on his throne, aided by his Privy Council, had made representations of the nature alluded to, every subject in the kingdom had a right to do the same. This was sacred ground-it was not for him to call in question the motives of such high authority, or to impugn the wisdom of his councils. Yet Mr Flindell had gone far beyond even that description. Good God! was it in England, a country where a charge was not considered as implication of the other a thousand facts of extenuation. If theevidence appeared to them so balanced, that their minds wavered, they should acquit; for the still small voice of mercy was of more avail than the loudest tones of justice. Could either of the Jury go home and say, "I have consigned an honest, industrious man, the father of twelve children, to a prison, although the reasons in his favour raised a doubt in my mind whe ther his error was the effect of intemperance or guilt?" The Learned Councilt, that a person charged with a sel concluded by saying, he knew of no occurrence more heart-rending to an honest Juror, than the reflection that he had given an inconsiderate verdict. Mr Sergeant Pell rose to reply. He could not conceive how the Jury were to consider the defendant the innocent man represented by his Learned Friend. At the very time when the defendant published this paper, the Queen of England was, according to his Learned Friend's statement, in a situation that ought to have excited the greatest commiseration; this was a broad admission of his Learned Friend, but it was nothing more than the truth. On that day, when her Majesty was surrounded by dangers that almost reach ed her life, the defendant had described her as abandoned to the utmost profligacy, a fit inmate for a prison, and deserving of a degrading punishment, inflicted only on the most notorious criminals. His Learned Friend had admitted it was a coarse publication, that reflected no credit on the taste of Mr Flindell. He agreed with his Learned Friend, that it was as coarse, as illiberal a sentence as was ever put forth from the press; but, though vulgar, it was not less malig nant; though the weapon were rough, the wound inflicted by it would not be less deadly. His Learned Friend had commented on a circumstance which he confessed he heard with some degree of surprise that because the King up crime should be prejudged just on the eve of being called up for trial? Was that justice?-was that according to the spirit of the Constitution under which we live? What would this innocent man-this father of a numerous family say, if one of his children were about to be charged with a crime before a tribunal of his country, which God forbid-what would he say of that man, the justice of his mind, or the ho nour of his feelings, who should attempt to corrupt the source of justice, and poison the minds of those who may be called on to pronounce on his guilt or innocence? The liberty of the press, invaluable as it was, had unfortunately gone beyond what may be termed its legitimate bounds. God forbid he should ever live to see the day when its power should be cramped beyond a necessary restriction-he would rather see it licentious than dead. It could not be ascertained where its limits began, or where they ended-a British Jury were its guardians, and would best protect this invaluable blessing by restraining it when it degenerated into licentiousness; for where there was licentiousness there was crime. He would call their attention to the strong language of the libel, and leave it with the Jury to say, if it were not of the foul, infamous, and malicious description charged in the information." A woman as notoriously devoted to Bacchus as to Venus." It was false-he would confidently assert it to be an unfounded and scandalous libel. He did not find in any of the charges which had been brought against her Majesty, that she was "notoriously devoted to Bacchus;" he had, indeed, heard the fil thy whisperings that were abroad, but he treated them as they deserved. "Shall such an one as would, if found, on our pavement, be committed to Bridewell and whipped, be held up in the light of suffering innocence ?" There was a coarseness here-a degree of personal bitterness that did no credit to the heart of any man. The contrasting her Majesty with her daughter, in the same paper, also went beyond any thing of human guilt he had ever heard. The Learned Sergeant made some further observations on the libel, and concluded with enforcing upon the Jury to find the defendant Guilty. The Judge, in his address to the Jury, principally directed their attention to the injustice of prejudicing the public mind against a person charged with an offence. The offence of the defendant was precisely of this description, and it was his duty unequivocally to state, that he considered it a libel. The Jury deliberated a few minutes, and returned a verdict of Guilty, but strongly and unanimously recommended the defendant to the clemency and consideration of the Crown. The Judge said, he would take care that their recommendation should be made known in the proper quarter. Court of King's Bench, May 28. The Solicitor-General moved for judgment upon Thomas Flindell. The defendant put in a long affidavit, stating that he was fifty-four years of age, that he had twelve children, nine of whom were dependent upon him for support, and that if he was im VOL. XIV. PART II. prisoned for any length of time at a place distant from that where he carried on his business, it would be ruinous to himself and family. He then addressed the Court in mi tigation of punishment, while the Solicitor-General spoke in aggravation. Mr Justice Bayley pronounced judg ment. He said, that the defendant had been found guilty of what was truly described as being a foul and infamous libel upon her