Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/30

xvi. King.—If the premises were admitted, I should deny the conclusion. It is not true that the temper of the times has in general an undue influence over the conduct of juries. On the contrary, many signal instances may be produced of verdicts returned for the King, when the inclinations of the people led strongly to an undistinguished opposition to government. Witness the cases of Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Almon.—In the late prosecutions of the printers of my address to a great personage, the juries were never fairly dealt with.—Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, conscious that the paper in question contained no treasonable or libellous matter, and that the severest parts of it, however painful to the King, or offensive to his servants, were strictly true, would fain have restricted the jury to the finding of special facts, which, as to guilty or not guilty, went merely indifferent. This particular motive, combined with his general purpose to contract the power of juries, will account for the charge he delivered in Woodfall ' s trial. He told the jury, in so many words, that they had nothing to determine, except the fact of printing and publishing, and whether or no the blanks or innuendoes were properly filled up in the information;