this trial, it is not necessary for us to consider whether annual parliaments and universal suffrage are good or bad; and, on this occasion, I have nothing to do with these questions. But I say that it is not unlawful to petition for either. And generally, whatever the grievance, or fancied grievance is, it may lawfully be the subject of a petition to the Legislature; and for the same reason it may lawfully be the subject of deliberation and discussion, even in public meetings held for the purpose of petitioning. You will observe, that there can be no limits to this right of petitioning, and previously deliberating; for when it is limited the right is gone. The right is to present unreasonable as well as reasonable petitions. Or if unreasonable petitioning were unlawful, the Legislature alone is the judge of what is reasonable or unreasonable in petitions. If the right of petitioning could be restrained by the courts of law, there would be an end of the right of petitioning,—a fundamental law of this monarchy,a law, the palladium of our other rights.

On the occasion of which we have heard so much, when the people in and about Kilmarnock met to consider whether they should send addresses to the Legislature on the subject of their grievances, various speeches were made, and we are told by the Prosecutor, that these speeches, and in particular the speech of M'Laren, were seditious. In regard to the question, whether or not his speech was seditious, he pleads that the right of petitioning necessarily implies the right of previous discussion. If this be true, apply it to the case before you. At such a meeting a speech may possibly be seditious, where it appears either that the meeting was called, not for its professed object of petitioning Parliament, but merely to afford opportunities to make seditious speeches ;— or that though the meeting bona fide assembled for petitioning, the speech went beyond its proper bounds, and was seditious in statements not justified by the occasion. As to the first of these cases, there is not even a pretence for denying that the meeting in question was bona fide called for the purpose of framing petitions to Parliament. I refer to all the evidence which you have heard. It was a meeting collected for that purpose, and for no other, nor was any farther purpose in view.

The argument of the Public Prosecutor, and the evidencé adduced, will apply only to the second case supposed, that the speakers at a meeting bona fide assembled for petitioning, had gone beyond their bounds, and deviated into sedition. But has this been made out against Mr M'Laren? His short speech, though coarse, was suitable to the occasion, as an ex

hortation to petitioning, and nothing else. We were told, indeed, that this case is similar to that of Fyshe Palmer, who, many years ago, was tried for sedition, found guilty, and sentenced to transportation. But, Gentlemen, this is a total mistake. The case before you is very different from that of Fyshe Palmer, and from all the other cases which have hitherto been tried before the Court of Justiciary. It has been reserved for the present Lord Advocate to bring such a case as the present to trial. in which, if the verdict find the pannels guilty of sedition, the right of petitioning, hitherto unchallenged, seems to be attacked almost in direct terms. The case of Fyshe Palmer was that of a seditious libel, an inflammatory hand-bill, containing seditious language, without any proposal to petition Parliament. We were told that this case of Fyshe Palmer was defended on the same grounds that were stated in defence at the beginning of this trial; yet the Lord Advocate declined to meet that defence particularly, and bear it down by the triumphant authority of Palmer's case. There was no resemblance between that ease and the present. Fyshe Palmer recommended an appeal, on the subject of grievances, not to the Legislature, but to a mob, the scum of the earth, in the neighbourhood of Dundee,

to the sovereign authority of the multitude. The defence in that case was disregarded, but what was it? It was said, that in this free Government it is necessary that the press should be free. It was said that the people must have freedom to attack public men, and must be entitled to publish, not treason, not sedition, in a palpable form, but their thoughts in a free and independent manner. It was added, that Mr Fyshe Palmer was not very sound in his mind. These were the defences for him. You will perhaps be surprised when I tell you, that my Lord Abercromby, who tried the case, held, in his speech to the Jury, that if a petition to Parliament had been in view, the libel of which Fyshe Palmer was found guilty would not have been of so aggravated a description, would perhaps not have been considered a libel at all. "Much (he remarked) has been said of the purity of the intention of the society; it is said they had nothing in view but moderate reform. But, Gentlemen, you will consider how far that is consistent, either with the tenor of the address itself, or with what is sworn to by Mealmaker, who drew the first draught of it, and who swears expressly, that at that time he had not in his contemplation a second petition, and what was afterwards to be done would have depended upon circumstances. I much fear that here Mealmaker is telling the

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truth, and that how they proceeded would have depended upon circumstances." In that case, you will observe, that a seditious libel was dispersed over the country without any consequence being contemplated but that of inflaming the minds of the multitude. On the other hand, we have been at pains to shew, that the pannels in this case were quiet orderly per sons, not concerned with any seditious societies, not connect. ed with any political parties, only feeling distress, thinking they had grievances to complain of, and that they could better their situations by petitioning Parliament. They met to gether in the most orderly manner,-deliberated as it is usual to do in public meetings,-prepared resolutions,-prepared a petition,—and signed it,-and that petition, though couched in strong terms, was presented to the Houses of Parliament, considered, received, and laid on their tables. Is the right of petitioning, then, to be interrupted in this extraordinary manner, by bringing the petitioners into the Court of Justiciary?

