was 'resisting an officer.'] "That trial [of Dr. Wakeman]
was managed with _exact justice and perfect integrity_. And
therefore I do think it very fit that this person be
proceeded against by an information, that he may be made _a
public example_ to all such as shall presume to scandalize
the government, and the governors, with any false aspersions
and accusations."

Accordingly Mr. Radley, for that act, was convicted of speaking
"scandalous words against the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" and fined
L200.[86]

[Footnote 86: 7 St. Tr. 701.]

Mr. Hudson says of the Star-Chamber, "So tender the court is of
upholding the honor of the sentence, as they will punish them who
speak against it with great severity."[87]

[Footnote 87: In 2 Collectanea Juridica, 228.]

6. In 1680 Benjamin Harris, a bookseller, sold a work called "An
Appeal from the country to the city for the Preservation of his
Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion." He
was brought to trial for a libel, before Recorder Jeffreys and Chief
Justice Scroggs who instructed the jury they were only to inquire _if
Harris sold the book_, and if so, find him "guilty." It was for the
court to determine what was a libel. He was fined five hundred pounds
and placed in the pillory; the Chief Justice wished that he might be
also whipped.[88]

[Footnote 88: 7 St. Tr. 925.]

7. The same year Henry Carr was brought to trial. He published a
periodical--"the Weekly Packet of advice from Rome, or the History of
Popery"--hostile to Romanism. Before the case came to court, Scroggs
prohibited the publication on his own authority. Mr. Carr was
prosecuted for a libel before the same authority, and of course found
guilty. The character of that court also was judgment against natural
right. Jane Curtis and other women were in like manner punished for
speaking or publishing words against the same "great judge."[89] And
it was held to be a "misdemeanor" to publish a book reflecting on the
justice of the nation--the truer the book the worse the libel! It was
"obstructing an officer," and of course it was a greater offence to
"obstruct" him with Justice and Truth than with wrong and lies. The
greater the justice of the act the more dangerous the "crime!" If the
language did not hit any one person it was "malice against all
mankind."

[Footnote 89: 7 St. Tr. 1111, 959; 4 Parl. Hist. 1274.]

8. In 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was