produced two. (Thereby depriving me of the opportunity of combating the Precedents and their application, which I fhould have had if they had been produced by the Attorney General *. And on the strength of thefe two Precedents alone, (forgetting his own description and distinction of the crime to the Jury) he decided against me t.

"Lord Mansfield

"I fancy the Attorney General was furprized with the objection."

I fay,

The Attorney General, in his reply, faid to the Jury, "Let us a little "fee what is the nature of the obfervations he makes. In the first place, "that I left it exceedingly fhort: and the objection to my having left it "fhort, was fimply this; that I had stated no more to you but this, that of "imputing to the conduct of the King's troops the crime of murder. Now I ftated it, as imputed to the troops, ORDERED as they were upon the PUBLIC SERVICE."

Lord Mansfield to the Jury

"Read the paper. What is it? Why it is this; that our beloved Ame"rican Fellow-fubjects-in REBELLION against the ftate-not beloved fo as "to be abetted in their REBELLION." Again,-" What is the employment

they (the troops) are ORDERED upon? Why then what are they who gave "the ORDERS? Draw the conclufion." Again,-" The unhappy refistance "to the LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY of this kingdom by many of our Fellowfubjects in America the LEGISLATURE of this kingdom have avowed "that the Americans REBELLED: Troops are EMPLOYED upon this ground. "The cafe is here between a juft Government and REBELLIOUS fubjects."— Again," You will read this paper; you will judge whether it is not denying the Government and Legislative authority of England." And again, "If you are of opinion that they were all murdered (like the cases of "undoubted

I fay, on the strength of these two precedents alone. For the grofs perversion and misapplication of the technical term de bene effe, was merely pour eblouir, to introduce the proceedings on the trial, and to divert the attention from the only point in queftion-the fufficiency of the charge in the Record. And I cannot believe that any man breathing (except Lord Mansfield) either in the profeffion or out of it, will think it an argument against the validity of my objection; that it was brought forward only by myself, and bad not been alleged before by the learned Counsel for the Printers. This however I can truly tell his lordship; that the most learned of them all, (abfit invidia) Mr. Dunning, was not

"undoubted murders, of Glenco, and twenty other maffacres that might be named) why then you may form a different conclufion."

And again" If fome foldiers, Without authority, had got in a drunken fray, and murder had enfued, and that this paper could relate to that, it "would be quite a different thing from the charge in the information : "BECAUSE it is charged as a feditious Libel tending to difquiet the minds of "the People." See the Trial.

'A man must be not only well practifed, but even backneyed in our Courts of Juftice to discover the above defcription of my crime in the Prepofitions, OF and CONCERNING. Be that as it may: It is evident that the Attorney General and the Chief Justice did not expect the Jury to be fo enlightened; and therefore (when I had no longer a right to open my lips) they defcribed a crime to them in that plain language which I ftill contend I had a right to expect in the Information; BECAUSE " A feditious Libel tending to dif quiet the minds of the people,”—has been determined to be mere paper and packthread, and no part of the Charge.

aware

aware of the objection when I first mentioned it to him; that he would not believe the information could be fo defective in all its Counts, till I produced to him an Office Copy when to his astonishment he found it so, he felt no jealousy that the objection had been miffed by himself; but declared it to be infuperable and fatal: and bad me rest afsured, that whatever might be Lord Mansfield's wishes, and his courage on fuch occafions, he would not dare to overrule the objection. And when after the close of the first day, I hinted to him my fufpicions of Lord Mansfield's intentions by the "God forbid ;" and by the perverted and mifapplied "De bene esse," in order to mix the proceedings on the trial with the queftion of record; he smiled at it, as merely a method which his lordship took of letting the matter down gently, and breaking the abruptnefs of his fall.

Strange as it may appear! One of those Precedents was was merely imagined by the Chief Juftice, but never really exifted. And the other (through ignorance of the meaning of the Conjunction THAT) had never been truly underftood; neither by the Counsel who originally took the exception, nor perhaps by the Judges who made the decifion, nor by the Reporter of it, nor by the present Chief Justice who quoted and mifapplied it.

Mr.

Mr. Dunning undertook to prove (and did actually prove in the House of Lords) the non-existence of the main precedent. And I undertook, in that Letter to Mr. Dunning, to fhew the real merits and foundation, and confequently Lord Mansfield's mifapplication of the other. And I undertook this, because it afforded a very striking instance of the importance of the meaning of words; not only (as has been too lightly fuppofed) to Metaphyficians and Schoolmen, but to the rights and happiness of mankind in their dearest concerns the decifions of Courts of Justice.

In the House of Lords these two Precedents (the foundation of the Judgment in the Court of King's Bench) were abandoned: and the defcription of my crime against Government was adjudged to be fufficiently set forth by the Prepofitions oF and CONCERNing.

Perhaps it may make my readers fmile; but I mention it as a farther inftance of the importance of inquiry into the meaning of words;—that in the decifion of the Judges in the House of Lords, the Chief Juftice De Grey (who found of and CONCERNING fo comprehenfive, clear, and definite) began by declaring that " the word Certainty "[which the Law requires in the defcription of Crimes] "is as indefinite [that is, as Uncertain] as any word that " could

❝ could be used." Now though certainty is fo uncertain, we must suppose the word Libel to be very definite: and yet if I were called upon for an equivalent term, I believe I could not find in our language any word more popularly appofite than Calumny; which is defined by Cicero, in his Offices, to be" callida & malitiofa Juris interpretatio."

If there was any Mistake (which however I am very far from believing) in this decifion, fanctioned by the Judges and the House of Lords; I fhall be juftified in applying (with the fubftitution of the fingle word Grammatici for Iftorici) what Giannone, who was himself an excellent lawyer, fays of his countrymen of the fame profeffion:"Tanta ignoranza avea lorò bendati gli occhi, che si pre"giavano d'effere folamente Legifti, e non Grammatici; "non accorgendofi, che perché non erano Grammatici, "eran perciò CATTIVI LEGISTI."

Ift. civil. di Napoli. Intro.

ΕΠΕΑ