y date affixed to it. It has been thought proper to insert it
here, as being connected with the subject of the foregoing Speech.

LIBEL BILL.

Whereas doubts and controversies have arisen at various times concerning
the right of jurors to try the whole matter laid in indictments and
informations for seditious and other libels; and whereas trial by juries
would be of none or imperfect effect, if the jurors were not held to be
competent to try the whole matter aforesaid: for settling and clearing
such doubts and controversies, and for securing to the subject the
effectual and complete benefit of trial by juries in such indictments
and informations,

Be it enacted, &c, That jurors duly impanelled and sworn to try the
issue between the king and the defendant upon any indictment or
information for a seditious libel, or a libel under any other
denomination or description, shall be held and reputed competent, to all
intents and purposes, in law and in right, to try every part of the
matter laid or charged in said indictment or information, comprehending
the criminal intention of the defendant, and the evil tendency of the
libel charged, as well as the mere fact of the publication thereof, and
the application by innuendo of blanks, initial letters, pictures, and
other devices; any opinion, question, ambiguity, or doubt to the
contrary notwithstanding.

SPEECH

ON

A BILL FOR THE REPEAL OF THE MARRIAGE ACT.

JUNE 15, 1781.

This act [_the Marriage Act_] stands upon _two_ principles: one, that
the power of marrying without consent of parents should not take place
till twenty-one years of age; the other, that all marriages should be
_public_.

The proposition of the honorable mover goes to the first; and
undoubtedly his motives are fair and honorable; and even, in that
measure by which he would take away paternal power, he is influenced to
it by filial piety; and he is led into it by a natural, and to him
inevitable, but real mistake,--that the ordinary race of mankind advance
as fast towards maturity of judgment and understanding as he does.

The question is not now, whether the law ought to acknowledge and
protect such a state of life as minority, nor whether the continuance
which is fixed for that state be not improperly prolonged in the law of
England. Neither of these in general are questioned. The only question,
is, whether matrimony is to be taken out of the general rule, and
whether the minors