be awarded against him the said John Stock- / dant, John Stockdale, comes before you in dale, in this behalf, to make him answer to consequence of an address from the House of our said lord the king, touching and concern-Commons. This you may well suppose I do ing the premises aforesaid.

not mention as in any degree to influence the

judgment which you are by-and-by to give Counsel against Mr. Stockdale-The Attorney upon your oaths; 1 state it as a measure General (Sir Archibald Macdonald, afterwards which they have taken, thinking it in their Lord Chief Baron]; the Solicitor General (Sir wisdom, as every body must think it-to be John Scott, afterwards successively C.J.C.B. the fittest to bring before a jury of the counand Lord Chancellor]; Mr. Bearcroft, and Mr. try, an offender against themselves, and Wood.

against their honour, avoiding thereby what Solicitors-Messrs. Chamberlyne and White, sometimes indeed is unavoidable, but which Solicitors for the Affairs of his Majesty's Trea- they wish to avoid, whenever it can be done sury.

with propriety-the acting both as judges

and accusers; which they must necessarily Counsel for Mr. Stockdale- -The Hon. have done, bad they resorted to their own Thomas Erskine, and Mr. Dayrell.

powers, which are very great and very extenSolicitor—Mr. Samuel Harman, Jermyn- sive, for the purpose of vindicating themselves street.

against insult and contempt, but which, in

the present instance, they have wisely forThe Information having been opened by borne to exercise, thinking it better to leave Mr. Wood, the Attorney General stated the the defendant to be dealt with by a fair and case as follows:

impartial jury.* May it please your lordship, and gentle- The offence which I impute to him is that men of the Jury;—This information, which it of calumniating the House of Commons : not has been my duty to file against the defen- in its ordinary legislative character, but when

acting in its accusatorial capacity, conceiving The Editor of lord Erskine's Speeches it to be their duty, on adequate occasions, to introduces this case with the following re- | investigate the conduct of persons in high marks:

stations, and to leave that conduct to be “ The trial of Mr. John Stockdale, of Pic- judged of by the proper constitutional tribunal, cadilly, is so immediately connected with the the Peers in parliament assembled. well-known impeachment of Mr. Hastings, After due investigation, as it is well known the governor-general of India, that very little to the public, the Commons of Great Britain preface is necessary for the illustration of Mr. | thought it their duty to submit the conduct Erskine's defence of bim.

of a servant of this country, who had co« When the Commons of Great Britain or- verned one of its most opulent dependencies dered that impeachment, the articles were for many years, to an inquiry before that prepared by Mr. Edmund Burke, who had the tribunal. One would have thought that every lead in all the inquiries which led to it, and, good subject of this country would have instead of being drawn up in the usual dry forborn imputing to the House of Commons method of legal accusation, were expanded motives utterly unworthy of them, and of into great length, and were characterized by those whom they represent: instead of this, that tervid and affecting language, which dis- to so great a degree now has the licentioustinguishes all the writings of that extraor- ness of the press arisen, that motives, the dinary person. The articles so prepared, in- most unbecoming that can actuate even any stead of being confined to the records of the individual who may be concerned in the proHouse of Commons, until they were carried secution of public justice, are imputed to the up to the Lords for trial, were printed and representatives of the people of this country sold in every shop in the kingdom, without question or obstruction by the managers of but undoubtedly with strong severity of obthe impeachment or the blouse of Commons, serion against the accusation of Mr. Hastand undoubtedly, from the style and manner ings; and having an immediate, and very exof their composition, made a very considerable tensive sale, was complained of by Mr. Fox, impression against the accused.

to the House of Commons, and upon the mo" To repel the effects of the articles, thus tion of that great and eminent person, then (according to the reasoning of Mr. Erskine) one of the managers of the impeachmentprematurely published, the Rev. Mr. Logan, the House unanimously voted an address to one of the ministers of Leith in Scotland, a the king, praying his majesty to direct his person eminent for learning, drew up a Review attorney-general to file an information against of the articles of impeachment (which, as has Mr. Stockdale, as the publisher of a libel upon been already stated, were then in general cir- the Commons House of parliament; which culation), and carried it to Mr. Stockdale, an was filed accordingly.” Erskine's Speeches, eminent and respectable bookseller in Picca- vol. 2, p. 205, 2nd edition. dilly,-who published it in the usual course * See Starkie on the Law of Slander and of his business. Mr. Logan's Review was Libel, p. 537, edit. of 1813. See also in this composed with great accuracy and judguent, Collection, Vol. VIII, p. 88.

acting in a body. No credit is given to them for meaning to do justice to their country, but on the contrary, private, personal, and malicious motives have been imputed to the

Commons of Great Britain.

