men suffering from the sting of injurious calumnies. He did not think that there was a single planter who cared one farthing about the publication of the Nil Durpan. They were too well aware of their position. He believed that there was another motive for the prosecution, and not the one alleged of unmerited aspersions. Another observation suggested itself to him, viz. that if the planters had really felt themselves hurt, they would long ago have taken proceedings against the publishers of the Native copies promulgated, through the Indigo interest. If any copies did harm, surely they were the Native ones. As no proceedings had been taken, as they had waited so long, and judging from their placid demeanour, he felt satisfied that they did not feel themselves aggrieved. Yet that was no reason they should not complain if there had been a libel. He would argue there had not been, on four separate points. The first reason was that the parties maligned were not a definite body, and it was utterly oppossed to the rule in cases of libel that such a body could prefer an indictment. His learned friend seemed to have anticipated such an objection being raised, and he did raise it, and insisted strongly on it. Mr. Peterson referred the jury to three cases; he would not trouble them with a long legal disquisition, but would briefly show how different those cases were from the present one. He did not deny that great public bodies had a right to prefer an indictment, but what a difference there was between a corporate body like the Directors of the East India Company, or the clergymen of the diocese of Durham, and a body like that of the Indigo planters of Lower Bengal. They were met with here and there at intervals of 20 or 40 miles! They had no connection with each other, no identity, no corporate existence, no association properly so called, not a single interest in common as was the case in the examples referred to by his learned friend. Mr. Peterson had been compelled to go so far back as of George II 1732. There was a case of some Portuguese Jews lately come from Portugal. A criminal information was prayed for regarding the murder of a Jewish woman. These Jews were represented to have lately come from Portugal and to be living in Broad Street. This at once established a connection between them, which did not exist among the Indigo planters. The case against the clergymen of the diocese of Durham was like-
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