as, if the charge be true, then the complainer has received no private injury, and has consequently no ground to seek compensation, whatever the offence may be as affects the public peace. This was not formerly the doctrine held in the courts of law when it was held that the truth might be pleaded in mitigation of damages, but it is now the prevailing doctrine (8).

By the statute 38 Geo. III. c. 78 (9), all editors of newspapers are placed under such regulations, that they may be readily brought to punishment for any seditious or malicious publication; and wholesome restraints have been subsequently placed upon the licentiousness of the press by various statutes, which the reader will find detailed in the stat. 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 70.

The publication of any matter tending to disturb the public peace, is a criminal offence, even should the matter relate to foreign governments and magistrates; because, nations at peace with each other may be provoked to actual hostilities by the conduct of a subject of one nation, who, by his publications, defames another nation, or its government or magistrates. This was determined by Lord Ellenborough, in the case of Peltier, who was tried in the Court of King's Bench for a libel upon Napoleon Buonaparte, in which his lordship held, that any publication which tends to degrade, revile, and defame persons in considerable situations of power and dignity in foreign countries, may be taken to be and be treated as a libel; and particularly where it has a tendency to interrupt the amity and peace be

(8) Edwards v. Bell, 1 Bing. 403; and see 11 Price, 257, 752; and 1 Taunt. 235.

(9) The first section of this statute is repealed by 4 & 5 Will, IV.

upon

tween the two countries. It was (as the writer assumes) this principle, of preserving the public peace, and as a part of the common law of the land, that the present Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench (Lord Denman) ruled, in the recent action brought against the printers of the reports of the House of Commons, for an alleged libel, (contained in those reports), that no man is privileged to publish, and offer for general sale, matter which is libellous, notwithstanding such matter be printed for a report to the House of Commons. Upon this decision, the House of Commons instituted a Committee of Privileges, who made a report, confirming the right of the House of Commons to authorize a general publication of its reports (10).

It has always hitherto been held, that it is not a libel to publish a correct copy of the reports or resolutions of the two houses of parliament, or a true account of the proceedings of a court of justice. "For though," as Mr. Justice Lawrence observed (11), "the publication of such proceedings may be to the disadvantage of the particular individual concerned, yet it is of vast importance to the public, that the proceedings of courts of justice should be universally known. The general advantage to the country, in having these proceedings made public, more than counterbalances the inconveniences to the private person, whose conduct may be the subject of such proceedings."

(10) See Burdett v. Abbott, 14 East, Rep. 1, the judgment in which case was affirmed-see 4 Taunt. 401; and in the House of Lords, 5 Dowl. 165; also the case of Burdett v. Coleman, 14 East, Rep. 165, upon the power assumed by the House of Commons. (11) Rex v. Wright, 8 Term Rep. 293.

CHAPTER X.

Right of Resistance.

BUT all those privileges of the people, considered in 314 themselves, are but feeble defences against the real strength of those who govern. All those provisions, all those reciprocal rights, necessarily suppose that things remain in their legal and settled course: what would then be the resource of the people, if ever the prince, suddenly freeing himself from all restraint, and throwing himself, as it were, out of the constitution, should no longer respect either the person or the property of the subject, and either should make no account of his conventions with the parliament, or attempt to force it implicitly to submit to his will? It would be resistance.

Without entering here into the discussion of a doc- 315 trine, which would lead us to inquire into the first principles of civil government, and consequently engage us in a long disquisition, and with regard to which, besides, persons free from prejudices agree pretty much in their opinions, it is only necessary to observe here, that the question has been decided in favour of this doctrine by the laws of England, and that resistance is looked upon by them as the ultimate and lawful resource against the violence of power. It was resistance that gave

birth to the Great Char

ter, that lasting foundation of English liberty, and the

excesses of a power established by force were also re316 strained by force (a). It has been by the same means that, at different times, the people have procured the confirmation of the same charter. Lastly, it has also been the resistance to a king who made no account of his own engagements, that has, in the issue, placed on the throne the illustrious family which is now in possession of it. This resource, which, till then, had only been an act of force opposed to other acts of force, was, at that æra, expressly recognized by the law itself. The Lords and Commons, solemnly assembled, declared, that "King James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, having violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself, had abdicated the government; and that the throne was thereby vacant (b).”

And lest those principles, to which the revolution thus gave a sanction, should, in process of time, become mere arcana of state, exclusively appropriated, and only known to a certain class of subjects, the same act we 317 have just mentioned, expressly insured to individuals the right of publicly preferring complaints against the

(a) Lord Lyttelton says extremely well, in his Persian Letters— "If the privileges of the people of England be concessions from the crown, is not the power of the crown itself a concession from the people?" It might be said with equal truth, and somewhat more in point to the subject of this chapter,-If the privileges of the people be an encroachment on the power of kings, the power itself of kings was at first an encroachment (no matter whether effected by surprise) on the natural liberty of the people.

(b) The Bill of Rights has since given a new sanction to all these principles.

abuses of government, and, moreover, of being provided with arms for their own defence. Judge Blackstone expresses himself in the following terms, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1):-" To vindicate those rights when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for selfpreservation and defence."

Lastly, this right of opposing violence, in whatever shape, and from whatever quarter it may come, is so generally acknowledged, that the courts of law have sometimes grounded their judgments upon it.

But it is with respect to this right of an ultimate re- 319 sistance, that the advantage of a free press appears in a most conspicuous light. As the most important rights of the people, without the prospect of a resistance which overawes those who should attempt to violate them, are little more than mere shadows, so this right of resisting itself is but vain, when there exists no means of effecting a general union between the different parts of the people.

Private individuals, unknown to each other, are forced to bear, in silence, injuries in which they do not see other people take a concern. Left to their own individual strength, they tremble before the formidable and ever-ready power of those who govern; and as these latter well know (and are even apt to over-rate) the advantages of their own situation, they think that they may venture upon any thing.

(1) Book 1, Chap. 1.