Gentlemen, there is one point of view in which this case seems to merit
your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the
greatest empire the world ever saw; the defendant is a defenseless,
proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the first of a long
series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world and the only
Free Press remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English
Press is new--it is a proud and melancholy distinction. Before the great
earthquake of the French Revolution had swallowed up all the asylums of
free discussion on the Continent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more
fully than others; but we did not enjoy it exclusively. It existed, in
fact, where it was not protected by law; and the wise and generous
connivance of governments was daily more and more secured by the growing
civilization of their subjects. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial
towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland
and Switzerland are no more; and, since the commencement of this
prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of
independent States by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a
precarious and trembling existence. I will not say by what compliances they
must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness of States,
whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore.

One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one spot
in Europe where man can fully exercise his reason on the most important
concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts
of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The Press of England is still
free. It is guarded by the free Constitution of our forefathers. It is
guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen; and, I trust I may venture to
say that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British
Empire. It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of
European liberty has perished. That ancient fabric which has been gradually