The Sun.
London, England, 1810-11-13 00:00:00

Lord Castlereagh lets sustained a wrong by the Die-
g d conduct of thedeletulant, your Lordships will
visit Iglu with a whelesnine putriatotient, and that
punishment will he the more seiteie because he has
insisted upolf it as a right. Whit right is this which
the: defendant insists upim ? That Seeing in another
publicatioff a gross and foul slander against Loril
Castlereagh, but thinking well of the Publisher of
that Paper, he feels himself justified to call upon
Lord Castlereagh upon .a Bill of Indictment, as he
would stale it, found in the Morning Chranicle, to
answer before a jury assembled at the British Fo-
rum, and defend himself against those foul and ca-
lumniourcharges which the Grand Jury, the Morn-
ing Chronicle, fourid agate`st httn. The Editor of
the Morning Chronicle states, You Lord Castle-
' reegh have abused your'office to purposes of op-
t pression ; you have tanjustly pronouacecha sentence
against Mr. Finnerty, and have carried that. sen-
, fence into execation. You ate found, 'moreover,
by this indictment found in the Morning Chrnicic,
• that' you, the Minister of Ireland, sent tot
xecu-
• tion a Mr: Orr, convicted by a false verdia of
` Jury, although he Was -known to be innocent, and
notwithstanding.that the Judge who tried him re-
• presented to you that he believed him to be innocent.'
These Charges, says the defendant, are found ag tiust
yOu in the Bill of Indiament preferred in the Morn-
ing Chronicle, and I call upon you before my tri-
tame!, the British Forum, to answer these charges.
I tell you, you will have a fair trial before the Public,
who (eel horror and indignation at the crimes which
you have committed. I tell you (the mockery of
expression he uses if the gentle Lord Castle-
reagh can prevail upon himself to appear before this
tribunal, he Will be patiently heard. Patiently
heard! By whom ? By alt those, who at the ex-
pence of a shilling a-piece, actuated by mischief or
malice, or curiosity, or personal enmity (and what
man is there in public life who has not enemies),
against Lord Castlereagh. I call together all these
to ahe assembly which I have advertised, for the
purpoe of presenting to an enlightened Public the
judgment that a Jury so called together shall give
upon this charge exhibited against you. And I
gi‘e you notice, that you are welcome to appear
and defend yourself against this charge, and that
yen will have a fair trial. Does a person capable
of uttering such an address as the defendant has ut-
tered toaday to your Lordships, does he seriously
im4ne he can impose upon your Lordships so far
as to make you believe, that he looked to a fair im-
partial discussion of Lord Castlereagh's conduct at
this meeting, this mock tribunal, this self-consti-
tuted and illegal (Court I was going to say) as-
sembly, for such it most unquestionably is. I will
not enter into a discussion of what, the objea, what
the intention, what the_ view of the defendant (who
calls together and presides over the Society) may be,
but I have no difficulty in stating to your Lordship;
that in the manner in which it appears upon this
record to have been concluded, it is a most scanda-
lous and infamous assembly. It is an assembly
that invites the enemies of those whom it charges
with crimes to come forward and utter their slander
against the person accused. It is an assembly
which, in this instance, gives out to the public, as
the result of a fair and candid discussion, that which is.
in truth, nothing else but addition to the weight of
that slander whit h had been published before in the
Morning Chronicleagainst Lord Castlereagh; and I do
not think that it is possible, by any Observations to
be made upon these papers, to aggravate the otienCe
of the defendant, or to convey' to 'the minds of your
Lordships, or to any who may hear them, a stronger
idea of the mischievous slander than the mere peru-
sal of them must convey. How are they worded?
In the first place, the publication of such a question
is in itself a gross libel. Ought my Lord Castle-
' reagh'sconduel towards Mr.Fi n nerty, during the late
expedition to Walcheren, to be approved as a Wu-
' Lary measure of precaution to preserve order and
discipline among his Majesty's forces, or reprobat-
e ed as a flagrant infringement upon the liberty of a
`British subject, and a cowardly ad of oppression
against an innocent individual Shall it be per-
mitted to any man to call together a multitude for
the purpose of discussing a question proposed to
them, whether one of their fellow subjects, placed
in the situation in which Lord Castlereagh then was
placed, had been guilty of so foul an °deuce as is
imputed to him, at least hypothetically imputed to
him, in this question so put. How do they pro-
ceed ?—" The statement of Mr. Finnerty's treat-
, ment of Lord Castlereagh, as it appeared in the
Morning Chronicle, of Thursday, the 23d instant,
has been read with the most lively emotion, and
has excited universal astonishment and alarm."—
Then he goes on :—" If the gentle Lord Castle.
reagh can muster sufficient confidence to venture to
a public assembly, of free and independent English-
men, he may rest assured that he shall have fair
play."—Now your Lordships will see what fair
play in this mock tribunal Lord Castlereagh was
likely to meet with ; there is nothing for which the
Managers of this Institution more ardently long,
than an opportunity of meeting his Lordship and
his adherents face to face, and hearing them vindi-
cate their character and conduct before this So-
ciety. Now, how is that expressed, " before an
outraged and instilled country ;" so that they go
first to the decision, that Lord Castlereagh, by his con-
duct, has outraged and insulted the country; and
then they call Lord Castlereagh before this outraged
and insulted people, to address them, and persuade
them that they have already conic to an errone-
ous judgment upon the subject. Now, that is-the
first publication. What is the next ? It repeats the
question. It states, that last Monday, notwith-
standing
the mean and malignant attempts to stifle
the discussion of the present important question, by
tearing down and defacing the hills, a crowded as-
sembly (among whom were several Noblemen and
Members .of the House of Commons) attended, and,
after a very interesting debate, the opener was about
to reply, when a Gentleman, intimately and person-
ally concerned, entered the room, and haVing pledg-
ed himself to attend on the next evening, and either
open the debate or take a part in the discussion, the
uestion was, with the consent of a large majority,
adjourned. Then it says, " Lord Castlereagh or his
adherents are peremptorily summoned to attend,
and prevent, if possible, his charaeter from being con-
signed to everlasting infamy and disgrace." My

