fpirit and virtue, with which they watch over their juft execution."

The great criterion, by which criminality The guilt of a

can be affixed to any writing or publication,
is the establishment of this point, quo animo

it was written or published; for actus non fa-
cit reum, nifi mens fit rea; the mere phyfical
action is not in its nature fufceptible' of guilt
or criminality; the vicious and malicious in-
tention of the mind alone can affix immo-
rality, criminality, or guilt unto it; as is
clearly diftinguifhed in the cafes of chance-
medley and murder. *" So lord Cam-
den, in profecuting the late Dr. Shebbeare,
told the jury, that he did not defire their
verdict upon any other principle, than their
folemn conviction of the truth of the informa-
tion, which charged the defendant with a
wicked defign to alienate the hearts of the
fubjects of this country from their king upon
the throne." And this refpectable peer fol-
lowed closely the principle of the great chief
justice Holt, who in Mr. Tutchin's cafe †
held a fimilar language to the jury.
"Now
you have heard this evidence, you are to con-
fider whether you are fatisfied, that Mr. Tut-
chin is guilty of writing, compofing, and pub-
* Erfk. ibid. p. 205.

+ State Trials, vol. v. p. 528:
K k

lishing

crime confifts

in the mind and

intention.

government

a crime.

lifhing thefe libels. They fay, they are innocent papers and no libels, and they fay nothing is a libel, but what reflects upon fome particular perfon. But this is a very

Writing against strange doctrine, &c. If people fhould not be called to account for poffeffing the people with an ill opinion of the government, no government can fubfift, &c."

Some publications of the prefent day, which feem to have acquired a more extenfive circulation, than from the bare chance fale of the impreffion, appear to me to have been written, not with an immediate view or intention of enforcing due fubmiffion and fubordination to government. When an author commits himfelf in print, he opens an univerfal correfpondence with all mankind and I fhall therefore claim no other, than the conftitutional liberty of the prefs, to warn my countrymen of the real unequivocal import and tendency of one out of many of these late publications, which has appeared under the delufive and infidious title of the Rights of Man. The author fhall not be interrupted by me in the right, which he claims of speaking for himfelf; nor will I attempt to invade the right of any one of my readers to think for himself, if he undertake to judge quo animo thefe doctrines were written, and continue

now

now to be published. I fhall not introduce one obfervation or comment of my own.

*«There never did, there never will, and there never can exift a parliament, or any defcription of men, or any generation of men, in any country, poffeffed of the right or the power of binding and controuling posterity to the end of time, or of commanding for ever how the world fhall be governed, or who fhall govern it; and therefore all fuch claufes, acts, or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void." The vanity and prefumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and infolent of all tyrannies."

"It is fomewhat extraordinary, that the offence, for which James II. was expelled, that of fetting up power by affumption, should be re-acted under another fhape and form, by the parliament that expelled him."

§"All therefore that can be faid of the clauses of the act of fettlement is, that they are a formality of words, of as much import, as if those, who used them had addreffed a congratulation to themfelves, and in the ori

* Vid. Rights of Man, p. 9.
↑ Ibid. p. 12.

+ Ibid. p. 9.

§ Ibid. p. 14.
Kk 2

ental

ental ftile of antiquity, had faid, O parliament, live for ever!"

"It will confequently follow, that if the claufes themselves, fo far as they set up an affumed, ufurped dominion over pofterity for ever, are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and void."

"When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can fcarcely avoid disgust at those, who are thus impofed upon.'

"Can then Mr. Burke produce the Englifh conftitution? If he cannot, we may fairly conclude, that though it has been so much talked about, no fuch thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and consequently that the people have yet a conftitution to form."

§ "The English government is one of thofe, which arofe out of a conqueft, and not out of fociety, and confequently it arofe over the people; and though it has been much

Rights of Man, p. 14: 1 Ibid. p. 54.

+ Ibid. p. 51.
Ibid.

modified

modified from the opportunity of circum-. ftances fince the time of William the Conqueror, the country has never yet regenerated itself, and is therefore without a conftitution."

"In England, game is made the property of those, at whose expence it is not fed; and with respect to monopolies, the country is cut up into monopolies. Every chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself, and the qualification of electors proceeds out of those chartered monopolies. Is this freedom? Is this what Mr. Burke means by a conftitution?"

"In thefe chartered monopolies, a man coming from another part of the country, is hunted from them, as if he were a foreign. enemy. An Englishman is not free of his own country; every one of those places prefents a barrier in his way, and tells him he is not a freeman—that he has no rights."

OTHE

"Every thing in the English government appears to me the reverse of what it ought to be, and of what it is faid to be. The parliament, imperfectly and capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless fuppofed to hold the national purfe in truft for the nation; but in the manner, in which an English parlia

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