Mr. COOPER said he could not controul the feelings of the auditory. He was only anxious to do his duty to the best of his humble ability, and nothing should deter him from discharging that duty freely and undauntedly.

Cross-examination resumed. What is the office of the Honorary Assistant Secretary ?-It is to do every thing at

the Office.

To superintend the business of the Office?-I consider him as the acting manager.

Then the Honorary Secretary has a sinecure?-What does the word honorary mean but a sinecure?

Mr. COOPER." May it please your Lordship; Gentlemen of the Jury; I am exceedingly sorry that some more able Counsel has not to address you on this most important and momentous occasion. I should have been unequal to the task, under any circumstances."

Mr. GURNEY." Stop a minute." (The Learned Counsel for the Prosecution here intimated, that he had something to add to his case; but, after a pause, he intimated to Mr. Cooper, that he might proceed.)

Mr. COOPER.-Gentlemen, under any circumstances, this would be a task, for which, I fear, I am very ill qualified; but under those, in which I stand to address you on this question, I feel my incapacity doubled and trebled. I appear before you without notice, and almost wholly without preparation. I was, indeed, applied to by the Defendant, some months ago, and negociated with (if I may use the phrase) to undertake her defence. But, after this, many days and even weeks passed, during which I heard nothing of the case; and I began to suppose that the Defendant had determined to employ some other Counsel, or trust herself to her own address to the Jury against this charge. At the end of a month, however, I was again applied to; and, again, weeks having elapsed, without my hearing any more. of this prosecution, I dismissed it entirely, not only from my mind, but from my memory: nor was it, till last night, that I was once more informed that I was to be employed as the Defendant's Counsel; and my brief at last put into my hands. I was then unfortunately engaged in other important business: and the time, I have taken to collect my own thoughts upon this question, and huddle together a few extracts from writers of authority, I have been obliged to borrow from sleep; and have, therefore, in a great measure counteracted myself; for I have lost in strength, what I have gained in information, and appear before you ill able,

indeed, to do justice to this cause. But, whilst I make this statement to excuse my own deficiency, I am bound to acquit the Defendant of any reproachable negligence of her own interests. I understand, that the cause of her late application to me, is, that having had, as a mere matter of grace, three weeks notice of trial from another society, by which she has been prosecuted, she mistook it for her right; and expected the same notice from her present prosecutors. As she had not received any such notice, (and indeed she was not in law entitled to it) she supposed, that either she was not to be brought to trial at these sittings, or that the charge was abandoned: as I wish it had been, and as it ought to have been; for I am convinced, that this prosecution cannot be sustained by either law or reason; and that it must be from the weakness of the counsel alone, that you, Gentlemen, can be betrayed to pronounce a verdict of Guilty against the Defendant.

Gentlemen, it is my duty to clear this case of every possible prejudice, that may hang about it in your minds, before I enter into the merits of my defence. I do not know, how you are affected, but I well know, that with many persons I should have a host of prejudices to contend against in the very name alone of Carlile. Many either believe, or affect to believe, that the very sound is an omen and an execration, and that either he cannot be sincere and honest in the opinions which he professes, or, if he be, that those opinions are incompatible with the existence or practice of any moral and social virtue. But, whatever his opinions may be, and whatever your sentiments upon them, I have at least a right to ask of you not to allow any prejudice against the relation, against the brother, to warp your judgment on the trial of the Defendant: for, what can possibly be more remote from justice than, instead of judging a person fairly for his own conduct, to condemn him by our opinion of the sentiments and character of another? I hope and trust, that you have entertained no such prejudices: but if you have, I feel assured, that you brought them no farther than the threshold of the court:-at that door they fell from you, like the burthen from the pilgrim (in the beautiful allegory) on his reaching the cross; and you stand there with your minds unbiassed, free, and pure, to decide between the Crown and the Defendant in this cause. But it is not only my duty, Gentlemen, to clear the Defendant, but to extricate the Counsel from every unfavourable suspicion, lest it should, possibly, by any confusion of the client

with the advocate, operate to the disadvantage of the Defendant.

