultivation in the wilds of Siberia or on

the shores of the Mississippi which has not widened the market for

English industry. It is nourished by the progressive prosperity of the

world, and it amply repays all that it has received. It can only be

employed in spreading civilization and enjoyment over the earth; and

by the unchangeable laws of nature, in spite of the impotent tricks of

government, it is now partly applied to revive the industry of those

very nations who are the loudest in their senseless clamors against its

pretended mischiefs. If the blind and barbarous project of destroying

English prosperity could be accomplished, it could have no other effect

than that of completely beggaring the very countries who now stupidly

ascribe their own poverty to our wealth.

Under these circumstances, gentlemen, it became the obvious policy of

the kingdom, a policy in unison with the maxims of a free government,

to consider with great indulgence even the boldest animadversions of

our political writers on the ambitious projects of foreign states.

Bold, and sometimes indiscreet as these animadversions might be, they

had, at least, the effect of warning the people of their danger, and

of rousing the national indignation against those encroachments which

England has almost always been compelled in the end to resist by arms.

Seldom, indeed, has she been allowed to wait till a provident regard to

her own safety should compel her to take up arms in defence of others.

For as it was said by a great orator of antiquity that no man ever was

the enemy of the republic who had not first declared war against him,

so I may say, with truth, that no man ever meditated the subjugation

of Europe who did not consider the destruction or the corruption of

England as the first condition of his success.[30] If you examine

history, you will find that no such project was ever formed in which it

was not deemed a necessary preliminary, either to detach England from

the common cause or to destroy her. It seems as if all the conspirators

against the independence of nations might have sufficiently taught

other states that England is their natural guardian and protector;

that she alone has no interest but their preservation; that her safety

is interwoven with their own. When vast projects of aggrandizement are

manifested, when schemes of criminal ambition are carried into effect,

the day of battle is fast approaching for England. Her free government

can not engage in dangerous wars without the hearty and affectionate

support of her people. A state thus situated can not without the

utmost peril silence those public discussions which are to point the

popular indignation against those who must soon be enemies. In domestic

dissensions, it may sometimes be the supposed interest of government

to overawe the press. But it never can be even their apparent interest

when the danger is purely foreign. A king of England who, in such

circumstances, should conspire against the free press of this country,

would undermine the foundations of his own throne; he would silence the

trumpet which is to call his people round his standard.

Our ancestors never thought it their policy to avert the resentment of

foreign tyrants by enjoining English writers to contain and repress

their just abhorrence of the criminal enterprises of ambition. This

great and gallant nation, which has fought in the front of every battle

against the oppressors of Europe, has sometimes inspired fear, but,

thank God, she has never felt it. We know that they are our real, and

must soon become our declared foes.[31] We know that there can be no

cordial amity between the natural enemies and the independence of

nations. We have never adopted the cowardly and short-sighted policy

of silencing our press, of breaking the spirit and palsying the hearts

of our people for the sake of a hollow and precarious truce. We have

never been base enough to purchase a short respite from hostilities by

sacrificing the first means of defence; the means of rousing the public

spirit of the people, and directing it against the enemies of their

country and of Europe.

Gentlemen, the public spirit of a people, by which I mean the whole

body of those affections which unites men’s hearts to the commonwealth,

is in various countries composed of various elements, and depends on

a great variety of causes. In this country, I may venture to say that

it mainly depends on the vigor of the popular parts and principles of

our government, and that the spirit of liberty is one of its most

important elements. Perhaps it may depend less on those advantages

of a free government which are most highly estimated by calm reason,

than upon those parts of it which delight the imagination and flatter

the just and natural pride of mankind. Among these we are certainly

not to forget the political rights which are not uniformly withheld

from the lowest classes, and the continual appeal made to them in

public discussion, upon the greatest interests of the state. These are

undoubtedly among the circumstances which endear to Englishmen their

government and their country, and animate their zeal for that glorious

institution which confers on the meanest of them a sort of distinction

and nobility unknown to the most illustrious slaves who tremble at

the frown of a tyrant. Whoever were unwarily and rashly to abolish or

narrow these privileges, which it must be owned are liable to great

abuse, and to very specious objections, might perhaps discover too

late that he had been dismantling his country. Of whatever elements

public spirit is composed, it is always and everywhere the chief

defensive principle of a state. It is perfectly distinct from courage.

Perhaps no nation, certainly no European nation, ever perished from an

inferiority of courage. And undoubtedly no considerable nation was ever

subdued in which the public affections were sound and vigorous. It is

public spirit which binds together the dispersed courage of individuals

and fastens it to the commonwealth. It is, therefore, as I have said,

the chief defensive principle of every country. Of all the stimulants

which arouse it into action, the most powerful among us is certainly

the press; and it can not be restrained or weakened without imminent

danger that the national spirit may languish, and that the people may

act with less zeal and affection for their country in the hour of its

danger.

These principles, gentlemen, are not new—they are genuine old English

principles. And though in our days they have been disgraced and abused

by ruffians and fanatics, they are in themselves as just and sound as

they are liberal; and they are the only principles on which a free

state can be safely governed. These principles I have adopted since I

first learned the use of reason, and I think I shall abandon them only

with life.

IV. On these principles I am now to call your attention to the libel

with which this unfortunate gentleman is charged. I heartily rejoice

that I concur with the greatest part of what has been said by my

learned friend, Mr. Attorney-General, who has done honor even to his

character by the generous and liberal principles which he has laid

down. He has told you that he does not mean to attack _historical

narrative_. He has told you that he does not mean to attack _political

discussion_. He has told you, also, that he does not consider every

intemperate word into which a writer, fairly engaged in narration or

reasoning, might be betrayed, as a fit subject for prosecution. The

essence of the crime of libel consists in the malignant mind which the

publication proves, and from which it flows. A jury must be convinced,

before they find a man guilty of libel, that his intention was to

libel, not to state facts which he believed to be true, or reasonings

which he thought just. My learned friend has told you that the liberty

of history includes the right of publishing those observations

which occur to intelligent men when they consider the affairs of

the world; and I think he will not deny that it includes also the

right of expressing those sentiments which all good men feel on the

contemplation of extraordinary examples of depravity or excellence.

One more privilege of the historian, which the Attorney-General has

not named, but to which his principles extend, it is now my duty to

claim on behalf of my client; I mean the right of _republishing_,

_historically_, those documents, whatever their original malignity

may be, which display the character and unfold the intentions of

governments, or factions, or individuals. I think my learned friend

will not deny that a historical compiler may innocently republish

in England the most insolent and outrageous declaration of war ever

published against his Majesty by a foreign government. The intention of

the original author was to vilify and degrade his Majesty’s government;

but the intention of the compiler is only to gratify curiosity,

or, perhaps, to rouse just indignation against the calumniator

whose production he republishes. His intention is not libellous—his

republication is therefore not a libel. Suppose this to be the case

with Mr. Peltier. Suppose him to have republished libels with a merely

historical intention. In that case it can not be pretended that he is

more a libeller than my learned friend, Mr. Abbott [junior counsel for

the crown, afterward Lord Tenterden], who read these supposed libels to

you when he opened the pleadings. Mr. Abbott republished them to you,

that you might know and judge of them—Mr. Peltier, on the supposition I

have made, also republished them, that the public might know and judge

of them.