Majesty the Queen-a libel too, which was published at a period well calculated to aggravate the character of the offence. It was at a time when a Committee of the House of Lords had recommended an inquiry into certain conduct imputed to her Majesty; the defendant said, that, as a public journalist, he felt authorised by the report to publish the libel in question; but he should have known that inquiry was not in itself identified with guilt he should have known, that when a form of proceeding, in further ance of that Report, was ordered by the House of Lords, where witnesses were to be seen, examined, and their testimony sifted, it was his bounden duty to have abstained from criminatory remarks upon her Majesty, until the result of a constitutional investigation had decided upon the case. There was nothing more important to the due administration of justice, than that the party whose conduct was im pugned, should go unprejudiced before a constitutional tribunal. It was the wisest and most leading maxim of the laws of this kingdom, that a person should be presumed innocent until the contrary appeared in due course of law. The defendant had not only disregarded this maxim of law, which it ought to have been his first duty to have obeyed, but had added other charges against her Majesty, which were properly designated in the indictment as being calculated to defame and C slander the character of her Majesty, the Queen. The defendant had said, that he had uniformly supported the reigning family upon the throne; he should have recollected that her Majesty was the consort of the King who sat on that throne, and that she was nearly allied to the royal family for which he professed so devoted an attachment. The Learned Judge in conclusion said, that the Court had taken seriously into its consideration the very strong recommendation of the Jury, who must have known the defendant's character in his neighbourhood, and that that recommendation had materially weighed with them in pronouncing their judgment, which was-that the defendant should be imprisoned in the county gaol of Devon, at Exeter, for the space of eight calendar months, and that at the expiration of that term he should give sureties to keep the peace for three years, himself in 500l. and two sufficient sureties in 250/. each. THE REV. RICHARD BLACOW, FOR LIBEL ON THE QUEEN. Lancaster Assizes, Friday, Sept. 14. Mr Tindall stated the pleadings. This was an indictment against the Rev. Richard Blacow, for a seandalous and malicious libel against the late Queen. The first count charged, that he had composed and preached the words charged as libellous; the second count charged that he had composed and published the words in a pamphlet, entitled "The Substance of a Discourse," &c.; the third count charged, that he had composed and published the words set forth in the indictment. The defendant pleaded Not Guilty, upon which issue was joined. Mr Brougham.-May it please your Lordship, Gentlemen of the Jury, It is my painful duty to lay before you the particulars of this case, and it is yours to try it; and my part shall be performed in a very short time indeed, for I have little, if any thing, more to do, than merely to read-what I will not characterise by words of my own, but what I will leave to you, and may leave to every man whose mind is not perverted, to affix a proper description of. I read to you what the defendant composed and printed. You have heard from my learned friend,- and if you have any doubt, it will soon be remo ved,-to whom the following passage applies. Of the Queen it is that the passage is written and printed: "The term cowardly,' which they have now laid to my charge, I think you will do me the justice to say, does not belong to me; that feeling was never an inmate of my bosom ; neither when the Jacobins raged around us with all their fury; nor in the present day of radical uproar and delusion. The latter, indeed, it must be allowed, have one feature about them even more hideous and disgusting than the Jacobins themselves. They fell down and worshipped the Goddess of Reason, a most respectable and decent sort of being." And you know, Gentlemen, that she was a common prostitute taken from the stews of Paris. "A most respectable and decent sort of being, compared with that which the radicals have set up as the idol of their worship. They have elevated the Goddess of Lust on the pe destal of Shame, an object of all others the most congenial to their taste, the most deserving of their homage, the most worthy of their adoration. Af ter exhibiting her claims to their favour in two distant quarters of the globe, after compassing sea and land with her guilty paramour, to gratify to the full her impure desires, and even polluting the holy sepulchre itself with her presence, to which she was carried in mock majesty astride upon an ass, she returned to this hallowed soil so hardened in sin, so bronzed with infamy, so callous to every feeling of decency or of shame, as to go on Sunday last❞— Here, gentlemen, the Rev. Preacher alluded, not to the public procession to St Paul's to return thanks, or to other processions, which might, partly at least, be considered as political, but to her late Majesty's humble, unaffected, pious devotion in the church of Hammersmith. -"to go on Sunday last, clothed in the mantle of adultery, to kneel down at the altar of that God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,' when she ought rather to have stood barefoot in the aisle, covered with a sheet as white as unsunned snow,' doing penance for her sins. Till this had been done, I would never have defiled my hands by placing the sacred symbols in hers and this she would have been compelled to do in those good old days when church discipline was in its pristine vigour