this inestimable blessing, when they daily see it successfully muzzled and outraged by the lawyers of the crown, and by virtue of what are called ex-officio informations. Blackstone says, that "if a person publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity;" and Lord Chief Baron Comyns defines libel as "a contumely, or reproach, published to the defamation of the Government, of a magistrate, or of a private person."—Now, I beseech you to consider the words, mischievous, improper, illegal, contumely, reproach, or defamation. May they not make that mischievous, or improper, which they please? Is not law with them, as clay in the potter's hand? Do not the words, contumely, reproach, or defamation, express all degrees and forces of disapprobation? It is impossible to express yourself displeased at certain proceedings of Government, or the individuals who conduct it, without uttering a reproach. We cannot honestly point out a proper remedy of grievances with safety, because the very mention of these grievances will be reproachful to the personages who countenance them; and therefore will come under a definition of libel. For the persons who thus directly or indirectly undergo reproach, will say for their own sakes, that the exposure of their corruption is mischievous and improper; therefore, the utterer of the reproach is a fit subject for three years imprisonment. Is there any thing like the Liberty of the Press, in restrictions so positive, yet pliant, as these. The little freedom which we enjoy in this most important point, comes from the clemency of our rulers, or their fear, lest public opinion alarmed at the discovery of its enslaved state, should violently assert a right to extension and diffusion. Yet public opinion
