in which that word was, was grossly libellous. It was his duty to tell them so; and farther, that, if they were so satisfied, they were bound to find for the pursuer. In judging of this, they would consider that this paragraph was part of an article which treated of the pursuer and his works; and whether the word individual, under all the circumstances, could apply to any but the pursuer. He had stated to the parties, in the course of a previous discussion, that, with respect to the first part of the article now under consideration, he would direct the Jury to find for the defender; and with respect to the latter part, to find for the pursuer. Before concluding, he had to impress upon the minds of the Jury, an observation made by Lord Mansfield, which had been sanctioned by other eminent judges, that it became juries, on questions of evidence, not to enter into refined disquisitions, but to adopt a broad, liberal, and common-sense view of the subject.

The Jury then retired, and remained inclosed for an hour and a half, when they returned and gave in the following verdict:

On the first issue, the Jury find for the defender to the words "We must look," in the seventh line of page third of the printed issue: "To the word may," in the twenty-first line, for the pursuer. And the remainder for the defender; on the second and third issues for the pursuer; on the fourth for the defender. Damages L. 100.

Mr Forsyth tendered a bill of exceptions on the ground of misdirection.

Counsel for the pursuer, Francis Jeffrey, James Moncrieff, and Henry Cockburn, Esqrs.; Agent, Æneas Macbean, W. S. For the defender, Robert Forsyth and John Shank More, Esqrs.; Agents, W. and A. G. Ellis, W. S.

LIBEL ON THE CLERGY, THE KING v. JOHN AMBROSE WILLIAMS.

Durham Summer Assizes, August 6.

This day came on for trial, before Mr Baron Wood and a Special Jury, the information filed by the direction of the Court of King's Bench against the defender, for a libel on the Clergy, contained in the Durham Chronicle of August 18. 1821.

The Jury having been sworn, and the nature of the information briefly stated by Mr Tindal, who opened the pleadings,

Mr Scarlett proceeded to address the Jury:

Gentlemen, The defendant is a printer, and I believe the proprietor of a newspaper which has been some time published in this city, called the Durham Chronicle. Whether, before he held that, he held any other situation, I know not; but if I may judge, from the contents of this libel, I should think he has probably imbibed, in his early education, some sectarian prejudices towards the Established Church, which the management of a newspaper enabled him to gratify. But whether that is so, or not, he was possessed of the opportunity of indulging in the propagation of such opinions and slander as I will undertake to say no Judge, and I trust no Jury, will say are innocent. He has thought himself justified in laying hold of an occasion to give a successful blow to the Established Clergy of the Church of England, and therefore very ingeniously determined to take the advantage of that high and irritated state of public feeling which existed last year with respect to the proceedings taken against the unhappy and illustrious Queen Caroline, and which excited so much compassion and feeling, for the purpose of conveying his slander, that it might be the more easily diffused when the minds

of the people were open to it. He has thought it expedient to charge the Clergy of the Church of Durham in particular with "brutal enmity" against that unhappy Princess, and to rank them in the number of what he called her persecutors. It may be very true that the Clergy of England, and the Clergy of Durham, in particular, were not so loud and clamorous in the expression of their feelings for the persecuted and injured Queen as the defendant was; but I think if he had bestowed any attention on the subject, he would have been bound in candour to admit, that in no address to the throne which emanated from the clergy, however loyal, and however disposed they might be to support the existing order of things, could he find any expression or sentiment of approbation of those proceedings. I know not what right the defendant had to think himself privileged to consider any men who did not step forward and exhibit the same open and manifest tokens of attachment to the Queen as himself, as being less devoted to her interests, or to scandalize and attack them as entertaining animosity to her. Whether he was right or wrong in making that charge, the libel he has published can receive no justification. On the 18th of August last, this paragraph appeared in the defendant's paper:-" So far as we (that is, Mr Williams) have been able to judge from the accounts in the public papers, a mark of respect to her late Majesty has been almost universally paid throughout the kingdom, when the painful tidings of her decease were received, by tolling the bells of the cathedrals and churches. But there is one exception to this very creditable fact, which demands especial notice. In this episcopal city, containing six churches, independently of the cathedral, not a single bell announced the departure of the magnanimous spirit of the most injured of

Queens-the most persecuted of women. Thus the brutal enmity of those who embittered her mortal existence pursues her in her shroud. We know not whether any actual orders were issued to prevent this customary sign of mourning; but the omission plainly indicates the kind of spirit which predominates among our clergy."

Now, I beg to ask, Gentlemen, if the defendant had any moderation or candour he would not have abstained, even in his particular view of the case, from drawing any inference from a fact of which he was not certain? He might have ascertained whether any person had required the bells to be tolled, and whether any order had been made that they should not be tolled. He might have had a perfect knowledge of the circumstance-a circumstance, by the way, trivial in its nature, and of no sort of importance; but, in that happy state of ignorance, he gives loose to conjecture, and upon that case in which he confesses his ignorance he makes these remarks. If he had expressed his concern in that proper sort of language which belongs to fair discussion, no individual of the church would have thought it worth while to make any farther comment upon it. Every man has a right to entertain his own opinions; and if he had known of any person who had requested the bells to be tolled, or any instance of any clergyman in this city, connected with the cathedral, or otherwise, who had been backward in doing that for which he had been called upon, he might have remarked on such conduct, he might have imputed blame to it; but it is not justifiable, it is not to be endured, that a man should draw a false inference, and that he should thereupon libel a body of men, and attempt to bring them into disgrace and contempt, because they were not so loud in their grief, being, perhaps, the more sincere, and because their bells were not tolled,

but suppressed their emotions, on the death of the Queen. I appeal to any man who listens to the following part of the paragraph, whether the writer could have any other object than to slander, and bring into disgrace and contempt the whole of the Established Church.

