11.

The new paffages in this Edition are, from the laft line bat two in page 6, to the end of the fecond paragraph in page From the fecond line in page 16, to the end of the fame paragraph in the fucceeding page. From the beginning of page 18, to the end of the paragraph in page 23. And from the fourth line in page 25, to the end. With fome leffer ones in different places.

Father of Candor, priest

POSTSCRIPT

TO THE

LETT E R,

O N

LIBELS, WARRANTS, &c.

IN ANSWER TO A

POSTCRIPT

Ι Ν Τ Η Ε

DEFENCE of the MAJORITY,

A N D

Another PAMPHLE T, entitled,

CONSIDERATIONS

Ο Ν THE

Legality of General Warrants.

THE SECOND EDITION,
CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED.

LONDON:

Printed for J. ALMON, oppofite Burlington-House in Piccadilly. 1765.

1

POSTSCRIPT.

SHALL here, in very few lines, make fome reply to the Defender in his Poftfcript, and to a late Confiderer, premifing that I do not think a ftater of facts, from whence a bad character iffues, is a calumniator, but an hiftorian; and fincerely hoping (notwithstanding the Defender's threat) that no writing of mine will give occafion to the last dying Speech and confeffion of the conftitution*, fhould be and his party have any intention of giving the finishing stroke to it.

I will now ask the Defender, whether the ftarchamber did not exift before the reign of Henry the 7th, altho' it were little reforted to; and whether, before that time, it was not the King's attorney, or coroner, in the King's Bench (that is the master of the crown office) who filed informations at discretion; and whether, That was not the grievance intended to be redreffed by the ftatute of William the 3d: and, after all, how the nature or oppreffiveness of an attorney general's information is at all altered, or affected, by the difputed period of its commencement ?

He fays, "The nature of libels may differ as "much as the complexions of the writers." This I do not comprehend. Individuals of the fame fpecies may differ in complexion, but not in nature or kind. A mifdemeanor is one diftinct kind or

* Defence of the Majority, zd edit. p. 46, 7.
A

head

head of crimes; libel is a fpecies under it, and the particulars, or individuals of this fpecies, may differ in fome features from each other; but, being all of the fame fpecies, or clafs of crimes, they muft partake of the fame nature, or kind. They all iffue from the fame ftock, altho' their learning, principles, manners and behaviour, may be different.

I am equally at a lofs to understand, how he "maintains that comparison of hands is no evi"dence of hand-writing in a criminal cafe,” and yet infifts, that it "has been always admitted "there, as circumftantial and corroborative evi"dence." If it be no evidence, it cannot corroborate or authenticate. Ex nihilo nil fit.

66

He fays, he "never met with an inftance where "the Houfe of Commons have expounded a point of law at that time pending in the courts below, by a mere refolution or declaration, which might intimidate a judge, or prejudice a jury in a caufe actually before them," I defire him to recollect, whether an information was not pending against Mr. Wilkes for being the author of a libel (the North Briton, No. 45,) when the prefent House of Commons refolved the faid paper to be a libel (which is a nice point of law in the notion of the Defender and Confiderer) and then refolved Mr. Wilkes to be the author of it; and whether, afterwards the trial of this very information was not had, and Mr. Wilkes found guilty, by a judge and jury? The influence, however, of the faid refolutions upon the judge or jury, I am not aware of.

*The Confiderer ftumbles in the very threshold, for he begins his confiderations with a misrepresen

tation

common

* I must tell the Confiderer, in anfwer to his first note; the opinion among lawyers has always been, that no judge, in a criminal proceeding, ought to know any thing of the record before the trial comes on, unless one of the parties in open court move fomething thereon; because a Judge is to

be