ON THE LIMITATIONS OF FREE SPEECH, DELIVERED IN 1797 ON THE TRIAL OF
WILLIAMS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF PAINE’S “AGE OF REASON.”
Nearly all of Erskine’s speeches were several hours in length and so
logically constructed as not to admit of abridgment or excision. The
more elaborate of them, therefore, are not adapted to the purposes
of this collection. It happens, however, that one of the briefest of
his forensic addresses was the one on which he himself looked with
most satisfaction. Of the speech delivered on the prosecution of
Williams he is reported to have said: “I would rather that all my
other speeches were committed to the flames, or in any manner buried
in oblivion, than that a single page of it should be lost.” Erskine’s
“Speeches,” Am. ed., vol. i., p. 571.
It is an interesting fact that the same great advocate who gave all
his powers to the defence of Paine for publishing the “Rights of
Man,” was equally earnest in the prosecution of Williams for the
publication of the same author’s “Age of Reason.” But the explanation
is easy. In the former work the author criticised, in what Erskine
regarded as a legitimate way, the character and methods of the
English Government; in the latter he assailed what the advocate
regarded as the very foundations of all government and all justice.
The difference between the two is pointed out in the following
speech with a skill that will give the reader a good example of the
orator’s method.