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sureties in 2501. each, and be further imprisoned till that security be procured."1

refractory troops;-nor indeed as refractory troops would be treated in any civilized country whatever,' save and except only this country. Here alone, in this land of liberty,

The King v. Hunt and another. Court of King's Bench, Feb. 22.-in this age of refinement-by a This was a criminal information people who, with their usual con filed against John Hunt and Leigh sistency, have been in the habit of Hunt, the printer, and two of the reproaching their neighbours with proprietors, of the Examiner, a the cruelty of their punishments→→→→→ Sunday news-paper, for a seditious is still inflicted a species of torture, libel, to which the defendants had at least as exquisite as any that pleaded not guilty. The subject was ever devised by the infernal was, the insertion of a paper against ingenuity of the Inquisition. No, military flogging, from the Stam- as the Attorney-general justly says, ford News. Buonaparte does not treat his refractory troops in this manner: there is not a man in his ranks whose back is seamed with the la cerating cat o'nine-tails;—his soldiers have never yet been brought up to view one of their comrades stripped naked, his limbs tied with ropes to a triangular machine

The Attorney-general rose and said, that he had thought it in cumbent on him to prosecute the defendants for a libel, the tendency of which was not only to excite the disaffection of the soldiery, by representing that they were treated with improper and excessive severity, but (what was still more mischievous) to represent the treatment of Buonaparte towards his troops, and the means which were used to enlist them, as infinitely preferable to the system employed in Great Britain. After some preliminary observations, he went on to read and comment upon the publication, which commenced thus: ONE THOUSAND LASHES. The aggressors were not dealt with as Buonaparte would have treated his refractory troops." Speech of the Attorney-general. Another motto contained instances of military flogging from the London news papers. Then succeeded the substance of the paper, of which the following is a specimen. "The Attorney-general said what was very true; these aggressors have certainly not been dealt with as Buonaparte would have treated his

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his back torn to the bone by the merciless cutting whipcord, applied by persons who relieve each other at short intervals, that they may bring the full unexhausted strength of a man to the work of scourging. Buonaparte's soldiers have never yet, with tingling ears, listened to the piercing screams of a human creature so tortured; they have never seen the blood oozing from his rent flesh;-they have never beheld a surgeon, with dubious look, pressing the agonized victim's pulse, and calmly calcu lating, to an odd blow, how far suffering may be extended, until, in its extremity, it encroach upon life. In short, Buonaparte's soldiers cannot form any notion of that most heart-rending of all exhibitions on this side hell-an English military flogging."

The Attorney-general concluded. R 2

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his speech by pointing out the mischievous nature of this paper, which he did not doubt would be pronounced a most seditious libel.

Mr. Brougham made a very able and eloquent speech for the defendants, in which, after various remarks upon the right of an Englishman to f.ee discussion of public topics, he dwelt with much force and effect upon the decided disapprobation of our military punishments, expressed in the writings of Sir Robert Wilson and Brigadier-general Stuart.

Lord Ellenborough, in his charge to the jury, spoke of the peculiar danger at such a time as the present, of doing any thing to alienate the attachment of the army, and pointed out the circumstances of an inflammatory tendency in the publication, which he had no hesitation in pronouncing a libel. The jury withdrew for an hour and a half, and then returned with a verdict of Not Guilty. It is to be observed, that ouly two of these were special jurors, and the rest were tales men.

Mr. Drakard, the printer of the Stamford News, in which the paper first appeared, was also prosecuted on the same account, and upon his trial at Lincoln was found guilty. He was brought up for judgment to the court of King's Bench, where he received the sentence of 18 months imprisonment in Lincoln gaol, a fine of 2001. and to give security for good behaviour during three years after his liberation. When his conviction was mentioned in the House of Commons, and contrasted with the acquittal of the Hunts, it was said by the Attorney-general, that some

of the most libellous parts of Drak ard's paper had been omitted by the latter. The real difference, however, was probably that between the Westminster and the Lincoln jury.

