posing and of the
publishing averments and innuendoes is a doctrine held at present by all
the judges of the King's Bench, probably by most of the judges of the
kingdom. The same doctrine has been held pretty uniformly since the
Revolution; and it prevails more or less with the jury, according to the
degree of respect with which they are disposed to receive the opinions
of the bench.

This doctrine, which, when it prevails, tends to annihilate the benefit
of trial by jury, and when it is rejected by juries, tends to weaken and
disgrace the authority of the judge, is not a doctrine proper for an
English judicature. For the sake both of judge and jury, the controversy
ought to be quieted, and the law ought to be settled in a manner clear,
definitive, and constitutional, by the only authority competent to it,
the authority of the legislature.

Mr. Dowdeswell's bill was brought in for that purpose. It _gives_ to the
jury no _new_ powers; but, after reciting the doubts and controversies,
(which nobody denies actually to subsist,) and after stating, that, if
juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of
trial by jury will be of none or imperfect effect, it enacts, not that
the jury _shall_ have the _power_, but that they shall be _held and
reputed in law and right competent_ to try the whole matter laid in the
information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion
in law which they are known to hold upon this subject,--and does not in
the least imply that the jury were to derive a new right and power from
that bill, if it should have passed into an act of Parliament. The
implication is directly the contrary, and is as strongly conveyed as it
is possible for those to do who state a doubt and controversy without
charging with criminality those persons who so doubted and so
controverted.

Such a style is frequent in acts of this nature, and is that only which
is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words
_enact_ and _declare_, as if they were formal and operative words of
force to distinguish different species of laws producing different
effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will
stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to
have been brought in upon the principle and in the style of the Petition
of Right and Declaration of Right ought to consider how far the
circumstances are the same in the two cases, an