attorney-general to prosecute the authors or author, the printers or
printer, and the publishers or publisher of the said scandalous libel,
that they might be brought to condign punishment. Directions were
accordingly given for this purpose, and a prosecution commenced against
the publisher, who had some reason to be dismayed, considering the great
weight of influence he was doomed to encounter--influence arising from
a prosecution of the crown, instituted at the request, and founded on
a vote, of the house of commons. Nevertheless, when the cause was
heard before the lord-chief justice of England, a jury of free-born
Englishmen, citizens of London, asserted their privilege of judging
the law as well as the fact, and acquitted the defendant with a truly
admirable spirit of independency. They considered the pamphlet as an
appeal against oppression; and, convinced that the contents were true,
they could not in conscience adjudge it a false libel, even though it
had been so declared by one of the branches of the legislature.

{1752}

The commons, in regulating the supplies of the ensuing year, voted the
continuation of eighteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven men
for the land-service, though not without some opposition from certain
patriots, who, rather from a sense of duty than from any hope of
influencing the majority, affirmed that sixteen thousand men in time of
peace would answer all the ends proposed by a standing army. The number
of seamen was fixed at ten thousand; large sums were granted to make up
deficiencies, and fulfil the engagements of the crown with the electors
of Bavaria and Saxony, as well as for the maintenance of Nova Scotia
and Georgia, and the castles on the coast of Guinea; and one hundred and
twelve thousand one hundred and fifty-two pounds, three shillings and
threepence, were voted, as a full compensation to the old royal African
company for their exclusive charter and property, to be applied for the
relief of their creditors. *

* These expenses were defrayed by a continuation of the
duties on malt, &c; a land-tax at three shillings in the
pound; a duty on licences, to be yearly paid by pawnbrokers
and dealers in secondhand goods, within the bills of
mortality; the sum of one million four hundred thousand
pounds advanced by the bank, according to a proposal made
for that purpose; five hundred thousand pounds to be issued
from the sinking-fund; a