The King against Henry White the Elder.-Court of King's-Bench, Nov. 1.-This was an information ex officio by the Attorney-general against the proprietor of the Independent Whig, for printing and publishing a seditious libel. The subject of this publication consisted principally of a charge of partiality and injustice with respect to the common soldiers in the British army, in confining the honorary medals given after victories to the superior officers, and thereby creating an odious distinction between them and the men, as if the latter had no share in the merit of the success. It also contrasted the treatment of the soldiers in Buonaparte's army, with that in ours, with respect to the rewards bestowed on merit; and it launched out into some common-place invectives against the existing admininistration.

The Attorney-general, in stating the case to the jury, dwelt in the usual manner on the libellous nature of this paper, both in its tendency to excite discontent and disaffection among the soldiery, and in its scandalous charges against his Majesty's ministers.

After the defendant's counsel had urged various legal objections to the affidavit brought to prove his responsibility in whatever was contained in the Independent Whig, and other matters of the evidence produced in the charge, all which were over-ruled, Mr.

White

White proceeded to read his own defence. He showed that he could have no criminal intention in publishing the alleged libel, having never seen it till it was printed, for he was then in confinement at Dorchester, 120 miles from London. He could bring witnesses to prove that the libel was not his; and that the article was written so close upon its publication, as to preclude the possibility of his baving any previous knowledge of it. He had been three years a solitary prisoner at a distance from his business, which he was either com. pelled to renounce, or to intrust its management to another. This deputy of his had offered to sur render himself, provided the Attorney-general would prosecute him, and not the defendant, but he had refused so to do. He was aware he might have been spared this trial, if he had suffered judgment to go against him by default; whereby he would have confessed what he was utterly unconscious of-the wicked intent charged by this information. For resisting so mean a proposal, he trusted he should meet with the approbation rather than the censure of the jury. The law had taken him to a distant place it could not be supposed that it thereby meant to deprive him of the support of life; and it was from the operation of its sentence alone that he was brought to answer for this offence. He then adverted to Mr. Fox's act, which, he said, was wholly nugatory, if it did not bring the moral guilt of the publication of libel within the purview of the jury. He quoted cases in which defendants were found not guilty for want of criminal intention;

and referred to that of Mr. Reeves, where the jury found his publication improper, but denied his criminal intention in publishing it.

After concluding his speech with an address to the sympathy of the jury, the defendant called as a wit ness his son, John White, who deposed, that he visited his father in prison every day, and acted as his amanuensis. To the best of his belief, his father never knew of the libel till it was published. On his cross examination by the Attorney-general, he said he did not know the author of it. Being asked whether he had not heard his father say whose it was, he applied to the bench to be informed whether he was bound to answer that question. Lord Ellenborough said, Certainly; and when the de fendant's counsel objected to the question, he refused to hear him. The defendant thereupon complained loudly of injustice; but was cautioned not to injure himself by such unfounded complaints. The witness then said, he might have heard his father say, it was written by an elder brother, who conducted the paper whilst his father was in prison, and who had a discretionary latitude with respect to articles under the head London, as this was.

The Attorney-general, in his reply, took notice of the defendant's plea, that the sentence of the law had brought him in the situation which prevented him from superintending his paper, and observed, that nothing could be more unjust than for him to impute to the law a confinement which he had brought upon himself by a former offence; and that no contradiction or disapprobation of the libel hav

ing afterwards appeared in his paper, it was to be presumed he never had repented of it.

Lord Ellenborough charged the jury at great length, and in doing at, took the opportunity of refuting every argument brought by the defendant. He began with establishing the legal proof of the publication, the evidence for which had been objected to. He then proceeded to nullify the defendant's plea, that he was not the writer of the libel; and he laid down as the unquestionable law of the land, that the proprietor of every newspaper is responsible for -the contents of his paper, whether written by himself or by another. He acknowledged that circumstances which rendered it impossible for the proprietor to know what had been inserted in his paper had been admitted in extenuation of punishment, but observed, that in the present case no tokens had appeared of disapprobation of the article in question. With respect to the plea of want of criminal intention, the rule of daw being that a man is responsible for the acts of his agent, the intention was to be collected from the act itself. Adverting to Mr. Reeves's case, he pointed out the difference between it and the present; the freedom from criminal intention being in that instance inferred by the jury from the perusal of the writing charged as a libel. Proceeding to the libellous character of the article, he said he could have no doubt that publications tending to alienate the soldiery, and directly defaming the government, were libels; and he dwelt, with the animation of a pleader, upon the injustice done to the na

