te against this bill, and for another sort.

I am not of the opinion of those gentlemen who are against disturbing
the public repose: I like a clamor, whenever there is an abuse. The
fire-bell at midnight disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you from being
burned in your bed. The hue-and-cry alarms the county, but it preserves
all the property of the province. All these clamors aim at _redress_.
But a clamor made merely for the purpose of rendering the people
discontented with their situation, without an endeavor to give them a
practical remedy, is indeed one of the worst acts of sedition.

I have read and heard much upon the conduct of our courts in the
business of libels. I was extremely willing to enter into, and very free
to act as facts should turn out on that inquiry, aiming constantly at
remedy as the end of all clamor, all debate, all writing, and all
inquiry; for which reason I did embrace, and do now with joy, this
method of giving quiet to the courts, jurisdiction to juries, liberty to
the press, and satisfaction to the people. I thank my friends for what
they have done; I hope the public will one day reap the benefit of their
pious and judicious endeavors. They have now sown the seed; I hope they
will live to see the flourishing harvest. Their bill is sown in
weakness; it will, I trust, be reaped in power. And then, however, we
shall have reason to apply to them what my Lord Coke says was an
aphorism continually in the mouth of a great sage of the law,--"Blessed
be not the complaining tongue, but _blessed be the amending hand_."

LETTER

ON

MR. DOWDESWELL'S BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN
PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS.[2]

An improper and injurious account of the bill brought into the House of
Commons by Mr. Dowdeswell has lately appeared in one of the public
papers. I am not at all surprised at it, as I am not a stranger to the
views and politics of those who have caused it to be inserted.

Mr. Dowdeswell did not _bring in an enacting bill to give to juries_, as
the account expresses it, _a power to try law and fact in matter of
libel_. Mr. Dowdeswell brought in a bill to put an end to those doubts
and controversies upon that subject which have unhappily distracted our
courts, to the great detriment of the public, and to the great dishonor
of the national justice.

That it is the province of the jury, in informations and indictments for
libels, to try nothing more than the fact of the com