You already know that the general plan of Mr. Peltier’s publication

was to give a picture of the cabals and intrigues, of the hopes and

projects, of French factions. It is undoubtedly a natural and necessary

part of this plan to republish all the serious and ludicrous pieces

which these factions circulate against each other. The ode ascribed to

Chenier or Ginguené I do really believe to have been written at Paris,

to have been circulated there, to have been there attributed to some

one of these writers, to have been sent to England as their work, and

as such to have been republished by Mr. Peltier. But I am not sure that

I have evidence to convince you of the truth of this. Suppose that I

have not; will my learned friend say that my client must necessarily be

convicted? I, on the contrary, contend that it is for my learned friend

to show that it is not an historical republication. Such it professes

to be, and that profession it is for him to disprove. The profession

may indeed be “a mask”; but it is for my friend to pluck off the mask,

and expose the libeller, before he calls upon you for a verdict of

guilty.

If the general lawfulness of such republications be denied, then I must

ask Mr. Attorney-General to account for the long impunity which English

newspapers have enjoyed. I must request him to tell you why they have

been suffered to republish all the atrocious official and unofficial

libels which have been published against his Majesty for the last ten

years, by the Brissots, the Marats, the Dantons, the Robespierres, the

Barrères, the Talliens, the Reubells, the Merlins, the Barrases, and

all that long line of bloody tyrants who oppressed their own country

and insulted every other which they had not the power to rob. What

must be the answer? That the English publishers were either innocent,

if their motive was to gratify curiosity, or praiseworthy, if their

intention was to rouse indignation against the calumniators of their

country. If any other answer be made, I must remind my friend of a

most sacred part of his duty—the duty of protecting the honest fame

of those who are absent in the service of their country. Within these

few days we have seen, in every newspaper in England, a publication,

called the Report of Colonel Sebastiani, in which a gallant British

officer [General Stuart] is charged with writing letters to procure

assassination. The publishers of that infamous report are not, and will

not be prosecuted, because their intention is not to libel General

Stuart. On any other principle, why have all our newspapers been

suffered to circulate that most atrocious of all libels against the

king and people of England, which purports to be translated from the

_Moniteur_ of the ninth of August, 1802—a libel against a prince who

has passed through a factious and stormy reign of forty-three years,

without a single imputation on his personal character; against a

people who have passed through the severest trials of national virtue

with unimpaired glory—who alone in the world can boast of mutinies

without murder, of triumphant mobs without massacre, of bloodless

revolutions, and of civil wars unstained by a single assassination.

That most impudent and malignant libel which charges such a king of

such a people, not only with having hired assassins, but with being

so shameless, so lost to all sense of character, as to have bestowed

on these assassins, if their murderous projects had succeeded, the

highest badges of public honor, the rewards reserved for statesmen

and heroes—the order of the Garter—the order which was founded by the

heroes of Cressy and Poitiers—the garter which was worn by Henry the

Great and by Gustavus Adolphus, which might now be worn by the hero

who, on the shores of Syria [Sir Sydney Smith]—the ancient theatre of

English chivalry—has revived the renown of English valor and of English

humanity—that unsullied garter which a detestable libeller dares to say

is to be paid as the price of murder.

If I had now to defend an English publisher for the republication

of that abominable libel, what must I have said in his defence? I

must have told you that it was originally published by the French

Government in their official gazette; that it was republished by the

English editor to gratify the natural curiosity, perhaps to rouse the

just resentment, of his English readers. I should have contended,

and, I trust, with success, that his republication of a libel was

not libellous; that it was lawful, that it was laudable. All that

would be important, at least all that would be essential, in such a

defence, I now state to you on behalf of Mr. Peltier; and if an English

newspaper may safely republish the libels of the French Government

against his Majesty, I shall leave you to judge whether Mr. Peltier,

in similar circumstances, may not with equal safety republish the

libels of Chenier against the First Consul. On the one hand you have

the assurances of Mr. Peltier in the context that this ode is merely a

republication—you have also the general plan of his work, with which

such a republication is perfectly consistent. On the other hand, you

have only the suspicions of Mr. Attorney-General that this ode is an

original production of the defendant.

But supposing that you should think it his production, and that you

should also think it a libel, even in that event, which I cannot

anticipate, I am not left without a defence. The question will still

be open, “Is it a libel on Bonaparte, or is it a libel on Chenier or

Ginguené?” This is not an information for a libel on Chenier; and

if you should think that this ode was produced by Mr. Peltier, and

ascribed by him to Chenier, for the sake of covering that writer with

the odium of Jacobinism, the defendant is entitled to your verdict of

not guilty. Or if you should believe that it is ascribed to Jacobinical

writers for the sake of _satirizing_ a French Jacobinical faction,

you must also, in that case, acquit him. Butler puts seditious and

immoral language into the mouth of rebels and fanatics; but “Hudibras”

is not for that reason a libel on morality or government. Swift, in

the most exquisite piece of irony in the world (his argument against

the abolition of Christianity), uses the language of those shallow,

atheistical coxcombs whom his satire was intended to scourge. The

scheme of his irony required some levity and even some profaneness

of language. But nobody was ever so dull as to doubt whether Swift

meant to satirize atheism or religion. In the same manner Mr. Peltier,

when he wrote a satire on French Jacobinism was compelled to ascribe

to Jacobins a Jacobinical hatred of government. He was obliged, by

dramatic propriety, to put into their mouths those anarchical maxims

which are complained of in his ode. But it will be said, these

incitements to insurrection are here directed against the authority

of Bonaparte. This proves nothing, because they must have been so

directed, if the ode were a satire on Jacobinism. French Jacobins

must inveigh against Bonaparte, because he exercises the powers of

government. The satirist who attacks them must transcribe their

sentiments and adopt their language.

I do not mean to say, gentlemen, that Mr. Peltier feels any affection

or professes any allegiance to Bonaparte. If I were to say so, he would

disown me. He would disdain to purchase an acquittal by the profession

of sentiments which he disclaims and abhors. Not to love Bonaparte is

no crime. The question is not whether Mr. Peltier loves or hates the

First Consul, but whether he has put revolutionary language into the

mouth of Jacobins with a view to paint their incorrigible turbulence,

and to exhibit the fruits of Jacobinical revolutions to the detestation

of mankind.

