truments employed as spies by
the acting members of this Association! This fellow is sent out with
instructions from the honorary secretary, Mr. Murray, who is the attorney
for the prosecution, to purchase, not this pamphlet alone, but any
political pamphlet, which in his judgment might be libelous. Good God!
to what a condition are we reduced, when, under the auspices of this
blessed Association, discarded tide-waiters, and broken gaugers, are made
judges of what is libelous, and leagued with an attorney, are to
determine what may, and what may not, without the terror of a
prosecution, issue from a free press. Such was the course pursued: and
can you conscientiously say, that, but for this hiring of a spy to make a
purchase of this pamphlet for the sole purpose of founding this
prosecution upon that very instance of sale, the public would ever have
heard of it? Gentlemen, it is a great happiness, and much security
arises from it, that every person who stands forward as a prosecutor
exposes his own conduct, as it is connected with the prosecution, to
scrutiny and animadversion. I have a right to assume that freedom which
is the privilege of the bar. I remember that in the case of the King and
the Dean of St. Asaph, in which the present Marshal of the King's Bench
Prison, without any apparent connection with the subject of the
prosecution, was the prosecutor, the counsel for the defendant exercised
this right, and the Marshal was successively the object of his ridicule
and indignation.

Mr. Justice BEST.--Mr. Cooper do you think it acting fairly to make this
sort of attack on a gentleman who is not present? Is this the practice
of the bar?

Mr. COOPER.--My Lord, I make no attack on the Marshal. I only state
that--

Mr. Justice BEST.--These observations being made on one who is not
anywise connected with this case, who is not present to answer for
himself, and who would not be permitted if he was, what are we to
suppose? Can any gentleman at the bar consider this as fair?

Mr. COOPER.--My Lord, I have no design to attack the Marshal either in
his absence or presence. I mentioned him but incidentally. What earthly
purpose could it answer to this case to attack him? He _was_ the
prosecutor in _that_ case, and I rather incautiously, perhaps, mentioned
who the prosecutor was, by name; when I ought only to have said the
prosecutor. If I have done him any injustice, I beg his pardon as
publicly for it, and thu