Representative British Orations Volume 2 (of 4) / With Introductions and Explanatory Notes

by Unknown

Gentlemen, the public spirit of a people, by which I mean the whole body of those affections which unites men’s hearts to the commonwealth, is in various countries composed of various elements, and depends on a great variety of causes. In this country, I may venture to say that it mainly depends on the vigor of the popular parts and principles of our government, and that the spirit of liberty is one of its most important elements. Perhaps it may depend less on those advantages of a free government which are most highly estimated by calm reason, than upon those parts of it which delight the imagination and flatter the just and natural pride of mankind. Among these we are certainly not to forget the political rights which are not uniformly withheld from the lowest classes, and the continual appeal made to them in public discussion, upon the greatest interests of the state. These are undoubtedly among the circumstances which endear to Englishmen their government and their country, and animate their zeal for that glorious institution which confers on the meanest of them a sort of distinction and nobility unknown to the most illustrious slaves who tremble at the frown of a tyrant. Whoever were unwarily and rashly to abolish or narrow these privileges, which it must be owned are liable to great abuse, and to very specious objections, might perhaps discover too late that he had been dismantling his country. Of whatever elements public spirit is composed, it is always and everywhere the chief defensive principle of a state. It is perfectly distinct from courage. Perhaps no nation, certainly no European nation, ever perished from an inferiority of courage. And undoubtedly no considerable nation was ever subdued in which the public affections were sound and vigorous. It is public spirit which binds together the dispersed courage of individuals and fastens it to the commonwealth. It is, therefore, as I have said, the chief defensive principle of every country. Of all the stimulants which arouse it into action, the most powerful among us is certainly the press; and it can not be restrained or weakened without imminent danger that the national spirit may languish, and that the people may act with less zeal and affection for their country in the hour of its danger.

These principles, gentlemen, are not new—they are genuine old English principles. And though in our days they have been disgraced and abused by ruffians and fanatics, they are in themselves as just and sound as they are liberal; and they are the only principles on which a free state can be safely governed. These principles I have adopted since I first learned the use of reason, and I think I shall abandon them only with life.

IV. On these principles I am now to call your attention to the libel with which this unfortunate gentleman is charged. I heartily rejoice that I concur with the greatest part of what has been said by my learned friend, Mr. Attorney-General, who has done honor even to his character by the generous and liberal principles which he has laid down. He has told you that he does not mean to attack historical narrative. He has told you that he does not mean to attack political discussion. He has told you, also, that he does not consider every intemperate word into which a writer, fairly engaged in narration or reasoning, might be betrayed, as a fit subject for prosecution. The essence of the crime of libel consists in the malignant mind which the publication proves, and from which it flows. A jury must be convinced, before they find a man guilty of libel, that his intention was to libel, not to state facts which he believed to be true, or reasonings which he thought just. My learned friend has told you that the liberty of history includes the right of publishing those observations which occur to intelligent men when they consider the affairs of the world; and I think he will not deny that it includes also the right of expressing those sentiments which all good men feel on the contemplation of extraordinary examples of depravity or excellence.

One more privilege of the historian, which the Attorney-General has not named, but to which his principles extend, it is now my duty to claim on behalf of my client; I mean the right of republishing, historically, those documents, whatever their original malignity may be, which display the character and unfold the intentions of governments, or factions, or individuals. I think my learned friend will not deny that a historical compiler may innocently republish in England the most insolent and outrageous declaration of war ever published against his Majesty by a foreign government. The intention of the original author was to vilify and degrade his Majesty’s government; but the intention of the compiler is only to gratify curiosity, or, perhaps, to rouse just indignation against the calumniator whose production he republishes. His intention is not libellous—his republication is therefore not a libel. Suppose this to be the case with Mr. Peltier. Suppose him to have republished libels with a merely historical intention. In that case it can not be pretended that he is more a libeller than my learned friend, Mr. Abbott [junior counsel for the crown, afterward Lord Tenterden], who read these supposed libels to you when he opened the pleadings. Mr. Abbott republished them to you, that you might know and judge of them—Mr. Peltier, on the supposition I have made, also republished them, that the public might know and judge of them.

You already know that the general plan of Mr. Peltier’s publication was to give a picture of the cabals and intrigues, of the hopes and projects, of French factions. It is undoubtedly a natural and necessary part of this plan to republish all the serious and ludicrous pieces which these factions circulate against each other. The ode ascribed to Chenier or Ginguené I do really believe to have been written at Paris, to have been circulated there, to have been there attributed to some one of these writers, to have been sent to England as their work, and as such to have been republished by Mr. Peltier. But I am not sure that I have evidence to convince you of the truth of this. Suppose that I have not; will my learned friend say that my client must necessarily be convicted? I, on the contrary, contend that it is for my learned friend to show that it is not an historical republication. Such it professes to be, and that profession it is for him to disprove. The profession may indeed be “a mask”; but it is for my friend to pluck off the mask, and expose the libeller, before he calls upon you for a verdict of guilty.