Whatever, therefore, may be thought of the pamphlet which is before you, as a libel, or of the writer or publisher, 'I most solemnly affirm, that there is no one who more warmly admires the English Constitution, as it stands in theory, and ought to exist in practice than myself, nor is there any one who would more willingly shed his blood if it were necessary, or even lose his life in its support. It is needless then to say, that a more irreconcileable enemy would not be found than myself to the the man (if any such there be) who could attempt to overturn our mingled and limited forms of government: and substitute a wild democracy in their place. I think, indeed, that a democratic form of government, however specious in argument, is by no means so capable of raising a state to that eminence of civilization and prosperity, which this country has reached; a condition, for which it is indebted to better times, while the practice concurred with the theory of our government; but which, unless the practice is brought back to the theory, I venture to predict, has not much longer to continue. I, Gentlemen, appear here only in the discharge of my duty; and to redeem that pledge to defend the accused, which every man, upon assuming this gown, gives to the public of England. I would, however, have it distinctly understood, that it is only to guard against prejudice to the Defendant, and not from any apprehensions for myself, that I trouble you with this explanation. For myself, I am extremely careless, what may be thought of me for having come forward to defend this unfortunate woman. I do not expect to escape obloquy in the present overheated disposition of the country. How can I expect it? When even the present Lord Erskine, whose talents and independence should have rendered his character sacred, as soon as it was known that he was to be counsel for Paine was overwhelmed with abuse, and threatened with the loss of his situation, as Attorney General to the Prince, if he did not decline the defence. But he knew his duty and discharged it. And for which will he be most honoured by posterity? By which most ennobled? for having in spite of threats, and all the seductions of self interest, persevered in his duty? or for having been exalted to the peerage of England and adorned with the national order of Scotch knighthood? But, if even my humble situation, should not exempt me from the attacks of the malicious and furious, I can tell them that their

malignity will be disappointed. Instead of regret and mortification it will be a source of pride and happiness to me. Small as my chance may be of credit for the assertion, I declare, that I propose to myself no reward so high for my exertions, as the consciousness of having, in spite of all hopes on one side, or fears on the other, honestly discharged my duty.

If ever in my course in the profession, I should find myself wounded either in fortune or reputation, instead of regretting and deploring it, I will rejoice and exult at it, and, at those hours, when in the full confidence of his companions, it is neither indecent nor unsafe in a man to speak of his own actions, I will boast of it, I will shew it, as an honourable scar.

Gentlemen, with these preliminary observations, I will proceed to introduce my case to you. My learned friend, Mr. Gurney, has opened this prosecution with all that pomp of eloquence, and solemnity of declamation, which he possesses in so ample a manner, and which make him so accomplished an advocate. But what has he done? All, indeed, that he or any one else could have done: yet, nothing more than repeat those arguments, which are trite, and worn like a turnpike, and have been topics for counsel after counsel, through a thousand of these prosecutions; while he has left all the great subjects of consideration that present themselves to the mind on these questions, wholly untouched. He has declared, indeed, but, without shewing you why, that the words, charged in the indictment are an atrocious libel; in which, as it appears to me, he has been rather premature, for a libel they are not, and cannot be, unless your verdict should so declare them. I assert, Gentlemen, and I am sure his Lordship will nod assent to me, while I assert it, that you are the only judges of the law of libel in this case; and this paper, for which the Defendant stands before you, is either a libel or not a libel, as you may in your consciences think it, and on your oaths pronounce it.

The statute, indeed, which declares this the law, has given, or rather left with his Lordship, the right of stating his opinion on that question to you; but I am sure he will not think that I exceed my duty, as an advocate, when I say, that though it is your duty to receive his opinion with respect, and to give it the most attentive consideration, yet it still leaves you free to your own judgments, and if after weighing his opinion, you find yours unaltered, you have

not only a right, but it is your duty to reject his opinion and to act on your own.

Gentlemen, I submit that it is within your province to take into consideration the nature and operation of those writings which are called in prosecutions of this kind libels. You are sitting there to try this charge as an offence by the common law of the land. The Defendant is accused of having committed an act in the nature of a nuisance; and you are to judge whether that act could operate as a nuisance or not. You are not bound, because pamphlets have been prosecuted as libels time out of mind, or even because they have been declared libels by the verdicts of preceding juries to tread in no other path than their steps; and to find similar, or even the same matter, libels, if you should not think them criminal or dangerous. If you should be convinced by argument, not only that the pamphlet before you is not a libel, but that almost all those political writings, which it has been the habit of certain people, taking up the cry from their leaders, to call libels, are not merely not dangerous but beneficial to political society, is it possible to conceive, that you can be induced to pronounce a verdict of guilty against the Defendant! How can you come to such a conclusion; as that there should be punishment where there has been no mischief and where there could have been none, and if there not only has been no mischief, but could have been none,-nay, if even there must have been benefit, how can you lay your hands on your hearts, and say there has been crime? Suppose a man was indicted for a nuisance in doing that for which a number of persons had in succession been indicted and convicted, would that oblige a jury to find a verdict against a person at this day indicted for the same act, if he should prove to them by evidence, which their minds could not resist, that what had been complained of as hurtful to public health and morals was noxious to neither but salutary to both? Would you, in such a case, though a thousand preceding Juries had, in their ignorance, pronounced verdicts of guilty, follow their example, against your full knowledge and internal conscience? To illustrate by a familiar instance, when hops were first introduced into this country they were very generally believed to be pernicious. Several persons were I believe prosecuted and convicted for using them; yet now they are known not only to be not pernicious, but nutritious; they form a principal ingredient in the daily beverage of our tables, and are even employed largely in medicine. Let us now imagine a man prosecuted