preface lead to such a conviction? No! But there was one great fact which, he insisted, argued against the honesty of the writer's intention;—that great fact was the secrecy of its publication. None but a favoured few had been able to get a copy of it in this country, and he doubted if persons, even in England, but those intended to be the receptacles of the writer's calumnies, had been able to obtain an example of that precious production. How its existence became known in Calcutta, he had already stated, but he would ask why it had not propagated in the districts inhabited by the parties attacked, that they at least might have had an opportunity of clearing their character from imputations which, if true, lowered them below the brute creation, disgraced the country they belonged to, and the Government which had not ere this checked with a strong hand such a fearful state of iniquity and evil.
He warned the Jury against being led away by assertions which would doubtless be made, for there were able men on the other side of the question, that the production was published with the view of promoting the public good, but they must consider the evidence, and see if there was anything in the defendant's conduct in regard to the publication of that production that would corroborate such an assertion. He knew that there were members of that jury who were men of strong religious feelings, he felt sorry to attack a body of men of such high calling, but he could not refrain from saying that the word missionary had become synonymous with mischief-maker, for wherever mischief was in any colonial community, some missionary was sure to be found connected with it. The Jury would probably remember the case of the missionary Smith who suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Demarara for inciting the negroes to insurrection, mutiny and rapine. The troubles at the Cape must still be fresh in their recollections, and he need go no further than the sister colony New Zealand, where insurrections and bloodshed are now raging, attributable to missionaries alone. He entertained a sincere and profound respect for true religion. But its messengers had a holy calling, namely, to promote peace on earth and good will to all men, and not to act as the harbourers of calumny and the originators of evil. These were strong words, but he would consider him justified in using them, if he
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