Page:Statement of facts relating to the trespass on the printing press in the possession of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in June, 1826.djvu/31

 we were not indicted, although he tells us himself, that he was expressly applied to and declined to prosecute.

I shall only say of this, that it is like Mr. Mackenzie.

As to the amount of damages awarded, I have no inclination to say much on the subject, nor do I think I need. It is but justice to Mr. Mackenzie's Counsel, however, to say, that they resorted to no unfair or unworthy means, to inflame or prejudice the Public. The Jury have by Law the discretion of measuring the damages, and it would be wasting time to say much of the manner in which they have exercised it. I have no wish to do more than observe, that for insults far less aggravating than abound in Mr. Mackenzie's paper of the 18th May, 1826, he is stated to have been twice horse-whipped in different parts of the Province, and for that particular paper, to have been hung in effigy at Kingston and at Ancaster.

Of these outrages he has thought it prudent to take no notice. Had I, or any other person, whom Mr Mackenzie had grossly libelled in that paper, met him in the street and chastised him on the spot—as he deserved—I know not what damages he might have succeeded in obtaining here—but we have all read enough of such proceedings in other countries to know that his chance of Six Pence damages with an English Jury, who should have heard his libels read, would have been at least doubtful. By what law, or upon what principle it is that the property of a Ruffian is more sacred than his person, I am at a loss to understand.

But I have done with Mr. Mackenzie and his verdict.—Before I conclude, I have a few words to offer, which I think are required by a sense of justice to others.

The Public know the individuals who were associated with me in the attack upon the Advocate Press—most of them were