When such an imputation is made upon the very first tribunal that this country knows; namely, the great inquest of the nation, the Commons in parliament assembled, carrying a subject, who, as they thought, had offended, to the bar of the House of Lords-I am sure you will think this an attack so dangerous to every tribunal, so dangerous to the whole administration of justice, that if it be well proved you cannot fail to give it your stigma, by a verdict against the defendant.

Gentlemen, the particular passages which I shall put my finger upon in this libel, it will now be my duty to state. You know very well that it is your duty to consider of the meaning that I have imputed to them by the information;-if you agree with me in that meaning, you convict; if you disagree with me, of course you acquit.

The rule of your judgment, I apprehend (with submission to his lordship), will be the ordinary acceptation of the words and the

the art of composition, but certainly to be of good understanding and eminently acquainted with letters. Therefore when calumny of this sort comes so recommended, and addressing itself to the understandings of the most enlightened part of mankind-I mean those who have had the best education-it may sink deep into the minds of those who compose the thinking and the judging part of the community; and by misleading them, perhaps may be of more real danger than the momentary misleading, or the momentary inflammation of common minds, by the ordinary publications of the day.

This book is intituled, A Review of the ' principal Charges against Warren Hastings, esq. late Governor-general of Bengal.'

6

One passage in it is this: The House of Commons has now given its final decision with regard to the merits and demerits of Mr. Hastings. The grand inquest of England have delivered their charges, and preferred their impeachment; 'their allegations are referred to proof; and from the appeal to the collective wisdom and justice of the nation in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the question comes plain and obvious sense of the several pas-to be determined, whether Mr. Hastings be sages;-if there be doubt, or if there be diffi-guilty or not guilty!* culty-if there be screwing ingenuity, or unworthy straining, on the part of a public prosecutor, you certainly will pay no attention to that; but on the contrary, if he who runs may read;-if the meanest capacity must understand the words in their plain and obvious sense to be the same as im-fine, and for an intention that never was puted in this information, in such a case as that, ingenuity on the other side must be laid aside by you, and you will not be overanxious to give a meaning to those words, other than the ordinary and plain one.

In my situation it does not become me to raise in you more indignation than the words themselves and the plain and simple reading of the libel will do; far be it from me, if it were in my power to do so, to provoke any undue passions or animosity in you, against conduct even such as this. The solemnity of the situation in which I am placed on this occasion, obliges me to address the intellect both of the court and jury, and neither their passions nor their prejudices; for that reason I shall content myself with the few observations I have made, and betake myself merely to the words of the libel; and leaving that with you, I am most confident that if you follow the rule of interpretation which you always do upon such occasions, it cannot possibly happen that you should differ from me in the construction which I have put upon them.

Another is: What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood?'+

Another is: An impeachment of error in judgment with regard to the quantum of a

executed, characterizes a tribunal of inquisi' tion rather than a court of parliament.'

In another part it is said: The other charges are so insignificant in themselves, 'or founded on such gross misrepresentations, that they would not affect an obscure individual, much less a public character.'§

And again: If success in any degree, attends the designs of the accusers of Mr. Hastings, the voice of Britain henceforth to her sons, is, Go and serve your country; but if you transgress the line of official orders, though compelled by necessity, you do so at the risk of your fortune, your honour, and your life; if you act with proper prudence against the interests of the empire, and bring calamity and disgrace upon your 3 country, you have only to court opposition and coalesce with your enemies, and you will find a party zealous and devoted to sup'port you; you may obtain a vote of thanks, from the House of Commons for your services, and you may read your history in the eyes of the mob, by the light of bonfires ' and illuminations. But if, after exerting all your efforts in the cause of your country, you return, covered with laurels and crowned with success; if you preserve a loyal attachment

6

to your sovereign, you may expect the thunders of parliamentary vengeance; you will certainly be impeached, and probably be

' undone."

