I will then ask whether it be lawful to print that which it is not unlawful to proclaim in the face of a court of justice? And above all, I will ask whether it can be criminal to discuss the abstract principles of government? Is the theory of the law a prohibited subject? I had understood that there was no right so clear and undoubted as that of discussing abstract and theoretic principles, and their applicability to practicable purposes. For the first time do I hear this disputed; and now see what it is the Attorney-General prohibits. He insists upon punishing Mr. Magee; first, because he accuses his administration of “errors”; secondly, because he charges them with not being distinguished for “talents”; thirdly, because he cannot discover their “striking features”; and fourthly, because he discusses an “abstract principle”! This is quite intelligible--this is quite tangible. I begin to understand what the Attorney-General means by the liberty of the Press; it means a prohibition of printing anything except praise respecting “_the errors, the talents, or the striking features_” of any administration, and of discussing any _abstract principle of government_. Thus the forbidden subjects are errors, talents, striking features, and principles. Neither the theory of the government nor its practices are to be discussed; you may, indeed, praise them; you may call the Attorney-General “the best and wisest of men”; you may call his lordship the most learned and impartial of all possible chief justices; you may, if you have powers of visage sufficient, call the Lord Lieutenant the best of all imaginable governors. That, gentlemen, is the boasted liberty of the Press--the liberty that exists in Constantinople--the liberty of applying the most fulsome and unfounded flattery, but not one word of censure or reproof. Here is an idol worthy of the veneration of the Attorney-General. Yes; he talked of his veneration for the liberty of the Press; he also talked of its being a protection to the people against the government. Protection! Not against errors--not against the want of talents or striking features--nor against the effort of any unjust principle--protection! Against what is it to protect? Did he not mock you? Did he not plainly and palpably delude you, when he talked of the protection of the Press? Yes. To his inconsistencies and contradictions he calls on you to sacrifice your consciences; and because you are no-Popery men, and distributors of Bibles, and aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and Protestant petitioners, he requires of you to brand your souls with perjury. You cannot escape it; it is, it must be perjury to find a verdict for a man who gravely admits that the liberty of the Press is recognized by law, and that it is a venerable object, and yet calls for your verdict upon the ground that there is no such thing in existence as that which he has admitted, that the law recognizes, and that he himself venerates.