perpetrators were identified and sworn to, yet no
indictment has ever been brought against them, while the
Attorney-General is busying himself in sending spies and informers into
my printing office to bring me up for imaginary offences."

The Attorney-General could hardly be expected to sit quietly under such
accusations as these, made in open Court, and listened to by the bench
without any expression of disapprobation. He rose in some heat, and
remarked that he hoped the Court would not allow the public business to
be thus interrupted. "The defendant," said he, "is not upon his trial,
nor has he ever been arraigned. He seems merely to be indulging himself
in an attack upon me as Attorney-General--an attack which could not have
any bearing upon his own case, even if it were now before a jury; but
which at present is nothing but a most improper interruption of the
business of the Court, by an harangue intended to prejudice the public
mind before he shall be put upon his trial. As to the matters of which
he has spoken, I am not to be called to account by him, or by any other
defendant, for the discharge of my official duties with respect to other
parties not now before the Court. I am at all times ready to account for
my proceedings as Attorney-General to the Government for whom I act, and
to whom I am responsible; but I trust that the Court will not suffer a
person whom I merely know as defendant upon bills for libels of the most
disgraceful kind, and whose arraignment upon these charges has been
postponed, as an indulgence, at his own request--I trust that such a
person will not be allowed to address the Court in this irregular
manner, for the mere object of calumniating me, whose duty it is to
conduct the prosecutions against him."

A brief silence followed these words, after which Collins resumed, and
was allowed to proceed without further interruption.

"The object of my present motion, then, my Lord, is to compel the
Attorney-General to do that duty which he has so long neglected when his
own friends were concerned; and as I think his present proceedings
against me are both partial and unjust, I shall press the criminal
prosecution of his friends, Henry John Boulton Esquire, for murder, and
Samuel P. Jarvis and others for riot. In the latter case, please your
Lordship, the rioters were sued in a civil action, and damages to a
considerable amount recovered from them; yet I feel it my duty to press
the criminal pro