nly them_."
Chief Justice Lee summed up the evidence "and delivered it as his
opinion, that the _Jury ought to find the defendant guilty;_ for he
thought the _fact of publication was fully proved; and if so they
could not avoid bringing in the defendant guilty_."

The jury returned, "Not guilty;" but Ryder, the Attorney-General, put
this question, Do you think the evidence is not sufficient to convince
you that _Owen did sell the book_? The foreman stuck to his general
verdict, "Not guilty," "Not guilty;" and several of the jurymen said,
"that is our verdict, my lord, and we abide by it." "Upon which the
court broke up, and there was a prodigious shout in the hall." Then
"the Jury judged as to facts, law, and justice of the whole, and
therefore did not answer the leading question which was so artfully
put to them."[127] Of course the insolent Attorney-General was soon
made "Lord Chief Justice," and _rode_ the bench after the antiquated
routine.

[Footnote 127: 18 St. Tr. 1203; 14 Parl. Hist. 888, 1063; 3 Hallam,
200; 2 Campbell, Justices, 198.]

This was the third great case in which the Jury had vindicated the
right of speech.

6. Here is another case very famous in its day, and of great value as
helping to establish the rights of juries, and so to protect the
natural right of the citizens--the Trial of John Miller for reprinting
Junius's Letter to the King, in 1770.

Here are the facts. Mr. Miller was the publisher of a newspaper called
the _London Evening Post_, and therein, on December 19, 1769, he
reprinted Junius's celebrated Letter to the King. For this act, an
information _ex officio_ was laid against him, wherein he was charged
with publishing a false, wicked, seditious, and malicious libel. A
suit had already been brought against Woodfall, the publisher of the
_Public Advertiser_, in which the letter originally appeared, but the
prosecution had not turned out to the satisfaction of the government,
nor had the great question been definitely settled. So this action was
brought against Mr. Miller, who reprinted the original letter the day
of its first appearance.[128]

[Footnote 128: 20 St. Tr. 803, 895, 869; Woodfall's Junius (Bohn,
1850), Preface, p. 94, Appendix, p. 471; 2 Campbell, Justices, 363; 5
Mahon.]

Solicitor-General Thurlow,--whom you have met before,
Gentlemen,--opened the case for the Crown, and said:--

"I have not of myself been able to imagine ... that there is
a serious ma