that a task devolved on him, which would have been executed more ably by the hand to which it had been originally committed. The present indict ment (the learned gentleman continued) was preferred against the proprietors of a newspaper called John Bull. The libels in question, which were levelled at her late Majesty, had been selected from a mass appearing in the same journal. A Queen was surely entitled to that feeling and consideration which the law refused not to the meanest subject of the realm; and the interests of justice, of the country, and of society, demanded that the slanderers should be prosecuted to conviction. After detailing a chain of circumstantial evidence, by which he proposed to prove publication against the defendants, Mr Denman read the offensive paragraphs, which were five in number-published in the papers of the 25th of February, the 2d of March, the 8th of April, and the 14th and 27th of May, 1821. The first libel lies in a lengthy attack upon the character of Mr Wilberforce, and upon his conduct in the House of Commons. After speaking of this gentleman's "hypocrisy," "duplicity," and "cant," and commenting upon an alleged variance between his professions and his practice, the John Bull says "These are distinctions which we cannot taste; we cannot bear that the only house in England in which a shameless woman is to be received with honour, should be the house of God; and that the only place in which her name could be pronounced without hesitation and a blush, should be before the table of the Lord:" and in a subsequent paragraph he characterises the Queen as a woman convicted of an adulterous intercourse." In the second libel the writer declares, that when the Thames shall change its course, and flow back from Westminster to Henley-bridge, then he will think it possible that the Queen should

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return to her domestic duties," &c. The third libel declares her Majesty to have been found guilty of adultery by the highest tribunal of the country; and threatens with exposure all females who may visit her. The fourth attack (14th May 1821) proceeds in a similar strain. The fifth and last libel (the last prosecuted we mean) is contained in an article headed" King's Theatre," and affects to describe her Majesty's visit to the Opera-house in May last. It is as follows:

"KING'S THEATRE.-The unfortunate Queen has at length met with the last sad proof of her wretched degradation. After having sneaked into the playhouses as Mrs James, and having been tolerated under a feigned name, she announced publicly her intention of visiting the Opera-house for a benefit on Thursday.

"When she came, no notice whatever was taken of her, and the people, as the old Times tells us, paid her their silent homage.' Some persons, however, dissatisfied with her appearance amongst them, called for save the King,' which never fails of acting as an expellent upon such occasions.

God

"Some of her low-lived partisans, who blend with their zeal for injured innocence a ravenous desire for watches and snuff-boxes, called out Queen; and one or two noblemen were actually outraged by some of these ruffians. Their names, however, have been ascertained by the police, and they will, of course, be legally punished.

"Cold, however, as has been the reception of the Queen at other places, where, as Mrs James, she ventured to sit amongst decent women, the mortification that neglect and silent contempt gave her must have been light, compared with the pangs which she must have suffered when she heard the cries of Out, out!' Shame, shame!" "Be off! Get out!' which were loudly

and unsparingly shouted forth by the husbands and brothers of the respectable females present. That she felt this marked and positive reprobation of her scandalous life, we fully believe; for she got away before the end of the second act of the Opera.

"If her Majesty was sufficiently sober when she came to the house to remember what happened when she was in it, she will perceive, that however hirelings, in a one shilling gallery, may be inclined to cheer wantonness, and support profligacy for pay, that in an assembly of women of virtue, and men of honour, SHE must not show her face.

"Like poor Mrs Piozzi's Old Man, she has had her three warnings, and we verily believe (as was the case with him) that the third will carry her off!"

Upon the character (Mr Denman said) of the libels in general, it would be almost an insult to the jury to make a single comment; but the concluding words of the last read paragraph excited recollections which would not be repressed. The meaning of the words, as they stood, was ambiguous; but they had proved true in a sense in which they had not perhaps originally been used. Black as the spirit of the slanders was and libels they undoubtedly were in the very worst acceptation of the term-yet, base as was the writer's intent, and brutal as was his execution, he could scarcely be supposed to have really contemplated the destruction of his victim. Whatever had been the object, however, of the assailant, the event was but a natural consequence of the means he adopted. Female character could not resist such attack; female heart could not bear up against such invective: it led-(to what other termination could it lead?)-to imbittered life and to premature dissolution. One fact the jury could not too strongly impress upon their minds. To retaliate upon such a writer as the

John Bull was impossible. It was with character even as it was with life-he who regarded not his own held that of every other at his mercy. If any man supposed that opinions connected with passing politics could justify or even palliate such libels as had been read, let that man recollect that the fame of his wife or sister was in the hands of every parochial John Bull who had an object to obtain, or malignity to gratify. With respect to the effect of such writings upon the politics of the day, one observation was sufficient. If such a paper were tolerated in opposition to Government, no Government could ever maintain itself against it; but if such a paper was connected with, or even connived at, by existing authorities, it threatened the country with the establishment of a despotism more cruel, dangerous, ferocious, and oppressive, than ever in modern times any people had been visited with. The learned counsel concluded his address by expressing his confidence as to the verdict he should obtain. He was prepared with evidence to prove the publication; and upon the question of libel, not another word, he was certain, could be necessary.

Mr John Sykes, solicitor to the Stamp-office, produced an affidavit as to the property of the John Bull.

