They, on being appealed to, declared that the criminality or innocence of any act was the result of the judgment which the law pronounces upon that act, and must therefore be in all cases and under all circumstances matter of law, and not matter of fact, and that the criminality or innocence of letters or papers set forth as overt acts of treason, was matter of law, and not of fact. These startling assertions had not much weight with the House of Lords, thanks to the able arguments of Lord Camden, and the bill passed, with a protest attached from Lord Thurlow and five others, in which they predicted 'the confusion and destruction of the law of England.' Of this bill, Macaulay says: 'Fox and Pitt are fairly entitled to divide the high honor of having added to our statute book the inestimable law which places the liberty of the press under the protection of juries.' Intimately connected with this struggle for the liberty of public opinion was another mighty engine, which was brought to bear, and that was the Public Association, with its legitimate offspring, the Public Meeting. The power and influence which this organization exerted were enormous, and, though it was often employed in a bad or unworthy cause--such, for instance, as the Protestant agitation, culminating in Lord George Gordon's riots in 1780--yet it has been of incalculable advantage to the progress of the state, the enlightenment of the nation, and the advancement of civilization, freedom, and truth. Take, for instance, the Slave-Trade Association, the object and scope of which are thus admirably described by Erskine May, in his 'Constitutional History of England':