and irritate the skin, and offend the nostril, and altogether give nearly as much annoyance as the wasp, whose nobler nature it aspires to emulate. These reverend slanderers-these pious backbiters-devoid of force to wield the sword, snatch the dagger; and destitute of wit to point or to barb it, and make it rankle in the wound, steep it in venom to make it fester in the scratch. The much venerated personages whose harmless and unprotected state is now deplored, have been the wholesale dealers in calumny, as well as the largest consumers of the base article-the especial promoters of that vile traffic, of late the disgrace of the country —both furnishing a constant demand for the slanders by which the press is polluted, and prostituting themselves to pander for the appetites of others; and now they come to demand protection from retaliation and shelter from just exposure; and to screen themselves, would have you prohibit all scrutiny of the abuses by which they exist, and the mal-practices by which they disgrace their calling. After abusing and well-nigh dismantling, for their own despicable purposes, the great engine of instruction, they would have you annihilate all that they have left of it, to secure their escape. They have the incredible assurance to expect that an English jury will conspire with them in this wicked design. They expect in vain! If all existing institutions and all public functionaries must henceforth be sacred from question among the people; if, at length, the free press of this country, and with it the freedom itself, is to be destroyed-at least let not the heavy blow fall from your hands. Leave it to some profligate tyrant; leave it to a mercenary and effeminate Parliament-a hireling Army, degraded by the lash, and the readier instrument for enslaving its country; leave it to a pampered House of Lords-a venal House of Commons some vulgar minion, servant-of-all-work to an insolent Court-some unprincipled soldier, unknown, thank God! in our times, combining the talents of a usurper with the fame of a captain; leave to such desperate hands, and such fit tools, so horrid a work! But you, an English jury, parent of the press, yet supported by it, and doomed to perish the instant its health and strength are gone-lift not you against it an unnatural hand. Prove to us that our rights are safe in your keeping; but maintain, above all things, the stability of our institutions, by well-guarding their corner-stone. Defend the Church from her worst enemies, who, to hide their own misdeeds, would veil her solid foundations in darkness; and proclaim to them by your verdict of acquittal, that henceforward, as heretofore, all the recesses of the sanctuary must be visited by the continual light of day, and by that light all its abuses be explored! [After the learned Judge had summed up to the Jury, they retired, and remained inclosed for above five hours. They then returned the following special verdict, viz.: Guilty of so much of the matter in the first count as charges a libel upon the Clergy residing in and near the City of Durham, and the suburbs thereof, and as to the rest of the first count, and the other counts of the Information, Not Guilty."] INTRODUCTION. THE subject of the Army Estimates used at all periods of the war to bring on one of the most important, if not the most important, debates of the Session. It was in fact like a State of the Nation, and some of the most interesting, if not the greatest, speeches that have ever been delivered in Parliament, were made upon those occasions. The conduct of the war formed of course the main topic of such debates, although whatever else in the state of public affairs bore upon the existing hostilities, naturally came into the discussion. In 1816 the war was at an end; but the Army Estimates continued to afford a subject of much animated debate, because they raised the whole question of the Peace Establishment, and were in fact a State of the Nation. The following speech delivered on that occasion, was most imperfectly reported, as in those days generally happened to speeches made in Committees of the Whole House. It has been revised from notes made at the time; but the passage respecting the punishment of Jacobinism is given from memory, and is believed to be much less full than the original was. The speech had a greater success than any other made by Mr. Brougham in Parliament; of which a memorial is preserved in some accounts of the Parliamentary Debates. These mention that it was "loudly cheered from all sides of the House" at its conclusion-a thing of very ordinary occurrence, indeed of daily occurrence now-a-days, but which hardly ever happened in former times. |