FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS!—and he got a fiat for four pounds.

thousand

The other affidavits were equally vague and indefinite. A man swears, that he was represented as keeping a house of reception, by which certain friends and neighbors had called to know why these slanders were circulated; and this injury and special damage of such impertinent visitors, he estimated at eight hundred pounds. A lady who "swore she was a modest woman, and indeed looked like a modest woman," states in her affidavit, that she, being a spinster, has been represented as rather too intimate with a certain notorious character, by which she has reason to believe she is injured to the amount of one thousand pounds. Another person swears, that, by being called Francisco, and Shamado, and other ludicrous names, he is injured, God knows how, in his good name and fame, to the amount of two thousand pounds. And, on these vague allegations of uncertain and contingent injuries, measured only by the irritated malice of a revengeful prosecutor, the Chief Justice of Ireland thought proper to issue his fiats to the amount of seven thousand eight hundred pounds, in common actions of slander, with no special damage sworn to, when the Chief Justice of England would not have held the defendant in bail to the amount

of ONE PENNY.

On these writs the Printer was arrested and thrown into gaol. Shortly after, he applied to the Court by his counsel, either to dismiss him on common bail, or, in other words, no bail at all, or to reduce the quantum to five hundred pounds. To the first point his counsel showed, from the great principles of law, and from the uniform practice of the English courts, that there never was a case wherein a man had been held to special bail, in an action of slander, with no special damages sworn to, except in cases of scandalum magnatum, or slander of title, and quoted authorities of the highest legal rank in support of their argument. If, however, the Court should overrule that point, they showed, from the insufficiency of the affidavits, from the slight and uncertain nature of the injuries, and the low rank in life of all the parties, that the present bail was enormous, and should be reduced. After a considerable interval, in a full Court, the Lord Chief Justice pronounced his own and his brethren's opinion. He read out a part of á passage in Blackstone, to form

a principle. He past by in silence the uniform practice of the English Judges, and justified his practice by a long list of Irish precedents, which certainly go so far as to acquit him of innovation. Having established, in this manner, his principle that "the practice of the Court is the law of the Court," and by consequence the law of the land; his Lordship came to the second point; and, as to the quantum of damages he read a part of an affidavit of the defendant, setting forth, that, by libellous publications of one of his adversaries, he was so reduced in his credit as not to be able to find bail to the amount of more than £ 500.” He then quoted a former assertion of the defendant's made in a newspaper," that he could find bail to the amount of half a million," and he argued from this, that if the defendant was by slander reduced from half a million to five hundred pounds, it was the strongest proof of the mischief of slander, and gave him the less claim on the mercy of the Court. His Lordship, therefore, with the concurrence of his three learned brethren, refused both parts of the motion with costs, and the printer now lies in Newgate, has done so since last Hillary term, and must do so until he can find bail to the amount of £ 7,800, or compel his adversaries to try their actions.

In the first part of his argument, the Lord Chief Justice has partially quoted Blackstone; in the last, he fell into the same inaccuracy. The defendant swore that "in consequence of frequent and vexatious arrests, by fiats and otherwise, and by libellous publications, he was so injured in his credit as to be unable to find bail for more than £ 500."

The words in Blackstone are, (vol iii, page 292, title Process,) “In actions where the damages are precarious, being to be assessed, ad libitum, by a jury, AS IN ACTIONS FOR WORDS, ejectment or trespass, it is very seldom possible for a plaintiff to swear to the amount of his cause of action; and, therefore, no special bail is taken thereon, unless by a Judge's order, or the particular directions of the Court." Here his Lordship, with great self-congratulation, made a full stop. It would not be very decent to finish a paragraph for him in Court, but, in this form, it may, with humble deference, be suggested, that, in the original, it is but a comma, and these words follow immediately and conclude the sentence: "In some peculiar injuries, as in cases of mayhem or atrocious battery.” Which sufficiently determine, wherein the Judge has this discretionary power. And the reason is manifest, for in those cases the injury is obvious to the senses, and the judge may, in a degree, ascertain the damage; which is of the essence of special bail. Yet, in England, even in very atrocious cases of battery and wounding, special bail has been denied by the Court.

As to the boast of the printer that he could find bail for half a million, all Ireland knows, and his Lordship as well as any man in it, that, at the time of that silly gasconade, and long after, the unhappy victim was under a temporary frenzy; and so all Ireland must see the weakness of so much of his Lordship's argument as depends on that assumption.

