The Sun.
London, England, 1821-07-04 00:00:00

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officer, Whose duty alone it was to prosecute for
political libels. Why it was a fact, that when:
ever he exercised this painful part of his' office;
he was universally assailed by the defendant as
having takeh unconstitiitional proceedihgs, and
he was asked why he had not left the case to the
Ordinary proceeding by indictment: There was,
he begged to observe, no,such an office in the.
English law as that of public prosecutor.. All
criminal proceedings were in the name of the King ;
and in the year 1792, it was stated by Lord
Loughborough, the highest legal authority of-the
day, that Associations like that which was then
in question, so far from being illegal, were in fact
highly meritorious, for it was the duty of every indi-
vidual to enforce the law. That Society was not the
first of its nature, as a Society for enforcing the
King's Proclamation against Vice had been form-
ed so far back as the year 1787. The Attorney
General was armed with extraordinary power for
the punishment of libellers, and it had generally

een said by those who had suffered by it, that
hat power was unconstitutional. Now, how-

ever, it was convenient for the argument to put
the case the other way, and to talk of the 're-
sponsibility of the Attorney General as the pro-
per Officer to prosecute. Undoubtedly, great
responsibility attached to the Attorney General
as a Public Officer, but no individual whom he
prosecuted unsuccessfully could maintain any ac-
tion against him without proving express personal
malice—a case never yet known in the law. The
persons responsible under this Society were those
who were responsible in ordinary cases. Any
individual who had been injured by an unsuccess-
ful prosecution could maintain his action against
Mr. Murray, Mr. Sharp, and the Committee who
had directed the prosecatiott, if malice, or the
want of a probable cause, could be shewn. This
gave the individual a better chance of redress
than he had as against the Attorney General.—
His Hon. and Learned Friend had, to be sure,
offered one of the most extraordinary arguments
he had ever heard; he had said that the Society
would encourage spies and informers, because
they must send persons to purchase -the works
intended for prosecution. And what was the
Attorney-General himself compellpd to do ? He
also sent to purchase the work objected to, or he
could not prove the publication. Would it, for
instance, be said that he (the Attorney General)
had incited Mr. Carlile, because he felt it ne-
cessary, to ensure public justice, to send and
purchase his works ?—(Hear, hear !)—The Hon.
and Learned Member here examined the case of
King, his affidavit, and that of Orton in contra-
diction, and observed that although he did not
stand up to defend the proceedings of the Society,
he thought it too much to say that the truth was
entirely on one side of the question, and false-
hood entirely on the other. He• begged to re-
mark upon an observation of the Hon. Member
for Bramber (Mr. Wilberforce), who had asked,
was it to be endured that such a man as Carlile
should be suffered to continue his dangerous
publications while he was in prison suffering the
sentence of the law ? To what had he (the At-
torney-General) been driven ? He was compelled
to prosecute Carlile's wife. He had done so and
convicted her. He had also prosecuted the sis-
ter and the shoprnan, and he believed the two

latter individuals had given up the shop. What
more could he possibly do ? It had been his
misfortune to be compelled to institute more of
these prosecutions than had been instituted by
any of his predecessors in the same length of
time. And if his exertions failed in putting down
these publications, he could not blame a Society
of individuals who merely assisted the execution
of the laws against the licentiousness of the press.
Of the prosecutions themselves he knew nothing
but what appeared in public; though, as far as
his observation went, there was nothing illegal
in their course. - With respect to the Society
itself, he had seen nothing upon which he

could pronounce it to be illegal ; but that was a
question which could, if necessary, be readily
decided by a Court of Law.—Neither could he
see that any of the Members of the Association
were incapacitated from serving on juries, because,

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as he had before observed, it was the duty of all
persons to assist in the prosecution for public of-
fences ; and in principle he could see no distinc-
tion between Societies instituted to prosecute for
felonies, and those raised to prosecute for libels,
although it had been thought proper to apply the

epithet " political" to the latter, species of of.
fence.

Mr. BROUGIIAM said, that in his opinion, a man
might with perfect consistency approve of the
other Societies alluded to incidentally, and yet
disapprove of that under the notice of the House;

as the distinction between them was as clear as
possible. Some offences were, and ought to be,
nameless, and ought to be prosecuted, though
many a man would feel repugnance at having his
name mentioned in the same line with such an
offence, even as its prosecutor. The argument
drawn from the Societies to prosecute for thefts
could not apply to the present Association. How
was it possible that a man's feelings could be so in te-
rested in the case of a theft as they would he upon a
question purely political. Party feeling would
interfere, and even the Jury become contaminat-
ed with it by the encouragement of such a So-
ciety as this. The remedy proposed would be
an aggravation of the mischief ; for, as had been
well observed by his Hon. and Learned Friend,
it would lead to the pollution of the very foun-
tain of justice. The Attorney-General had said,
he did not see that members of this Association
were disqualified to sit as jurymen on prosecu-
tions instituted by the Society. The Court of
King's Bench, however, had declared them unfit,
and had ordered, that the fact of a juryman's
being a member should be a good cause of chal-
lenge. If he (Mr. B.) subscribed to bring on an
indictment, he certainly was an improper person
to try it.—(Hear, hear !)—He really thought he
must, in this respect. have misunderstood the
words of his Hon. and Learned Friend the At-

torney-General.—(llear, hear, hear !)—ln the
c;se of a felony, if a man had subscribed money
to find the bill of indictment, he (Mr. B.) held
that this would be a good cause far challenging
him as a juror ; and yet in such a case it was not
likely that any thing had occurred from that act
itself to rouse the passions. But the Bridge-