House of Commons impeached Mr. Hastings.
Joseph White, esq. sworn.-Examined by Mr.

Solicitor General.

What papers have you in your hand?This is a copy of the Journal of the House of Commons--And this is a copy of the Journal of the House of Lords [producing them]; I examined them with the original manuscript journals.

Another passage is this: The office of calm deliberate justice is, to redress grievances as well as to punish offences. It has been affirmed, that the natives of India have been deeply injured; but has any motion been made to make them compensation for the injuries they have sustained?-Have the Mr. Erskine. How did you examine them? accusers of Mr. Hastiugs ever proposed to-I examined them by one of the clerks <bring back the Rohillas to the country from reading the journal to me, and my reading which they were expelled? to restore Cheit the copy to him afterwards-I examined them Sing to the Zemindary of Benares, or to both ways. return the nabob of Oude the present which the governor of Bengal received from him for the benefit of the Company? Till such measures are adopted, and in the train of negociation, the world has every reason to conclude, that the impeachment of Mr. Hastings is carried on'-Now, gentlemen, I leave you to judge what sort of motives are imputed to the House of Commons hereFrom motives of personal animosity, not from regard to public justice.'+

The general meaning, without specifying it in technical language, which I have thought it my duty to impute to these words, is shortly this:-That the House of Commons, without consideration, without reading, without hearing, have not been ashamed to accuse a man of distinguished situation; and to pervert their accusatorial character from the purposes of deliberate, thoughtful, considerate justice, to immediate, hasty, passionate, vindictive, personal animosity. The work represents, that the better a man conducts himself that the more deserving he has rendered himself of his country's favour from his past conduct, the more he exposes himself to the vindictive proceedings of parliament; and that such a man will be impeached and ruined.

In another passage, PERSONAL ANIMOSITY (the very words are used) is imputed to the Commons of Great Britain as the motive of their conduct-these are too plain for you, gentlemen, to differ with me in the interpretation.

I do not choose to waste your time, and that of the Court, in so plain a case, with much observation; but hackneyed as it may be, it is my duty, upon every one of these occasions, to remind you, that the liberty of the press consists in its good regulation-if it be meant that it should be preserved with benefit to the public, it must be from time to time lopped of its unjust excesses, by reasonable and proper verdicts of juries, in fit and clear

Mr. Erskine. They need not be read; we all know the fact.

Mr. Sol. Gen. Your lordship knows we proved the publication of the paper yesterday. [On the preceding day, upon the trial of the information against William Perryman, for a libel in the Morning Herald, William Gotobed was called to prove the publication of the newspaper-Mr. Erskine, for the accommodation of the witness, who was very ill, consented that he should at the same time be admitted to give his evidence relative to this trial-when his examination was as follows:

William Gotobed sworn.

I bought this pamphlet [producing it] at Mr. Stockdale's shop in Piccadilly.

Mr. Erskine. Who served you with it?A boy who was in the shop.

Mr. Erskine. Whether the boy was acting regularly as a servant in the shop?-Mr, Stockdale was in the shop at the time Ỉ bought it, and the boy was acting as his servant.

Mr. Erskine. I admit that the witness has proved that he bought this book at the shop of Mr. Stockdale, Mr. Stockdale himself being in the shop, from a young man who acted as his servant.

DEFENCE.

The hon. Thomas Erskine. Gentlemen of

Of this defence, the admirable sagacity of construction and the irresistible power of execution are finely pourtrayed in the Edinburgh Review: The fact of publication was admitted; and Mr. Erskine then delivered the finest of all his orations,-whether we regard the wonderful skill with which the argument is conducted,-the soundness of the principles laid down, and their happy application to the case,-or the exquisite "fancy with which they are embellished and illustrated, and the powerful and touching 'language in which they are conveyed. It Mr. Sol. Gen. We will prove that the is justly regarded by all English lawyers, as

cases.