"Yet these men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote harmony, charity, and Christian love! Out upon such hypocrisy!"

There is the first charge; and I say that if to treat these persons as hypocrites in professing to be followers of our Saviour, as doing this to the eye and not to the heart, is not a libel, then no libel ever was written. But he did not rest there he goes a step farther.

"It is such conduct which renders the very name of our Established Clergy odious till it stinks in the nostrils."

Who writes this? Is he a member of the Established Church? Is he aware that by the law and by the constitution of England that church is established, and that the body of her clergy must be protected? Does he know that her power must be shaken if the veneration and respect which belong to her were destroyed? If it is true that the name of our Established Clergy is so odious, I agree with Mr Williams that it is time they were put down and abolished; they cannot have any right to a permanent existence in this country, governed, as it is, by public opinion, if their name is so odious. If the gentleman is willing to avow, at once, that he is the advocate for putting down the Church of England, for destroying it, and putting an end to its existence, I shall understand why he has propagated opinions charging the name of our Established Clergy with being "odious till it stinks in the nostrils." But if not, if he still retains,

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or ever did possess, any veneration for our ancient establishments, and if he still wishes to preserve in purity that Church which is as pure as ever existed, how comes he to say that the very name of our clergy stinks in the nostrils?

But you will find that he is not inconsistent; for after he has professed himself to be of opinion that the name of the clergy is so odious that it stinks in the nostrils, he goes on to predict their fall.

"That makes our churches look like deserted sepulchres, rather than temples of the living God; that raises up conventicles in every corner, and increases the brood of wild fanatics and enthusiasts; that causes our beneficed dignitaries to be regarded as usurpers of their possessions."

Usurpers of their possessions! Whose possessions are they which they are supposed to usurp? Does Mr Williams mean to say that any considerable portion of the people regard our beneficed clergy as usurpers? I am sure my learned friend will disavow that sentiment for his client, because he knows the meaning of the word "usurper” too well to draw upon himself the ridicule which would follow his attempt to defend it.

"That deprives them of all pastoral influence and respect; that in short has left them no support or prop in the attachment or veneration of the people."

So, they have lost all pastoral influence and respect!

"Sensible of the decline of their spiritual and moral influence, they cling to temporal power, and lose in their officiousness in political matters, even the semblance of the character of ministers of religion."

Now, I have observed that persons seldom object to any class of men taking part in politics, provided they take that part on their own side; and I submit to your consideration, that if

bed them to be? I think my learned friend has too much good sense, too much judgment and discretion, to profess in this place, that which I am sure he does not feel in any place, hostility to the Established Church of the country. I know he will take no such course. What, then, will he say? Will he say that his client erred from honest intention, that he mistook his object, and in the excess of his zeal he has overstepped the path of prudence, and in the modesty of his nature had been led into scandalous expressions which he could not justify? If he says that, he gives me the verdict. Perhaps my learned friend will take another course, and he may think, when he looks upon a Jury of a county in which the Clergy are often brought in to political contact with the landed proprietors, he may find some way of producing a prejudice in favour of his client. Upon that subject I feel secure, because I cannot pay so poor a compliment to this county as to suppose any men in it would bring political subjects into a jury-box, and give their verdict, not from the evidence, but from their feelings.

I am sure my learned friend will appeal to you on the liberty of the press; no one will hear his observations with greater pleasure, or join more heartily in the preservation of that liberty, than myself. But let it not be said that this is the liberty of the press. There are two things sometimes confounded together. There is the liberty, but there is also the tyranny of the press; and I think the best mode of preserving its liberty is to prevent its growing into a tyrant, by attacking right and left-by attacking every body of men, causing one general mass of confusion, and bringing all our establishments into hatred and contempt. Let not the idea go forth that such calumnies shall go unpunished, and that opinions are free, or we may shortly see the defendant's prediction

fulfilled; for then might the mob be inflamed to pull down the edifices consecrated to the services of our religion; and all this may be done with impunity, if Mr Williams is justified by your verdict this day. But I know you will not justify him. You will hear the speech of my learned friend, and witness a blaze of eloquence not to be surpassed. But when you have heard that, come back to the just consideration of the subject. Look to the libel, and say whether the man who wrote it had no intention of calumniating the Clergy of the Church of England, and of Durham particularly; and if you can say it has no tendency to depreciate them in public estimation, then, and then only, can you be justified in finding him not guilty.

James Southron, clerk to Messrs Griffiths, of Durham, solicitors, proved the publication of the libel in the Chronicle of the 18th of August last; but, on his cross-examination by Mr Brougham, stated, that he did not hear the bells of the Cathedral and other churches of Durham toll when the intelligence arrived of the death of her late Majesty: they tolled, however, on the occasions of the death of his late Majesty and of the late Queen Charlotte.

James Malion produced an affidavit from the Stamp-Office, which proved the defendant to be proprietor of the paper in which the libel appeared. The reading of the libel closed the case for the prosecution, when

Mr Brougham rose and addressed the jury for the defendant, in nearly the following terms: My learned friend, the Attorney-General, for the Bishop of Durham, having at considerable length offered to you various conjectures as to the line of defence whch he supposed I should pursue upon this occasion; having nearly exhausted every topic which I was not very likely to urge, and elaborately traced, with much fancy, all the ground on which I could hardly be expected to tread-perhaps