Lord, it is -time that this Gentleman and they
have not yet learnt it should learn their duty.. It is
time they should learn that no -man, consistently
with his duty to the public and to the law, can thus,
without authority, call another before this mock—
this sell-constituted tribunal, to answer to supposed
charges exhibited against him, by men who, have no
authority whatever over his condud, or power to
inquire into it, and whose accusations can be re-
ferred to nothing but malignity and ill will; nor,
notwithstanding all that the defendant has said of
this Society can I attribute the coudu& of those
who tave abed in it to any thing but malignity and
ill will towards Lord Castlereagh. The defeada, t
has told your Lordship that he knows not Lord Cas-
tlereagh, that he owed no personal spleen against
him ; therefore, because he IstroAs him not, I do
believe that it is not spleen against the person of
Lord Castlereagh, but I do believe it proceeds from
a desire of attacking the public character of Lord
Castlereagh. Ido believe that it proceeded from a
desire of pulling down in the public estimation,
without aoy knowledge of the fads to which !his ad-
vertisement refers, the character which Lord Cas-
tlereagh has obtained with the public. Ido believe
that the objea of it was to tix upon Lord Castle-
reagh the imputation of h.tving grossly s iolated his
duty as Secretary of State. Ido believe it had for
its objetl to fix upon Lord Castlereagh the imputa-
tion of having (when it falsely stated that he was the
Minister of Ireland) unjustly promoted the execu-
tion of Mr. Orr. I believe that the object of those
who called together tins assembly to this debate,
was to fix these imputations upon Lord Castlereagh,
and to lead the unwary to believe that a fair discus-
sion of the question had taken place at this assem-
bly, whether Lord Castlereagh was or was not guilty
of,. those offences thus i puted to him ; and that
after that fair discussion, before what the defendant
is pleased to call an enlightened Public, Lord Castle-
reagh has justly been couviaed of those offences.—
That was the objea of those who called this assem-
bly togethei; and will your Lordships sq, I do not
ask 'A h. tiler you will say that this can legally be
done; but will your Lordships say that it is any ex-
tenuation of the offence of the defendant,. that, he
saw these charges published in the Morning Chro-
nicle, and therefore thought himself justified to call
upon Lord Castlereagh to answer them before this
jury assembled, as tie had assembled it by his pla-
cards, at the British Forum ? Is it any extenuation
of this wrung, which he has offered to Lord Castle-
reagh, that he insists he had a right to do what he
did ? Will your Lot &ships say that aless severe sen-
tence ought to be pronounced against the defendant
for the orfence which he has committed, because, in
his defence, he insists that what he did he had a
right to do; and from his so insisting, your Lord-
ships must collect he wilt do it again.
- • Mr. JOHN GALE JONES.—I have, certainly by no.
means insisted'on theright..
ATrORNEY-GENEEA.L.-I understand you,
and I am, and always shall be, exceedingly glad to
be correaed by a person standing in the defendant's
situation, if, in making any observations upon his
case to your Lordships, I have misconceived, mb-
stantially, the ground upon which he his put it. 1
had certainly collected fium the general texture of
the defendant's address to your Lordships, that he
thought that this assembly which he called together
4.36 rightfully constituted, ,and that he had a right
so to call them together. That may he qualified,
perhaps, by the purposes for which they ate called.
But what then has been said by the uetendant in
extenuation of his offence ? He says, he. thought
that which was contained in the Morning Chronicle
was true, and he conceivT that there is a great dit-
ference between the offence of him who is the au-
thor of the calumny, and of him who only adopts
it. My Lord,- that depends very much upon the
circumstances ; I am of opinion, in this case, that
the offrnce of Mr. Jones -has about it all that can
be imputed to the authur of the letter in the Morn