and activity." Gentlemen, the author of this libel is a minister of the gospel. The libel is a sermon ;-the act of publication was preaching-the place was his church-the day was the sabbath; the audience was his congregation. Far be it from me to treat lightly that office of which he wears the outward vestments, and which he by his conduct profanes. A pious, humble, inoffensive, charitable minister of the gospel of peace, is duly entitled to the tribute of affection and respect which is ever cheerfully bestowed. But I know no title to our affection or veneration which is possessed by a meddling, intriguing, turbulent priest, even when he chooses to separate his sacred office from his profane acts; but far less when he mixes up both togetherwhen he refrains not from entering the sanctuary with calumny-when he not only invades the sacred circle of domestic life with the torch of slander, but enters the hallowed threshold of the temple, and casts it flaming on the altar-when he pollutes with rank calumnies the air which he especially is bound to preserve holy and purewhen he makes the worship of God the means of injuring his neighbour, and polluting the flock committed to his care. Of the defendant's motives I say nothing. I care not what they were ; for innocent they could not be. I care not whether he wished to pay court to some patron, to look up to the bounty of power, or whether it was mere mischief and wickedness, or whether it was a union of interest with spite. But be his motives of a darker or lighter shade, innocent they cannot have been'; and unless the passage I have read proceeded from innocency, it would be a libel on you to doubt that you will find it a libel. Of the illustrious and unfortunate individual who was the object of this attack, I forbear to speak. She is now removed from such low strife, and there is an end, with respect to her, of, I cannot say, chequered, for her life was one continued course of injustice, oppression, and animosity, from all who either held or looked up to all who either possessed or courted, emolument and aggrandizement ;but the grave has closed over her unrelenting persecutions. Unrelenting I may well call them, for they have not spared her ashes. The evil passions which beset her steps in life have not ceased to pursue her memory, and with a resentment more implacable than death. But it is yours to vindicate the insulted laws of your country. If your verdict will have no effect on the defendant, if he still go on unrepenting and unabashed, it will at least teach others or deter them from violating the decency of the law. Mr Thomas Burgland Johnston. I am a printer at Liverpool. Mr Blacow applied to me for printing of his sermon. That was the sermon now handed to me. During the time the printing was going on I saw him repeatedly. I delivered to him the proofsheets. I have one in my custody. It contains a few marks made by him. The word "crisis" is altered to "juncture." It was delivered back with that alteration to me by Mr Blacow. The sermon was afterwards printed by me. Mr Elacow paid me for the printing. By Mr Blacow. I do not know the instigators of this prosecution. I don't know at whose expence it is carried on. I know Mr Brougham. He offered himself a candidate for Liverpool some years ago. Mr Justice Holroyd.-What has that to do with your defence? Mr Blacow. I wish to shew that Mr Brougham is connected with those in Liverpool who instigated the prosecution. Mr Justice Holroyd.-That is immaterial. Mr Blacow bowed with great submission, and said he would do nothing which his lordship thought irregular. Cross-examination continued.-Mr Brougham is a member of the Concentric Society. I know Egerton Smith, the editor of the Liverpool Mercury, perfectly well. I have known him nine or ten years. His character and principles are perfectly well known to me. Mr Justice Holroyd.-That can have nothing to do with your defence. Mr Blacow. My lord, I wish to show the spirit of the party in Liver. pool, with whom Mr Brougham is I was engaged in printing the sermon, you undoubtedly had frequent conversations with me respecting its principles and tendency. The substance of your motives, as you stated them, was to expose the views of the whigs and radicals. You never shewed bitterness or hostility towards the Queen on these occasions. You often expressed your regret that she had connected herself with a desperate faction in the state. You often lamented the danger to which the country was exposed from the intrigues of that faction and the dread of its consequences. There was a procession in Liverpool a few days before your sermon was preached, in honour of what was called the Queen's triumphant acquittal. I was not near the procession. I cannot testify whether there was confusion and uproar in consequence. Mr Blacow. It is my desire that the whole sermon should be read. I don't wish the notes, except perhaps one note. Mr Brougham. If the whole sermon be read, I shall insist upon the notes being read. Mr Justice Holroyd.-Do you wish the whole discourse to be read, as bearing upon the charge against you, and material for your defence? Mr Blacow.-Yes, that is my de sire. Mr Cross here read the sermon, consisting of thirty pages. In one page were the two following notes: "(Note to guilty paramour.")-See Juvenal's account, in his 6th satire, of Hippiah's journeyings in the self-same region of the world, by sea and land, with her paramour Sergius. But such parallels, it should seem, however opposite or striking, are not to be adduced, while the advocates of injured innocence" and unsullied purity' feel no scruple whatever in holding up to public execration, as the very antitype of Nero himself, one, whose forbearance and generosity of characterwhose great, noble, and truly magnani |