It signifies nothing whether a
court for this purpose be a Committee of Council, or a House of
Commons, or a House of Lords; the liberty of the subject will be
equally subverted by it. The true end and purpose of that House of
Parliament which entertains such a jurisdiction will be destroyed by
it.
I will not believe, what no other man living believes, that Mr.
Wilkes was punished for the indecency of his publications, or the
impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a common
slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well believe that
nothing more was meant than was pretended. But when I see, that,
for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous
writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished,
nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on
Royal Majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable
invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the
country, have not met with the slightest animadversion; I must
consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence. Never did an
envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and
private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled
licence.
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