It is of the greatest importance for the people, by which term I mean all those who are not in the receipt of the public money, or any part of it, to bear in mind what passed at the time when Mr. Wardle first brought his charges forward. I was aware of this; I knew that every word then uttered would become of more and more consequence as the investigation proceeded. For this reason I was induced to depart from my usual practice, and to insert the debate entire. As it cannot be too often read, I will now remind the public, that the first part will be found at page 13 the conclusion at page 36. To this debate, as to a standard, I shall constantly refer. It is by looking back, that we are enabled to judge of what we have to expect. We are too apt always to forget the past. When any thing of interest arises, we attach our attention solely to that; but this is wrong; for, in fact, we see but half the thing without taking into view what has gone before.
This being my opinion, I will now endeavour to lead the abused people back to the beginning of the formal, public complaints, made in behalf of the Duke of York against the press; and, this is the more necessary, because it seems to me that every public writer appears to have forgotten them.
For more than a year past there have been, occasionally, little dirty pamphlets, complaining of libels against the Duke of York; but, they were so insufferably stupid, that no man of sense thought it worth his while to notice them.
In the month of August, however, when there had been published some pretty bold paragraphs against the Duke’s being sent to Spain, there was published a pamphlet, entitled “A plain statement of the conduct of the ministry and the opposition towards his royal highness the Duke of York.” It was in this pamphlet, as the public will not soon forget, that it was stated, that there existed “a family council, a domestic cabinet,” to protect the King even against his ministers; that the Queen was at the head of this council, and the Duke of York a leading member of it.
The pamphlet states, in substance, that the late ministry wished, and even attempted, greatly to abridge the power of the Duke of York; and, observe it well, the writer adds, “that his royal highness deemed it necessary to throw himself upon the protection of his ROYAL FATHER; and that the proposed measure of the Grenville party was thus defeated by the immediate interposition, not to say the COMMAND of his Majesty.” It is of great importance; it is of incalculable importance, that we now look back to these publications. But, the part of this memorable pamphlet (the writer of which has never been prosecuted) adapted more immediately to our present purpose, is that which relates to the complaints made by this writer against both ministries for NOT INTERFERING WITH THE NEWSPAPERS, in order to prevent publications against the Duke. Every word of this part of the pamphlet is now to be reperused and treasured up in the memory. Here is the passage, and I do beseech the people of this kingdom to read it over and over again.
“These incessant attacks could not but very seriously affect his royal highness, and after having maintained a dignified reserve as long as human patience could support it, he at length found it necessary to demand an inquiry into his conduct. Nothing could be so ridiculous as the affected astonishment of the ministry upon this demand. Who has presumed to attack the interest or the reputation of your royal highness? There are laws in the country to which your royal highness may appeal. Why should there be a formal inquiry where there is no formal charge? Why should the ignorance or malignity of the daily papers be raised into the consequence and dignity of having called forth an official inquiry? If any thing has been said or written against your royal highness, of which all his Majesty’s ministers must solemnly disavow even any knowledge, the Attorney-General should be ordered forthwith to commence a prosecution; and if your royal highness be unwilling personally to give your instructions to that officer of the crown, they may be given to the Treasury, by your royal highness’s secretary. But his Majesty’s ministers would think themselves deficient in a due sense of what they owed to their own dignity as his Majesty’s counsellors, if they adopted a popular rumour as sufficient grounds for an official inquiry.”
Well, this was pretty well, I think. What more did this writer wish them to do? He will tell us directly, in speaking of what he says has been the conduct of the present ministry, upon a similar occasion.
“It may be urged, indeed, in reply to all that has been said above, that the attacks complained of, have not been made with the knowledge, and still less with the consent or concurrence, of his Majesty’s ministers: that they are all of them too honourable men to concur in such a system of anonymous attack: that such a system, moreover, could answer no conceivable purpose: that the ministry are too strong in public opinion and confidence, to require the assistance of such unworthy arts. In a word, that such a persecution, and so indirectly put into operation, can have no purpose, and therefore that it is a reasonable inference that it has no existence.
To this it must be answered, that when his royal highness made similar representations, under the late ministry, the answer was uniformly, that his Majesty’s ministers were totally ignorant of the very existence of the facts alleged; that the law was open to his royal highness, and that the Attorney-General might be instructed to prosecute; that they had no influence or authority over the free press; and that they advised his royal highness to hold all such libellous accusation in the contempt which it merited.
It is notorious, however, notwithstanding all this disavowal, that the free press as it is called, and as it should be, is almost equally divided between the two leading parties in the country, and that the ministers and the opposition have the same influence, NOT TO SAY AUTHORITY, over them as if they were THE ACTUAL EDITORS. Has any instance ever occurred, in which a billet from Downing-street has been refused admission, and if required, an ample confirmatory comment, through all the Treasury papers? And will any, either of the ministry or the opposition, declare, upon their honour as gentlemen, that they have no authority or weight with the public papers? Whence does it happen, that the honour of parties is not the same with that of individuals, and that a party will assert conjunctively, what every individual of that party knows to be false? Why is there not the same point of honour with a party as with an individual?
The indecent language in the daily papers, is certainly not from the mouth of the ministers. It is impossible that men of honourable stations should descend to such terms, and to such anonymous acrimony. We are persuaded that his royal highness most fully acquits his Majesty’s ministers of any immediate participation in such libels. But the encouragement, the countenance, the impunity, of these libellers, is the efficient cause of the whole. Would the Editors of the Daily Papers thus write, unless they were persuaded that they were advocating a cause generally pleasing to their patrons? As to a legal remedy for this torrent of libel and invective, though a jury of his countrymen would visit the libellers with merited punishment, his royal highness, we believe, will not be lightly persuaded to introduce a practice which he has never approved. There have been, perhaps, already too many government prosecutions, and a precedent may thus be constituted, which, much to the injury of the free press, may be hereafter acted upon. Add to this that there may be innumerable allusions, inuendoes, and even assertions, which may have substance enough to wound, and that most deeply, but are not palpable enough for the visitation of the law. The libellers of his royal highness have been too long practised in their school, to commit themselves to the hands of a jury. Let any man of honest feelings read some of the cold-blooded articles which have lately appeared in many of the daily papers, and then answer, if his indignation be not moved by their savage malignity—yet are these libels conceived in terms so studiously picked and culled, as to elude the just vengeance of the law.
How many subjects, moreover, are there which, however grossly offensive to all honourable feeling, cannot be produced to the publicity of a legal trial. Let any man put it to his own mind—how many slanderous reports are daily in circulation to the ruin of the peace and character of their unhappy object, but for which the sufferer is yet unwilling to make his appeals to the laws of his country. There is a necessary and indiscriminating publicity in law, from which a mind of any DELICACY cannot but avert. His royal highness has indeed suffered much, but he will suffer still more, we should think, before he can persuade himself to call on the laws of his country.”
So, here we have an expression of this writer’s