the poison of a viper. They felt, that though the indicted words standing alone might perhaps admit of a doubt for a moment, yct the context completely explained them, and gave an air of perfect innocence to the whole passage. But you shall judge for yourselves: I will read the passage-" Something more than a petitioning attitude is necessary. At this moment I would not say a word about insurrection; but I would strongly recommend union, activity, and co-operation. Be ready and steady to meet any concurrent circumstance." Now what kind of union, activity, and co-operation does he mean? Is it military association, marches and attack? No. Hear the writer's own words again :-" The Union Rooms at Manchester and Stockport are admirable models of cooperation, and are more calculated than any thing else to strengthen the body of reformers." For what do the reformers assemble in these rooms? How do they cooperate there? Is it to consult how they shall arm and organize themselves, and seize with a violent hand the reform which they despair of gaining by petition? Nothing like it. The writer himself still tells you his meaning. "Here," (that is at the Manchester and Stockport rooms) "children are educated, and adults instruct each other. Here there is a continual and frequent communication between all the reformers in those towns." This, then, and no other, is the cooperation which the author intended, and proposes. If any man, taking the paper in his hand and reading the whole paragraph, can say that any thing more is meant, to his reason I should cease to appeal. I should sit down in silent despair of making any impression on such an understanding; but you, Gentlemen, I ask you, adding the words which I have read to the broken passage, which is insidiously separated and included in the indictment, can there be a doubt remaining in any rational and unprejudiced mind, that the union and cooperation called for by this Address from those who desire reform in Parliament, is nothing more than the establishment at other places, of rooms, on the model of those at Stockport, and Manchester; where children and adults are instructed, and information disseminated on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. And if this is all that is meant, there is an end of this part of the indictment; for it cannot be libellous to recommend in a writing the people to do that, which it is perfectly legal to do.

With regard to reform itself, I cannot know, whether any of you are advocates for it or opposed to it, nor is it requisite that I should: I do not ask you to think or say with me,

and others, that reform in Parliament is necessary, and that nothing but reform can save the country from ruin: all that ́I ask of you is to allow me and others credit for the conscientiousness of our opinions, and charitably admit, if yours are opposite, that though we may be mistaken in our judg ments, we must not of necessity be criminal in our intentions. I leave you and every man to the free exercise of your thoughts and the free enjoyment of the conclusions to which they lead you. Let this liberality be reciprocal, and concede the same freedom to others which you demand for yourselves. I have always thought that a difference in religious and political matters need not and ought not to create hostility of feeling, and sever those, who would otherwise be friends. I myself enjoy the friendship of several, who entertain very different opinions from mine upon those subjects; and yet that difference has not, and never shall, on my part, at least, disturb our friendship. In all questions in which you cannot have mathematical demonstration, there may be fair, honest, conscientious difference of opinion; and you cannot have geometrical proof in questions of religion, politics, and morals. The very nature of the subjects altogether excludes it. To expect it, as Bishop Sanderson says, would be as absurd as to expect to see with the ear and to hear with the eye. So various are our opinions upon these subjects, that we not only differ from one another upon them, but at different times we find we differ from ourselves; and, as another learned churchman, in more recent times, has said, What could be more unjust than to quarrel with other men for differing in opinion from him when no two men ever differed more from one another than he at different times differed on the very same subject from himself. Under this state of uncertainty in human judgment, I call upon you, and I am sure I shall not call in vain, to be slow to condemn the opinions of others, because they are different from your own; and therefore, if any of you should think reform in Parliament needless or even dangerous, I still call upon you (though the writer of this paper should be a reformer, and even though he is called in reproach a radical reformer) not to condemn the Defendant in this case through prejudice against the author's opinions; but solely to enquire (be those opinions ever so just or ever so absurd) whether he is sincere in entertaining them; for, if he be (as I shall show you presently from the highest authority) the law does not consider him criminal. Try him by this test, and this alone; and then, whatever may be your verdict, you will be free

from reproach, and secure to yourselves quiet by day, and sound slumbers by night; for you will have discharged your duty to yourselves, to the Defendant, and to the country.

