aised in price on a day on which the commissioners
for reducing the national debt would make purchases, that would be an
injury to the country, by the commissioners being enabled to purchase a
smaller amount of stock for the same amount of money; but there is no
allegation of the kind upon this indictment, and in no other way, do I
conceive, could the public be injured. If the public had been injured,
it was enough to have stated, that what was done, was done with a view
to the injury of the public; but all that I find stated upon the record,
is, that the defendants conspired and agreed together to raise the price
of the public funds upon a given day; and the prosecutors knew there was
no purchase made by the commissioners for reducing the national debt on
that day; because, as I understand the fact to be, they never purchase
on a Monday;--however, all that is material to me is, that the
transaction is not so charged upon the face of the indictment. If I am
right in this, I am persuaded your Lordships will be of opinion, that
this is not an indictable offence.

If I am to be told, there is a distinction made between conspiracy and
other offences, I submit to your Lordships, no distinction which has
ever been made goes to a length which reaches the present case. I am
aware many acts are made criminal, being accomplished by conspiracy,
which accomplished by an individual only, would not be the subject of
judicial animadversion; but I can find no case (and I have very
carefully looked into all of them) which carries the principle on which
the doctrine relating to conspiracy is founded further than this; that
in conspiracy, though the means may be lawful, yet the end must be
unlawful, either as it is mischievous to the public or to individuals;
and I can state no case, in which parties have been held guilty of
conspiracy, where the end they have had in view has not been either
mischievous to the public, or at least to a specified class of
individuals.

Looking back to the earlier statutes and cases on the subject of the law
regarding conspiracy, your Lordships must collect, that neither the
legislature nor the judges of the land had the least idea of embracing
such a transaction as this, within their view of conspiracy. The older
cases, in which the doctrine upon conspiracy has been applied, have been
cases described by the statute of 21st Edward I. of persons who have
conspired to instigate a criminal prosecution against