s, I give a remedy as wide as the wound. I say
then, gentlemen, that the prosecutor in that case, was alternately the
object of the keenest indignation, and the most jeering ridicule, and I
have a right to be equally as free, as the counsel in that case, with the
prosecutors in this: but I shall by no means follow the example. On the
contrary, I think, we are deeply indebted to the Constitutional
Association. Consider how we were circumstanced when they first arose
amongst us. There was the state, with a standing army of only a hundred
thousand men, and nothing besides, except the whole civil force of the
realm, a revenue of no more than seventy millions; and the feeble
assistance of the established law officers of the crown to prosecute
public offenders, when this Constitutional Association in the pure spirit
of chivalry, steps forward to help the weakness of Government, and
succour its distress. Now, whatever men may talk of justice, who can say
that disinterestedness has altogether abandoned the earth? Who can say
that generosity has forsaken us and flown to heaven? Let it be
considered too, that but for their active vigilance Carlile's shop would
not have been known. No productions from it had ever been the subject of
prosecution, and but for the keen scent of the Association, the rank and
huge sedition contained in the New Year's Address might have lain in its
covert undetected and undisturbed. But to drop this irony and be
serious, the law officers of the crown are fully adequate to their
duties, and Carlile's shop was as well known to the Attorney General as
St. Paul's to you. For years he has not had his eyes off it. I will
engage that every publication, that has issued from it, and this very
pamphlet among the rest, has passed through his hands, and under his
review. Yet the law officers of the crown do not appear here to
prosecute it as a libel against the state; and I entreat you to mark
this, for I have a right to urge it, as a strong negative proof, that
they do not so consider it; and how can that require your condemnation
which they (with a judgment surely very much superior to that of the
Committee of the Constitutional Association) have not thought worthy of
prosecution or notice? Yes, you are actually called upon by this
Association to deliver over to punishment the publisher of this paper,
whilst the law officers of the crown (who neglect their duty, if they do
not prosecute offences agains