the general voice loudly demanding justice and redress, and head public meetings throughout the United Kingdom to put a stop in its commencement to a reign of ter ror and of blood, and ensure legal redress to the widows and orphans —mutilated victims of this unparalleled and barbarous outrage. He then proposed a meeting in West minster for that purpose, adding, "whether the penalty of our meeting will be death by military execution I know not: but this I know, a man can die but once, and never better than in vindicating the laws and liber ties of his country." Then, professing to doubt whether what he had written was li bellous, he quoted the well-known incident of the soldiers on Hounslow Heath cheer ing the news of the acquittal of the seven bishops, and concluded with an attack upon military punishments. "Our duty is to meet; and England expects every man to do his duty." Doubtful of a conviction in London, vhere the libel had been published, the gov ernment laid the indictment in the county of Leicester, where, their evidence tended to show, the letter to the newspaper had been posted by Burdett. At the trial Best held this sufficient proof of publication in Leices ter, citing the ruling in Justice Johnson's case. Burdett was defended by Denman: he also addressed the jury in his own be half, severely censuring the device of the government and the system of ex officia in formations. With respect to the expressions used, he declared that if Locke had written his work on Government a few years earlier it would have been proscribed as a wicked and seditious libel. Rest charged the jury in unmistakable terms, asserting that "more poisonous ingredients were never con densed on paper." The jury immediately re turned a verdict of guilty. A motion was made for a new trial on Best's rulings, and the arguments of counsel and opinion of tV court (Abbott, Piavley, Holrovd and Rest)
on this motion constitute the most elaborate inquiry into the law of libel to be found in the books. The majority of the court. Bayley alone dissenting, sustained the ruling of the trial judge with respect to the publication in Leicester. The whole court agreed that the intention of a document is to be collected from the document itself, unless explained by the mode of publication, or other circumstances; that if the contents of a paper are likely to excite sedition, the writer must be presumed to have intended that which his act was likely to produce, and if the jury found such to be the fact, it was a libel (i St. Tr. X. S. i). The celebrated prosecution of John Am brose Williams for a libel on the clergy of Durham ( i St. Tr. X. S. 1291) is one of the most interesting of the modern trials. It arose out of the violent conflict of opinion over the proceedings against Queen Caroline. Upon the Queen's death the church bells in Durham had not been tolled, and the failure to observe this cus tomary sign of mourning prompted Wil liams to publish in the DnrJiam Chronicle a savage attack upon the clergy of that place. Its tenor may be gathered from the follow ing passage: "We know not whether any or ders were issued to prevent this customary sign of mourning; but the omission plainly indicates the kind of spirit which predomi nates among our clergy. Yet these men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote harmony, charity and Christian love! Out upon such Kypocricy! It is such conduct which ren ders the very name of our established clergy odious till it stinks in the nostrils; that makes our churches look like deserted sep ulchres, rather than temples of the living God; that raises up conventicles in every corner, and increases the brood of wild fanatics and enthusiasts: that causes our beneficed dignitaries to be regarded as
