(rising) May I see the newspaper, my Lord? (Newspaper travels from Sherwood, to Jarvis, to Baldwin, who studies it a moment.) Thank you, my Lord.

Mr. Wilmot, what exactly do you do for Mr. Stegman?

May it please your Lordship. Gentlemen of the jury, (addressing audience) the duty which I have this day to discharge gives me both pleasure and satisfaction; pleasure, because I am called upon as a public advocate to defend a faithful friend of the people against one of a series of political persecutions; and satisfaction because I feel assured of his honorable acquittal.

My Lord, members of the jury, to understand what is taking place in this Court of King's Bench it is necessary for me to dwell at some length on the character of Mr. Collins, or, as my Lord will have it, the character of the accused.

Yes, my Lord, I understand, and I am sure the members of the jury also understand.

What is the case against my client? Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the alleged offending article read here in open court. Many of you may have read it yourselves -- it was published openly in the pages of Mr. Collins's newspaper, the Freeman. Does Mr. Collins deny authorship? No, gentlemen. Mr. Collins acknowledges he reported, wrote, composed in type, and himself printed the account of the proceedings complained of in the indictments preferred against him.

I have in my hand (holding up paper) another copy of the Canadian Freeman in which that report was published. Here on the front page appears one name, and one name only. It reads "Printed and published by F. Collins, New-street, one door north of Market-square, at 1£ (one pound) per annum, payable in advance." This is common knowledge. Market-square is scarce an hundred yards from where we are assembled in this courtroom.

Many of you, I wager, are personal subscribers to the Freeman -- customers of Mr. Collins -- some, indeed, may be old customers.

You are told that this is a simple prosecution against Francis Collins; but, open your eyes and see the blow which, under that pretense, is aimed against the Press.

In our day and age, gentlemen, the Press is the most powerful engine of the human mind. It diffuses knowledge far and wide. It is the Press which discusses public measures and enlightens the public mind. It is the Press which criticizes the public conduct of public men, and drags them from the recesses of courts and cabinets (Robinson half rises; Sherwood waves him down) -- from the recesses of courts and cabinets, and holds them up before the tribunal of public opinion. It is the Press which makes the common people too wise; and therefore the Press is hated by many rulers, many, many rulers. And why? Because, to quote the Good Book "They cannot bear the light; neither will they come to the light, because their deeds are evil!" Hence it always has been with such men a grand desideratum how this nuisance called the Press can be put down or kept in a state of subjection.

Various, indeed, have been the intrigues and the contrivances in the history of different countries for the accomplishment of this daring purpose; but Upper Canada, considering that we form part of the freest Empire in the world, has perhaps been more fruitful of expedients than France, or Spain, or any other European power. And to the enduring honour of the Canadian Freeman and its associates in the public ranks, be it ever spoken -- they have risen superior to all fears and allurements in the discharge of a most important and, as you see this day, a very perilous duty.

Look at the case launched against my client with the full force at the command of the rulers of our day.

What did you think of their star witness, their only witness, the witless Wilmot? He "only carried out his orders", he has told you. How often has that excuse been offered by the Wilmots of the world who have gone before us, and how often will it be offered by the Wilmots of the future -- "I was only following orders!"

But, no matter how you view the evidence of the informant Wilmot, you, gentlemen, cannot overlook one important segment of his evidence. He mentioned five people during the course of his brief testimony. You remember them -- the paper boy, Matthew Keys; his fellow clerk, Eddie Coates; his own employer, Mr. Stegman, who instructed him to mark the newspaper each and every week; and his employer's son, young Mr. Stegman.

Then there was a fifth man named by Wilmot, the man who removed that newspaper from Wilmot's custody and keeping. And who was the fifth man? Why, none other than "young Mr. Sherwood". Young Mr. Sherwood was the fifth man. (Sherwood stirs on Bench.) Now, gentlemen of the jury, as is well known to all of us, there is only one "young Mr. Sherwood" in all of York, and that young Mr. Sherwood is the scion of a most prominent family also known to all of us. He is, in fact, the son of our presiding magistrate, the son of his Lordship himself.

Gentlemen of the jury, you cannot obliterate from your minds what is common knowledge to all of you. My learned friend says no evidence has been produced of kinship. And very conveniently he omitted to mention that young Mr. Sherwood not only is my Lordship's son but is also my learned friend's articled clerk. Learning the trade, one might say.

