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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
** fl supporting a measure of which ^ rh were the features ? and what Si be the fate of it , if brought forward under other auspices ?—That circumstance alone would be sufficient to make many regard the wrongs of the college as imaginary , and their complaint * as the clamours
of faction : that circumstance would abundantly supply the place of that evidence of political guilt , which the precognition had so totally failed to bring ° forward . Many would find it easy to believe , that those might well
rejoice in the successes of Buonaparte , who thus , at * such a time , could endeavour to weaken the hands , or even to occupy the attention , of his most ardent and energetic adversaries . S . From the Courts of Law . —This
mode of seeking redress , though the last I have mentioned , is that which would first occur to every one ' s mind . Application to government , application * to parliament , would certainly
never be thought of by those who imagined that suitable redress could be obtained by regular process before the ordinary Courts of Justice . —But to many , at least , in the Faculty , this mode of seeking redress appeared not
more promising of success than the others . Though it was not known with certainty whether the information , on which the petition and
warrant for the precognition were founded had been originally communicated to the Lord Advocate , yet the Faculty had been informed by himself that the precognition and the proceedings
connected with it had been placed in his hands by the local magistrate , and were now in his custody . It was evident , therefore , that a process for compelling the exhibition of these documents , and the open disclosure of the information and the informer ,
ttiiist necessarily be a process against hfo lordship for an undue exercise of power , in withholding information which , for the ends of justice , the College were entitled to demand and to obtain 5 and of the success of such a process , few entertained any hopes
• - its utter failure was , by many , confidently , perhaps too confidently , antici pated , from the undefined nature fftd extent of the Advocate ' s powers lft all cases , arid the disposition genetttt y shewri to indulge the unrestrained exercise of them in cases similar to l be present . It was foreseen that he
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would resist our demands by a variety of arguments , which have been seldom overruled—certainly never , in those cases where offences , alleged to be of a political nature , were con * cerned : —he would plead the danger * ous nature of such crimes ; crimes
exposing to hazard the public tranquillity , the public safety ; indicating and promoting a spirit of sedition and disloyalty , of disobedience to lawful authority , of disrespect for the established government : — he would plead , that one of the most important of his functions , was to watch and
to check the first tendencies to such offences ; and that for its successful discharge , it was absolutely necessary that he should be permitted to protect , from resentment and enmity , those
individuals through whose information these offences were brought to his knowledge . On these general grounds , he would defend his right to withhold disclosures such as those which the
Faculty demanded—he would at the same time maintain , that in this particular case , there was nothing that called for the interference of the law with the use he had already made , or was now making , of the powers with which this office invested him—at
first , in acting upon the information communicated 3 and now , in main * taining determined silence as to the informer : for that ( as perhaps he might assert ) the informer in this case was one whose situation in society seemed to entitle him to credit ; and whose communications , therefore , called for the immediate attention of
the Law Officers , and warranted the investigation that had been made . His information , indeed , had been found to be groundless , but there was no reason to Relieve that , in giving it , he had acted from malice , or from any motives but those that were of a
public and honourable kind : he had only been deceived ; or if guilty of any faults , guilty only of raghnes * and indiscretion ; of too hasty a confidence in the truth of reports which he should have more carefully examined ; but these were faults of too venial a nature
to permit him on account of them to be subjected to all the hatred and contempt which , with little discrimination , are generally poured on all who bear the name of informer . Besides it would be asked by him , where waa the evil which he waa required
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Proceedings against Professor Mylne * on the Charge of Sedition . 469
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1815, page 469, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1763/page/5/
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