tional spirit and government by some expressions in the paper. To tell the army they were insulted, appeared clearly to him a dangerous libel; nor had he a doubt on bis mind, that charging the members of administration with imbecility and corruption in their offices, was a libel. He knew that it was within the province of the jury to determine on the whole of the case; but it was bis duty to state to them his opinion of the article before them, and that was clearly, that it was a libel.

This trial lasted from nine in the forenoon till one in the afternoon, after which, the jury (which was composed of half special jurors and half talesmen) continued in consultation till five o'olock. They then brought in a verdict finding the defendant guilty of printing and publishing the libel, through the medium of his agent; but, on account of his peculiar situation, earnestly recommending him to mercy. The clerk of the court, however, objected to this verdict, unless he might consider it as guilty. The jury thereupon again retired for about ten minutes, and returned with a verdict of Not Guilty.

PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT.

Burdett v. Abbott, —Court of King's Bench, February 8.-Sir F. Burdett having resolved to bring to a trial at common law the authority of parliament by which he had been taken from his own house and committed to the Tower, brought actions against the persons officially concerned in that transaction, the first of whom was the Speaker of the House of Com

mons,

mons, Mr. Abbott. The defendant was charged with a trespass and assault, by breaking into the plaintiff's house on April 6, 1810, and obliging him to go to his Ma jesty's Tower of London. There were other formal counts for false: imprisonment. The defendant's first plea was, not guilty. His second stated the circumstances of the case, viz. the resolution of the House of Commons that a letter acknowledged by Sir F. Burdett was a libel on the rights of the House, and a high breach of its privileges, and its order, that he should be committed to the Tower, in consequence of which he, the Speaker, had issued his warrant to the serjeant at arms for Sir F. B.'s apprehension. There was another plea, containing a justification to the assault and imprisonment mentioned in the first count; and to each of these pleas the plaintiff had demurred; to which demurrer there was a rejoinder in demurrer. In support of this demurrer, Mr. Holroyd was now to argue for the plaintiff.

The general strain of his argu. ment was to show, that as the prerogatives of the King, and the rights and liberties of the people, were all defined and known, so the privileges of parliament ought to be supposed knowable, since otherwise a person might ignorantly commit a breach of them, which would subject him to punishment; and if it was of importance to all persons to knows these laws, a fortiori it must be so to the judges. That Lord Hale bad regarded parliamentary law not as opposed to the common law, but as a part of it in its full and extended sense; and therefore it was a

law cognizable by the court, who were the judges of the law of the land; if not part of the common law, it would directly militateagainst Magna Charta that no resolutions either of the Lords or Commons could make that a legal privilege which was not one, which could be done only by an act of the whole parliament--that the courts of law had always disregarded the resolutions of either house, resolv ing that to be privilege which the law said was not (to which purs pose he cited many cases) that the House of Commons for a long time never proceeded on their own authority in cases of privilege, but laid them before the whole parlia ment for its decision, and when decided against them, it was not law. Mr. Holroyd then proceeded to consider the Speaker's warrant{ of commitment in the present instance, and pointed out various defects in it. In conclusion he touched upon that part of the case which related to the breaking open of doors; and contended that there was no one case on record of the door of a man's house being broken open but for some crime, and by process in the name of the King for that crime, and that it could not be done legally for a libel or a breach of privilege.

The further hearing of this cause was postponed.

It was not till May 17th, that the attorney-general made his reply in defence of the Speaker. He began with affirming that the very statement of the case put the plaintiff out of court. It was an action of trespass against the speaker of the house of commons, for having issued his warrants as he was ordered to do by the house,

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