I have submitted to the people, with as much perspicuity and brevity as I could, first, the doctrine of special bail, as laid down in the books; and, secondly, the actual practice of the King's Bench in Ireland. Opposition on this great question called forth all their energy, and never, through the session, were they opposed with such a pitiful show of resistance. One great law officer stated, that he was free to confess, he agreed with the honorable mover in all the facts, and almost all the principles laid down in his argument; nevertheless, there were one or two points on which he had his doubts; and therefore he, in effect, moved that the consideration of the question be put off sine die, or in other words, as was well observed, by a shrewd and spirited country Gentleman, he doubted, and, therefore, would not inquire. Another great law officer thought it indecorous to set up the opinion of the House of Commons against the unanimous determination of the Judges of the King's Bench, that is, in plain English, he set up the very grievance itself, as a bar to a complaint of that grievance. To what purpose is it a standing measure of every session, to appoint a Grand Committee of Courts of Justice, if, when an accusation is laid before that committee, the very fact imputed is pleaded in justification of itself? But it would be useless to show in detail the absurdity of the, arguments I cannot call them, on the part of the administration. Even the most determined of the supporters of Government, who had swallowed, without scruple, the most unpalatable measures of the session, rejected this with disgust; and it was not, unless by a pitiful evasion, fitted to impose only on voluntary dupes, that the Secretary could preserve his phalanx unbroken. They refused to support the Judges, if an inquiry was once admitted, but they consented in the first instance to stifle that inquiry, under a majority of one hundred and twenty-five to ninety-one.

It may be wondered why Administration should thus, wantonly, incur a great load of obloquy, without any apparent

temptation. It is this very circumstance that is the most alarming in the whole transaction. We may suppose a case. Suppose a man become obnoxious to a profligate Government, by a strong opposition to their measures; suppose the people not quite so ripe for slavery as to bear his being publicly seized at the arbitrary will of the Minister; suppose such a judge presiding in the King's Bench as Scroggs, or Tresillian in another country, or Whitshed in our own-no such judge now lives, but such may arise and would such a Government find any difficulty in procuring a villain to swear an affidavit against their enemy, stating damages to any amount? Or would such a judge, whose discretion, as to the quantum of bail, is said to be regulated solely by the affidavit of the plaintiff, scruple to grant his fiat? And see what follows: The leader of an opposition might be thrown into a gaol; there he must lie for three terms before he could enter a non pros.: he is then discharged, and told he may pursue the plaintiff for holding him to excessive bailthe plaintiff is fled! No man will pretend that, as the law is now said to stand, this might not be done. This is the misera servitus, ubi jus est vagum et incognitum. CONSIDER IT WELL.

I do, by no means, suppose that, while the Bench is filled as it is at present, the liberty of the subject can be in danger from the enmity of Government, but our present judges are not immortal and if, at any remote and future period, it should happen that their successors were to be elected, not for integrity, but suppleness of conscience; not for legal knowledge in the courts, but for slavish effrontery in Parliament; if those judges were to carry with them to the bench their passions, their prejudices, their habits, their aversion to public spirit, their abased servility to men in power; if there were an ignorant and impudent man at the head of affairs, who would sacrifice the forms and the essence of the Constitution, at the corrupt shrine of ministerial influence; if any good citizen was to plant himself on the sacred ground of the liberty of the press, and sound the alarm to the remotest corners of the land; if the people were to arouse from their lethargy, and cry aloud for liberty and justice; it might then appear, what an useful instrument a Chief Justice of Ireland, without principle, and without shame, armed with all the terrors of attachments, informations, fiats, and every other powerful en-. gine of his Office, might prove in the hands of such an Adminis

tration. This is no speculative evil.-All that I have said, and much more, has been done in England, by a Jefferies; and he is a fool who says what has been, may not again be.

The due respect to the character of a Judge is essential to the dignified and equal distribution of justice; this respect never can be lost, but by the misconduct of Judges themselves. High as they are raised, they are still fallible men "A Judge may be elevated in rank, and he may be ignorant; he may be experienced, and he may be corrupt; he may be learned, and he may be feeble; or he may be old and doat."

We have now traced the conduct of Administration through an alarming climax, from the beginning to nearly the close of the session; we have seen them avow corruption, and talk of their strength; we have seen them object to a place-bill, that it destroyed responsibility, and then oppose responsibility; we have seen them remedy an unconstitutional police in the capital, by assuming a power to extend it over the kingdom thus far under color and form of law. We have seen them quit this peddling game, throw off those obsolete forms, and strike at once at the vitals of the constitution; we have seen them pervert the regal prerogative to the destruction of public liberty, by the sale of peerages, and applying the produce to purchasing seats in the House of Commons-This was an invasion of the constitution. We have seen them break through the sacred pale of civil liberty, the last great refuge under public oppression, and, with an unnecessary and petulant prodigality of reputation, justify the doctrine of excessive bail, against which the subject was, thought to be, protected by no less a security than the BILL OF RIGHTS-This was in open breach of the law.

Such has been the conduct of Administration, bold and peremptory, and decided in mischief: but they have done more; they have denied that their measures were obnoxious to the people, and they have triumphantly called on their opponents to prove the contrary. It is that defiance which has produced this Pamphlet. I am no occasional Whig; I am no constitutional Tory; I am addicted to no party, but the party of the nation. I have stated the questions between Government and Opposition impartially, to the utmost extent of my very limited talents; in this, whatever want of ability I may have beVOL. I.-41