With regard, Gentlemen, to the other part of the alleged libel, I must bespeak your patience; for I am afraid that I shall be drawn by my comments upon it into considerable length. (I am afraid, Gentlemen, I weary you, and I am sorry for it. If I had had leisure, I would have condensed my observations; but, under the circumstances I have disclosed to you, I hope you will forgive me for occupying more of your attention than I would otherwise have done. I really have not had time to be short.) To return to the passage in the paper, which is first charged as a libel: it denies the existence of any Constitution in Great Britain. Now whether there be any thing malicious, and criminal in this, depends entirely upon the meaning which the author attaches to the word Constitution. I confess it is a word that gives me a very indistinct and uncertain idea; and I believe that if any of you were now suddenly to ask yourselves what you understood by it, you would find you were not very ready to give yourselves an answer: and if you could even satisfactorily answer yourselves, you would find if you were to go further and question your neighbour, that he would give you a very different definition from your own. In itself it means nothing more than simply a standing or placing together; and it really seems to me rather hard and venturous to indict a man for denying the existence of something (whatever it may be) expressed by the most indefinite term in our whole language. But, if we were agreed upon the ideas which should be attached to the word, let us examine whether, allowing for a certain freedom of expression and the earnest eagerness with which a man who is sincere in his doctrines enforces them in his composition, a writer may not, without being exposed to a charge of criminal intention, assert that there is no Constitution in this country. And let us take with us to this examination, that a man is not to be too strictly tied to words, when under the impulse of warm and keen feelings, and when the thoughts flow, as it were, at once from the heart into the pen, he sits down to excite his countrymen to their good, or warn them of their danger. You must not think to bind him down with the shackles of verbal criticism, when he is too intent upon his theme exactly to measure his expressions. Now, that the writer of this paper is sincere in his opinions, whatever the quality of those opinions is, it is difficult not to believe. He published his

opinions though he exposed himself to punishment for them, and he perseveres in them while he is suffering a heavy punishment. You can have no more convincing proof of sincerity than this. But, what if a political writer has, in the warmth of composition, asserted that in England we have no Constitution, who can misunderstand him? We cannot suppose he meant that there was a dissolution of all law and government; because we know and feel the contrary. Few would have occasion to ask him, what he meant. If, however, he were asked, he would explain by telling you, that the Constitution in theory is very much corrupted from the practice; and I and you, and every person must admit, that the practice has strayed wide from the theory and, forced to admit this, I assert with a writer, who (whatever was thought of him once, and whilst those who were the objects of his reproach still lived) is now the pride and boast of the country, both for the supreme elegance and the principles of his political writings, that "wherever the practice deviates from the theory so far the practice is vicious and corrupt." Now, saying no more than this, and when it would have been the merest stupidity to understand him literally, how can the writer be convicted of a design to bring the Government into hatred and contempt, because he has expressed his meaning by saying figuratively "there is no Constitution." But he has previously said, that to talk about the British Constitution is, in his opinion, dishonesty. I know he has. I did not mean to pass it. I will not, Gentlemen, shrink from any part of the passage; for I feel that it cannot bear with any heavy pressure against me. "To talk of the British Constitution is, in my opinion, a sure proof of dishonesty." Here it will be seen that the only exception that can be taken to this sentence is the mere mode of expression. If a man were to talk to me of the Constitution of England, and, by omitting all notice of its aberrations in practice from its theory, by which he would leave it free to me to suspect, that he would insinuate that the theory and the practice were the same, I should certainly say, that he was exhibiting want of candour. I might, perhaps, think dishonesty, rather too strong a term for such conduct; but I should not scruple to say, that he was disingenuous, and he would be guilty of a species of dishonesty; for all disingenuousness is to a degree dishonest: and, since the meaning is the same, why should we quarrel at a mere difference of expression? The author proceeds to say, "if we speak of the Spanish Constitution,

we have something tangible; there is a substance and meaning as well as sound." So that it is clear he was saying, that we had no Constitution in comparison with that just promulged by the Spanish nation. The Spaniards we know have recently gained by their own glorious efforts, that political liberty to which they had been so long strangers; and their Legislature had just published a code of fundamental laws, few in number, but most comprehensive in securing freedom to the people, for whom they are framed. They are (comparatively with the laws of countries, in which the frame of government is old, and complicated) not numerous, but the mind may collect them almost at a glance, and possess itself of them with a single effort of the understanding. In this view of the subject, without doubt, the Constitution of Spain is tangible; and in this sense he is justified in asserting that our own Constitution is not tangible; for is it not notorious that our laws are spread through so many Acts of Parliament of doubtful and difficult construction, and so many books of Reports, containing the common law of the land (and in which there are no few conflicting decisions) that the whole life of a man does not suffice to achieve a knowledge of them. So multifarious and infinite and perplexed is our code that even amongst those whose profession is the law it is not possible to meet with an accomplished lawyer.

The Defendant here fainted, and was taken out of Court. After the interruption which this circumstance occasioned had subsided, Mr. COOPER proceeded―

Gentlemen, I lament in common with many others that this evil has attended an extended degree of civilization and trade that our laws have become too numerous and complicated for the capacity of the mind. That they are so, is not my opinion alone, but that of the Legislature itself. I believe that a committee of the Houses of Parliament has been sitting and still sits for the object of reducing our laws to some limit in their number and some order as to their design; without which our Constitution, to use the words of the writer, can not be tangible: a tangible shape, at present it does not possess, for that cannot be tangible which spreads itself over a boundless extent, that eludes, and defies the grasp of the human intellect.

Having disposed of thus much of this paragraph, I come to the words, on which my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, laid such extreme stress in his address to you. “Our very laws are corrupt and partial both in themselves and in their ad