ministration. In fact corruption as notorious as the sun at noon day is an avowed part of the system, and is denominated the necessary oil for the wheels of Government. It is a most pernicious oil to the interests of the people." This is strong language I admit, and would perhaps be censurable as imprudent, at least, if the very expressions themselves, which the writer uses, did not guide us directly to the facts to which he alludes, and explain the passage. He alludes most manifestly to the celebrated exclamation of a person at the time that he was in the seat of office, the first commoner of the realm, and who instead of being reproached for his words has retired from his office with the honours which he has merited for his services in it. It transpired in the House of Commons, that seats had been trafficked for as articles of sale and purchase for money.

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-Is that a subject at all relating, to the question which is now before the Jury?

Mr. COOPER.-My Lord, I am going to use the declaration of the Speaker, as a matter of history, and to show, that the words charged as criminal were an allusion to it; and if so, were not criminally used. I do not wish, nay I would avoid the introduction of any improper or inflammatory topics. I would not attempt to serve my client by such means. When it was exposed, that there had been certain trafficking for seats in the House of Commons, the Speaker used these words, (and it is to them, I would show the Jury, the writer of the paper alludes)" practices are as notorious as the sun at noon-day at which our ancestors would have started with indignation" and that, Gentlemen

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-Will you allow me to ask you Mr. Cooper, I want to know where you get that from.

Mr. COOPER.-My lord, from all the reports of the speeches in the newspapers of the day which were never contradicted.

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-I beg to state, that, whatever passed in Parliament, can not be questioned any where else. Whatever the Speaker said in parliament, he was justified in saying. But I have no means of knowing, nor have you, whether he ever did say or not.

Mr. COOPER.-I am not questioning any thing he said in the House of Commons

Mr JUSTICE BEST.-If Mr. Abbot had said it any where else, it would have been a libel onthe Constitution; if he said it there, we cannot enquire about it; it would be a breach of privilege.

Joseph On

June 14

1838.

Mr. COOPER.-Your Lordship asked me, how I came to know that he said so. My Lord, I have seen it in all the recorded speeches of the House of Commons in the published debates in Parliament and

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-I say there are no recorded speeches of the House of Commons to which we can listen or attend. Mr. COOPER.-Certainly, there are no records of speeches in the House of Commons in the sense in which the proceedings of Courts of Law are records, nor is there in that sense any recorded speech of Cicero or of Lord Chatham: but, my Lord, will your Lordship say, that I am not entitled in my address to the Jury to use that which has been reported as part of a speech of Lord Chatham or of Cicero; because there are no records filed, as in the Courts of Law, of their speeches! I submit that they are matters of history; and that, as such, I am at liberty to use them.

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.—I tell you, Mr. Cooper, what the distinction is. If you publish, that, which may be said to be a speech of Lord Chatham's, and it may be an accurate report of his speech, you may be guilty of publishing a libel, though the place, in which that speech was delivered gave a liberty to the speech. You know it has been so decided in my Lord Abingdon's case, who published his own speeches.

Mr. COOPER. That, my Lord, was a libel upon a private individual. I say

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-I say you have no knowledge of any thing which is said in the Houses of Parliament.

Mr. COOPER. With great submission I re-urge it as a matter of history and as such I would use it whether the fact is ten years old or ten thousand I submit makes no difference. Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-Mr. Cooper, I have told you my opinion; if you do don't choose to submit to it, the best way will be to go on, perhaps.

Mr. COOPER.-With the utmost deference to your Lord

ship

Mr. JUSTICE BEST.-The Court of King's Bench has decided this very point, within the last two terms, against, what you are conteuding for. If your own opinion be the better one, proceed.

Mr. COOPER.-Gentlemen, I was going to say, wheu the Speaker of the House of Commons exclaimed (I will not repeat particularly upon what occasion) that our ancestors would have started with indignation at practices which were "as notorious as the sun at noon day" can you have any doubt in your mind that the writer of this pamphlet alluded

to that exclamation? Why look at the passage, see; he uses the same words. "Corruption is as notorious as the sun at noonday" is his very expression. He is citing the Speaker's own words, and cannot but be supposed to be speaking of the very same facts. It was proposed, on that occasion, to impeach a nobleman, whom I will not name and need not, for those practices. This however was resisted by almost all, and even by some, who were friendly to Parliamentary reform, and politically adverse to the noblemen, to whom I allude, not, indeed, upon any pretext of his innocence of the practices, charged against him; but on the sole ground that those practices were so general and notorious that they would condemn themselves in sentencing him; and among so many guilty, it would be unjust to single him alone for punishment. Yes; although they were practices, at which our ancestors would have started with indignation, they were the practices of numbers, and the practices were as notorious as the sun at noonday; and, therefore, the proposition of impeachment was rejected, and rightly; for as it has been said by the first speaker of all antiquity, we cannot call men to a strict account for their actions; while we are infirm in our own conduct. If this is the state of one branch of our Legislature, and if it is avowed, and by those, who would conceal it, if concealment were possible (but it would be as easy to conceal the sun) Good God! shall a man be prosecuted and pronounced guilty, and consigned to punishment for affirming that our laws are corrupt; that there is corruption in the system, and that corruption is an avowed part of that system? when in so affirming he only echoes the exclamation of the Speaker himself, that "practices, at which our ancestors would have started with indignation, were as notorious as the sun at noon-day?" Why, if as the Speaker declared, such practices exist, and affect the most important branch of the Legislature, I myself say, that there is corruption in the very vitals of the Constitution itself. In such a state of things, to talk of the Constitution, is mockery and insult; and I say there is no Constitution. What, then, has the writer of this pamphlet said more than has been avowed by the highest authority, and every body knows? And now, can you lay your hands on your hearts, and by your verdict of Guilty send the Defendant to linger in a jail for having published what the author has, under such circumstances, written?

