to his accurate and candid mind, that this is nothing but a shoot and offspring from his parent sophism upon the meaning of the word pretence and must abide its fate. If pretence means as we contend, purpose whether real or feigned, then the statute must be read as if the word were purpose, and then the enactment must be the very thing which he controverts, namely, that a Delegation for the purpose of Petitioning for an alteration of matters established by law is an illegal Assembly and this necessary conclusion will not be at all affected by his remaining argument, grounded upon the proviso in the statute, because if the object of the Act be such as I have stated, then the proviso can never be construed to destroy the whole enactment, and to render the statute nugatory, by repealing every thing contained in it. The construction of the statute and the proviso must therefore be thus reconciled. The latter must be considered as declaring the general right of petitioning to be unimpaired, and the former to restrain the exercise of that right through the medium of Delegation.

From some passages in Mr. Burrowes's speech, I should be induced to suppose, that he did not so much dispute your Lordships judgment as he disclaims your jurisdiction, and that he

considers your Lordships to have arrogated the. province of the Jury, in the interpretation of this statute --I did not expect that I should have heard it gravely asserted by his lips, that the Jury were the proper tribunal for the interpretation of the statute law :--I shall never until corrected by the highest authority, cease to consider, and to call this the most monstrous proposition that ever shocked a legal mind. I know that for disputing this alarming and popular ncvelty, I have incurred much obloquy from what Mr. Burrowes calls the censorial power of the People, and have been represented as the advocate of arbitrary doctrine, but that shall never intimidate me into a concession of the first principles of my profession, and an abandonment of the elementary maxims of the constitution.-I never, until I shall be taught my error by some higher authority than the Newspapers, will hear with patience, or treat without reprehension, the assertion, that according to the British jurisprudence, Acts of Parliament are to be interpreted by juries.-If Mr. Burrowes asserts that proposition and is right, I am grieviously ignorant; but I grapple with him upon the question, and am not afraid of the result: where does he find this position stated ?-in what legal authority has he discovered it?-he may find the rules for the construction of statutes elaborately dis

cussed, and minutely distinguished in our most authentic books, and that nice and difficult part of our science reduced to precision, and he has learned where your Lordships have learned how to apply those rules. But gentlemen of the Ju ry, when and where have you studied them?→→→ what has been your preparation for the judi cial office?are you apprized of all the distinctions between statutes penal and remedial, and of the different views which may be taken of each is it not, my Lords, to be lamented, that at this time of day, we are without any recorded adjudication by Juries upon the statute law? is it not to be lamented, that if it be their province to decide the law, yet that the law has been so perverse as not to provide for its own uniformity, and that the adjudication of one Jury upon a statute is not to be an authority to govern another, but that there may in fact be as many laws as there are Juries: Mr. Burrowes has much perverted the libel Act, which he has thought it necessary to read to the Jury, in order to persuade them that they must interpret the Convention Act: does that Act provide that Juries are to decide questions of law? certainly not. Had that been the case, the Legislature would at once have so enacted.-Before that statute, the Judges had claimed as questions of law, the decision upon

two matters which are in their nature, more properly questions of fact.-They had insisted, that in libel cases, the Jury should merely decide upon the fact of publishing, but that the motive of the publisher was immaterial, and that the tendency of the libel to produce the effects, or convey the meaning imputed to it was matter of law, and only to be interpreted by the Bench. In this the legislature has corrected them; and Juries now, in cases of libel, are to judge of the motive and the tendency, as well as of the publication of the libel.-But does it follow, that because the statute which is a declaratory one, has declared, that such was always the fair province of the Jury, and that these were in reality questions of fact, that Juries are in all cases to pronounce upon all law, and to interpret all statutes--that because each Jury is to pronounce upon the tendency of each ephemeral and fu gacious libel; that therefore every successive Jury is to form part of a moveable and shifting tribunal, to construe in infinite varieties, the fixed and immoveable laws of the land. Surely such an illogical conclusion was never before offered to the human understanding. I was not less surprized, to find Mr. Burrowes claiming this privilege for you, gentlemen of the Jury, upon your right to find a general verdict in a criminal case, and arguing seriously, that because a jury finds a

general verdict it decides the law. I did not think, that it could be necessary to suggest to his very discriminating mind, the most obvious and common place distinctions.-Does he not know, that when the jury find a general verdict, they apply the law which they hear from the Bench, to the facts which they decide upon their oaths, and do not decide the law.-Let me remind him of the too common case of murder

a man is indicted for that crime, and his guilt or innocence depends upon those shadowy distinctions which distinguish it from manslaughter: the judge tells the jury the legal distinctions be tween the several classes of homicide, and tells them (we will suppose one familiar case,) that if they believe that the killing was sudden be fore the blood heated by adequate provocation, had time to cool, they ought to find a verdict of manslaughter, if otherwise of murder.They find a verdict of one or the other.-Does any legal, or indeed any rational man suppose, that by doing so, they pronounce or decide the law of manslaughter and murder? certainly not.. -If they did, that law would fluctuate with every homicide, and change with every jury:they merely decide by their verdict, the facts upon the hypothesis of which the one way or the other the law depends, and apply the law to those facts. If I shall be told that they may misapply