EVIDENCE FOR THE CROWN.

on when you were attending to try it, it is probable you were not altogether inattentive to what passed at the trial of the other indictment prosecuted also by the House of Commons; and therefore, without a restatement of the same principles, and a similar quotation of authorities to support them, I need only remind you of the law applicable to this subject, as it was then admitted by the attor ney-general, in concession to my propositions, and confirmed by the higher authority of the Court, viz.

First, that every information or indictment must contain such a description of the crime, that the defendant may know what crime it is which he is called upon to answer.

the jury;-Mr. Stockdale, who is brought as a criminal before you for the publication of this book, has, by employing ME as his advocate, reposed what must appear to many an extraordinary degree of confidence; since, although he well knows that I am personally connected in friendship with most of those, whose conduct and opinions are principally arraigned by its author, he nevertheless commits to my hands his defence and justification. From a trust apparently so delicate and singular, vanity is but too apt to whisper an application to some fancied merit of one's own; but it is proper, for the honour of the English bar, that the world should know that such things happen to all of us daily, and of course; and that the defendant, without any knowledge of me, or any confidence that was personal, was only not afraid to follow up an accidental retainer, from the knowledge he has of the general character of the profession. Happy indeed is it for this country, that whatever interested divisions may characterize other places, of which I may have occasion to speak to-day; however the counsels of the highest departments of the state may be occasionally distracted by personal considerations, they never enter these walls to disturb the administration of justice: whatever may be our public principles, or the private habits of our lives, they never cast even a shade across the path of our professional duties.-If this be the characteristic even of the bar of an English court of justice, what sacred impartiality may not every man expect from its jurors and its bench!

Secondly, that the jury may appear to be warranted in their conclusion of guilty or not guilty.

And, lastly, that the Court may see such a precise and definite transgression upon the record, as to be able to apply the punishment which judicial discretion may dictate, or which positive law may inflict.

It was admitted also to follow as a mere corollary from these propositions, that where an information charges a writing to be composed or published oF AND CONCERNING THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN, with an intent to bring that body into scandal and disgrace with the public, the author cannot be brought within the scope of such a charge, unless the jury, on examination and comparison of the whole matter written or published, shall be satisfied that the particular passages charged as criminal, when explained by the context, As, from the indulgence which the Court and considered as part of one entire work, were was yesterday pleased to give to my indis-meant and intended by the author to vilify position* this information was not proceeded

the House of Commons as a body, and were written of and concerning them IN PARLIA MENT ASSEMBLED.

These principles being settled, we are now to see what the present information is.

keeping which in his eye, a man may hope to succeed in special pleading his client's 'case within its principle, who is destitute of the talent required even to comprehend the It charges that the defendant, unlawfully, "other and higher merits of his original. By wickedly, and maliciously devising, conthose merits, it is recommended to lovers of triving, and intending to asperse, scandalize, 'pure diction, of copious and animated de-and vilify the Commons of Great Britain in ❝scription,—of lively, picturesque, and fanci-parliament assembled; and most wickedly ful illustration, of all that constitutes, if we may so speak, the poetry of eloquence,all for which we admire it, when prevented 'from enjoying its music and its statuary.'Edinb. Rev. vol. 16, p. 109.

On the day of the trial the rules of the Court did not permit any farther postponement; and Mr. Erskine was so ill that it is remembered in Westminster-hall, he was scarcely able to stand up to address the jury, and was without that preparation which so important an occasion demanded: but the mind often derives additional energy from the weakness of the body and the necessity of immediate exertion bestows a force beyond the reach of long continued meditation. There is an impetus in spontaneous eloquence which is far superior to a premeditated or even the best written oration.

and audaciously to represent their proceed'ings as corrupt and unjust, and to make it believed and thought, as if the Commons of "Great Britain in parliament assembled were ' a most wicked, tyrannical, base, and corrupt 'set of persons, and to bring them into disgrace with the public'-the defendant published- What Not those latter ends of sentences which the attorney-general has read from his brief, as if they had followed one another in order in this book;-not those scraps and tails of passages which are patched together upon this record, and pronounced in one breath, as if they existed without intermediate matter in the same page, and without context any where.-No-This is not the accusation, even mutilated as it is: for the information charges, that, with intention to vilify the House of Commons, the defendant

ing the case for the Crown: and I will then by reading the interjacent matter which is studiously kept out of view, convince you of its true interpretation.

