Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/131

Rh evidence of a settled plan to contract the legal power of juries, and to draw questions, inseparable from fact, within the arbitrium of the court. Here, my Lord, you have fortune on your side. When you invade the province of the jury, in matter of libel, you, in effect, attack the liberty of the press, and with a single stroke, wound two of your greatest enemies.—In some instances you have succeeded, because jurymen are too often ignorant of their own rights, and too apt to be awed by the authority of a chief justice. In other criminal prosecutions, the malice of the design is confessedly as much the subject of consideration to a jury, as the certainty of the fact. If a different doctrine prevails in the case of libels, why should it not extend to all criminal cases?—Why not to capital offences? I see no reason (and I dare say you will agree with me that there is no good one) why the life of the subject should be better protected against you, than his liberty or property. Why should you enjoy the full power of pillory, fine, and imprisonment, and not be indulged with hanging or transportation? With your Lordship's fertile genius and merciful disposition, I can conceive such an