The handwriting of the three defendants being proved, the document was put in and read. It was dated the 15th of December 1820. Weaver appeared to be the printer and publisher; Shackell and Arrowsmith the sole proprietors. The paper was to be called John Bull, and to be printed at No. 9, Dyer's-buildings, Holborn.

Mr Sykes (cross-examined by the Solicitor-General) said, I believe there is no second paper called John Bull entered at the Stamp-office; but I have not made a search to that effect. There is a paper called the Real John Bull. There is an affidavit in the office as to

the John Bull, subsequent to that which I have just produced.

Mr James Mallison, register of newspapers at the Stamp-office, produced various numbers of the John Bull.

The first paper put in, No. 10, dated Feb. 19. 1821, appeared to be printed by R. T. Weaver, Dyer's-buildings, Holborn, and published by him at No. 11, Johnson's-court, Fleet-street. The next number, No. 11, Feb. 26. 1821, was printed and published by R. T. Weaver, at No. 11, Johnson's-court, Fleet-street. The witness then put in the several numbers of the John Bull paper which contained the libels under prosecution.

Mr William March, collector of the watch-rate, and of the King's taxes, for the parish of St. Dunstan, proved that he had received rates and taxes from both Shackell and Arrowsmith, for the houses Nos. 10. and 11. Johnson's-court, Fleet-street. Witness knew the place at which the John Bull is sold in Fleet-street. It is only a shop, no number to it, nor name. "John Bull office" is written over the shop, and Shackell had paid witness rates and taxes for it.

A notice from Shackell of appeal against the window-rate was then put in. It was in the following terms:

"I appeal against the window duties charged to my premises in Johnson'scourt; those premises being wholly used for warehouses, and no person sleeping therein."

John Bailey proved the receipt of poor's rates from Shackell and Arrowsmith, for the houses Nos. 10. and 11. Johnson's-court.

Mr Thomas Hill said, I am a partner in the firm of Burgess and Hill: We are booksellers, and live in Great Windmill street, Haymarket. In the course of last year we constantly inserted advertisements in the John Bull : a clerk used to call for the advertise

" August 3.

"Your terms we will accede to, and will commence on Monday next. One form will be ready at 11 o'clock, the other at a quarter past two."

After this agreement, witness again printed the John Bull for three weeks. He printed it by machinery. The forms came over from Mr Shackell's office. Witness had been many times at the John Bull's office in Johnson's court, and he had seen Weaver, Shackell, and Arrowsmith there, but did not think, when he first worked for the paper, that Arrowsmith was concerned in it. He had received payments both from Shackell and Arrowsmith.

Mr William Allen proved the purchase of the libels in question at the John Bull office, NO. 11. Johnson'scourt, Fleet Street.

Mr John Felton, clerk to Messrs Sweet and Stokes, said, that when he

called in Johnson's-court to serve writs on the defendants, he found them all together at a desk, with papers and accounts before them.

The libels were read.

Mr Denman had nothing further to offer.

The Solicitor-General asked if publication had been proved.

The Lord Chief-Justice said, that there was at least abundant matter to go to the Jury.

The Solicitor-General then rose for the defendants. The learned gentleman admitted that he could not rebut the evidence as to publication; and was not prepared to deny the libellous character of the paragraphs.

The Lord Chief-Justice, after recapitulating the evidence, charged the jury in very few words. There needed no comment from him to show that the matter prosecuted was as libellous as matter could be; publication, he thought, or at least interest and concern in the publication, was sufficiently brought home to the defendants.

The Jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict of Guilty.

On the 20th of May, the defendants in the above prosecution were brought up to receive judgment, when Mr Justice Bayley addressed them in nearly the following terms:

"You have been found guilty of publishing in a newspaper called the John Bull, during the months of February, March, April and May 1821, five libels on her late Majesty. When you were last before the Court, those libels were stated sufficiently for the purposes of justice, and they must be too fresh in the recollection of all to need repetition at present. No one can doubt that in point of law they are each and every of them a libel, as they greatly exceed the fitting bounds of newspaper discussion. A newspaper is

the proper vehicle for intelligence; its pages may also be open to sober, calm, unimpassioned disquisition, but it must never be the medium of private or political calumny. At the time when you were last before the Court, you said nothing to aggravate your offence. The Court observe that you are now in custody for another libel, not unconnected with the present charge, but that none of these passages were published since the former sentence was pronounced on you. Had you, after the warning you then received, offended in the same way, in defiance of the Court, it would have been an high aggravation of your present crime. One of you, Thomas Arrowsmith, has made an affidavit, confirmed by a medical gentleman, stating that he labours under an indisposition which additional imprisonment would increase, and which may thus endanger his life; that is not the object of the Court, who are always desirous of listening to every thing which can be urged in mitigation of punishment. If forbearance shall be exercised towards this defendant, in consideration of his infirmity, I trust that it will have its due influence on his mind, and induce him to make a suitable return for the mercy shown him, by refraining from similar publications in future. The Court, taking all the circumstances of the case into its consideration, do order and adjudge, that you Thomas Arrowsmith do pay a fine of L. 300 to the King; and that you Robert Thomas Weaver, and you William Shackell, be severally imprisoned in the King's Bench prison for three months, and do each of you pay to the King a fine of L.100; and that you do all give security for your good behaviour for five years, yourselves in L. 500, and two sureties in L. 250 each, and that you be imprisoned till such fines be paid, and such securities given."