In such a situation,
such a step requires not only great magnanimity, but unwearied activity
and perseverance, with a good deal, too, of dexterity and management, to
improve every accident in our favor.
The delivery of this paper may have very important consequences. It is
true that the court may pass it over in silence, with a real or affected
contempt. But this I do not think so likely. If they do take notice of
it, the mildest course will be such an address from Parliament as the
House of Commons made to the king on the London Remonstrance in the year
1769. This address will be followed by addresses of a similar tendency,
from all parts of the kingdom, in order to overpower you with what they
will endeavor to pass as the united voice and sense of the nation. But
if they intend to proceed further, and to take steps of a more decisive
nature, you are then to consider, not what they may legally and justly
do, but what a Parliament omnipotent in power, influenced with party
rage and personal resentment, operating under the implicit military
obedience of court discipline, is capable of. Though they have made some
successful experiments on juries, they will hardly trust enough to them
to order a prosecution for a supposed libel.
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