North Briton.

others on a

result. Lord Bute, the premier, was driven from power (April 8, 1763) mainly by the criticism of Wilkes in the North Briton, and a fortnight afterwards (Ap. 23) the celebrated No. 45 of that journal appeared, commenting No. 45 of the in severe and offensive terms on the king's speech at the prorogation of Parliament and upon the unpopular Peace of Paris recently (Feb. 10, 1763) concluded. By a strained exercise of prerogative a general warrant was Apprehension issued for the discovery and apprehension of the authors of Wilkes and and printers (not named) of the obnoxious No. 45. general warrant. Forty-nine persons, including Wilkes, were arrested on suspicion under the general warrant; and it having been ascertained that Wilkes was the author, an information for libel was filed against him in the King's Bench on which a verdict was obtained.2 Released from prison on the ground of privilege as a member of Parliament,3 Wilkes brought an action against Mr. Wood, the under Secretary of State, and obtained a verdict of £1000 damages; and four days afterwards Dryden Leach, Leach v. Money, one of the printers arrested on suspicion, gained another verdict with £400 damages against the messengers. On a bill of exceptions, which was argued before the Court of King's Bench in 1765, Lord Mansfield and the other three judges pronounced the general warrant illegal General declaring that 'no degree of antiquity could give sanction declared illegal. to an usage bad in itself.' 5

1765.

warrants

In the same year, 1765, an action brought by Entick v. Carrington. Mr. John Entick, the suspected author of the 'Monitor, or British Freeholder,' against the messengers who had seized all his books and papers under a general Seizure of search warrant from the Secretary of State, was decided papers under against the Government. Lord Camden, Chief Justice of warrant.

1 Supra, p. 650.

general search

Rex v. Wilkes, 4 Burr. 2527, 2574.

3

Supra, p. 683.

Wilkes v. Wood, 19 St. Tr. 1153; Broom, Const. Law, 548.
Leach v. Money, 19 St. Tr. 1001; Broom, Const. Law, 525.

Junius's Letter to the King, 1769.

Strained interpretation of the law of libel.

Trial of Woodfall for publishing the

the Common Pleas, determined that such warrants, which had originated in the practice of the Star Chamber, and had been unjustifiably continued since the expiration of the Licensing Act of Charles II., were absolutely illegal.1

The excitement caused by the proceedings against Wilkes and the printers had scarcely subsided, when the prosecutions which followed upon the publication of Junius's celebrated Letter to the King in the 'Morning Advertiser' of the 19th December, 1769, forcibly directed the attention of the public to the severe and extended interpretation of the law of libel adopted by the judges. since the Revolution. Already, in 1731, on the trial of one Franklin for publishing a libel in the Craftsman, it had been held that falsehood, though always alleged in the indictment, was not essential to the guilt of the libel, and Lord Raymond positively refused to admit of any evidence to prove the truth of the statements complained of. On the trial of Almon, a bookseller, for selling a reprint of Junius's letter, two other doctrines which excepted libels from the general principles of the common law were maintained by the courts. (1.) It was held that the publisher of a libel was criminally liable for the acts of his servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting thereto; and afterwards the judges decided that exculpatory evidence was inadmissible, and that publication of a libel by the servant was conclusive proof of the criminality of the master. (2.) Lord Mansfield laid it down that it was the province of the judge alone to determine the criminality of a libel, leaving to the jury to determine merely the fact of publication, and whether the libel meant what it was alleged in the indictment to mean. On the trial of Woodfall, the original publisher of the 'Letter to the King,' the jury,

1 Entick v. Carrington, 19 St. Tr. 1030; Broom, Const. Law, 558.

King, 1770.

in order to defeat this interpretation of the law, found Letter to the the defendant guilty of printing and publishing only,'a verdict which the court held to be uncertain, necessitating a new trial. Miller and other printers who were subsequently tried for printing the same letter were boldly declared by the jury to be not guilty.

The doctrine held by the judges in these trials was strongly animadverted upon in both Houses of Parliament; and the rights of juries in cases of libel were nobly and eloquently maintained by the advocacy of Erskine in the cases of the Dean of St. Asaph, in 1779, and of Stockdale, in 1789, the latter being a prosecution for publishing what was charged as 'a scandalous and seditious libel' concerning the conduct of the House of Commons in its impeachment of Warren Hastings. At length, in 1792, the ruling of the judges as to the

province of juries was in effect reversed by Mr. Fox's Mr. Fox's Libel Libel Act, which declared their right, on any trial or in- Act, 1792. formation for libel, to give a general verdict of guilty or

not guilty on the whole matter.1

of liberty of

But the signal advance made by liberty of opinion Reactionary during the first thirty years of George III.'s reign was period in growth about to receive a decided check. The proceedings of opinion, the French revolutionists created a wide-spread terror of 1792-1832. democracy among the great body of the English people, which was aggravated by the extravagance of a small but turbulent body of social and political reformers in England itself. With the publication by the Government in 1792, of a proclamation warning the people against wicked and seditious writings industriously dispersed among them, and commanding magistrates to discover the authors, printers, and promulgators of such writings, began a reactionary period in the growth of the liberty of opinion which cannot be said to have entirely passed

1 32 Geo. III. c. 60; supra, p. 166.

Ꮓ Ꮓ

Freedom of the
Press completely

established.

Lord Campbell's
Libel Act, 1843.

away until after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. During this period prosecutions of the press abounded: seditious speaking was severely restrained; and the regulation of newspapers frequently occupied the attention of the legislature. But from the year 1832 at latest the freedom of the press has been completely established. The utmost latitude of criticism and invective has been allowed it in discussing the actions of the Government and of all public men and measures. By Lord Campbell's Libel Act, passed in 1843, the defendant on an indictment or information for a defamatory libel is allowed to plead its truth and that its publication was for the public benefit ; and the harsh extension of the ruling in Almon's case,1 as to the criminal liability of a publisher for the unauthorized acts of his servants, has been altered by allowing the defendant in all cases to prove that such publication was made without his authority, consent, or knowledge, and that it did not arise from want of due care or caution on his part. State prosecution for libel is now as much a thing of the past as the censorship itself. The policy of repression has been finally discarded; and rulers have at length recognized in practice the truth and wisdom of Lord Bacon's maxim, that the punishing of wits enhances their authority; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the faces of them that seek to tread it out.' 3

1 Supra, p. 703.

2 6 & 7 Vict. c. 96.

3 On liberty of the press see Hallam, Const. Hist. iii. 2-6, 166-170; May, Const. Hist. ii. 238-379.

INDEX.