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LIBEL.
N.B. It has been shewn before 1st that there is no drawing the line between what in language counts
as libellous and what is innocent. 2d That supposing that line to be drawn, it will be allowed that what
is ordinary libellous may be necessary to be used in times of great & real danger from the corruption of administration.
What follows is to prove that this latter concession could never be in practice taken advantage of with effect.
Ministers — than the rest of mankind With great profit readiness & acknowledge them to be no worse; in return I expect it to be allowd me that they are no better
I think it is rather too much to expect of the courage, certainly of the prudence, of
the King's first Trustee of criminal judicial power, to pronounce that at any time that the Trustees of his execution
administration are actually become so corrupt, that what was has been always hitherto criminal in to
them is now become meritorious. A manifesto from the Bench against the Treasury or the War-Office, is what one would hardly wish, & hardlier expect.
But I will even [admitt this to be otherwise, and] grant, that his opinion deceived and declared will always light upon the that critical very period marked out by utility
for the opening the sluice, and letting loose the torrent of once deterious, now salutory invective. This
must necessarily from the nature of the judicial office be always in expectancy, and never in existence.
The misfortune is, (at least in to this instance purpose it is a misfortune, that a great mountain of irreparable mischief must in all this whole have been accumulated. -ting A great deal must in that time have been done & suffer'd, which to undo would be impossible Mighty & conspicuous indeed must have been that pile, for the demolition of which they could think it proper to recurr to so violent & unprecedented an act exertion. It seems rather too much to be secure of, that after all that freedom of disturbance it should not have required such a settlement as to be no longer subduable by <add>compellable to yield to</add> attachable with success by the force to be opposed to it.
It is not with our King's Bench, as with the Roman Proctors, who were in the practise of notified proclaimed
openly and before hand, rules of their own choice establishment by which they would govern the future
transactions of their presidency Such a system power of conduct if in truth it ever be pursued, is certainly never avowed
by any English Judge.
The Subject knows not from whence to augur Our Judges find the rules of future determinations in but from past decisions.
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this very period Past decisions shut his mouth — the future one did it exist would give him utterance
but for it to exist he must first have opened his mouth, which he cannot do because
those past ones that are past have stopt him.
Perpetual are Innumerable are have been the charges of made by others against men in power, which to me
have seemed frivolous injurious ill-grounded. Many charges which I might feel have felt myself disposed to make
against them, might have again to others appear the same. I speak not of simple
opinions, but opinions conceived in animo & bona fide. I presume, nay I
see it, & every body sees it, that the variance is the same among men, who
with better opportunities of information, possess better capacity of making of it judging from it
than myself & such as me I.
The precise period therefore at which the danger of the State calls for the necessity
of people's pen's being let loose against a bad minister it thereby is meant the
period which all men of equal integrity & discernment (as far as discernment can be equal
unanimously acknowledge to be such, is an mere cut rationis: And how is the communication, which
to produce this unanimity, to have been maintained?
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Identifier: | JB/070/202/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 70.
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070 |
of laws in general |
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202 |
libel |
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1 |
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recto |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::[gr motif] [britannia with shield motif]]] |
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23317 |
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