inconsistent with the principles of British
jurisprudence to pronounce judgement without previous investigation.'

Upon this charge, as re-echoed in its general import by persons who have
been over-awed or deceived, and by others who have been wilful
deceivers, I have already incidentally animadverted; and repelled it, I
trust, with becoming, indignation. I shall now meet the charge for the
last time formally and directly; on account of considerations applicable
to all times; and because the whole course of domestic proceedings
relating to the Convention of Cintra, combined with menaces which have
been recently thrown out in the lower House of Parliament, renders it
too probable that a league has been framed for the purpose of laying
further restraints upon freedom of speech and of the press; and that the
reprimand to the City of London was devised by ministers as a
preparatory overt act of this scheme; to the great abuse of the
Sovereign's Authority, and in contempt of the rights of the Nation. In
meeting this charge, I shall shew to what desperate issues men are
brought, and in what woeful labyrinths they are entangled, when, under
the pretext of defending instituted law, they violate the laws of reason
and nature for their own unhallowed purposes.

If the persons, who signed this petition, acted inconsistently with the
principles of British jurisprudence; the offence must have been
committed by giving an answer, before adequate and lawful evidence had
entitled them so to do, to one or other of these questions:--'What is
the act? and who is the agent?'--or to both conjointly. Now the petition
gives no opinion upon the agent; it pronounces only upon the act, and
that some one must be guilty; but _who_--it does not take upon itself to
say. It condemns the act; and calls for punishment upon the authors,
whosoever they may be found to be; and does no more. After the analysis
which has been made of the Convention, I may ask if there be any thing
in this which deserves reproof; and reproof from an authority which
ought to be most enlightened and most dispassionate,--as it is, next to
the legislative, the most solemn authority in the Land.

It is known to every one that the privilege of complaint and petition,
in cases where the Nation feels itself aggrieved, _itself_ being the
judge, (and who else ought to be, or can be?)--a privilege, the
exercise of which implies condemnation of something complained of,
followed by a p