Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 7

and there must be twice the amount of evidence which would be legally competent to establish his guilt in a criminal prosecution for any other offence, even by the meanest and most helpless of mankind. Sedition is a head of crime of a somewhat vague and indeterminate character, and, in many cases, it may he extremely difficult, even for an acute and practised lawyer, to decide whether the circumstances amount to sedition. Mr East, in his pleas of the crown, says, that "sedition is understood in a more general sense than treason, and extends to other offences, not capital, of a like tendency, but without any actual design against the king in contemplation, such as contempts of the king and his government, riotous assemblings for political purposes, and the like; and in general all contemptuous, indecent, or malicious observations upon his 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 conflict, and which cause a conviction to be looked upon as a political defeat, and an acquittal to be regarded as a party triumph--all these circumstances, in their combined and concentrated force, must also be take into consideration. In such a case every step is fought with stern and dogged resolution; even mere delay is valuable, for when all other hope is gone, the chapter of accidents may befriend the accused; it is one chance more; and even one chance, however slight, is not to be thrown away. Such is a faint picture of the defensive operations on such occasions: how is this untiring, bitter energy met by those who represent the crown?
"Look on this picture and on that."
Here all is calm, dignified, generous, and forbearing; every consideration is shown, every indulgence is granted, to the unfortunate being who is in jeopardy. The crown has no interest to serve beyond that which the state possesses in the vindication of the law, and in that cool, deliberate, and impartial administration of justice which has so long distinguished this country. Nothing is unduly pressed against the prisoner, but every extenuating fact is fairly laid before the jury by the crown; it is, in short, generosity, candor, and forbearance, on the one side, matched against craft, cunning and the resolution by any means to win, upon the other. Such are the real difficulties which may be often felt by those who conduct a state prosecution. Surely it is better far that these difficulties should, in some instances, be even wholly insuperable, and that the prosecution should be defeated, than that any change should come over the spirit in which these trials are now conducted; or that the crown should ever even attempt to make the criminal process of the law an instrument of tyranny and oppression, as it was in the days of Scroggs and Jefferies, and when juries, through intimidation, returned such