But to resume the description of the reign of Charles the Second. The doctrine of servitude was chiefly managed by Sir Roger L'Estrange. He had great advantages in the argument, being licenser for the press, and might have carried all before him, without contradiction, if writings on the other side of the question had not been printed by stealth. The authors, whenever found, were prosecuted as seditious libellers. On all these occasions, the king's counsel, particularly Sawyer and Finch, appeared most abjectly obsequious to accomplish the ends of the court.

During this blessed management, the King had entered into a secret league with France, to render himself absolute, and enslave his subjects. This fact was discovered to the world by Dr. Jonathan Swift, to whom Sir William Temple had entrusted the publication of his works.

Sidney, the sworn foe of tyranny, was a gentleman of noble family, of sublime understanding, and exalted courage. The ministry were resolved to remove so great an obstacle out of the way of their designs. He was prosecuted for high treason. The overt act charged in the indictment, was a libel found in his private study. Mr. Finch, the king's own solicitor-general, urged, with great vehemency, to this effect; "That the imagining the death of the king is treason, even while that imagination remains concealed in the mind; though the law cannot punish such secret treasonable thoughts, till it arrives at the knowledge of them by some overt act. That the matter of the libel composed by Sidney was an imagining how to compass the death of King Charles the Second; and the writing of it was an overt act of the treason; for, that to write was to act; scribere est agere." It seems that the king's counsel in this reign had not received the same direction as Queen

Elizabeth had given hers; she told them they were to look upon themselves as retained, not so much pro dominá regina, as pro dominâ veritate, for the power of the Queen, as for the power of truth.

Mr. Sidney made a strong and legal defence. He insisted that all the words in the book contained no more than general speculations on the principles of government, free for any man to write down; especially since the same are written in the Parliament rolls and the statute laws.

He argued on the injustice of applying by inuendoes, general assertions concerning principles of government, as overt acts, to prove the writer was compassing the death of the king; for then no man could write of things done even by our ancestors, in defence of the constitution and freedom of England, without exposing himself to capital danger.

He denied that scribere est agere, but allowed that writing and publishing is to act, scribere et publicare est agere; and therefore he urged, that, as his book had never been published nor imparted to any person, it could not be an overt act, within the statutes of treasons, even admitting that it contained treasonable positions; that, on the contrary, it was a covert fact, locked up in his private study, as much concealed from the knowledge of any man, as if it were locked up in the author's mind. This was the substance of Mr. Sidney's defence. But neither law, nor reason, nor eloquence, nor innocence, ever availed where Jeffreys sat as judge. Without troubling himself with any part of the defence, he declared in a rage, that Sidney's known principles were a sufficient proof of his intention to compass the death of the king.

A packed jury, therefore, found him guilty of high treason. Great applications were made for his pardon. He was executed as a traitor.

This case is a pregnant instance of the danger that attends a law for punishing words, and of the little security the most valuable men have for their lives, in that society where a judge, by remote inferences and distant inuendoes, may construe the most innocent expressions into capital crimes. Sidney, the British Brutus, the warm, the steady friend of liberty, who, from a diffusive love to mankind, left them that invaluable legacy, his immortal "Discourses on Government," was for these very Discourses murdered by the hands of lawless power.

After the revolution of 1688, when law and justice were again restored, the attainder of this great man was reversed by Parliament.

"Being in Holland," says bishop Burnet, "the Princess of Orange, afterwards Queen Mary, asked me what had sharpened the king her father so much against Mr. Jurieu? I told her he had writ with great indecency of Mary, Queen of Scots, which cast reflections on them that were descended from her. The Princess said, Jurieu was to support the cause he defended, and to expose those that persecuted it, in the best way he could; and if what he said of Mary, Queen of Scots, was true, he was not to be blamed who made that use of it; and she added, that, if princes would do ill things, they must expect that the world will take revenge on their memories, since they cannot reach their persons. That was but a small suffering, far short of what others suffered at their hands."

In the former part of this paper it was endeavoured to prove by historical facts, the fatal dangers that necessarily attend a restraint of freedom of speech and the liberty of the press; upon which the following reflection naturally occurs, viz. that whoever attempts to suppress either of these our natural rights, ought to be regarded as an enemy to liberty and the constitution.

An inconveniency is always to be suffered, when it cannot be removed without introducing a worse.

I proceed, in the next place, to inquire into the nature of the English laws in relation to libelling. To acquire a just idea of them, the knowledge of history is necessary, and the genius and disposition of the prince is to be considered, in whose time they are introduced and put in practice.

To infuse into the minds of the people an ill opinion of a just administration is a crime, that deserves no indulgence; but to expose the evil designs or weak management of a magistrate is the duty of every member of society. Yet King James the First thought it an unpardonable presumption in the subject to pry into the arcana imperii, the secrets of kings. He imagined, that the people ought to believe the authority of the government infallible, and that their submission should be implicit. It may therefore be reasonably presumed, that the judgment of the Star-chamber concerning libels was influenced by this monarch's notions of government. No law could be better framed to prevent people from publishing their thoughts on the administration, than that which makes no distinction, whether a libel be true or false. It is not pretended that any such decision is to be found in our books, before this reign. That is not at all to be wondered at; King James was the first of the British monarchs, that laid claim to a divine right.

It was a refined piece of policy in Augustus Cæsar, when he proposed a law to the senate, whereby invectives against private men were to be punished as treason. The pill was finely gilded and easily swallowed; but the Romans soon found that the preservation of their characters was only a pretext; to preserve inviolable the sacred name of Cæsar was the real

design of the law. They quickly discovered the intended consequence; if it be treason to libel a private person, it cannot be less than blasphemy to speak ill of the emperor.

Perhaps it may not appear a too refined conjecture, that the Star-chamber acted on the same views with Augustus, when they gave that decision which made it criminal to publish truth of a private person as well as a magistrate. I am the more inclined to this conjecture from a passage in Lord Chief Justice Richardson's speech, which I find in the trial in the Star-chamber against Mr. Prynne, who was prosecuted there for a libel. "If subjects have an ill prince," says the judge, "marry, what is the remedy? They must pray to God to forgive him. Mr. Prynne saith there were three worthy Romans, that conspired to murder Nero. This is most horrible."

Tremendous wickedness indeed, my Lord Chief Justice! Where slept the thunder, when these three detestable Romans, unawed by the sacred majesty of the diadem, with hands sacrilegious and accursed, took away the precious life of that imperial wolf, that true epitome of the Lord's anointed, who had murdered his own mother, who had put to death Seneca and Burrhus, his two best friends and benefactors; who was drenched in the blood of mankind, and wished and endeavoured to extirpate the human race? I think my Lord Chief Justice has clearly explained the true intent and meaning of the Star-chamber doctrine; it centres in the most abjectly passive obedience.

The punishment for writing truth, is pillory, loss of ears, branding the face with hot irons, fine, and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. Nay, the punishment is to be heightened in proportion to the truth of the facts contained in the libel. But, if this monstrous