body, have no other
than an enlarged and a public interest. We have no common cause of a
professional attachment, or professional emulations, to bias our minds;
we have no foregone opinions, which, from obstinacy and false point of
honour, we think ourselves at all events obliged to support. So that
with our own minds perfectly disengaged from the exercise, we may
superintend the execution of the national justice; which from this
circumstance is better secured to the people than in any other country
under heaven it can be. As our situation puts us in a proper condition,
our power enables us to execute this trust. We may, when we see cause of
complaint, administer a remedy; it is in our choice by an address to
remove an improper judge, by impeachment before the peers to pursue to
destruction a corrupt judge, or by bill to assert, to explain, to
enforce, or to reform the law, just as the occasion and necessity of the
case shall guide us. We stand in a situation very honourable to
ourselves, and very useful to our country, if we do not abuse or abandon
the trust that is placed in us.

The question now before you is upon the power of juries in prosecuting
for libels. There are four opinions. 1. That the doctrine as held by
the courts is proper and constitutional, and therefore should not be
altered. 2. That it is neither proper nor constitutional, but that it
will be rendered worse by your interference. 3. That it is wrong, but
that the only remedy is a bill of retrospect. 4. The opinion of those
who bring in the bill; that the thing is wrong, but that it is enough to
direct the judgment of the court in future.

The bill brought in is for the purpose of asserting and securing a great
object in the juridical constitution of this kingdom; which, from a long
series of practices and opinions in our judges, has, in one point, and in
one very essential point, deviated from the true principle.

It is the very ancient privilege of the people of England that they shall
be tried, except in the known exceptions, not by judges appointed by the
Crown, but by their own fellow-subjects, the peers of that county court
at which they owe their suit and service; out of this principle trial by
juries has grown. This principle has not, that I can find, been
contested in any case, by any authority whatsoever; but there is one
case, in which, without directly contesting the principle, the whole
substance, energy, acid virtue of the p