1820. Octr. 13. Spanish liberticide measures 5 §. 2. Press violation Reasons

against libel law

2. Prosecution if practicable /in these cases employable/ and commonly practised

/employed/ would not in any degree approaching to equality be effectual or

applied /employed/ in any thing like so small an expence. In any and every such

case, if punishment be the instrument employed, prosecution must precede it,

prosecution with its delay vexation and expence. Not to speak of private

business, from the interruption given to public business the mischief is

considerable considerable in the course of the year or term of years even where

the instances are few. How much more considerable if prosecution had place in

every instance where in any of the situations in question delinquency has /had/

place?

In the case where it is by the liberty of the press that the check to misrule is

applied the judicatory before which the matter is brought is the tribunal of

public opinion the tribunal of the moral or popular sanction. Expence none: pay

to actors in the drama /the dramatis personae/, prosecutors, witnesses, judges,

none: delay, of that factitious kind in the manufacture of which judicatories in

general have hitherto been so successfully industrious none: vexation, except to

the accused none: and to him the vexation /suffering from it/ rises in

proportion to delinquency and be it what it may, takes the place and operates in

lieu of, and spares /saves/ the expence of punishment.

In both cases the greatest multitude of appropriate facts and with it arguments

applying to them capable of being brought to view without the help of this

liberty is as nothing in comparison of what may be and naturally will be brought

to view under favour of and by this liberty.