Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject. In entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission for the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--
"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention of freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government under which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke speculation. The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science--the first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore, it seems to follow, that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in voluntary assemblies of men."
Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to the Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws ought not to inter-pose, nay, cannot interpose, to prevent the communication qf sentiment, and opinion." Under what law then can I be condemned? This prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures, which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as is asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of Justice Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words Holy Scriptures for Ancient Scriptures. Jefferson denominates it a "judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm Jefferson's view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.
Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson's letter to Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French, but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.
"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book, 34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5, gives his opinion in these words:--
"'A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient
"'To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing, it is proper
à nous à donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners
for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all sorts of leis
sont lor dés--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obligés de conustre leur ley de saint