At that time Thurlow, whom I introduced to you a little while ago, was Attorney-General, looking for further promotion from the Tory Government of Lord North. Mansfield was Chief Justice, a man of great ability, who has done so much to reform the English law, but whose hostility to America was only surpassed by the hatred which he bore to all freedom of speech and the rights of the Jury. The Government was eager to crush the liberty of the American Colonies. But this was a difficult matter, for in England itself there was a powerful party friendly to America, who took our side in the struggle for liberty. The city of London, however, was hostile to us, wishing to destroy our merchants and manufacturers, who disturbed the monopoly of that commercial metropolis. The government thought it necessary to punish any man who ventured to oppose their tyranny and sympathize with America. Accordingly it was determined that Mr. Horne should be brought to trial. But as public opinion, stimulated by Erskine, Camden and others, favored the rights of the Jury, it seems to have been thought dangerous to trust the case to a Grand-Jury. Perhaps the Judge had no brother-in-law to put on it, or the Attorney-General--though famous also for his profanity,--doubted that any _swearing_ of his would insure a bill; nay, perhaps he did not venture to "bet ten dollars that I will get an indictment against him." Be that as it may, the Attorney-General dispensed with the services of the Grand-Jury and filed an information _ex officio_ against Mr. Horne, therein styling him a "wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person;" charging him, by that advertisement, with "wickedly, maliciously, and seditiously intending, designing, and venturing to stir up and excite discontents and sedition;" "to cause it to be believed that divers of his Majesty's innocent and deserving subjects had been inhumanly murdered by ... his Majesty's troops; and unlawfully and wickedly to encourage his Majesty's subjects in the said Province of Massachusetts to resist and oppose his Majesty's Government." He said the advertisement was "a false, wicked, malicious, scandalous, and seditious libel;" "full of ribaldry, Billingsgate, scurrility, balderdash, and impudence;" "wicked is a term too high for this advertisement;" "its impudence disarmed its wickedness." In short, Mr. Horne was accused of "resisting an officer," obstructing the execution of the "process" whereby the American Provinces were to be made the slave colonies of a metropolitan despotism. The usual charge of doing all this by "force and arms," was of course thrown in. The publication of the advertisement was declared a "crime of such heinousness and of such a size as fairly called for the highest resentment which any court of justice has thought proper to use with respect to crimes of this denomination;" "a libel such that it is impossible by any artifice to aggravate it;" "It will be totally impossible for the