The Sun.
London, England, 1828-11-28 00:00:00

genet contained in this despatch. I have, therefore, to
apologize for the hasty and imperfect manner in which it
is written.-1 have the honour to be, &c.
‘4 STRANGFORD."
(The reading of the conclusion of this letter produced
laughter in Court.)
" The hasty and imperfect manner in which it was
written"? He (Mr. B.) had heard of speeches,
which had been prepared with all the care and la-
bour that industry could bestow upon them, being
ushered into life by the preface of the speakers being
" taken unawares—quite unprepared." But till this
moment he had not seen a contemporaneous de-
spatch, written a month after the occurrence, be-
speaking indulgence .for
." the hasty and imperfect
manner in which it was written." But, no doubt,
the bustle in which the Noble Lord was in at the
moment of embarkation—the sixes and sevens in
which every thing was, necessarily, at such a mo-
ment—the bustle on the Tagus and in Lisbon—
ought to be received as a sufficient apology for any
imperfection which might appear upon the face of
the document. But what did the Court think
of the consistency of these papers, when they were
told that this despatch, so far from being written
under the pressure of any inconvenience or extraordi-
nary excitation at Lisbon, was written a full month
after it professed to bear date, in Bruton-street, Lon-
don—not hastily and imperfectly—but with all that
good advisement and deliberation which the writer
could give to it. He (Mr. Brougham), however,
made no charge of fabrication against Lord Strang-
ford. All he contended for at present was, that
either the statements in this despatch, or pamphlet,
were inconsistent with the fact. They were charged
to be so in the libel, and not denied. Supposing,
then, that Lord Strangford should be able to account
for the discrepancies of these two statements—that
it would be possible for him to explain away the
staggering fact of the fabrication of the despatch,
upon the ground that the public service required
that mode of dealing—that a letter, written in
Bruton-street, and published in December, should
be dated from Lisbon, a month previously—sup-
posing all his allegations to be true, and that Mr.
Canning, who was then Secretary for Foreign Af-
fairs, did tell him to go and write it as it was done--
supposing that this despatch was in fact compounded
of other despatches, written in the Tagus (the most
favourable way of putting the case) and that the
original despatches of the data in que.s.tion were all
written in the Tagus, and at the time, and that
there was not a word in them that was not true ;
supposing all that, and there was no going further
than to concede to all that was contained in his own
pamphlet, yet he (Mr. B.) submitted that the whole
rested upon Lord Strangford's single averment that
the pamphlet, if it be credited at all, ought to.be
upon oath, and so accredited, however much the
Noble Lord might be in the dark in his two sets of
statements, and though the Court might think, and
he (Mr.B.) should think, that it would be more cre-
ditable to him not to profess to write from the Tagus,
when he was in Landon, if the Noble Lord had made
his oath, generally averring that the statement was
correct, he (Mr. B.) would not so confidently stand
up in this place, as lie now did, for the discharge of
this rule. But seeing that he did not deny a single
allegation, and that the only answer he made to sub-
stantiate charges was a general statement,' " that he
was a person 'worthy of belief upon his oath," it
was to be hoped that the Court would not entertain
this rule, or grant this Noble Lord the favour which
he sought.
Mr.W.J.ALFAANDEtt, upon the same side, pressed
upon the Court the meagreness of Lord Strangford's
affidavits, who had not substantially denied a single
charge made against him, although, by the rules of
the Court, it was incumbent upon him to purge
himself explicitly, and come into Court with clean
hands. The Learned Counsel also adverted to the
fact of an apology having been inserted in The Sun
on the 19th of August, subsequently to the publica-
tion of the libel ; and that so anxious was the de-
fendant to make all the reparation in his power, that
he inserted the whole of Lord Strangford's apolo-
getic letter, although this document ran to a great
length, and occupied-a great portion of his paper.
Lord TENTERDEN asked if that was verified by
affidavit ?
Mr. BnouGtraar—Yes, my Lord, but I had for-
gotten to touch upon it.
Mr.W..T.ALExANDEtt, in conclusion, observed that
when the defendant had given Lord Strangford's
defence in his own words, nobody could expect more

of him.
The ATIORNFX-GENERAL was then heard in sup,
port of the rule. He contended, that as guardians
of the characters of public individuals and pub-
lic officers, it was the duty of the Court to make
this rule absolute. Their decision of this day
would be regarded with interest. The question was,
whether the Editors of Newspapers were to be
allowed, by a juggle amongst themselves, to concoct
libels, by borrowing a portion of the libellous matter
from each other, and spiceing and seasoning it to
suit the palates of their particular readers. Thus
A. B. and C. D. concert a libel ; A.B. contributes
a statement, C. D. raises inferences and deductions
from that statement, and thus a gross libel is pro-
duced. Now that was exactly the case here. Their
Lordships were aware that the statement was first
published in the Times; this defendant, in the ordi-
nary course of editing his paper, transcribed it, and
appended his own libellous matter to it. But the
Editor of the Times, with whatever severity he
might have commented upon Lord Strangford, for
anything which that Noble Lord might have done
respecting the memory of Mr. Canning, upon which
comment he (theAt torney-General), gave no opinion,
yet be had not ventured to say of him, that he was
a person " not to be believed upon his oath or his
honour." It was left for the Editor of the Evening
Paper to go these lengths. So that if their
Lordships discharged this rule, they would be
giving a certain recipe for concocting libels.—
His Learned Friend had said that Lord Strang-
ford was bound to reply ; but were these alle-
gations such as he could reply to ? This libel, if
not lengthy, was at least pithy, it had not the deme-
rit of toe great length; but it bad the merit of con-
centration. A grosser attack had never been made
upon any public man, than saying of him that he was
unworthy of credit upon his honour or his oath.—
With respect to the witticism at the end of the libel.
he should not trouble the Court—it, was unworthy
of remark. Now, much had been said of this des-
patch having been written, in fact, in one place,
though it professed to be written from another. But
this was a practice not unknown nor common in
diplomacy. It often happened that certain expres-
sions had to be altered or abbreviated, or varied to
suit circumstances, but till this time it had not been
known that a man, who, with the consent of his
Gevernment, made these alterations, was to be re-
garded as a person unworthy of belief upon his oath.
This question was New. He submitted that this
was an original libel in substance, and that it ought
to be treated without reference to the transcript from