1820 Oct. 11 Spanish liberticide measures 2 1. Gorelli 2. Torreno English

liberticide Acts

Unlimited /Boundless/ fine and imprisonment for the first offence, unlimited

/boundless/ banishment for the second offence, is under one of them the lot of

every person convicted of composing, printing or publishing …. any seditious

libel, tending to bring into hatred or contempt the person of his Majesty .… or

the Government and Constitution of the United Kingdom as by law established, or

either House of Parliament … Have you then Gentlemen, any such desire as that of

rendering the Cortes the Council of State, the Ministers the Council of State,

the Cortes – not to speak of Your Monarch and yourselves objects of universal

hatred and contempt apply to Marquis Wellesley, get from him the six Acts and in

particular this Act, and copy them into the book of your laws. Do this or any

thing like it, and be sure you will not miss your ruin. Ask him whether at this

moment there /if man/ exists man, woman and child that thinks to whom /there

exists/ at this moment those sacred objects are not in the lump so many objects

of contempt. Not to speak of so many prædatory and otherwise oppressive laws and

institutions all made for the express purpose of sacrificing the interest of the

subject many to those of the ruling few – (for with the exception of such

governments as those of the Anglo-American United States, that by the necessary

and unchangeable Constitution of human nature has been the prime object of all

governments) – consider whether it be possible that if any the slightest

imperfection in any law or act of any public functionary any indication

/intimation/ can be given, in such sort that it shall not be in the power of any

Judge without the smallest danger of punishment to himself, and under the

fullest assurance of high reward, to ascribe to the work a tendency, and to

convict and punish as for the design to bring into hatred and contempt all those

consecrated objects, the all persons having any part in composing, printing or

publishing the obnoxious work.