Having thus concluded my observations on the passages selected from this paper for prosecution, I will, for I have a

right to read it all if I please, direct your attention to another part of it. Let us examine whether other passages will not convince us, that (though he should be mistaken in some of his opinions) the whole was written with a single and honest intention. I myself never read a paper, which, on the whole, appeared to be written with more candour. There is an openness, that does not even spare the writer himself. Indeed, with regard to his opinions, peculiar and mistaken as he may be, he seems himself sincerely to believe in them. He is now suffering for those opinions, and suffering with a firmness, which to those who think him wrong, is stubbornness; and, thus, he affords another proof of the extreme impolicy of attempting to impose silence by prosecutions, and extort from the mind the abjuration of opinions by external and physical force. It never succeeds; but, on the contrary, works the very opposite effect to that which is its object. As the author from whom I have just now cited says, with extreme force and equal beauty, "a kind of maternal feeling is excited in the mind that makes us love the cause for which we suffer." It is not for the mere point of expression that it has been said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It is not theological doctrine alone, that thrives and flourishes under persecution. The principle of the aphorism applies equally to all opinions upon all subjects. There is widely spread through our nature an inclination to suspect that there is a secret value in that from which others attempt to drive us by force; and from this, joined to other powerful motives, the persecution of men for their tenets, whatever they may be, only draws their attachment closer, and rivets their affections to them. Every effort to make them abandon the obnoxious doctrine renders them more steadfast to it. The loppings, which are designed to destroy, serve but as prunings, from which it shoots with increased vigour, and strikes its root still deeper. Has it not always been seen, that persecution has bred in men that stubborn resolution, which present death has not been able to shake; and, what is more, an eagerness to disseminate amongst others those principles for which they have themselves been prosecuted and pursued. I, therefore, from my very soul, deprecate every species of persecution on account of religious and political opinions, not only from its illiberality, but bad policy; and I am full of hope, that you will by your verdict to day show, that you have an equal aversion to it.

To recur, Gentlemen, to the pamphlet; I submit to you, that there is a general air of sincerity in the language of the

writer throughout the composition, which obliges us to believe, that, however mistaken, you may think him, in his opinions he is honest in his intentions. He says in another part of the Address " every Government must derive its support from the body of the people; and it follows, as a matter of course, that the people must have a power to withold their supplies." Which is very true: for, where there is a shadow of political liberty, a revenue can only be raised by taxes to which the people have consented: it being allowed that where there is taxation without representation tyranny begins. Now, if the writer really believes that there are corrupt practices in the Government who can blame him for proposing (by abstinence from those articles which are taxed and yield a revenue so large that it supports a system of misgovernment) to compel our rulers, by a diminution of their means of undue influence to a regard to economy and a just administration? I know indeed, that this doctrine is considered offensive: nor am I prepared to say with confidence that under the wide construction which has been given to the law against conspiracy, persons who were to combine to force such a charge by abstaining from all exciseable articles might not be indicted for it as a conspiracy. It may for aught, that I know, be even indictable to unite and desist from using tea, tobacco and snuff to coerce the government into reform by a reduction of the revenue, raised from those articles: but you are not sitting there to try an indictment for a conspiracy; and therefore though this passage may not be pleasing, I read it, without hesitation, because it leads to others, which I think demand your consideration and attention. "We must deny ourselves, he proceeds to say, those little luxuries, in which we have long indulged. Why not? Who gains, and who loses by this denial? We do not rob ourselves, we only check our passions; and, in doing this, we strengthen both our bodies, and our purses. I would ap peal to those, who, for the last year, have had the courage, and the virtue to abstain from the use of malt and spirituous liquors, foreign tea, and coffee, tobacco, snuff, &c. whether they do not feel satisfaction from the change of habit; and whether they are not better in health, and pocket, without the use of these things." This, Gentlemen, is a sermon on temperance; and I wish it were generally followed. I apprehend, that this is not only innocent, but highly meritorious. For my own part I shall maintain the opinion (though ten thousand Mandevilles should write, and imagine they have proved private vices public benefits) that it is infinitely