plain? He has not shewn that I have done him or any other person an injury. The fact is, Gentlemen, that you have no real complaint before you, and that you have nothing to try. The complaint or charge against me is altogether fictitious; and shadowless as it is, the Prosecutor has no evidence to support it. He has proved that I have sold the book. I could have done full as well for a witness on that head, as I readily admit the act. I was employed by and as a bookseller. But who complains of injury done by that act, or if there be a complaint, why has not a competent witness been produced to prove an injury. You must see, Gentlemen, that no such a wit ness has been produced, and, without evidence, you are sworn to acquit me, because no one accuses. I am not to be tried by your opinions of the book before the Court, Perhaps no two of you would agree upon that head. But I claim a trial by the evidence produced by the Prosecutor or by your opinion of that evidence. This is the subject and purport of your oath. You have nothing to do with what the counsel for the prosecution may say in the matter. What he says is no evidence for you. You must have disinterested and unpaid evidence on oath for your guide, or you will do a wrong both to yourselves and to me.

It will naturally occur to your minds, to inquire how it has happened that so many verdicts of guilty have been returned in similar cases, by former juries. I will explain to you that they were all perjured men: many of them so doubtless from ignorance.

I have published a book called "Palmer's Principles of Nature." This is a book written by a man who was originally a Minister of the Scottish Church*, but being a moral good man, having an inquisitive mind, and prizing the truth above all things, he discovered, as every man must discover who honestly inquires, that his opinions on religious matters were not well founded, Scorning to be a hypocrite, though hypocrisy would have secured him profit, ease and a comfortable living in his native place, among his friends and relatives, he divulged to those neighbours and relatives the change his opinions had undergone. The circumstance, which was a proof of his honesty and morality, raised him a host of enemies, who persecuted him with all the fury that

* This point has since been discovered to be erroneous, Elihu Palmer was a native of North America. A brief memoir of him is now on sale at 135, Fleet Street. There was a Reverend Mr, Palmer banished from Scotland, which led to the mistake.

EDITOR.

religious opposition inspires, and finally compelled him to seek shelter and quietude in that land, where alone men are not persecuted on account of their opinions, but where free dis cussion secures respect for all and for each other. There,

at an advanced age, and, like our great Milton, under a loss of sight, he composed the work now before the Court. It passed through three editions in the United States of America before it was heard of in this country, and no prosecution or persecution was ever heard of there for publishing it. And I would here ask, Gentlemen, where or what is the necessity, or even the expediency of prosecuting the publisher of such a book in this country? Had it been a book offensive or injurious to public morals, its publication would not have been suffered to have proceeded quietly in America, for no people on the face of the earth legislate so prudently and studiously to preserve and promote the public morals, as do the people of the United States; and among those who do adhere to any religious sect, none have the spirit of religion more in unison with their profession, more warm in practice, or more devoted in action. But there are no public prosecutions for such books as this before the Court, in that country. Opinions are there free, and free discussion is there practised, to the advantage and not to the injury of the community.

The volume in question is charged to be an attack upon the Christian religion; it is not charged to be an attack upon any man's character, nor calculated to do a private or public moral wrong to any individual. The question then to be considered is, whether the Christian religion be any thing dependent upon, supported by, or connected with, the law of this country. Our lawyers, from the days of SirMatthew Hale downward, say it is: but they produce no proof of the kind, and I am not content with assertion without proof to support it. All other laws are defined upon paper, but on this point, we can not only find no definition of the law upon paper, but we cannot find a lawyer who will venture to discuss, or to attempt to explain the matter. They know they cannot do it, and it shall be my business, as it is my duty, to shew you why they cannot explain the matter. The fact is, Gentlemen, that the law has no application or relation to any thing but property, and to whatever is not a property, you cannot apply it. Injury cannot be done where property is not concerned. Life is a property liberty is a property: health is a property; and character is a property; all touching the private interest of every man, and law is intelligibly applicable to all these

possessions, though they cannot be taken from one man and applied to the use of another. All things in possession, either for individual use, or in trust for another, such as may be taken without consent, and improperly applied to the use of another, form a property to which the law is applicable, and where it is always well understood by every man. But religion is like none of these things, and no law can apply to it. If it can be fairly called an acquirement or possession, it is such as no man can be deprived of without his consent and desire, and consequently no such man can complain of injury doze him. Look at the matter fairly, any way, and you will find, Gentlemen, that you have nothing to try; that I have committed no offence; that I have done no man an injury; that there is no breach of the peace, no violation of law, in any immediate or remote sense.

