_Sir William Temple_ says, "They may make me do things which are in my power, and depend on my will; but to believe _this_ or _that_ to be true depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence, and information which I have. And will civil discouragements and incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment, enlighten the understanding, convince men’s minds of error, and inform them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgment they have framed of things? _Nothing can do this but reason and argument_: this is what our minds and understandings will naturally yield to, but they _cannot_ be compelled to believe any thing by outward force. So that the promoting of _true_ religion is plainly out of the magistrate’s _reach_, as well as beside _his office_." Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution, so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate’s power, as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book; or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in an awkward position in having to defend a man’s right to publish, while I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam’s opinions, and the manner in which he has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be my ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am a wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to the best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest, well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described, in the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the esteem and regard of his friends and associates.