Now, gentlemen, we can not give a probable answer to this question

without previously examining two or three questions, on which the

answer to the first must very much depend. Is there a faction in France

which breathes the spirit, and is likely to employ the language, of

this ode? Does it perfectly accord with their character and views? Is

it utterly irreconcilable with the feelings, opinions, and wishes of

Mr. Peltier? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative,

then I think you must agree with me that Mr. Peltier does not in this

ode speak his own sentiments, that he does not here vent his own

resentment against Bonaparte; but that he personates a Jacobin, and

adopts his language for the sake of satirizing his principles.

These questions, gentlemen, lead me to those political discussions

which, generally speaking, are in a court of justice odious and

disgusting. Here, however, they are necessary, and I shall consider

them only as far as the necessities of this cause require.

Gentlemen, the French Revolution—I must pause after I have uttered

words which present such an overwhelming idea. But I have not now to

engage in an enterprise so far beyond my force as that of examining

and judging that tremendous Revolution. I have only to consider the

character of the factions which it must have left behind it.

The French Revolution began with great and fatal errors. These errors

produced atrocious crimes. A mild and feeble monarchy was succeeded by

bloody anarchy, which very shortly gave birth to military despotism.

France, in a few years, described the whole circle of human society.[32]

All this was in the order of nature. When every principle of authority

and civil discipline, when every principle which enables some men

to command, and disposes others to obey, was extirpated from the

mind by atrocious theories, and still more atrocious examples; when

every old institution was trampled down with contumely, and every new

institution covered in its cradle with blood; when the principle of

property itself, the sheet-anchor of society, was annihilated; when in

the persons of the new possessors, whom the poverty of language obliges

us to call proprietors, it was contaminated in its source by robbery

and murder, and it became separated from that education and those

manners, from that general presumption of superior knowledge and more

scrupulous probity which form its only liberal titles to respect; when

the people were taught to despise every thing old, and compelled to

detest every thing new, there remained only one principle strong enough

to hold society together, a principle utterly incompatible, indeed,

with liberty and unfriendly to civilization itself, a tyrannical and

barbarous principle; but in that miserable condition of human affairs,

a refuge from still more intolerable evils. I mean the principle of

military power which gains strength from that confusion and bloodshed

in which all the other elements of society are dissolved, and which,

in these terrible extremities, is the cement that preserves it from

total destruction.

Under such circumstances, Bonaparte usurped the supreme power in

France. I say _usurped_, because an illegal assumption of power is a

usurpation. But usurpation, in its strongest moral sense, is scarcely

applicable to a period of lawless and savage anarchy. The guilt

of military usurpation, in truth, belongs to the author of those

confusions which sooner or later give birth to such a usurpation.

Thus, to use the words of the historian: “By recent as well as all

ancient example, it became evident that illegal violence, with whatever

pretences it may be covered, and whatever object it may pursue, must

inevitably end at last in the arbitrary and despotic government of a

single person.” But though the government of Bonaparte has silenced the

revolutionary factions, it has not and it can not have extinguished

them. No human power could re-impress upon the minds of men all those

sentiments and opinions which the sophistry and anarchy of fourteen

years had obliterated. A faction must exist which breathes the spirit

of the code now before you.

It is, I know, not the spirit of the quiet and submissive majority of

the French people. They have always rather suffered than acted in the

Revolution. Completely exhausted by the calamities through which they

have passed, they yield to any power which gives them repose. There

is, indeed, a degree of oppression which rouses men to resistance; but

there is another and a greater, which wholly subdues and unmans them.

It is remarkable that Robespierre himself was safe till he attacked his

own accomplices. The spirit of men of virtue was broken, and there was

no vigor of character left to destroy him, but in those daring ruffians

who were the sharers of his tyranny.

As for the wretched populace who were made the blind and senseless

instrument of so many crimes, whose frenzy can now be reviewed by a

good mind with scarce any moral sentiment but that of compassion; that

miserable multitude of beings, scarcely human, have already fallen into

a brutish forgetfulness of the very atrocities which they themselves

perpetrated. They have already forgotten all the acts of their drunken

fury. If you ask one of them, Who destroyed that magnificent monument

of religion and art? or who perpetrated that massacre? they stupidly

answer, the Jacobins! though he who gives the answer was probably one

of these Jacobins himself; so that a traveller, ignorant of French

history, might suppose the Jacobins to be the name of some Tartar horde

who, after laying waste France for ten years, were at last expelled by

the native inhabitants. They have passed from senseless rage to stupid

quiet. Their delirium is followed by lethargy.[33]

In a word, gentlemen, the great body of the people of France have been

severely trained in those convulsions and proscriptions which are

the school of slavery. They are capable of no mutinous, and even of

no bold and manly political sentiments. And if this ode professed to

paint their opinions, it would be a most unfaithful picture. But it

is otherwise with those who have been the actors and leaders in the

scene of blood. It is otherwise with the numerous agents of the most

indefatigable, searching, multiform, and omnipresent tyranny that ever

existed, which pervaded every class of society which had ministers and

victims in every village in France.

Some of them, indeed, the basest of the race, the sophists, the

rhetors, the poet-laureates of murder, who were cruel only from

cowardice and calculating selfishness, are perfectly willing to

transfer their venal pens to any government that does not disdain their

infamous support. These men, Republican from servility, who published

rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who reduced plunder to a system

of ethics, are as ready to preach slavery as anarchy. But the more

daring, I had almost said, the more respectable ruffians, can not so

easily bend their heads under the yoke. These fierce spirits have not

lost

“The unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate.”

They leave the luxuries of servitude to the mean and dastardly

hypocrites, to the Belials and Mammons of the infernal faction. They

pursue their old end of tyranny under their old pretext of liberty.

The recollection of their unbounded power renders every inferior

condition irksome and vapid; and their former atrocities form, if

I may so speak, a sort of moral destiny which irresistibly impels

them to the perpetration of new crimes. They have no place left for

penitence on earth. They labor under the most awful proscription of

opinion that ever was pronounced against human beings. They have

cut down every bridge by which they could retreat into the society

of men. Awakened from their dreams of Democracy, the noise subsided

that deafened their ears to the voice of humanity; the film fallen

from their eyes which hid from them the blackness of their own deeds;

haunted by the memory of their inexpiable guilt; condemned daily to

look on the faces of those whom their hands made widows and orphans,

they are goaded and scourged by these _real_ furies, and hurried into

the tumult of new crimes, which will drown the cries of remorse, or, if

they be too depraved for remorse, will silence the curses of mankind.

Tyrannical power is their only refuge from the just vengeance of

their fellow-creatures. Murder is their only means of usurping power.

They have no taste, no occupation, no pursuit but power and blood. If

their hands are tied, they must at least have the luxury of murderous

projects. They have drunk too deeply of human blood ever to relinquish

their cannibal appetite.