The informarion, beginning with the first page of the book, charges as a libel upon the House of Commons, the following sentence: The House of Commons has now given its final decision with regard to the merits aud demerits of Mr. Hastings. The grand inquest of England have delivered their

published the whole book, describing it on the record by its title: A Review of the principal Charges against Warren Hastings, esq, late Governor General of Bengal, in which, amongst other things, the mutter particularly selected is to be found. Your inquiry, therefore, is not confined to whether the defendant published those selected parts of it; and whether, looking at them as they are distorted by the information, they carry in fair construction the sense and meaning which the innuendos put upon them; but whether the au-charges, and preferred their impeachment; thor of the entire work-I say THE AUTHOR, since, if He could defend hiniself, THE PUBLISHER unquestionably can,-whether THE AUTHOR Wrote the volume which I hold in my hand, as a free, manly, bona fide disqusition of criminal charges against his fellow-citizen, or whether the long eloquent di cussion of, them, which fills so many pages, was a mere cloak and cover for the introduction of the supposed scandal imputed to the selected passages; the mind of the writer all along being intent on traducing the House of Commons, and not on fairly answering their charges against Mr. Hastings?

This, gentlemen, is the principal matter for your consideration; and therefore, if after you shall have taken the book itself into the chamber which will be provided for you, and shall have read the whole of it with impartial attention;if, after the performance of this duty, you can return here, and with clear consciences pronounce upon your oaths that the impression made upon you by these pages is, that the author wrote them with the wicked, seditious, and corrupt intentions charged by the information;-you have then my full permission to find the defendant guilty: but if, on the other hand, the general tenour of the composition shall impress you with respect for the author, and point him out to you as a man mistaken perhaps himself, but not seeking to deceive others--if every line of the work shall present to you an intelligent animated mind, glowing with a Christian compassion towards a fellow man whom he believed to be innocent, and with a patriot zeal for the liberty of his country, which he considered as wounded through the sides of an oppressed fellow-citizen;-if this shall be the impression on your consciences and understandings, when you are called upon to deliver your verdict; then hear from me, that you not only work private injustice, but break up the press of England, and surrender her rights and liberties for ever, if you convict the defendant.

Gentlemen, to enable you to form a true judgment of the meaning of this book, and of the intention of its author, and to expose the miserable juggle that is played off in the information, by the combination of sentences, which in the work itself have no bearing upon one another-I will first give you the publication as it is charged upon the record and presented by the attorney-general in open

their allegations are referred to proof; and from the appeal to the collective wis dom and justice of the nation in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the question comes to be determined, whether Mr. Hastings be guilty or not guilty?'

It is but fair however to admit, that this first sentence, which the most ingenious malice cannot torture into a criminal construction, is charged by the information rather as introductory to what is made to follow it, than as libellous in itself; for the attorney-general, from this introductory passage in the first page, goes on at a leap to page thirteenth, and reads almost without a stop as if it immediately followed the other-this sentence: What credit can we give to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we find that they originate from misrepresentation and falsehood?'

From these two passages thus standing together, without the intervenient matter which occupies thirteen pages, one would imagine, that instead of investigating the probability or improbability of the guilt imputed to Mr. Hastings;-instead of carefully examining the charges of the Commons, and the defence of them which had been delivered before them, or which was preparing for the Lords; the author had immediately, and in a moment after stating the mere fact of the impeachment, decided that the act of the Commons originated from misrepresentation and falsehood.

Gentlemen, in the same manner a veil is cast over all that is written in the next seven pages: for knowing that the context would help to the true construction, not only of the passages charged before, but of those in the sequel of this information; the attorney-general, aware that it would convince every man who read it that there was no intention in the author to calumniate the House of Commons, passes over, by another leap, to page twenty; and in the same manner, without drawing his breath, and as if it directly followed the two former sentences in the first and thirteenth pages, reads from page twentieth- An impeachment of error in judg ment with regard to the quantum of a fine, and for an intention that never was exe cuted, and never known to the offending party, characterizes a tribunal of inquisition rather than a court of parliament.'

From this passage, by another vault, he