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attempting to restore the state to its first principles of polity, when will was law, when force was equity, when slavery was freedom, and when rudeness was refinement.
Your Lordship has always shewn a fondness for curbing the power of juries in the case of a libel; and, imitating the conduct of some former Princes towards their Parliaments, you do not expound and advise, but command and overawe. When I have often beheld the dictatorial manner in which a Judge has treated juries, it reminded me of the first James, of pious memory, who used to tell his Parliaments they had no right to think, but to supply, and do as he directed. When that Monarch could not account for his right to reign arbitrarily by any record on earth, he piously pretended he had it from heaven.
Britain has as much danger to apprehend from judicial precedents, as from her Parliaments or her Princes: Perhaps more. A bad precedent once established, is even worse than a bad law. The
