The Sun.
London, England, 1817-12-19 00:00:00

',ilia the: two Ut.ivvystie.,

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• •
This oas the ca,e on 'the Neil t of the I'. wcoir-
riot).
Mr. Hone now rose to make his owo defence,
not havittg employed aoy counsel. He said 114 e
felt hin, clr labooring nutlet. considerable
ettlty at this Moment', ill cnnsequeoce of his never
having been in the habit Of Pnblic apeat‘in f, mot
haeingnever addressed :t fitib;ie ti,senbly before.
He therefore hoped that every indolgthee wonl.l
beatford'ed him in his present situation. lie de-
clared lie was wholly toiconscibos of the guilt
now imputed to him ; and that if he knew lie was
guilty, the 'Jury would not see him Oleic. It
might' be in their recollection, that as tar back
as the Month 'of May last, bad been ap-
prehended uncle(' a warrant fruit the Chief Jus-
tice of the King's Bench, and afterwards
brrinight into that Court, to plead to certain
inforMations laid against him. He did not,
however, then plead, because he believed the pro-
ceediug by informatiOn to be unconstitutional,
and such as bad never been contemplated by the
original MakerS of our law's ; because these in-
formations laid men "at the mercy of au Attorney-
General, without any chance of a presentment
before a. Grand Jury ; they caused men to be
taken up in a Stimmary manner, as had been the
case with him Self, to answer to informations which.
.he did not know to haVe been filed. There was an-
Other ground for his not pleading at that time,whick
was, the enormous expence lie must have been put
to; the expence which a man is generally put to
it' pleading ,to an information was .calculated to
;•tmonnt to 1001. and such an expence would to
him be his titter ruin. lie applied to the Cotirt
for copies of inforMatiOns, the Court would .not
grant them, and on that account he did not know.
what he bad been specifically charged with. Sir •
‘Villiain 'Garrote-, the late Attorney-General, haft
charged hint with blasphemous publications ;
now it seemed they were not blasphemous ; he
was charged with being evil-disposed, and with
wickedly and impionsly devi-ing to throw a scan-
dill on the Christian Religion. Now - the must
say, that the charge of blasphemy originally laid
in the information, but since abandoned, had the
effect of raising an immense prejudice against hint
in the public mind, and he felt lbw difficult it
veould he for him to get over it. He now stood
there as a most injured mail, with a great ‘veiglit
of public prejudice against to tu. Ott a former
occasion, when he complained of not having copies
of the infothsations, another information was
filed. Note lie would say, that if 100 informations
weie filed, he would not plead to one of them, un-
less he was furnished with copies of the saute. He
bad been treated with great liardsh•p and injustice,
athi tc irlt great inhumanity, by the Chief Justice,
by whose warrant he bad been apprehended. He
was seized on a Saturday night as he was entering
his own house; the officers who took him would not
suffer hint to go and istform his family of what hap-
pened to him ; they took him to it hick-up-boost:,
and there he was 4ept until Monday ; then lie was'
forced to go to Wi stinhooer-Ilall, to plead to in-
noolows, of which he knew not biog. Whett
he ratio. into Conti he was so ill as to be tillable
to start.ll; he applivd to the Court for petinissiout
to sit down, and the answer of Lord Elleohoi oogh
was—" Nu ;"—delivered in a tone of voice which.
might be heard at the other end of Westminster-
-11,11. He 'was then taken to the King's Bench
Prison in the most th plot able state of health, out iug
to the Minorcan treatment of Lord Ellenhorough,
Here Mr. Justice Acts ore interrupted the de.
Pendant, stating-, he was extremely story to tin so •
to any person who was making his defence ; bur.
is here, as in this ease, it became absolutely ne-
cessary, he could not rehab). It was the dote of
Lord Elleoborough to pursue die course of the
Court, and it was nut customary for defetulants
to sit while the informations filed against . thern
were being read.
Mr. Hone proceeded.—He said he felt it ne-
cessary to state the sufferings he had already ex-
perienced in consequence of this prosecution. He
then animadverted on the onnecessaty officious-
ness of those who would take the trouble of read-
ing and prosecuting stich trifling publications as
these. The Attorney-General hat! described them
as pOlitiC3l.s9lllbS. Si.) they were; •they were no-
thing else but political squibs ; and he denied
.there was ally thing hopinua or irreligious in them.
The Jury, he said, had nothiog to try but to ascer-
tain whether he had published them with a wicked
intentioo ; they had.nothing to do with the 'ten-
deoey of the publications. If they thought that
lie had no evil intention lit publishing them, their
must give him a verdict of acquittal. So far back
as the year 1771, it was !he intention of several
enlightened persons to bring in a Bill to I.sCertaiit
the mode ofprosecuting tot libels. The late "Mr.
Burke was one of them, than whom there was no
man who more wished to preserve the religion
and morals of society. Ou a otteion made by Mr.
Dowdeswell for such a bill, Mr. Burke nratte.
speech, in which he laid it lown as a constitu-
tional doctrine, that no man should be tried for it-
libel except by :Judges who were his equals ; that
theysliould not be chosen by the Crown, and that
these Judges should only deteranine the intention
and ttndency of a work. \lr. Burke also •com-
plained that the spirit of the Star Chamber
had theo migrated to 'Westminster ; and
the remedy he proposed was, that Juries should
he taken from the mass of the people,
and that they should be empowered to eon-
vict or acquit without being influtnced by the
Judge. 'flue Bill of Mr. Dowdeswell was, how-
ever, then lost ; and the business was sospended
until the year 1791, when the late Mr. Fox intro-
duced and carried the celebrated. Bill for Ascrr-
taining the
.Rights of Juries. This Bill bad at
once eolarged and fixed the power of Juries, who
are now to determine it the whole tif. the case.
lhe charge now agHinsr Ilia) seas an intention
to propagate iMpiety Old irreligion ; and if an,
hinititud thonsantl of the publications had beet'
circidate'd, the intention with %%bid, he published
them Was the point the Jury had to try. lie
spurned the Charge of impiety,' and he now pro-
teiwd himself to be a Christian, with every kind
of reverence tor the doctrines of Christ. He
had beet' vilified all over the country, and called
a wretch, who made out a tniserable ekistenee by
selling biasphemotis publications.; but he tithed
any titan to stand tip in that Court, and say, .that