Jury to try the issue of any such prosecution_.

But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more
extensive consideration than what relates to any Jury, whether Special
or Common; for the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally
selected as a Jury of twelve men always is, be competent to judge and
determine for the whole nation, on any matter that relates to systems
and principles of Government, and whether it be not applying the
institution of Juries to purposes for which such institutions were not
intended? For example,

I have asserted, in the Work Rights of Man, that as every man in the
nation pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in government,
and consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
Leeds, Halifax, &c have the same right as those of London. Shall, then,
twelve men, picked out between Temple-bar and Whitechapel, because the
book happened to be first published there, decide upon the rights of
the inhabitants of those towns, or of any other town or village in the
nation?

Having thus spoken of Juries, I come next to offer a few observations on
the matter contained in the information or prosecution.

The work, Rights of Man, consists of Part the First, and Fart the
Second. The First Part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let
alone; and from the Second Fart he has selected a few short paragraphs,
making in the whole not quite two pages of the same printing as in the
cheap edition. Those paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such
as the revolution of 1688, and the coming of George the First, commonly
called of the House of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such
House. The arguments, plans and principles contained in the work, the
prosecutor has not ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.

The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support
of the prosecution, is the Act intituled, "An Act, declaring the rights
and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown,"
passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by
the name of the "Bill of Rights."

I have called this bill "_A Bill of wrongs and of insult_." My reasons,
and also my proofs, are as follow:

The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and
liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
assumed attempt to take them wholly from posterity--fo