which he had not been able to understand. A simple fact, the giving of the manuscripts to the printer was not denied, and if that was not sufficient to establish the question of the publication, the list clinched the matter. The next question was the truth of the innuendoes set out in the indictment which involved a question, the solution of which he considered, the most important duty of the Jury; that question was as to the truth of the matter in the indictment. He did not think so, and held Mr. Peterson's views to be incorrect. The third question was as to whether it was a libel or not. This was more within the province of a Jury to decide. In the last century, when political animus ran high, the Jury decided the first and second questions only, and the third was left to the Judge. This course was found to give the Judge too much power, and it was altered so as to enable the Jury to decide the question of libel and to allow the Judge to express his opinion on their decision.
The learned Counsel would not trespass much longer on their time, and would now consider the counts in the indictment without entering into the preliminary points. In the first count, the preface to the drama is set out, and a small portion of it treated as a libel on Mr. Brett, the editor of the Englishman. He would read the passage, and answer that it was no libel, and he hoped to be able to convince the Jury so. He did not intend to cast the slightest reflection on Mr. Brett, or the Englishman newspaper. Mr. Brett was a most respectable man, a man of high honor, so far as the learned Counsel knew, and far be it from the learned Counsel to question his honesty and integrity. Still the learned Counsel thought that editors and managers of newspapers should be the last persons to come into a Court and prefer complaints about public books, pamphlets or prints. Nowhere are criticisms so freely made on public acts, and perhaps on private character, as by the press of India. That press had deservedly a high character, yet he must say that there had been and still were, writings in that press, which were much stronger than they should be. For this reason an editor should be the last person to come into the Court so thin-skinned and prefer a complaint of a libel; yet if himself aggrieved, he certainly had a right to ask for justice at he hands of that Court. The learned Counsel would dissect this alleged libellous matter. He read the passage, and observed that he really thought it amounted at most to an insinuation, that editors
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