Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The First Trial of William Hone, on an Ex-Officio Information: At Guildhall, London, December 18, 1817, Before Mr. Justice Abbott and a Special Jury, for Publishing a Parody on the Late John Wilkes's Catechism of a Ministerial Member
Mr. Hour. Rose, and addressed the Court to the following pur. Port - He called upon the jury, 'as earnestly and as solemnly as the attorney-general had done, to decide upon this case according to their oaths. If he felt, any embarrassment on this occasion, and he felt a great deal, it was because he was not in the habit of addiessing an assembly like that: he had never, indeed, addressed any assem bly whatever; and, therefore, he hoped that they and the 'court would show their indulgence to him, standing there as he did, unassisted by counsel, to make his own defence. If he were really guilty of this libel, as the attorney-general had called it, he should not have stood there this day. So far back as May, he was arrested under a warrant by the Lord Chief Justice of that Court, Lord Ellenborough, and brought suddenly to plead to informations filed against him. He did not plead, because he conceived the pro ceeding by information to be unconstitutional, and he thought so still. However ancient this mode of proceeding might be, he was satisfied that it was never intended to be exercised in the way that it had been of late years. By this process, every man in the kingdom however innocent he might be, was entirely at the mercy of the Attor. Ney-general, and of the Government. There was no security for honour, integrity, and virtue; no presentment to a jury, no previous inquiry; the victim was taken in a summary way by warrants, and brought to answer suddenly to informations of which he was wholly ignorant. Another objection which he had to plead on that occasion was, the enormous expense that must have been incurred. He had been given to understand, that making his defence in the usual way, by solicitor and counsel, would cost lool. Which would have been at ter ruin to him. 'he applied to the Court for copies of the informa. Tions, but the Court did not grant him those copies. He was sorry for this, because if they had been granted, he should have known what he was specifically charged with. On Friday last, he applied for copies at the Crown-office, and upon paying the customary. Charges, be procured them. When he was placed on the ?oor of the Court of King's Bench, the late attorney-general, Sir William Garrow, stated, that the informations charged him with blasphemous publications.
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