Such a faction exists in France. It is numerous; it is powerful; and it

has a principle of fidelity stronger than any that ever held together

a society. _They are banded together by despair of forgiveness, by

the unanimous detestation of mankind._ They are now contained by a

severe and stern government. But they still meditate the renewal of

insurrection and massacre; and they are prepared to renew the worst

and most atrocious of their crimes, that crime against posterity and

against human nature itself, that crime of which the latest generations

of mankind may feel the fatal consequences—the crime of degrading and

prostituting the sacred name of liberty.

I must own that, however paradoxical it may appear, I should almost

think not worse, but more meanly of them if it were otherwise. I must

then think them destitute of that which I will not call courage,

because that is the name of a virtue; but of that ferocious energy

which alone rescues ruffians from contempt. If they were destitute of

that which is the heroism of murderers, they would be the lowest as

well as the most abominable of beings.

It is impossible to conceive any thing more despicable than wretches

who, after hectoring and bullying over their meek and blameless

sovereign and his defenceless family, whom they kept so long in a

dungeon trembling for their existence—whom they put to death by a

slow torture of three years, after playing the Republican and the

tyrannicide to women and children, become the supple and fawning slaves

of the first government that knows how to wield the scourge with a firm

hand.

I have used the word Republican because it is the name by which this

atrocious faction describes itself. The assumption of that name is one

of their crimes. They are no more Republicans than Royalists. They are

the common enemies of all human society. God forbid that by the use

of that word I should be supposed to reflect on the members of those

respectable Republican communities which did exist in Europe before

the French Revolution. That Revolution has spared many monarchies,

but it has spared no republic within the sphere of its destructive

energy. One republic only now exists in the world—a republic of English

blood, which was originally composed of Republican societies, under the

protection of a monarchy, which had, therefore, no great and perilous

change in their internal constitution to effect; and of which, I speak

it with pleasure and pride, the inhabitants, even in the convulsions of

a most deplorable separation, displayed the humanity as well as valor

which, I trust I may say, they inherited from their forefathers.

Nor do I mean by the use of the word “Republican” to confound this

execrable faction with all those who, in the liberty of private

speculation, may prefer a Republican form of government. I own that,

after much reflection, I am not able to conceive an error more gross

than that of those who believe in the possibility of erecting a

republic in any of the old monarchical countries of Europe, who believe

that in such countries an elective supreme magistracy can produce any

thing but a succession of stern tyrannies and bloody civil wars. It

is a supposition which is belied by all experience, and which betrays

the greatest ignorance of the first principles of the constitution of

society. It is an error which has a false appearance of superiority

over vulgar prejudice; it is, therefore, too apt to be attended with

the most criminal rashness and presumption, and too easy to be inflamed

into the most immoral and anti-social fanaticism. But as long as it

remains a mere quiescent error, it is not the proper subject of moral

disapprobation.

[Mr. Mackintosh then proceeds to a somewhat minute analysis of

the publications of Peltier for the purpose of showing: first,

that it was highly probable that the articles complained of

were not written by Peltier; secondly, that if written by him,

they purported to be not his own sentiments but those more

or less prevalent at Paris; thirdly, that the publications

were not untrue representations; fourthly, that there was no

evidence of any thing more nearly approaching to malice than

a justifiable indignation; and, fifthly, that the passages

complained of were aimed not so much at Napoleon as at others.

This analysis, though very ingenious, is of no interest except

from its bearing on the verdict, and is therefore here omitted.

After concluding his discussion of the evidence, the advocate

proceeded.]

Here, gentlemen, I think I might stop, if I had only to consider the

defence of Mr. Peltier. I trust that you are already convinced of his

innocence. I fear I have exhausted your patience, as I am sure I have

very nearly exhausted my own strength. But so much seems to me to

depend on your verdict, that I can not forbear from laying before you

some considerations of a more general nature.

Believing, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle; that

this is only the first battle between reason and power; that you

have now in your hands, committed to your trust, the only remains of

free discussion in Europe, now confined to this kingdom—addressing

you, therefore, as the guardians of the most important interests of

mankind; convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason depends more

on your present verdict than on any other that was ever delivered by

a jury, I can not conclude without bringing before you the sentiments

and examples of our ancestors in some of those awful and perilous

situations by which divine Providence has in former ages tried the

virtue of the English nation. We are fallen upon times in which it

behooves us to strengthen our spirits by the contemplation of great

examples of constancy. Let us seek for them in the annals of our

forefathers.

