The National Register. — London, England, 1811-11-03 00:00:00

'NFL REGISTER. i ar :here Vim rust 1 1 1 tlee e :eyfej .ncl lyitllc right. . eV." .. eto ciotermine — whetheir he shotilTeptiduct his der ,hi in self, or whether he should_ employ willst.l; but they whonnse to de fend- theneselves alwaya,Sncurecti the danger of injoring their case, by lettieg out facts eitich the discretion of s otoisl wo the have thourht it more pr e ttelent to.conceal. In thi respt 4 et, present defendant had inaprudently gdueitted that, whie n kif have he ) )i had left his defence to blacouneel, would, probably, t; been admitted. If, howl er p he bed not been direct! ,Instru mental in the oulnication" c„,llita libel, the Jury m ust re collect ; r that he bad taken no pains id., countetatt its melignity. I In call ing witnesses, the defendant,Vecl made ael titinecessa ey parade and display of evidence; the object'cif which appearid i'4rely to b e , that those matters might he plactd i on the Judge's notes of the trials Which Might otherwise more regularly bebrotight forward by affidavits in mitigation of punishment. It was no defence in law, to say, that he was not the writer of the libel; be wa s lqually responsible if it were inserted by his authorized a gen ts; lie who does a thing by the hands of entailer, is as responsible ;s if he had done it himself. If that wete vot the e law, mwiermit t m ischief* might not every proprietor of a newseapr co with impuni y ? He might employ a machine which should with be co nstantly at work to infect and poison the eubilc mind his own malignity • hie types might be always ready to disseini nate libels and cal umnies ; and yet he himself might shut his eyes, and be determined to see nothin g or know nothing of the mischiefs that he was doing. He might swear, and get others to swear, that he had never seen the libel for which he evasprtoe cured. This, however, would not satisfy the law. He would be still responsible for all the mischiefs done either by himselfor his Authorized agents. This was a doctrine upon N - N - li ich there could be oo doubt ; it was establiShed and recognised its law by every Judge and every lawyer whom he had ever known since his ac quaintance with Courts of justice. The defendant had quoted eeveral expressions of different lewyere in their arguments; but it was of very little consequence what Mr. Kettleby or any other lawyer might have said in the management of their clients causes. He knew many men of the first authority in the pre sent flay, who would he very sorry to be held to whatever opi trions they might have maintained in arguments at the bar. He felt it his duty to lay it down as the . unquestionable law of the land,—the law which to all the subjects of this realm is the se curity for every blessing which they enjoy, and the protection from every mischief to which they would otherwise be exposed, that the proprietor of every newspaper is responsible for the contents of his paperewhethee written by eiruself or,any other person. This had frequeetly leen determined to he the law, even in cases where the sickness of such proprietor made it absolutely iftnpossible for hint to know what was inserted in bis paper. Circumstances of this nature, had, however, al ways their proper weight; when urged at a fit time in miti eetion of puttishwer rt. He hail seen twenty printers on the floor (A the Court of Eiog's leeich, who had swum to t hit- ebselute ignorance of the insertion of the offensive :.rticle: and such alli tlevits were aleriays allowed their due weight at a proper time. The defendant had pressed strongly upon the Jury the length of his imprisonment, and the consequent impossibility of superin tending the articles in his paper. It might, however, have been expected that so long an imprisonment would have served as a caution to him to abstain from the pul)lication of libels. If his means of subsistence were entirely derived from the conduct of a journal, it might have been supposed, that after so severe a warning, he would have felt more than ever the necessity of superintending the articles which were to be inserted, and keeping out what was libellous. It might have been expected, that he would have been particularly cautious in the choice of hisatgents; and that he would have found it necessary to exer cise a cousiderable degree of superintendance and controul. On fee contrary, it seemed that he left the management to his son, with a discretionary power to insert whatever lie might think proper. If, howeyer, a libel had found its way into a paper sarhich was directly contrary to its usual tanour, and an apology !lad been speedily pille, the case would not then, in all pro .bability, have beet: selected for prosecution. If the pi-eent de fendant had really ,disapproved of the article in question, as he now protesses to disapprove of it, why did he not takes - some means of nianifestiog les disapprobation in his own 'paper ? 