JB/070/204/001

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LIBELS JUSTIFICATION. Now either this is true, or it is if
it is not it deserves no regard if it
is, then men should be encouraged and
stimulated to do so. How what more
effectual stimulant than the motive
of self-preservation?

In treating of subjects of this delicate
nature I would wish if possible
not to know that how many persons,
particularly how many great persons
have treated on them before.
To differ for the sake of difference
from them, whoever they are they whoever they are, may
believe me whoever I am,
is of all things the farthest
as it is from my interest, so also
for my intentions.

But they would deny me
their esteem: which I ambitionate
much, if

I suppressed that difference, and the
reasons on which it is founded
and the public would refuse
me theirs which I ambitionate
more, if for the same motives I omitted to give
those reasons all every advantage in that does force
of which every power I am master.

Designing intent only on treading the
same path of present animosity, they would
find themselves unexpectedly engaged insensibly in the broad
road tract of public utility, & pressed
into the service of Justice. the Law.

If there is a principle in penal Jurisprudence less contrived
& combustible than any other; it is this
that a regulation
will be answerable and effectual exactly in the
portion [of the ratio] of the
offences known to be punished to
those known to be committed.

less proof to be admitted for justification,
than would be necessary for
conviction

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I know it has been said and is the standing answer observation upon the occasion, that justified
in Libel ought not to be admitted, because the calumniator might and ought to have brought the
person calumniated to Justice. It is something to say he ought & might; but it is
something more to say he will. Now I say by admitting justifications he will
he will in many cases where he never would have done so otherwise — it is not difficult to see that it is less trouble
to call a man a traytor or a forger, or a thief a or a cheat than to prove him so: and sloth that stifles
many salutary accusations that self-preservation would have called forth. Public Zeal or
private spleen happily directed may carry a man thus far in a thousand instances
where it would carry him no further: it would leave him at the edge of the road of public
accusation, not always to be travelled in without expence, and never without trouble.
the Eloquence of the Legislator may display itself in declamations on the
Beauty of men's giving up their private Interest to that of the Public: But his real merit
is only seen in the fewer or more occasions with which his sagacity forces him
him of making those two interests coincide. [This as every body must perceive is
only active principle upon which the legal mechanism whole Machine of Jurisprudence depends for its operation motion] But if his
sagacity teaches punishes him with none, at least it should teach him not to expect such as offer of themselves

There can be but one objection to this, founded on the supposition of a general
of the Penal Law as being such, that more mischief would result from a vigorous than a relaxed execution of it. I hope and trust this supposition is erroneous; if not, it is high time to
do attempt something to make it so. But still it may possibly be maintained that, not
too corrupt to be executed in the class of greater crimes, yet

I hope it is not even in there: at least if that should be the opinion of any maker or
guardian of those Laws, it lies not in his mouth to say so. But this objection if it
is to be one, may be superseded by the excluding from the Catalogue all such whose
guilt mischievousness is so equivocal, as to make leave it a doubt whether the misery of the punishment of even [an
offender who offended] would be too great a purchase for the benefit suppression of the crime.

I am should be confounded, and should not I know not which way to turn myself to convince those if
any such there be, who should complain of the inexecution of the Laws in one breath, and reprobate the
means that offer themselves of executing them in another.

LIBES Justification.

Identifier: | JB/070/204/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 70.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	070	Main Headings	of laws in general
Folio number	204	Info in main headings field	libels justification
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[gr motif] [britannia with shield motif]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	23319
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