from error, oppression, and political superstition, which are the
objects I have in view in publishing them, that Jury would commit an act
of injustice to their country, and to me, if not an act of perjury, that
should call them _false, wicked, and malicious_.

Dragonetti, in his treatise "On Virtues and Rewards," has a paragraph
worthy of being recorded in every country in the world--"The science
(says he,) of the politician, consists, in, fixing the true point of
happiness and freedom. Those men deserve the gratitude of ages who
should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of
_individual happiness_ with the least _national expence_." But if Juries
are to be made use of to prohibit enquiry, to suppress truth, and
to stop the progress of knowledge, this boasted palladium of liberty
becomes the most successful instrument of tyranny.

Among the arts practised at the Bar, and from the Bench, to impose
upon the understanding of a Jury, and to obtain a Verdict where
the consciences of men could not otherwise consent, one of the most
successful has been that of calling _truth a libel_, and of insinuating
that the words "_falsely, wickedly, and maliciously_," though they
are made the formidable and high sounding part of the charge, are not
matters of consideration with a Jury. For what purpose, then, are they
retained, unless it be for that of imposition and wilful defamation?

I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more abominable
insult upon morality, and upon human understanding, than to see a man
sitting in the judgment seat, affecting by an antiquated foppery of
dress to impress the audience with awe; then causing witnesses and Jury
to be sworn to truth and justice, himself having officially sworn the
same; then causing to be read a prosecution against a man charging him
with having _wickedly and maliciously written and published a certain
false, wicked, and seditious book_; and having gone through all this
with a shew of solemnity, as if he saw the eye of the Almighty darting
through the roof of the building like a ray of light, turn, in an
instant, the whole into a farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict
that could not otherwise be obtained, tell the Jury that the charge of
_falsely, wickedly, and seditiously_, meant nothing; that _truth_ was
out of the question; and that whether the person accused spoke truth or
falsehood, or intended _virtuously or wickedly_, was the same thin