are

Then, what is

Sir Matthew Hale said, that "Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land;" without any shewing how it could be so; without any definition, explanation, or application of the term. He said it, and merely because he said it, he punished some man that did not understand how it could be so. Sir Matthew Hale said, that Witchcraft was an offence against law, and a capital offence, and he caused some harmless old women to be put to death that were accused before him on such matters, which we now told from the Bench are all a delusion. the opinion of such a man as Sir Matthew Hale worth, on a matter that is not physical and tangible, and that has no relation to property, nor to any known acquirement? The Christianity of the present day bears no resemblance to that of the time of Sir Matthew Hale; that of the days of Sir Matthew Hale, bore no resemblance to the Christianity of the time of Henry the Eighth; and that in the time of Henry the Eighth was no resemblance of what was called Christianity in the time of the first Henry. Christianity, as to its practical part, has changed with the progress of knowledge: it was never defined by the statute law of the country; and if the common law be proclaimed its protector, it must relate to that species of Christianity which was in existence before the common law ceased to increase or to be changed. The common law can know nothing of reformed Christianity, but as an heresy; and the Christianity of the common law has been put down by statutes, by repeated enactments of the Legislature. What then have you to try, Gentlemen? And if you find any thing to try, what law will you rest upon? And if you find a matter to try, and a law to try it upon, what evidence has my prosecutor

laid before you to criminate me? There is nothing of the kind, Gentlemen; there is neither matter of offence, law, nor evidence. My prosecutor has not a leg in Court to stand upon, but one composed of prejud ce and the other of rancorous persecution, and these I hope, you, Gentlemen, will be wise enough to break for him, and send him to Bethlem Hospital for a cure.

But the grand question for your inquiry is, who has been injured by my publication of the volume before the Court? Unless you have proof of an injury done, you have nothing to try, nothing of which you can find me guilty, for guilt defines injury on the one side and malicious design on the other. The common clamour against similar publications is, that they are injurious to public morals; but those who harp upon this string neither know nor care on what public morals are founded. Upon the score of morality, my publication will bear the most critical examination. I aver and challenge the proof of the contrary, that it does not contain an immoral sentence, nor a sentence that has an immoral tendency, but that, on the other hand, it is a chaste, philosophical work, pregnant with the most important truths; and such truths as are above all things calculated to protect and promote the cause of morality.

A great deal of ignorance, and I may add, wickedness, has gone hand in hand, in what are called trials for libels. They have been conducted in a manner that has been made or sought to be made, equivalent to a censorship on the Press. All such prosecutions as this before the Court are instituted for no other purpose than to discourage the publication and to menace the publisher of all bold and useful truths, that do not exactly coincide with existing establishments. No possible injury to the community can ever arise from such publications; for it is only out of discussion that right and wrong can be discovered and good educed. There was never a man living who wrote for the purpose of corrupting a community. There may have been such things as political and religious hirelings, but such men have always written to support an existing corruption and never for the purpose of introducing a new one. Any attempt to subvert a well founded establishment and to substitute an ill-founded one in its place will ever be abortive. Mankind, though often deranged, are never mad enough for any thing of this kind. Institutions may decay and become corrupt, and thus fall into contempt, disuse, or change; but history does not afford an instance to shew, that a well-founded institution was ever abolished or changed by those who bene

fited by it. What ground then can there be to fear such publications as this and others that have been prosecuted? What public grounds can there be to give countenance to such prosecutions? There can be no just grounds: none that relate to public good. Far better would it be to have a censorship over the press, than that every author, printer, and publisher should proceed in his business under the dreadful uncertainty of being prosecuted and ruined at every step he takes. No despotism in government can be worse than this; for despotism under pretended forms of law is the worst of all despotisms. It not only destroys, but it mocks us with pretensions of justice while it is destroying!

But, Gentlemen, if Juries were unpacked, if they were honest and intelligent, despotism over the press could not thrive in this country, at this time. I trust, that I have made it appear quite clear to you that no evidence has been adduced here to day to criminate me in the slightest degree. A Jury has nothing to do, no right to look, beyond the evidence that is brought forward by the prosecutor; for if any thing further be right, a standing Jury might as well be kept by the government to walk into every man's house, or to search every man's pocket, and send him to prison if they find a book they do not like in his possession; and books are altogether things of taste. What one man reads with avidity another will not look at. What is to be done then, you may say, if a man writes against existing establishments? Let him be answered by those who think proper to write in defence of them, and let those whom it may concern judge for themselves between the two writers. Literary controversy on public matters can do no possible injury, but good must follow it; and under this consideration, I trust, Gentlemen, that you will seek to promote, and not to suppress it.

The Chairman'summed up the case to the Jury, and declared that, in his opinion, it was a most atrocious libel; but he left it with the Jury to decide whether they considered it as libellous. The Jury turned round in their box and after two or three minutes consideration returned a verdict of Guilty.

The Chairman then proceeded to pass sentence upon the Defendant, which was, that he should be imprisoned tweye months in the House of Correction, Cold Bath Fields, and, at the expiration of that time, find sureties for his good behaviour, for two years, himself in one hundred pounds, and two others in fifty pounds each.

The Defendant exclaimed as he left the Court in custody "I am proud of the situation in which I stand."

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