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¬since it was running out like water in Armata, and she was dying without attending to her com- plaint. — Her Judges, following one another, had, it seems, settled, as they called it, by a series of decisions, that writings forming an anomaly in criminal proceedings, were to be left to their cen- sureship, and that it was for them alone to decide, even when no rights of individuals were affected, in what language the opinions of mankind upon every possible subject was to be expressed ; as- suming to themselves the sole judgment of in- tention whilst they shut themselves up from all testimony by which alone it could, in many cases, be ascertained. — This blind and pre- sumptuous pretension was not only a palpable violation of the ancient law through which every popular jurisdiction might in turn have been argued away, but gave to the fixed magis- trates, appointed by the crown, the power of con- trouling the press, which is but another name for ¬AN ABSOLUTE DOMINION OVER THE PEOPLE. ¬The conflicts to resist this usurpation were -obstinate ¬
