He originally put the indictment in a regular course of trial in the very neighbourhood where its operations must have been most felt, and where, if criminal in its objects, the criminality must have been the most obvious. A jury of that country was assembled to try it; and the dean having required my assistance on the occasion, I travelled two hundred miles with great inconvenience to myself, to do him that justice which he was entitled to as my friend and fellow citizen and to pay to my country that tribute which was due from me when the liberty of the press was invaded.

The jury thus assembled, was formed from the first characters in that country; men who would have willingly doomed to death the wretch who, in the language of the indictment, had sought to excite disaffection to the person of the king, and an armed rebellion against his government: yet when such a jury was empannelled, and such names found upon it as Sir Watkyn Williams Wynne, and others not less respectable, this publick spirited prosecutor, who had no other object than publick justice, was confounded and appalled; he said to himself, this will never do, for all these gentlemen know, not only that the paper is not in itself a libel; but that it neither was nor could be published by the Dean with a libellous intention; and, what is worse than all, they are men of too proud an honour to act upon any persuasion or authority, against the conviction of their own consciences. But how shall I get rid of them? They are already struck and empannelled, and neither integrity nor sense are challenges to ju

rors.

Gentlemen, in this dilemma, he produced an affidavit, which appeared to me not very sufficient for the purpose of evading the trial, but which as those who upon that occasion have to decide that question upon their oaths, were of a different opinion; I shall not support my own by any arguments, meaning to conduct myself to day, as I always have and shall, with reverence to the administration of justice. I

shall, therefore, content myself with stating that the affidavit contained no other matter than that there had been published at Wrexham, an extract from Dr. Towers's Biography, containing accounts of trials for libels published above a century ago, from which the jurors, if it had fallen in their way, might have been informed of their right to judge their fellow citizens for crimes affecting their liberties or their lives; a doctrine not often disputed, and never without the vindication of it by the greatest and most illustrious names in the law. But, says this publick-spirited prosecutor, if the jury are to try this, I must withdraw my prosecution; for they are men of honour and - sense; they know the constitution of their country, and they know the dean of St. Asaph; and I have therefore nothing left but to apply to the judges, suggesting that the minds of the special jury are so prejudiced by being told that they are Englishmen, and as such have the power of acquitting a defendant accused of a crime if they think him innocent, that they are unfit to sit in judgment upon him. Gentlemen, the scheme succeeded, and I was put in my chaise, and wheeled back again, with the matter in my pocket which had postponed the trial; matter which was to be found in every shop in London, and which had been equally within the reach of every juryman who had sat upon a jury since the times of king Charles the

second.

Gentlemen, in this manner above a year ago Mr. Jones deprived my reverend friend of an honourable acquittal in his own country; and it is a circumstance material in the consideration of this indictment, because in the administering publick justice, you will, I am persuaded, watch with jealousy to discover whether publick justice is the end and object of the prosecution: and in trying whether my reverend client proceeded malo animo in the publication of this dialogue, you will certainly obtain some light from examining quo animo, the prosecutor has arraigned him before you.

When the indictment was brought down again to trial at the next following assizes, there were no more pamphlets to form a pretext for procrastination. I was surprised, indeed, that they did not employ some of their own party to publish one; and have recourse to the same device which had been so successful before; but this mode either did not strike, or was thought to be but fruitlessly delaying the acquittal which could not be ultimately prevented.

The prosecutor, therefore, secretly sued out a writ of certiorari from the court of King's Bench, the effect of which was to remove the indictment from the court of great sessions in Wales, and to bring it to trial as an English record in an English county. Armed with this secret weapon to defeat the honest and open arm of justice, he appeared at Wrexham, and gave notice of trial, saying to himself, "I will keep it a secret that I have the king's writ, till I see the complexion of the jury; if I find them men fit for my purpose, either as the prostitutes of power, or as men of little minds, or from their insignificance equally subject to the frown of authority, and the blandishments of corruption, so that I may reasonably look for a sacrifice, instead of a trial, I will then keep the certiorari in my pocket, and the proceedings will of course go forward: but if on the contrary, I find such names as I found before; if the gentlemen of the county are to meet me, I will then, with his majesty's writ in my hand, discharge them from giving that verdict of acquittal, which their understandings would dictate and their consciences impose."

Such, without any figure, I may assert to have been the secret language of Mr. Jones to himself, unless he means to slander those gentlemen in the face of this court, by saying that the jurors, from whose jurisdiction he, by his certiorari withdrew the indictment, were not impartial, intelligent, and independent men; a sentiment which he dares not

presume even to whisper, because in publick cr in private he would be silenced by all who heard it.

From such a tribunal this publick spirited prosecutor shrunk a second time; and just as I was getting out of my chaise at Wrexham, after another journey from the other side of the island, without even notice of an intention to postpone the trial, he himself in person, his counsel having, from a sense of honour and decency refused it, presented the king's writ to the chief justice of Chester, which dismissed the dean for ever from the judgment of his neighbours and countrymen, and which brings him before you to day.

What opinion then must the prosecutor entertain of your honour and your virtues, since he evidently. expects from you a verdict, which it is manifest from his conduct he did not venture to hope for from such a jury as I have described to you?

Gentlemen, I observe an honest indignation rising in all your countenances on the subject, which, with the arts of an advocate, I might easily press into the service of my friend; but as his defence does not require the support of your resentments, or even of those honest prejudices to which liberal minds are but too open without excitation, I shall draw a veil over all that may seduce you from the correctest and the severest judgment.

Gentlemen, the dean of St. Asaph is indicted by the prosecutor, not for having published this little book; that is not the charge: but he is indicted of publishing a false, scandalous, and malicious libel, and of publishing it (I am now going to read the very words of the charge)" with a malicious design and intention to infuse among the subjects of this realm, jealousies and suspicions of the king and his government; to create disaffection to his person; to raise seditions and tumults within the kingdom; and to excite his majesty's subjects to attempt, by armed rebellion and violence, to subvert the state and con stitution of the nation."

4

These are not words of form, but of the very essence of the charge. The defendant pleads that he is not guilty, and puts himself upon you, his country; and it is fit, therefore, that you should be distinctly informed of the effect of a general verdict of guilty on such an issue, before you venture to pronounce it. By such a verdict you do not merely find that the defendant published the paper in question; for if that were the whole scope of such a finding, involving no examination into the merits of the thing published, the term guilty might be wholly inapplicable and unjust; because the publication of that which is not criminal cannot be a crime; because a man cannot be guilty of publishing that which contains in it nothing which constitutes guilt. This observation is confirmed by the language of the record; for if the verdict of guilty involved no other consideration than the simple fact of publication, the legal term would be, that the defendant PUBLISHED, not that he was GUILTY, of publishing; yet those who tell you that a general verdict of guilty comprehends nothing more than the fact of publishing, are forced in the same moment to confess, that if you found that fact alone without applying to it the epithet of guilty, no judgment or punishment could follow from your verdict; and they therefore call upon you to pronounce that guilt which they forbid you to examine into, acknowledging at the same time, that it can be legally pronounced by none but you a position shocking to conscience, and insulting to common sense.

Indeed, every part of the record exposes the ab, surdity of a verdict of guilty, which is not founded on a previous judgment that the matter indicted is a libel, and that the defendant published it with a criminal intention; for if you pronounce the word guilty, without meaning to find sedition in the thing published, or in the mind of the publisher, you expose to shame and punishment that innocence which you mean to protect; since the instant that you say the defendant is guilty the gentleman who sits under