ing Chronicle, and also more; that was the publica-
tion or what Mr, Finnerty chose to consider as a
charge against Lord Castlereagh—for that Mr. Fin-
nerty is to answer; but the defendant who
now stands before your Lordships, for judgment,
could not react that publication of Mr. 14'inneriy's
against Lord Castlereagh, without seeing that it
was a gross libel upon his Lordship—he could not
be ignorant of that—but seeing that it was a gross
libel against Lord Castlereagh, and not pretending
himself, I will not say to have received any in-
jury, but to have suffered any thing at the hands. of
Lord Castlereagh, he voluntarily, unconnected with

the transaction himself, chooses to call Lord Castle-
reagh before his tribunal, at this British Forum—re-
peats the charge against him—tells him that the
public are outraged at the offence which is imputed
to him, and calls upon him to defend himself—and

ultimately convicts him of all the offences which

had been imputed to him in that paper in the Morn-
ing Chronicle. Mr. Finnerty, in the Morning Chro-
nicle, pretending to think he -had been injured by
Lord Castlereagh, states the ground of that injury.
Mr. Jones, at the British Forum, repeats that libel,
3,vhich was stated in the Morning Chronicle 'by Mr.
Finnerty—he was no party in the business hiniself—

- . _
he thrusts himself into it—he volunteers as the ma-

nager of this deb:nu—he calls togethr persons of a
certain description to discuss whether .Lord Castle-

reagh be or be not guilty of these° charges—he
serves a summons, a mock summons, upon Lord
Castlereagh, to -attend this trial, which he knew
Lord Castlereagh must be mad if he or any of his
friends attended, and then, because he does not at-

tend, he pronounces judgment of conviction against
him, of all these foul charges which were contained
in the Morning Chronicle. The defendant has

mentioned that he was imprisoned on another ac-

count, by the sentence of another tribunal, and he

thinks it would have been more becoming Lord
Castlereagh, that it would have been more magna-
nimous, it, considering the_ effect of an imprison-
ment which lasted four months, lie had not insti-
tuted this prosecution. My Lord, it is a bad ex-
cuse/ of a- man, wlien he ;s called to answer for
committing one offence, that he committed another
which subjeted him to inconvenience, that that
should render the legal consequencesmf this still
more lenient to him than it otherwise would be.
It is hardly worth stating to your Lordships, that
this indiatment was preirrred when that imprison.