'The'. defendant in the course of his argument had taken, different ob- 4 ' jections to the information, which he called a foolish and false record. His first objection was to the publication being stated .to having taken place in the parish of St. Mary-le-bow. This was, however, an usual description in law ; aed it was not to be expected, that the rulei . of law, established for wise pur- t poses, were to bend to the suggestions of every unlearned de- , teialant. How many convictions had taken place upon indict- Extents for robberies and other criminal (deuces, alleged gene * • . rally in the parish of St. Mary-le-how, In the ward of Cheap, whereas, in fact, they were in a different parish and ward : and yet, no man had ever before thought it consistent with modesty to make such an objection. The defendant had very pi operly exonerated his legal advisers from any blame in taking such an objection, for it was one which he could not belieVe that any Barrister would make. If the offence was laid in the proper county, there Was no occasion for the . parish to be expressly stated; and the conerant practice was not to specify the parts- • f ular parish. In burglaries, however (a fatal flaw in an indict !tient for which had been quoted as a precedent by the de fendant), the reason of the thing was different. Since that was a local offence, it was necessary to describe the situation of the house which was broken into; and, therefore, the misnomer of the place was justly fatal in the case which the defendant had cited. The same accuracy of loCal description was not ne cessary. in setting out other offences.. As to its next ob jettion, that the indictment had falsely charged him with a criminal intention,' the rule Which pervaded • the criminal as well as the civil law, was, that a man is responsible for the acts of his agents. The law collects the intention from the act itself. If any man with his eyes open were to strike and wound his Lordship with a deadly weapon, it would be no satin, faction to him for the man to say he did not intend it. Such a man would he as mad as the cooler of Ercilla, who went about shooting every man whom be thought mischievous to the etat s . His plea was,—it is true I have killed dila hr that man; but my intention was good: I meant to benefit the State. Men must . generally be presumed to intend that which they do. A man, therefore, who chooses to conduct a newspaper, and sets up somebody else, who 'circulates libels through its mean*, must be presumed to intend the circulation of such libels ; and he must be e considered as having done that which he has so Caused to be done. He must also be presumed to have sanctioned that which he never thought proper to express any disapprobation of. As to Mr. Reeves's case, which the defendant had cited, that stood upon very different ground ; his Lordship was in the cause, and felt perfectly satisfied, at the time, with the verdict of the Jury, and knew that many high in authority agreed with hint. 'The Jury thought the publication of Mr. Reeves a very improper one, but acquitted him on the ground of his not writing it with the cri minal intention imputed to hitn. In this opinion of that puha. cation he eetirely coincided. Mr. Reeves had been charged with writing his book with the intention of villitying the House of Lords and Commons ; but it appeared to him, that he had no such intention; and that what gave (offence was nothing but nee, tuphor run mad. Mr. Reeves had got hold of a metaphor,-e-the trunk of a tree; and he called Monarchy that trunk, and the two Houses of Parliament the branches, which might be lopped off without destroying the trunk. Now, as to tbe ques tion which of the parts of our Gove - rntnent was the originultstem, and which were to be considered the adjuetts, was a question more of antiquarian research than of real importance ; and Mr. Reeves was a great antiquary. His Lordship was, therefore, satisfied with that verdict, because he really believed that Mr. Reevec, had not the intention that was imputed to him ; and'his reasee for so believing was collected Isom the book itself. This was the great difference between the two cases. ,In Mr. Reeves's case it was front the perusid of the writing charged as a libel, that the Jury formedeheir opinion that there was no criminal intention; but in this case he believed that no such conchision could be drawn from the writing itself. • As to the law of libel, he slid not seek, nor ever had sought, to abridge the privileges which the Constitution gave to Juries. He must say, however, that he could hardly conceive that any sensible man could entertain a doubt but that the article for which the defendant was now prosecuted did tend to disgust our soldiers, upon .whote valour and good conduct the defence of the country, and every thing dear to us, now mainly depend. He could have no doubt but that Publi cations tending to alienate the soldiery, and directly defaming the Government, were libels. He should wish to know •by what law it was that the very lowest 011icei• in the State may be protected from calumnies, but that those who fill the highest and most important offices in the Administration are to find no similar protection. He by no means wished to abridge the pri vilege of discussing temperately the measures of any Admites tration; but such discussion ought tube condncted innocently and decently. To charge the Members of-the Administration gene rally with corruption was clearly libellous : and to do so on an occasion where corruption could not enter, was foolish. It was most evident in the present case, that granting medals to all . O ffi cers of a certain rank, who had seen a certain service, could not answer any purpose of corruption, and that extending them to every soldier in the army would have made the distinction of Ino value. The defendant, in the Publication before them, spoke of " the equivocal and barren victories of Roleia, Vimiera ' Cus retina, and Talavera." Nov, although circumstance s had pre vented results as important as we could have wished following those battles, still he conceived there was something in them in which Englishmen naturally felt apride; and as to the valour 0 1 • s~=':~ 4504 H E I .N 4)010 ()face of his intention 4n.publish such ,lour al at No. 23, Wa wick-square, there could yet remain any doubts Whether t he was sufficient legal proof of. the publication, those doubts niti have been compl:Aely removed b . }( tlke courq which the defen ant had taken. It was certainly ; Ills nght urettkry defendant _ ..5.....1,1-"...p.ndoet. his detente hign.self,