n of the profession in the kingdom who has the
smallest doubt whether this ought to be deemed a libel or
not;" "for I neither do, nor ever will, attempt to lay
before a jury, a cause, in which I was under the necessity
of stating a single principle that went to intrench, in the
smallest degree, upon the avowed and acknowledged liberty of
the subjects of this country, even with regard to the press.
The complaint I have to lay before you is that that liberty
has been so abused, so turned to licentiousness, ... that
under the notion of arrogating liberty to one man, that is
the writer, printer, and publisher of this paper, they do
... annihilate and destroy the liberty of all men, more or
less. Undoubtedly the man that has indulged the _liberty of
robbing upon the highway_, has a very considerable portion
of it allotted to him." The defendant "has published a
paper, in which, concerning the King, concerning the House
of Commons, and concerning the great officers of State,
concerning the public affairs of the realm, there are
uttered things of such tendency and application as ought to
be punished." "When we are come to that situation, when it
shall be lawful for any men in this country to speak of the
sovereign [George III.] in terms attempting to fix upon him
such contempt, abhorrence, and hatred, there is an end of
all government whatsoever, and then liberty is indeed to
shift for itself." He quotes from the paper: "'He [the king]
has taken a decisive personal part against the subjects of
America, and those subjects know how to distinguish the
sovereign and a venal Parliament, upon one side, from the
real sentiments of the English nation upon the other.' For
God's sake is that no libel? To _talk of the king as taking
a part of an hostile sort against one branch of his
subjects_, and at the same time to _connect him ... with the
parliament which he calls a venal parliament_; is that no
libel?"

Lord Mansfield,--the bitterest enemy of the citizens' right of speech
and of the trial by jury,--charged upon the jury, "The question for
you to try ... is, whether the _defendant did print_, or publish, or
both, a _paper of the tenor_, and of the meaning, so _charged by the
information_." "If it is of the tenor and meaning set out in the
information, the next conside