The reign of Queen Elizabeth may be considered as the opening of the

modern history of England, especially in its connection with the modern

system of Europe, which began about that time to assume the form that

it preserved till the French Revolution. It was a very memorable

period, of which the maxims ought to be engraven on the head and heart

of every Englishman. Philip II., at the head of the greatest empire

then in the world, was openly aiming at universal domination, and his

project was so far from being thought chimerical by the wisest of

his contemporaries that, in the opinion of the great Duke of Sully,

he must have been successful, “if, by a most singular combination of

circumstances, he had not at the same time been resisted by two such

strong heads as those of Henry IV. and Queen Elizabeth.” To the most

extensive and opulent dominions, the most numerous and disciplined

armies, the most renowned captains, the greatest revenue, he added also

the most formidable power over opinion. He was the chief of a religious

faction, animated by the most atrocious fanaticism, prepared to second

his ambition by rebellion, anarchy, and regicide in every Protestant

state. Elizabeth was among the first objects of his hostility. That

wise and magnanimous princess placed herself in the front of the battle

for the liberties of Europe. Though she had to contend at home with

his fanatical faction, which almost occupied Ireland, which divided

Scotland, and was not of contemptible strength in England, she aided

the oppressed inhabitants of the Netherlands in their just and glorious

resistance to his tyranny; she aided Henry the Great in suppressing

the abominable rebellion which anarchical principles had excited

and Spanish arms had supported in France, and after a long reign of

various fortune, in which she preserved her unconquered spirit through

great calamities and still greater dangers, she at length broke the

strength of the enemy, and reduced his power within such limits as to

be compatible with the safety of England and of all Europe. Her only

effectual ally was the spirit of her people, and her policy flowed

from that magnanimous nature which in the hour of peril teaches better

lessons than those of cold reason. Her great heart inspired her with

a higher and a nobler wisdom—which disdained to appeal to the low and

sordid passions of her people even for the protection of their low and

sordid interests, because she knew, or, rather, she felt, that these

are effeminate, creeping, cowardly, short-sighted passions, which

shrink from conflict even in defence of their own mean objects. In a

righteous cause, she roused those generous affections of her people

which alone teach boldness, constancy, and foresight, and which are

therefore the only safe guardians of the lowest as well as the highest

interests of a nation. In her memorable address to her army, when the

invasion of the kingdom was threatened by Spain, this woman of heroic

spirit disdained to speak to them of their ease and their commerce, and

their wealth and their safety. No! She touched another chord—she spoke

of their national honor, of their dignity as Englishmen, of “the foul

scorn that Parma or Spain _should dare_ to invade the borders of her

realms.” She breathed into them those grand and powerful sentiments

which exalt vulgar men into heroes, which led them into the battle

of their country, armed with holy and irresistible enthusiasm; which

even cover with their shield all the ignoble interests that base

calculation and cowardly selfishness tremble to hazard, but shrink

from defending. A sort of prophetic instinct, if I may so speak, seems

to have revealed to her the importance of that great instrument for

rousing and guiding the minds of men, of the effects of which she had

no experience, which, since her time, has changed the condition of the

world, but which few modern statesmen have thoroughly understood or

wisely employed; which is, no doubt, connected with many ridiculous and

degrading details, which has produced, and which may again produce,

terrible mischiefs, but of which the influence must, after all, be

considered as the most certain effect and the most efficacious cause of

civilization, and which, whether it be a blessing or a curse, is the

most powerful engine that a politician can move—I mean the press. It is

a curious fact that in the year of the Armada, Queen Elizabeth caused

to be printed the first gazettes that ever appeared in England; and I

own, when I consider that this mode of rousing a national spirit was

then absolutely unexampled, that she could have no assurance of its

efficacy from the precedents of former times, I am disposed to regard

her having recourse to it as one of the most sagacious experiments,

one of the greatest discoveries of political genius, one of the most

striking anticipations of future experience that we find in history. I

mention it to you to justify the opinion that I have ventured to state

of the close connection of our national spirit with our press, even our

periodical press. I can not quit the reign of Elizabeth without laying

before you the maxims of her policy, in the language of the greatest

and wisest of men. Lord Bacon, in one part of his discourse on her

reign, speaks thus of her support of Holland: “But let me rest upon the

honorable and continual aid and relief she hath given to the distressed

and desolate people of the Low Countries—a people recommended unto

her by ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their cause so

innocent and their fortune so lamentable!” In another passage of the

same discourse, he thus speaks of the general system of her foreign

policy as the protector of Europe, in words too remarkable to require

any commentary. “Then it is her government, and her government alone,

that hath been the sconce and fort of all Europe, which hath let this

proud nation from overrunning all. If any state be yet free from his

factions erected in the bowels thereof; if there be any state wherein

this faction is erected that is not yet fired with civil troubles; if

there be any state under his protection that enjoyeth moderate liberty,

upon whom he tyrannizeth not, it is the mercy of this renowned Queen

that standeth between them and their misfortunes!”

The next great conspirator against the rights of men and of nations,

against the security and independence of all European states, against

every kind and degree of civil and religious liberty, was Louis XIV. In

his time the character of the English nation was the more remarkably

displayed, because it was counteracted by an apostate and perfidious

government. During great part of his reign, you know that the throne of

England was filled by princes who deserted the cause of their country

and of Europe, who were the accomplices and the tools of the oppressor

of the world, who were even so unmanly, so unprincely, so base, as to

have sold themselves to his ambition; who were content that he should

enslave the continent, if he enabled them to enslave Great Britain.

These princes, traitors to their own royal dignity and to the feelings

of the generous people whom they ruled, preferred the condition of

the first slave of Louis XIV. to the dignity of the first freemen of

England[34]; yet even under these princes, the feelings of the people

of this kingdom were displayed, on a most memorable occasion, toward

foreign sufferers and foreign oppressors. The revocation of the Edict

of Nantes threw fifty thousand French Protestants on our shores. They

were received as I trust the victims of tyranny ever will be in this

land, which seems chosen by Providence to be the home of the exile, the

refuge of the oppressed. They were welcomed by a people high-spirited

as well as humane, who did not insult them by clandestine charity;

who did not give alms in secret lest their charity should be detected

by the neighboring tyrants! No! They were publicly and nationally

welcomed and relieved. They were bid to raise their voice against

their oppressor, and to proclaim their wrongs to all mankind. They

did so. They were joined in the cry of just indignation by every

Englishman worthy of the name. It was a fruitful indignation, which

soon produced the successful resistance of Europe to the common enemy.

Even then, when Jeffreys disgraced the bench which his Lordship [Lord

Ellenborough] now adorns, no refugee was deterred by prosecution for

libel from giving vent to his feelings, from arraigning the oppressor

in the face of all Europe.

During this ignominious period of our history, a war arose on the

continent, which can not but present itself to the mind on such an

occasion as this; the only war that was ever made on the avowed ground

of attacking a free press. I speak of the invasion of Holland by Louis

XIV. The liberties which the Dutch gazettes had taken in discussing

his conduct were the sole cause of this very extraordinary and

memorable war, which was of short duration, unprecedented in its avowed

principle, and most glorious in its event for the liberties of mankind.

That republic, at all times so interesting to Englishmen—in the worst

times of both countries our brave enemies; in their best times our most

faithful and valuable friends—was then charged with the defence of a

free press against the oppressor of Europe, as a sacred trust for the

benefit of all generations. They felt the sacredness of the deposit,

they felt the dignity of the station in which they were placed, and

though deserted by the un-English government of England, they asserted

their own ancient character, and drove out the great armies and great

captains of the oppressor with defeat and disgrace. Such was the result

of the only war hitherto avowedly undertaken to oppress a free country

because she allowed the free and public exercise of reason. And may the

God of justice and liberty grant that such may ever be the result of

wars made by tyrants against the rights of mankind, especially against

that right which is the guardian of every other!

This war, gentlemen, had the effect of raising up from obscurity the

great Prince of Orange, afterward King William III., the deliverer

of Holland, the deliverer of England, the deliverer of Europe; the

only hero who was distinguished by such a happy union of fortune and

virtue that the objects of his ambition were always the same with the

interests of humanity; perhaps the only man who devoted the whole of

his life exclusively to the service of mankind. This most illustrious

benefactor of Europe, this “hero without vanity or passion,” as he

has been justly and beautifully called by a venerable prelate [Dr.

Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph], who never made a step toward greatness

without securing or advancing liberty, who had been made Stadtholder

of Holland for the salvation of his own country, was soon after made

King of England for the deliverance of ours. When the people of Great

Britain had once more a government worthy of them, they returned to the

feelings and principles of their ancestors, and resumed their former

station and their former duties as protectors of the independence of

nations. The people of England, delivered from a government which

disgraced, oppressed, and betrayed them, fought under William as

their forefathers had fought under Elizabeth, and after an almost

uninterrupted struggle of more than twenty years, in which they were

often abandoned by fortune, but never by their own constancy and

magnanimity, they at length once more defeated those projects of guilty

ambition, boundless aggrandizement, and universal domination, which

had a second time threatened to overwhelm the whole civilized world.

They rescued Europe from being swallowed up in the gulf of extensive

empire, which the experience of all times points out as the grave of

civilization; where men are driven by violent conquest and military

oppression into lethargy and slavishness of heart; where, after their

arts have perished with the mental vigor from which they spring,

they are plunged by the combined power of effeminacy and ferocity

into irreclaimable and hopeless barbarism. Our ancestors established

the safety of their own country by providing for that of others, and

rebuilt the European system upon such firm foundations that nothing

less than the tempest of the French Revolution could have shaken it.

