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ous reign. But the great majority of these must have fallen to the ground, for, in 1791, the then attorney-general stated that, in the last thirty-one years, there had been seventy prosecutions for libel, and about fifty convictions, in twelve of which the sentences had been severe--including even, in five instances, the pillory. The law of libel was extremely harsh, to say the least of it. One of its dogmas was that a publisher could be held criminally liable for the acts of his servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting to such acts. The monstrous part of this was that, after a time, the judges refused to receive any exculpatory evidence, and ruled that the publication of a libel by a publisher's servant was proof sufficient of that publisher's criminality. This rule actually obtained until 1843, when it was swept away by an act of Parliament, under the auspices of Lord Campbell. The second was even worse; for it placed the judge above the jury, and superseded the action of that dearly prized safeguard of an Englishman's liberties, it asserting that it was for the judge alone, and not for the jury, to decide as to the criminality of a libel. Such startling and outrageous doctrines as these roused the whole country, and the matter was taken up in Parliament. Fierce debates followed from time to time, and the assailants of this monstrous overriding of the Constitution--for it was nothing less--were unremitting in their efforts. Among the most distinguished of these were Burke, Sheridan, and Erskine, the last of whom was constantly engaged as counsel for the defence in the most celebrated libel trials of the day. In 1791, Fox brought in a bill for amending the law of libel, and so great had the change become in public opinion, through the agitation that had been carried on, that it passed unanimously in the House of Commons. Erskine took a very prominent part in this measure, and, after demonstrating that the judges had arrogated to themselves the rights and functions of the jury, said that if, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, the innocence of the defendant's intention was argued before the court, the answer would be, and was, given uniformly, that the verdict of guilty had concluded the criminality of the intention, though the consideration of that question had been by the judge's authority wholly withdrawn from the jury at the trial. The bill met with opposition in the House of Lords, especially from L
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