But to show that it is the principal thing which, in my opinion, makes a libel, suppose that the information had been for printing and publishing a certain _true_ libel, would that be the same thing? Or could Mr. Attorney support such an information by any precedent in the English law? No, the falsehood makes the scandal, and both make the libel. And to show the Court that I am in good earnest, and to save the Court’s time and Mr. Attorney’s trouble, I will agree that if he can prove the facts charged upon us to be _false_, I shall own them to be _scandalous, seditious, and a libel_. So the work seems now to be pretty much shortened, and Mr. Attorney has now only to prove the words _false_ in order to make us guilty. MR. ATTORNEY. We have nothing to prove. You have confessed the printing and publishing. But if it were necessary (as I insist it is not), how can we prove a negative? I hope some regard will be had to the authorities that have been produced, and that supposing all the words to be true, yet that will not help them. Chief Justice Holt,[5] in his charge to the jury in the case of Tutchin,[6] made no distinction whether Tutchin’s papers were true or false; and as Chief Justice Holt has made no distinction in that case, so none ought to be made here; nor can it be shown that, in all that case, there was any question made about their being false or true. MR. HAMILTON. I did expect to hear that a negative cannot be proved. But everybody knows there are many exceptions to that general rule. For if a man is charged with killing another, or stealing his neighbor’s horse, if he is innocent in the one case he may prove the man said to be killed to be really alive, and the horse said to be stolen never to have been out of his master’s stable, etc. And this, I think, is proving a negative. But we will save Mr. Attorney the trouble of proving a negative, take the _onus probandi_ on ourselves, and prove those very papers that are called libels to be _true_. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE. You cannot be admitted, Mr. Hamilton, to give the truth of a libel in evidence. A libel is not to be justified; for it is nevertheless a libel that it is _true_. MR. HAMILTON. I am sorry the Court has so soon resolved upon that piece of law. I expected first to have been heard to that point. I have not, in all my reading, met with an authority that says we cannot be admitted to give the truth in evidence upon an information for libel. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE. The law is clear that you cannot justify a libel.