The arduous struggle was suspended for a short time by the peace of

Ryswick. The interval between that treaty and the war of the succession

enables us to judge how our ancestors acted in a very peculiar

situation, which requires maxims of policy very different from those

which usually govern states. The treaty which they had concluded was

in truth and substance only a truce. The ambition and the power of

the enemy were such as to render real peace impossible. And it was

perfectly obvious that the disputed succession of the Spanish monarch

would soon render it no longer practicable to preserve even the

appearance of amity. It was desirable, however, not to provoke the

enemy by unseasonable hostility; but it was still more desirable,

it was absolutely necessary, to keep up the national jealousy and

indignation against him who was soon to be their open enemy. It might

naturally have been apprehended that the press might have driven

into premature war a prince who, not long before, had been violently

exasperated by the press of another free country. I have looked over

the political publications of that time with some care, and I can

venture to say that at no period were the system and projects of Louis

XIV. animadverted on with more freedom and boldness than during that

interval. Our ancestors and the heroic prince who governed them, did

not deem it wise policy to disarm the national mind for the sake of

prolonging a truce. They were both too proud and too wise to pay so

great a price for so small a benefit.

In the course of the eighteenth century, a great change took place

in the state of political discussion in this country. I speak of the

multiplication of newspapers. I know that newspapers are not very

popular in this place, which is, indeed, not very surprising, because

they are known here only by their faults. Their publishers come here

only to receive the chastisement due to their offences. With all their

faults, I own I can not help feeling some respect for whatever is a

proof of the increased curiosity and increased knowledge of mankind;

and I can not help thinking that if somewhat more indulgence and

consideration were shown for the difficulties of their situation, it

might prove one of the best correctives of their faults, by teaching

them that self-respect which is the best security for liberal conduct

toward others. But however that may be, it is very certain that the

multiplication of these channels of popular information has produced

a great change in the state of our domestic and foreign politics.

At home, it has, in truth, produced a gradual revolution in our

government. By increasing the number of those who exercise some sort

of judgment on public affairs, it has created a substantial democracy,

infinitely more important than those democratical forms which have been

the subject of so much contest. So that I may venture to say, England

has not only in its forms the most democratical government that ever

existed in a great country, but in substance has the most democratical

government that ever existed in any country; if the most _substantial_

democracy be that state in which the greatest number of men feel an

interest and express an opinion upon political questions, and in which

the greatest number of judgments and wills concur in influencing public

measures.

The same circumstances gave great additional importance to our

discussion of continental politics. That discussion was no longer, as

in the preceding century, confined to a few pamphlets, written and

read only by men of education and rank, which reached the multitude

very slowly and rarely. In newspapers an almost daily appeal was

made, directly or indirectly, to the judgment and passions of almost

every individual in the kingdom, upon the measures and principles not

only of his own country, but of every state in Europe. Under such

circumstances, the tone of these publications, in speaking of foreign

governments, became a matter of importance. You will excuse me,

therefore, if, before I conclude, I remind you of the general nature

of their language on one or two very remarkable occasions, and of the

boldness with which they arraigned the crimes of powerful sovereigns,

without any check from the laws and magistrates of their own country.

This toleration, or rather this protection, was too long and uniform to

be accidental. I am, indeed, very much mistaken if it be not founded

upon a policy which this country can not abandon without sacrificing

her liberty and endangering her national existence.

The first remarkable instance which I shall choose to state of the

unpunished and protected boldness of the English press, of the freedom

with which they animadverted on the policy of powerful sovereigns, is

the partition of Poland in 1772; an act not, perhaps, so horrible in

its means, nor so deplorable in its immediate effects, as some other

atrocious invasions of national independence which have followed

it; but the most abominable in its general tendency and ultimate

consequences of any political crime recorded in history, because it was

the first practical breach in the system of Europe, the first example

of atrocious robbery perpetrated on unoffending countries which have

been since so liberally followed, and which has broken down all the

barriers of habit and principle which guarded defenceless states. The

perpetrators of this atrocious crime were the most powerful sovereigns

of the continent, whose hostility it certainly was not the interest of

Great Britain wantonly to incur. They were the most illustrious princes

of their age, and some of them were, doubtless, entitled to the highest

praise for their domestic administration, as well as for the brilliant

qualities which distinguished their characters. But none of these

circumstances, no dread of their resentment, no admiration of their

talents, no consideration for their rank, silenced the animadversion of

the English press. Some of you remember, all of you know, that a loud

and unanimous cry of reprobation and execration broke out against them

from every part of this kingdom. It was perfectly uninfluenced by any

considerations of our own mere national interest, which might perhaps

be supposed to be rather favorably affected by that partition. It was

not, as in some other countries, the indignation of rival robbers, who

were excluded from their share of the prey. It was the moral anger of

disinterested spectators against atrocious crimes, the gravest and the

most dignified moral principle which the God of justice has implanted

in the human heart; that of which the dread is the only restraint on

the actions of powerful criminals, and of which the promulgation is

the only punishment that can be inflicted on them. It is a restraint

which ought not to be weakened. It is a punishment which no good man

can desire to mitigate.

That great crime was spoken of as it deserved in England. Robbery

was not described by any courtly circumlocutions. Rapine was not

called policy; nor was the oppression of an innocent people termed _a

mediation_ in their domestic differences. No prosecutions, no criminal

informations followed the liberty and the boldness of the language then

employed. No complaints even appear to have been made from abroad, much

less any insolent menaces against the free constitution which protected

the English press. The people of England were too long known throughout

Europe for the proudest potentate to expect to silence our press by

such means.

I pass over the second partition of Poland in 1792. You all remember

what passed on that occasion, the universal abhorrence expressed by

every man and every writer of every party, the succors that were

publicly preparing by large bodies of individuals of all parties for

the oppressed Poles.

