neighbours and equals,—a constitution that I may venture to affirm has, under Providence, secured the just liberties of this nation for a long succession of ages. And a celebrated French writer, who concludes that because Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have lost their liberties, therefore those of England in time must perish, should have recollected that Rome, Sparta, and Carthage, at the time when their liberties were lost, were strangers to the trial by jury.” It is jury trial which, says he,[34] “preserves in the hands of the people that share which they ought to have in the administration of public justice, and prevents the encroachments of the more powerful and wealthy citizens.” “And particularly,” says he further, “it is a circumstance well worthy of an Englishman’s observation, that in Sweden, the trial by jury, that bulwark of northern liberty, which continued in its full vigour so lately as the middle of the last century, is now fallen into disuse; and that there, though the regal power is in no country so closely limited, yet the liberties of the Commons are extinguished, and the government is degenerated into a mere aristocracy.”[35] I cannot therefore but regard the present as a crisis as great as any crisis through which this nation has ever passed. This country was once called on to decide whether it would permit the King for his satisfaction to override this 39th clause of Magna Charta, and it decided most emphatically that he should not. It is now called on to decide whether it will permit Parliament itself, for the sake of the lusts of certain men, to override this same clause. It remains for the people of England to decide this question, and a very solemn choice is given to you, my countrymen, at this moment: Are these men to have protection in their vices, or will you retain your liberties? If any of my readers, then, came to the consideration of this matter with the idea that there might be something to be said for this law medically, and that though there might be something undefinedly wrong in it, yet it embodied at least a benevolent intention, let him then remember that he has at the next election to answer this question for himself and his country: Shall we have liberty in lust, or shall we have political freedom? We cannot retain both. CHAPTER III. I now come to consider the cases to which I have before alluded, in which jury trial is dispensed with. I shall show their nature, and how the question to be decided under the Acts of Parliament to which we object in no way belongs to that class of questions.