If the general lawfulness of such republications be denied, then I must ask Mr. Attorney-General to account for the long impunity which English newspapers have enjoyed. I must request him to tell you why they have been suffered to republish all the atrocious official and unofficial libels which have been published against his Majesty for the last ten years, by the Brissots, the Marats, the Dantons, the Robespierres, the Barrères, the Talliens, the Reubells, the Merlins, the Barrases, and all that long line of bloody tyrants who oppressed their own country and insulted every other which they had not the power to rob. What must be the answer? That the English publishers were either innocent, if their motive was to gratify curiosity, or praiseworthy, if their intention was to rouse indignation against the calumniators of their country. If any other answer be made, I must remind my friend of a most sacred part of his duty—the duty of protecting the honest fame of those who are absent in the service of their country. Within these few days we have seen, in every newspaper in England, a publication, called the Report of Colonel Sebastiani, in which a gallant British officer [General Stuart] is charged with writing letters to procure assassination. The publishers of that infamous report are not, and will not be prosecuted, because their intention is not to libel General Stuart. On any other principle, why have all our newspapers been suffered to circulate that most atrocious of all libels against the king and people of England, which purports to be translated from the Moniteur of the ninth of August, 1802—a libel against a prince who has passed through a factious and stormy reign of forty-three years, without a single imputation on his personal character; against a people who have passed through the severest trials of national virtue with unimpaired glory—who alone in the world can boast of mutinies without murder, of triumphant mobs without massacre, of bloodless revolutions, and of civil wars unstained by a single assassination. That most impudent and malignant libel which charges such a king of such a people, not only with having hired assassins, but with being so shameless, so lost to all sense of character, as to have bestowed on these assassins, if their murderous projects had succeeded, the highest badges of public honor, the rewards reserved for statesmen and heroes—the order of the Garter—the order which was founded by the heroes of Cressy and Poitiers—the garter which was worn by Henry the Great and by Gustavus Adolphus, which might now be worn by the hero who, on the shores of Syria [Sir Sydney Smith]—the ancient theatre of English chivalry—has revived the renown of English valor and of English humanity—that unsullied garter which a detestable libeller dares to say is to be paid as the price of murder.

If I had now to defend an English publisher for the republication of that abominable libel, what must I have said in his defence? I must have told you that it was originally published by the French Government in their official gazette; that it was republished by the English editor to gratify the natural curiosity, perhaps to rouse the just resentment, of his English readers. I should have contended, and, I trust, with success, that his republication of a libel was not libellous; that it was lawful, that it was laudable. All that would be important, at least all that would be essential, in such a defence, I now state to you on behalf of Mr. Peltier; and if an English newspaper may safely republish the libels of the French Government against his Majesty, I shall leave you to judge whether Mr. Peltier, in similar circumstances, may not with equal safety republish the libels of Chenier against the First Consul. On the one hand you have the assurances of Mr. Peltier in the context that this ode is merely a republication—you have also the general plan of his work, with which such a republication is perfectly consistent. On the other hand, you have only the suspicions of Mr. Attorney-General that this ode is an original production of the defendant.

But supposing that you should think it his production, and that you should also think it a libel, even in that event, which I cannot anticipate, I am not left without a defence. The question will still be open, “Is it a libel on Bonaparte, or is it a libel on Chenier or Ginguené?” This is not an information for a libel on Chenier; and if you should think that this ode was produced by Mr. Peltier, and ascribed by him to Chenier, for the sake of covering that writer with the odium of Jacobinism, the defendant is entitled to your verdict of not guilty. Or if you should believe that it is ascribed to Jacobinical writers for the sake of satirizing a French Jacobinical faction, you must also, in that case, acquit him. Butler puts seditious and immoral language into the mouth of rebels and fanatics; but “Hudibras” is not for that reason a libel on morality or government. Swift, in the most exquisite piece of irony in the world (his argument against the abolition of Christianity), uses the language of those shallow, atheistical coxcombs whom his satire was intended to scourge. The scheme of his irony required some levity and even some profaneness of language. But nobody was ever so dull as to doubt whether Swift meant to satirize atheism or religion. In the same manner Mr. Peltier, when he wrote a satire on French Jacobinism was compelled to ascribe to Jacobins a Jacobinical hatred of government. He was obliged, by dramatic propriety, to put into their mouths those anarchical maxims which are complained of in his ode. But it will be said, these incitements to insurrection are here directed against the authority of Bonaparte. This proves nothing, because they must have been so directed, if the ode were a satire on Jacobinism. French Jacobins must inveigh against Bonaparte, because he exercises the powers of government. The satirist who attacks them must transcribe their sentiments and adopt their language.

I do not mean to say, gentlemen, that Mr. Peltier feels any affection or professes any allegiance to Bonaparte. If I were to say so, he would disown me. He would disdain to purchase an acquittal by the profession of sentiments which he disclaims and abhors. Not to love Bonaparte is no crime. The question is not whether Mr. Peltier loves or hates the First Consul, but whether he has put revolutionary language into the mouth of Jacobins with a view to paint their incorrigible turbulence, and to exhibit the fruits of Jacobinical revolutions to the detestation of mankind.

Now, gentlemen, we can not give a probable answer to this question without previously examining two or three questions, on which the answer to the first must very much depend. Is there a faction in France which breathes the spirit, and is likely to employ the language, of this ode? Does it perfectly accord with their character and views? Is it utterly irreconcilable with the feelings, opinions, and wishes of Mr. Peltier? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, then I think you must agree with me that Mr. Peltier does not in this ode speak his own sentiments, that he does not here vent his own resentment against Bonaparte; but that he personates a Jacobin, and adopts his language for the sake of satirizing his principles.