I hasten to the final dismemberment of that unhappy kingdom, which

seems to me the most striking example in our history of the habitual,

principled, and deeply rooted forbearance of those who administer the

law toward political writers. We were engaged in the most extensive,

bloody, and dangerous war that this country ever knew; and the parties

to the dismemberment of Poland were our allies, and our only powerful

and effective allies. We had every motive of policy to court their

friendship. Every reason of state seemed to require that we should not

permit them to be abused and vilified by English writers. What was

the fact? Did any Englishman consider himself at liberty, on account

of temporary interests, however urgent, to silence those feelings of

humanity and justice which guard the certain and permanent interests

of all countries? You all remember that every voice, and every pen,

and every press in England were unceasingly employed to brand that

abominable robbery. You remember that this was not confined to private

writers, but that the same abhorrence was expressed by every member

of both Houses of Parliament who was not under the restraints of

ministerial reserve. No minister dared even to blame the language

of honest indignation which might be very inconvenient to his most

important political projects; and I hope I may venture to say that no

English assembly would have endured such a sacrifice of eternal justice

to any miserable interest of an hour. Did the law-officers of the crown

venture to come into a court of justice to complain of the boldest of

the publications of that time? They did not. I do not say that they

felt any disposition to do so. I believe that they could not. But I do

say that if they had; if they had spoken of the necessity of confining

our political writers to cold narrative and unfeeling argument; if

they had informed the jury that they did not prosecute history, but

invective; that if private writers be at all to blame great princes, it

must be with moderation and decorum, the sound heads and honest hearts

of an English jury would have confounded such sophistry, and declared

by their verdict that moderation of language is a relative term, which

varies with the subject to which it is applied; that atrocious crimes

are not to be related as calmly and coolly as indifferent or trifling

events; that if there be a decorum due to exalted rank and authority,

there is also a much more sacred decorum due to virtue and to human

nature, which would be outraged and trampled under foot by speaking of

guilt in a lukewarm language, falsely called moderate.

Soon after, gentlemen, there followed an act, in comparison with

which all the deeds of rapine and blood perpetrated in the world are

innocence itself—the invasion and destruction of Switzerland, that

unparalleled scene of guilt and enormity; that unprovoked aggression

against an innocent country, which had been the sanctuary of peace and

liberty for three centuries; respected as a sort of sacred territory

by the fiercest ambition; raised, like its own mountains, beyond the

region of the storms which raged around on every side; the only warlike

people that never sent forth armies to disturb their neighbors; the

only government that ever accumulated treasures without imposing

taxes, an innocent treasure, unstained by the tears of the poor, the

inviolate patrimony of the commonwealth, which attested the virtue of

a long series of magistrates, but which at length caught the eye of

the spoiler, and became the fatal occasion of their ruin! Gentlemen,

the destruction of such a country, “its cause so innocent, and its

fortune so lamentable!” made a deep impression on the people of

England. I will ask my learned friend, if we had then been at peace

with the French Republic, whether we must have been silent spectators

of the foulest crimes that ever blotted the name of humanity! whether

we must, like cowards and slaves, have repressed the compassion and

indignation with which that horrible scene of tyranny had filled our

hearts? Let me suppose, gentlemen, that ALOYS REDING, who has displayed

in our times the simplicity, magnanimity, and piety of ancient heroes,

had, after his glorious struggle, honored this kingdom by choosing it

as his refuge; that after performing prodigies of valor at the head

of his handful of heroic peasants on the field of Morgarten, where

his ancestor, the _Landmann Reding_, had, five hundred years before,

defeated the first oppressors of Switzerland, he had selected this

country to be his residence, as the chosen abode of liberty, as the

ancient and inviolable asylum of the oppressed; would my learned friend

have had the boldness to have said to this hero, “that he must hide his

tears” (the tears shed by a hero over the ruins of his country!) “lest

they might provoke the resentment of _Reubell_ or _Rapinat_! that he

must smother the sorrow and the anger with which his heart was loaded;

that he must breathe his murmurs low, lest they might be overheard

by the oppressor!” Would this have been the language of my learned

friend? I know that it would not. I know that by such a supposition I

have done wrong to his honorable feelings, to his honest English heart.

I am sure that he knows as well as I do, that a nation which should

_thus_ receive the oppressed of other countries would be preparing its

own neck for the yoke. He knows the slavery which such a nation would

deserve, and must speedily incur. He knows that sympathy with the

unmerited sufferings of others, and disinterested anger against their

oppressors, are, if I may so speak, the masters which are appointed

by Providence to teach us fortitude in the defence of our own rights;

that selfishness is a dastardly principle, which betrays its charge and

flies from its post; and that those only can defend themselves with

valor who are animated by the moral approbation with which they can

survey their sentiments toward others, who are ennobled in their own

eyes by a consciousness that they are fighting for justice as well as

interest; a consciousness which none can feel but those who have felt

for the wrongs of their brethren. These are the sentiments which my

learned friend would have felt. He would have told the hero: “Your

confidence is not deceived; this is still that England, of which the

history may, perhaps, have contributed to fill your heart with the

heroism of liberty. Every other country of Europe is crouching under

the bloody tyrants who destroyed your country. _We_ are unchanged; we

are still the same people which received with open arms the victims

of the tyranny of Philip II. and Louis XIV. We shall not exercise a

cowardly and clandestine humanity! Here we are not so dastardly as to

rob you of your greatest consolation. Here, protected by a free, brave,

and high-minded people, you may give vent to your indignation; you

may proclaim the crimes of your tyrants; you may devote them to the

execration of mankind; there is still one spot upon earth in which they

are abhorred, without being dreaded!”[35]

I am aware, gentlemen, that I have already abused your indulgence, but

I must entreat you to bear with me for a short time longer, to allow

me to suppose a case which might have occurred, in which you will

see the horrible consequences of enforcing rigorously principles of

law, which I can not counteract, against political writers. We might

have been at peace with France during the whole of that terrible

period which elapsed between August, 1792 and 1794, which has been

usually called the reign of Robespierre!—the only series of crimes,

perhaps, in history which, in spite of the common disposition to

exaggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure underrated in

public opinion. I say this, gentlemen, after an investigation which,

I think, entitles me to affirm it with confidence. Men’s minds were

oppressed by atrocity and the multitude of crimes; their humanity and

their indolence took refuge in skepticism from such an overwhelming

mass of guilt; and the consequence was, that all these unparalleled

enormities, though proved not only with the fullest historical but with

the strictest judicial evidence, were at the time only half believed,

and are now scarcely half remembered. When these atrocities were daily

perpetrating, of which the greatest part are as little known to the

public in general as the campaigns of Genghis Khan, but are still

protected from the scrutiny of men by the immensity of those voluminous

records of guilt in which they are related, and under the mass of which

they will be buried till some historian be found with patience and

courage enough to drag them forth into light, for the shame, indeed,

but for the instruction of mankind—when these crimes were perpetrating,

which had the peculiar malignity, from the pretexts with which they

were covered, of making the noblest objects of human pursuit seem

odious and detestable; which have almost made the names of liberty,

reformation, and humanity synonymous with anarchy, robbery, and

murder; which thus threatened not only to extinguish every principle

of improvement, to arrest the progress of civilized society, and to

disinherit future generations of that rich succession which they were

entitled to expect from the knowledge and wisdom of the present, but to

destroy the civilization of Europe, which never gave such a proof of

its vigor and robustness as in being able to resist their destructive

power—when all these horrors were acting in the greatest empire of the

continent, I will ask my learned friend, if we had then been at peace

with France, how English writers were to relate them so as to escape

the charge of libelling a friendly government?

