was, that of the eight Judges present three were for discharging, and three for remanding him: and two declined giving their opinions. Thence the matter was adjourned into the Court of King's Bench, and argued before three* of the Judges, two of whom were for remanding him, and Mr. Judge Day was for his discharge. Then a new writ of habeas corpus was issued returnable into the Court of Exchequer, where the question was argued before a full Court for 3 days successively. The Barons delivered their opinions seriatim and at great length. Mr. Baron Smitht alone was for his discharge. He was accordingly remanded: and forced to yield to the oppresive construction of that statute. Under it he was compelled to withdraw the trial of the question from an Irish to a foreign tribunal, from a Jury of the vicinage to the inhabitants of a foreign country, ignorant of Mr. J. Osborne having been mentioned in the inditement did not take his seat on the Bench. † Never was a more learned and conclusive argument delivered than that of Baron Smith. Mr. Curran's speech in the Exchequer has been happily preserved. It is a model of the closest reasoning upon sound constitutional and legal doctrines enriched with an exuberance of point, figure and classical elegance. Mr. Baron Smith made this honorahle mention of it in his argument. "If on the present occasion I support it with warmth, it may be, I yet retain the excitation of a speech, which did honor even to the eloquence of Mr. Curran, and gave additional lustre to the importance, however transcedent, "of the present subject. A speech, which those would be worse than bad critics, who could mistake for mere brilliant declamation." " " 1805. 1805 local circumstances, indifferent about the welfare and uninformed of the state of the country, where the charged crime was (if at all) originally and effectually committed: and where alone it could be fairly tried, as being the residence of the prosécutors, prosecuted, and all the witnesses on both sides, and the scene of all those acts, the censure of which had been charged to be libellous. But the persons, to whom he was delivered over without bail or mainprize, and disarmed of the British Shield of personal liberty, durst not bring the charge before an Irish Jury, by whom all the facts circumstances and persons of the period, to which the charged libel referred were too well understood. If the act, as it obviously purported, applied to all persons, who by withdrawing from the jurisdiction, under which their offences were committed, declined, to render themselves amenable to justice, then, escape was of the essence, and formed an indispensable ingredient in the composition of every case within the statute. Mr. J. Johnson was stationary and courting trial, where (if at all) he had offended, and could be adequately punished, in lieu of being transported to a place, where he was charged only with having committed a constructive misdemeanour. ease brought House of J. Johnson's As soon as a report of the judgment of the Court of Exchequer could arrive in London, Mr. James Fitzgerald called the attention of the House of Commons to that very extraordinary determination, which he said, he did in consequence of the great agitation, which it had created in Ireland, and of the general feeling and wish of the gentle. men of the Irish Bar, who if they had not concurred with him, would have abandoned that independence of judgment, and all those sound principles of law and reason, of which they had ever been so honourably tenacious. He felt it an imperious duty to call the attention of the House to the provisions of the act in question, which so flagrantly called for amendment, if by any construction it could be tortured into such injustice. He observed, that such construction had been put upon it by the opinion of two Judges against one. He should have felt it his duty to make a specific motion on this head, had he not thought, that the amendment would have come better from the quarter, in which the act had originated. He trusted the honorable and learned author of the act (Mr. Perceval) would frame such amendments, as would be best calculated to preserve the spirit of the act, and at the same time to remove every thing, that could give rise to such unjust construction. The Attorney General admitted, that the act required to be amended in some instances, but not in those alluded to by Mr. Fitzgerald: for he knew of no amendments rendered necessary by the proceedings in the court of law. Nor ought any thing to be then done, which could prejudice the discussion of the case before the courts by a parliamentary declaration of the sense of the House upon the construction of the act. When however Mr. Fitzgerald urged the revolting injustice of not taking bail in the place, where the arrest was made 1805. 1805. Judge John son petitions for appearance where the offence had been com❤ mitted, Mr. Perceval reluctantly admitted, that this inconveniency had never been in his contemplation. The act, which was called his, was nearly a transcript of the 13th of the King, and the defect had never been noticed, till the occurrence then alluded to discovered it in both. Such however was the ministerial tenacity even to avowed error and injustice, that though they admitted, they would not correct the evil, whilst it was remediable. They consented to a bill being introduced for compelling witnesses to attend in England. Afterwards Mr. Justice Johnson as his last resort the Lords. petitioned the House of Lords, and was heard by Counsel against such clauses of the bill, as he conceived most unjust and oppressive; praying, that his case might not be affected by any post facto law, which was not in existence at the time of the alleged offence. His Counsel strongly urged the crying injustice of punishing a man under a retrospective law, passed 18 months after the alleged offence had been committed: they adverted to the act affording no power of compelling the attendance of witnesses from Ireland, and argued for the decency and common justice of trying the learned Judge before an Irish court and jury in a country, where his person, character and conduct, particularly as connected with the object of the indictment, were better known, than they possibly could be in England. Lord Chancellor Eldon stood zealously forward to oppose the petition of the of governing Ireland. learned Judge, who had been charged with the 1805. inexpiable offence of having censured the system His conscience summoned him to resist the prayer of the petition. Nothing was clearer in law, than that if a man published a libel at York and in London, he was guilty of two distinct offences, and could be tried for either of them in one county or the other. His Lordship said, that it was the duty of all the King's subjects upon receiving the King's summons to attend any of his courts of law: he did not even glance. at the refusal of bail, where the arrest was made, or the unconstitutional hardship of transporting a man to take his trial from his home to a strange country. After a copious harangue upon the earnestness of his own wishes to do ample justice to the country and to the individual, (and one could not be without the other) he objected to do any thing, that could interrupt the course, which the pending trial was then in. He thought it however reasonable to afford the party the compulsory means of bringing over witnesses on his behalf, and this was effeeted by the new bill. Upon his Lordship's motion, the House negatived some clauses proposed by the Earl of Westmeath, which had been drawn up to remedy the evils complained of by the learned petitioner. Thus was an improvident and unjust statute reflexedly made the engine of carrying as an act of State, what the prosecutors and their managers feared to leave as a matter of law to a tribunal of Irish judicature, to |