The National Register.
London, England, 1811-03-17 00:00:00

t

THE N.

SPRING ASSIZES.

'Xst;emt-t. soseLINCOLN.
PROSECUTION Ecift A LIBEL.
THE KING V. DRAKARD.
'Wednesday morning the trial of the traverse came on, before
the Hon. Baron Woos and a Special Jury; the Grand Jury, be-
fore whom the indictment was laid, having on Tuesday found a
true bill. It had been expected that the proceedings would be
carried on in the nature of an information er officio by the AT-
-10 KNEYGLNERAL,but the trial was proceeded in in the com-
mon way of indictment. Only six special jurymen of the pan-
nel answered to their names, but a tales being prayed, the fol-
lowing gentlemen were sworn :
George Uppleby, Esq. J. Ellis (Cherry Whittingham)
Wm. Graburn, Esq. Thomas Brown
John Richardson, Esq. Christopher Norwood --:` " •
John Green, Esq, George Sanders
John Manners, Esq. John Coulson • •
John Elliott, Esq. William Mossop. •
The pleadings were opened by Mr. REYNOLDS, and the case
was stated by CI.ARKE, who, with Serjeant VAUGHAN and
Mr. READER, conducted the prosecution. The libel was stated
to have been published in the paper called Drakard's Stamford
News, of the 24th of August last, and to be embodied in some
observations headed " One Thousand Lashes," tending to
create disaffection amongst the soldiers, to alienate their regard
from their officers, and to occasion a general prejudice to the
military service of the country, by holding up the.discipline of
the army to abhorrence, and deterring his Majesty's subjects
entering the. ran. - The publication, Mr. Clarke stated, was of a
nature so dangerous, that no
:good man who heard it read,
could restrain his resentment or hesitate in his judgment upon
it ; and' he thought the Attorney• General would have been
grossly derelict of his duty, had he not proceeded to prosecute
thdauthor. He then read various passages of the libel com-
plained of, commenting with severity as he proceeded. The
tendency and 'object of such a doctrine, he maintained, could
only be to breed mutiny, subvert the military establishment of
the country, and make us, by. the disaffection of our soldiery, an
easy conquest to our implacable enemy ; and he called upon the
Jury by their verdict to pronounce their sense of the heinous-
ness of the publication laid before them.
The printing and publishing of the libel were prrred by the
production of a copy of the paper.
Mr. BROUGHAM rose, and on behalf of the defendant, ad-
dressed the Jury in a speech of two hours and a quarter. After
some observations upon the ingenious and sophistical manner in
which, he said, the advocate for the prosecution had tortured the
tendency of the alleged libel, and the intention of the author, he
alluded to the late trial of the Messrs. Hunts, in London,
_ for
publishing the greater eart.of the article which was the subject
of this prosecution, in tlik ir. Paper called The-Examiner. They
had copied and adopted three-fourths of the disquisition on mili-
tary discipline, from the defendant's Paper; and on trial for the
alleged offence of so doing, had, by a Jury of their country, been
acquitted of crin,tinality : 46 and," said Mr. Brougham, " can
that be innocent in Westminster which is criminal in Lincoln'
shire ?" The Learned Gentleman proceeded to assert the right
of Englishmen to form and deliver their opinions upon any sub.
sect upon which they chose to exercise their judgment. lie beg-
ged to be informed since when it was (that he might know the
xra, for the purpose of cursing it), that an Englishman, feeling
strongly upon an interesting subject, Might not strongly and
freely ewpress his opinion The right of forming an opinion
was incontestible ; and was it to be told to any man, that
,he.
must adopt a particular form of words in expressing it ? The
publication before the -Jury was a piece of reasoning in support,
of an honest judgment; and was the defendant to be visited
with two years imprisonment in a dungeon, because, in support
of his opinion, he had not argued dully, supported it feebly, and
illustrated it obscurely ? Surely not. Whatever were the in-
conveniences of warm expressions, we must submit to them, if
sse would have discussioo at all; and as to popular clamour,
in a free country it was desirable rather than not, as tending /o a
right understanding of affairs, and a just appreciation of mea-
sures. " Uproar in England Is wholsome ; whilst* in France,"
said Mr. Brougham, " every whisper .is pestilential.," The
beneficial consequences of discussion like that now complaincd
of was, that in attacking the flaws and blots of our establish.
Ments, it produced something nearer perfection : such discus-
*ion was the inalienable right of Englishmen ; and the most vital
part of the Constitution under which they lived. In palliation
of that part of the libel which *in strong terms reprobated the
military system of flogging; called it a greater curse than the In-
quisition, and the must heart-rending tyranny on this side hell,
the learned Counsel read passages in the publication of Sir
Robert Wilson en the subject of military punishments, in which