When Robespierre, in the debates in the National Convention on the

mode of murdering their blameless sovereign, objected to the formal

and tedious mode of murder called a trial, and proposed to put him

immediately to death, “on the principles of insurrection,” because,

to doubt the guilt of the king would be to doubt the innocence of the

Convention; and if the king were not a traitor, the Convention must

be rebels; would my learned friend have had an English writer state

all this with “_decorum and moderation_?” Would he have had an English

writer state that though this reasoning was not perfectly agreeable to

our national laws, or perhaps to our national prejudices, yet it was

not for him to make any observations on the judicial proceedings of

foreign states?

When Marat, in the same Convention, called for two hundred and seventy

thousand heads must our English writers have said that the remedy did,

indeed, seem to their weak judgment rather severe; but that it was not

for them to judge the conduct of so illustrious an assembly as the

National Convention, or the suggestions of so enlightened a statesman

as M. Marat?

When that Convention resounded with applause at the news of several

hundred aged priests being thrown into the Loire, and particularly

at the exclamation of Carrier, who communicated the intelligence,

“What a revolutionary torrent is the Loire”—when these suggestions

and narrations of murder, which have hitherto been only hinted and

whispered in the most secret cabals, in the darkest caverns of

banditti, were triumphantly uttered, patiently endured, and even loudly

applauded by an assembly of seven hundred men, acting in the sight of

all Europe, would my learned friend have wished that there had been

found in England a single writer so base as to deliberate upon the most

safe, decorous, and polite manner of relating all these things to his

countrymen?

When Carrier ordered five hundred children under fourteen years of

age to be shot, the greater part of whom escaped the fire from their

size, when the poor victims ran for protection to the soldiers, and

were bayoneted clinging round their knees! _would my friend_—but I

can not pursue the strain of interrogation. It is too much. It would

be a violence which I can not practise on my own feelings. It would

be an outrage to my friend. It would be an insult to humanity. No!

Better, ten thousand times better, would it be that every press in

the world were burned; that the very use of letters were abolished;

that we were returned to the honest ignorance of the rudest times,

than that the results of civilization should be made subservient to

the purposes of barbarism, than that literature should be employed to

teach a toleration for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, to

deprave and brutalize the human mind. I know that I speak my friend’s

feelings as well as my own when I say God forbid that the dread of

any punishment should ever make any Englishman an accomplice in so

corrupting his countrymen, a public teacher of depravity and barbarity!

Mortifying and horrible as the idea is, I must remind you, gentlemen,

that even at that time, even under the reign of Robespierre, my learned

friend, if he had then been attorney-general, might have been compelled

by some most deplorable necessity to have come into this court to ask

your verdict against the libellers of Barrère and Collot d’Herbois.

Mr. Peltier then employed his talents against the enemies of the human

race, as he has uniformly and bravely done. I do not believe that any

peace, any political considerations, any fear of punishment would

have silenced him. He has shown too much honor, and constancy, and

intrepidity, to be shaken by such circumstances as these.

My learned friend might then have been compelled to have filed a

criminal information against Mr. Peltier, for “wickedly and maliciously

intending to vilify and degrade Maximilian Robespierre, President of

the Committee of Public Safety of the French Republic!” He might have

been reduced to the sad necessity of appearing before you to belie his

own better feelings, to prosecute Mr. Peltier for publishing those

sentiments which my friend himself had a thousand times felt, and a

thousand times expressed. He might have been obliged even to call for

punishment upon Mr. Peltier for language which he and all mankind would

forever despise Mr. Peltier if he were not to employ. Then, indeed,

gentlemen, we should have seen the last humiliation fall on England;

the tribunals, the spotless and venerable tribunals, of this free

country reduced to be the ministers of the vengeance of Robespierre!

What could have rescued us from this last disgrace? _The honesty and

courage of a jury._ They would have delivered the judges of this

country from the dire necessity of inflicting punishment on a brave and

virtuous man, because he spoke truth of a monster. They would have

despised the threats of a foreign tyrant, as their ancestors braved the

power of oppression at home.

In the court where we are now met, Cromwell twice sent a satirist

on his tyranny to be convicted and punished as a libeller, and in

this court, almost in sight of the scaffold streaming with the blood

of his sovereign, within hearing of the clash of his bayonets which

drove out Parliament with contumely, two successive juries rescued

the intrepid satirist [Lilburne] from his fangs, and sent out with

defeat and disgrace the usurper’s attorney-general from what he had

the insolence to call _his_ court! Even then, gentlemen, when all law

and liberty were trampled under the feet of a military banditti; when

those great crimes were perpetrated on a high place and with a high

hand against those who were the objects of public veneration, which,

more than any thing else, break their spirits and confound their moral

sentiments, obliterate the distinctions between right and wrong in

their understanding, and teach the multitude to feel no longer any

reverence for that justice which they thus see triumphantly dragged at

the chariot-wheels of a tyrant; even then, when this unhappy country,

triumphant, indeed, abroad, but enslaved at home, had no prospect

but that of a long succession of tyrants wading through slaughter to

a throne—_even then, I say, when all seemed lost, the unconquerable

spirit of English liberty survived in the hearts of English jurors_.

That spirit is, I trust in God, not extinct; and if any modern tyrant

were, in the drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe an

English jury, I trust and I believe that they would tell him: “Our

ancestors braved the bayonets of Cromwell; we bid defiance to yours.

_Contempsi Catilinæ gladios—non pertimescam tuos!_”

What could be such a tyrant’s means of overawing a jury? As long as

their country exists, they are girt round with impenetrable armor.

Till the destruction of their country, no danger can fall upon them

for the performance of their duty, and I do trust that there is no

Englishman so unworthy of life as to desire to outlive England. But

if any of us are condemned to the cruel punishment of surviving our

country—if, in the inscrutable counsels of Providence, this favored

seat of justice and liberty, this noblest work of human wisdom and

virtue, be destined to destruction, which I shall not be charged with

national prejudice for saying would be the most dangerous wound ever

inflicted on civilization; at least let us carry with us into our sad

exile the consolation that we ourselves have not violated the rights

of hospitality to exiles—that we have not torn from the altar the

suppliant who claimed protection as the voluntary victim of loyalty and

conscience!

Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate gentleman in your hands.

His character and his situation might interest your humanity; but,

on his behalf, I only ask justice from you. I only ask a favorable

construction of what can not be said to be more than ambiguous

language, and this you will soon be told, from the highest authority,

is a part of justice.

Notwithstanding the great impression made by his speech, the charge

of Lord Ellenborough made it necessary that the jury should render

a verdict of guilty. In his instructions his Lordship said that

under the law of England “any publication which tended to degrade,

revile, and defame persons in considerable situations of power and

dignity, in foreign countries, may be taken and treated as a libel,

and particularly where it has a tendency to interrupt the pacific

relations of the two countries.”

The jury found Peltier guilty; but as war was almost immediately

declared, he was not brought up for sentence, but was set free.