person and government, whether by writing or speaking, or by tokens,
calculated to lessen him in the esteem of his subjects, or weaken his
government, or raise jealousies of him amongst the people, will fall
under the notion of seditious acts." An offence which admits of so
little precision in the terms in which it is defined, depending often
upon the meaning to be attached to words, the real import of which is
varied by the tone or gesture of the speaker, by the words which
precede, and by those which follow, depending also upon the different
ideas which men attach to the same words, evidently rests on very
different grounds from those cases, where actual crimes have been
perpetrated and deeds committed, which leave numerous traces behind,
and which may be proved by the permanent results of which they have
been the cause. Technical difficulties without number also exist: the
most literal accuracy, which is indispensable--the artful inuendoes,
the artistical averments, which are necessary, correctly to shape the
charge ere it is submitted to the grand jury, may be well conceived to
involve many niceties and refinements, on which the case may easily be
wrecked. It must also be remembered that the utmost legal ingenuity is
called into action, and the highest professional talent is engaged in
the defence of the accused. The enormous pressure upon the accused
himself, who, probably from the higher or middle classes, with ample
means at his command, an ignominious death perhaps impending, or, at
the least, imprisonment probably for years in threatening prospect
close before him; his friends active, moving heaven and earth in his
behalf, no scheme left untried, no plan or suggestion rejected, by
which it may, even in the remotest degree be possible to avert the
impending doom; the additional rancour which politics sometimes infuse
into the proceedings, the partisanship which has occasioned scenes
such as should never be exhibited in the sacred arena of the halls of
justice, animosities which give the defence the character of a party