Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/330

Rh 

1788.

N the 12th of July, Lewis moved for a rule to fhew caufe why an attachment fhould not iffue againft Eleazer Oʃwald,  the printer and publifher of the Independent Gazatteer.

The cafe was this : Oʃwald having inferted in his newfpapers feveral anonymous pieces againft the character of Andrew Browne,  the matter of a female academy, in the city of Philadelphia, Browne  applied to him to give up the authors of thofe pieces ; but being refufed the fatisfaction, he brought an action for the libel againft Oʃwald returnable into the Supreme Court, on the 2d day oƒ July;  and therein demanded bail for Ł1000. Previoufly to the return day of the wit, the queftion of bail being brought by citation beforeMr. Juƒtice BRYAN, at his chambers, the Judge, on a full hearing of the caufe of action, in the prefence of both the parties, ordered the Defendant to be difcharged on common bail ; and the Plaintiff appealed from this order to the court. Afterwards, on the 1ʃt oƒ July, Oʃwald publifhed under his own fignature, an addrefs to the public, which contained a narrative of thefe proceedings, and the following paffages, which, I conceive, to have been the material grounds of the prefent motion.

‘‘ When violent attacks are made upon a perfon under pretext of juftice, and legal fteps are taken on the occafion, not perhaps to redrefs the fuppofed injury, but to feed and gratify partifanting and temporifing refentments, it is not unwarrantable in fuch perfon to reprefent the real ftatement of his cafe, and appeal to the world for their fentiments and countenance.

‘‘ Upon thefe confiderations, principally, I am now emboldened to trefpafs on the public patience, and muft folicit the indulgence of my friends and cuftomers, while I prefent to their notice, an account of the fteps lately exercified with me ; from which it will appear that my fituation  as a printer, and the rights oƒ the preʃs and of ƒreemen, are fundamentally ftruck as ; and an earneft endeavour is on the carpet to involve me in difficulties to pleafe the malicious difpofitions of old and permanent enemies.’’

‘‘But until the nows had arrived laft Thurʃday, that the ninth ftate had acceded to the new federal government, I was not called upon ; and Mr Page in the afternoon of that day vifited me in due form of law with a writ. Had Mr. Browne purfued me in this line “ without lofts of time,” agreeably to his lawyer's letter, I fhould  not have fuppofed it extraordinary−but to arreft me the moment the ƒederal  intelligence came to hand, indicated that the commencement of this fuit was not fo much the child of his own fancy, as it has been probably dictated to and urged on him by others, whofe fentiments upon the new conftitution have not in every refpect coincided with mine. In fact, it was my idea, in the firft progrefs of the bufinefs, that Mr. Browne was merely the hand-maid of fome of my