Recollect that this was a meeting for considering the propriety of petitioning the Legislature, and that the meeting would have been altogether nugatory unless the persons then met had been allowed to state their opinions to one another. In the first page of this indictment, the pannel is charged with having wickedly and feloniously delivered " a speech containing a number of seditious and inflammatory remarks and assertions, calculated to degrade and bring into contempt the Government and Legislature, and to withdraw therefrom the confidence and affections of the people, and to fill the realm with trouble and dissention." Gentlemen, wherever the people are exposed to grievances, they necessarily must, when they meet to consider the means of redress, express their sense of these grievances; and I ask whether it be possible to state public grievances, especially grievances arising from such a source as over-taxation, without in some way or other reflecting on the Government. In the exercise of our right of petitioning against grievances, these grievances must be mentioned; and it is impossible to mention them, or even to allude to them, without bringing the Government into discredit. For example, let a petition be presented against over-taxation, whatever were the causes of the evil,-wars just or unjust,unavoidable misfortunes, or misconduct in public affairs,—it is lawful to state the grievance. But can it be stated without affecting more or less, or attempting to affect, the public opinion as to the merits or demerits of Administration? Every public statement respecting public affairs has that tendency. But are the people to be interrupted on such grounds, in

the exercise of their just rights? It is of the essence of their right to complain of grievances, and therefore I apprehend you must disregard entirely those general expressions in the indictment charging M'Laren's speech as tending to bring the Government into contempt. The petitioners felt grievances;-they prepared petitions, and it is impossible to state a public grievance without throwing blame upon the Govern ment. I do not mean to examine the question, whether there really was any blame attachable to Government; for it is the same thing in this case whether the petitioners were right or wrong in their statement. My defence is, that they were in the fair prosecution of legal views. Suppose no words to have been uttered but what would in other circumstances have been considered seditious, their having had a right object in view is a good defence. But every sort of obloquy has been thrown on the petitioners, without any notice of the lawful object they had in view, as if their object were to be laid entirely out of consideration.

Gentlemen, The legality of the object, and the situation in which the speeches were uttered, are the most important circumstances of the case. Every thing else is of a trivial and subordinate nature. But let us see what the pannel is alleged to have said. No positive evidence has been adduced to prove any part of his speech, except a few words at the end of the passage quoted in the Indictment, and, so far as I have observed, you have only the uncertain evidence of one person to these words. I shall remark upon the words in the Indict

ment.

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"That our sufferings are insupportable, is demonstrated to the world." I do not say, whether their sufferings were insupportable or not; but they appear to have been severe, and the people were met for the purpose of considering them, and to join in petitioning for relief. Here I presume is no sedition.

"And that they are neither temporary, nor occasioned by transition from war to peace, is palpable to all, though all have not the courage to avow it." I do not say that proposition is palpable to every body. Some are disposed to think that the calamity has been occasioned in consequence of the sudden transition from war to peace, and some dispute that proposition. Some are of opinion, that if we had continued the war, at an expence of a hundred millions a-year, we should have infallibly secured the national prosperity and greatness. Į shall not attempt to settle these points, nor is that necessary to the present argument, and I beg leave to protest against the idea that I give any opinion upon them at all. Perhaps

Mr McLaren may include me in his censure for my want of courage in not avowing my opinion.

"The fact is, we are ruled by men only solicitous for their own aggrandizement; and they care no farther for the great body of the people, than they are subservient to their own accursed purposes. If you are convinced of this, my countrymen, I would therefore put the question, Are you degenerate enough to bear it? Shall we, whose forefathers set limits to the all-grasping power of Rome; shall we, whose forefathers, at the never-to-be-forgotten field of Bannockburn, told the mighty Edward, at the head of the most mighty army ever trod on Britain's soil," Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further;" shall we, I say, whose forefathers defied the efforts of foreign tyranny to enslave our beloved country, meanly permit, in our day, without a murmur, a base Oligarchy to feed their filthy vermin on our vitals, and rule us as they will? No, my countrymen." A commentary was made on this passage, though it is not proved that the pannel ever spoke it. The Prosecutor takes it for granted, without evidence, that the words were spoken. I am therefore not under the necessity of defending these words. But are they in reality so culpable? Are they seditious? Gentlemen, they are mere words of course, in expressing those public grievances to which they refer. Every child knows that they are the common and hackneyed terms used by petitioners for public reform, and (excepting one or two allusions, in which there is evidently no sedition), if they are not tame and feeble, they are at least neither seditious nor inflammatory. Every word applies to the professed object of the meeting in petitioning, and to no other object. The Prosecutor applies some of the words to the King, but this is a misconstruction quite unworthy of my Lord Advocate. Ministers, and the possessors of borough interest, are the vile Oligarchy, who are said to feed their filthy vermin on our vitals, and rule us as they will, and this attack was justifiable in the way it was made. What would avail the right of petitioning, if there was no right to petition against his Majesty's Ministers and their partisans? Ministers may be impeached in Parliament for their public conduct, and they may be complained of by the people in their petitions. Are petitions to Parliament against Ministers to be punished as sedition? What have we here? The opinion of the pannel that the Ministers have not acted in an honest way, or as Ministers ought to do. The opinion is expressed a little strongly, but it does not go beyond legal bounds. The pe tition was afterwards laid before Parliament, and was received with respect. Now the question before you is not,