passages, which, like the scored matter in the book before you, chequers the volume of the brightest and best-spent life, his mercy will obscure them from the

eye

of his purity, and our repentance blot them out for ever.

All this would, I admit, be perfectly foreign, and irrelevant, if you were sitting here in a case of property between man and man, where a strict rule of law must operate, or there would be an end of civil life and society. It would be equally foreign, and still more irrelevant, if applied to those shameful attacks upon private reputation which are the bane and disgrace of the press; by which whole families have been rendered unhappy during life, by aspersions cruel, scandalous, and unjust. Let SUCH LIBELLERS remember, that no one of my principles of defence can at any time or upon any occasion ever apply to shield THEM from punishment; because such conduct is not only an infringement of the rights of men, as they are defined by strict law, but is absolutely incompatible with honour, honesty, or mistaken good intention. On such men let the Attorney General bring forth all the artillery of his office, and the thanks and blessings of the whole public will follow him. But this is a totally different case. What-ever private calumny may mark this work, it has not been made the subject of complaint, and we have therefore nothing to do with that, nor any right to consider it. We are trying whether the public could have been considered as offended and endangered, if

--

Mr. Hastings himself, in whose place the author and publisher have a right to put themselves, had, under all the circumstances which have been considered, composed and published the volume under examination. That question cannot, in common sense, be any thing resembling a question of LAW, but is a pure question of FACT, to be decided on the principles which I have humbly recommended. I therefore ask of the Court that the book itself may now be delivered to you. Read it with attention, and as you shall find it, pronounce your verdict.

REPLY OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,

My learned friend and I stand very much contrasted with each other in this cause.-To him belong infinite eloquence and ingenuity, a gift of persuasion, beyond that which I almost ever knew fall to any man's share, and a power of language greater than that which ever met my ear.

In his situation, it is not only permitted to him, but it is commendable ;-it is his duty to his Client, to exert all those faculties, to comprehend every possible topic, that by the utmost stretch of ingenuity

tan possibly be introduced into the most remote connexion with the cause. I, on the other hand, Gentlemen, must disclaim those qualities which I ascribe to my learned friend-namely, that ingenuity, that eloquence, and that power of words;-but if they did belong to me, we stand contrasted also in this circumstance, that I durst not in my present situation use them, whatever little effort I might make. to that effect, acting the part simply of an advocate in a private cause. All that I must abandon to-day, recollecting the situation in which I stand. Gentlemen, however unworthily, yet so it is, that I stand in the situation of the first officer of this high Court; therefore the utmost fair dealing, the plainest common sense, the clearest argument, the utmost bona fides with the Court and Jury, are the duties incumbent upon me. In that spirit therefore, Gentlemen, you will not expect from me the discharge of my duty, in any other way than by the most temperate observation, and by the most correct and the fairest reasoning in my power.

One should have thought, from the general turn of my learned friend's arguments, that I had in this Information imputed it as a crime to the deceased gentleman whom he has named, and whom I think I hardly recollect ever to have heard named before, -that I had imputed it to him as an offence, merely that he reasoned in defence of Mr. Hastings ably and eloquently, as is asserted. My learned friend has said, that I have picked out passages here and

there disconnected and disjointed, and have omitted a vast variety of other passages. I hardly think that his second observation would have been made, had t not been for the sake of his first; but inasmuch as I studiously avoided, and would insert no one single line that consisted of fair reasoning and defence for Mr. Hastings, inasmuch as it was no part of my duty so to do ;-so he has exculpated me by saying, that the loading an Information with that which was not immediately to the point, was a thing which I had avoided with propriety.

This book, as my learned friend himself has described it to you, and read the greater part of, consists of many different heads; it consists of an historical narration of facts; with which I do not quarrel. -It consists of extracts from original papers; with which I do not quarrel.-It consists of arguments, of reasoning, and of very good declamation; with that I do not quarrel.-But it consists also of a stain, and a deep stain, upon your representatives in Parliament. My learned friend says, that this is written with a friendly zeal for Mr. Hastings.-I commend that zeal; but at the same time you will permit me to distinguish, if that could avail, between the zeal of an author for Mr. Hastings, and the cold lucrative motives of the printer of that author's work. It was the duty of that printer to have the work revised by some one else, if he has not the capacity to do it himself, and to see that poison does not circulate among the public. It was his bounden duty

to do that; zeal could not excuse or exculpate even the author, much less the mechanical printer; though, perhaps, if this had been shown in manuscript as the work of a zealous friend, great allowance might have been made for that zeal.

My learned friend, for the purposes of argument, deviated into almost every field that it was possible for knowledge such as his-for reading,-experience, -for knowledge of nature, and every thing that belongs to human affairs; he has deviated into them at great length, and nine tenths of his argument consisted of nothing else. Instead of that, what is this question?-The coldest, the dullest, the driest of all possible questions. It is neither more nor less than this, Whether, when the great tribunal of the nation is carrying on its most solemn proceeding for the benefit and for the interests of the public, whether, while it is even depending, and not ripe for judgment, the accusers, the House of Commons, who carry up their Impeachment to the House of Lords, are slandered by being called persons acting from private and interested animosity ;-persons who studiously, when they find a meritorious servant of the country come home crowned with laurels (as it is expressed), are sure to do what?-TO IMPEACH

AND TO RUIN HIM.

I shall also studiously avoid any thing any thing respecting politics or party, or any thing respecting the conduct or opinions of any men in another place; and my learned friend will excuse me also, if I do not state