I contend, gentlemen, that my learned friend has produced no evidence of anything whatsoever of a libellous nature to support the charges laid against my client. But there is every evidence of an attempt to seek out, mark, and examine every weekly newspaper published by my client, Francis Collins. And to what purpose? To produce that grand desideratum of which I spoke earlier -- to place Mr. Collins on trial here today, to saddle him with all the costs of legal proceedings, to harass him with all the power available to officialdom, to lay him low, and destroy, forever, his newspaper, the Canadian Freeman. Therein lies the malignancy, if malignancy there be.

I have already spoken of the liberty, of the freedom of the Press. Gentlemen of the jury, I shall leave you with but one more thought.

Take away the salutary restraint of popular opinion which provides a powerful incentive to circumspection of conduct and you will open a sort of Pandora's box upon the community in which you live -- mistakes would multiply from the very impunity with which they would be committed. But when it is known that the Press is free to discuss, and to censure those errors which threaten to grow into encroachments subversive of the rights of persons and the liberty of the subject, then is immediately awakened that spirit of caution and prudence in putting forward undue pretensions and questionable rights, that spirit of caution and prudence on the part of rulers which is only enjoyed in those happy countries where the Press is free, and where juries have virtue and courage enough to keep it so. I trust, gentlemen, you have that courage today. (resumes seat.)

No, gentlemen. The person who is on trial here today is the accused, who is so busy scribbling beside his distinguished and, as he himself has written, most expensive counsel. It is Francis Collins, self-styled printer, publisher, proprietor, and editor of a newspaper in our own town of York, a fair community, a burgeoning community, filled with responsible and respectable citizens such as yourselves, and not to be belittled and besmirched with epithets such as "little York".

This is a community where law and order prevail; where commerce and prosperity are advanced under the benign rule of His Majesty, George the Fourth, long may he live; and under the leadership and guidance of His Majesty's representative, His Excellency, Sir Peregrine Maitland, our most esteemed and most honourable Lieutenant-Governor.

This is a community where men of some substance have gathered to do business, to lay the foundations of what may truly become one of the greatest centres of commerce in the history of the British Empire -- and not only of commerce but of its attendant growth -- education, culture, and underlying all, deep and reverent respect for law and order as represented in her courts of justice -- what my learned friend so disgracefully and opprobriously described as officialdom.

My learned's friend's advocacy of other systems, even of that coarse and vulgar democracy established by violence, by riot and rebellion, by our Yankee neighbours --

Gentlemen, you heard the witness Wilmot. He established the direct chain from publisher to public. Indeed, my learned friend has not contested this. In fact he could not. And so, authorship has been admitted.

And as to the author of the offending article, the accused -- gentlemen, Mr. Rolph says we are all known to each other here in York. Well, gentlemen, we all know the character of the accused.

And where was Mr. Collins when that Yankee invasion was launched? Why, safely at home in his native land, the land of the Celt, the land of the shamrock, the land of the spud!

For ten years Francis Collins has been a thorn in the side of our lawfully constituted authorities. From the very first day he landed in York he has been against authority. He has reviled its leading citizens; he has pried, and probed, and devoted all his exertions to placing the most scandalous, the most abhorrent interpretation on the actions of its leading families. Not even His Excellency, His Majesty's personal representative, has been spared the scorn of the accused.

But, gentlemen of the jury, this time the accused went too far. Spurred on by his "native malignancy" he attacked the very administration of justice, the foundation of our society, the bulwark of our Constitution.

My learned friend spoke of liberty of the Press, of freedom of the Press. With freedom goes responsibility. Freedom does not give licence to malign, to defame, to slander, to libel. The accused has abused that freedom. He has broken all bounds of human decency. He has held up to opprobium those who are his betters, his betters, let him like it or not.

The evils of a licentious Press have been loosed upon our land, and you, gentlemen of the jury, must take your courage in your hands, must stamp out those evils, must remove this wounding thorn, must stop this pestilent Press grandiloquently styled the Canadian Freeman, and to that end must find the accused guilty as charged, on all counts. (Takes his seat.)

Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Members of the jury, you have heard the evidence. You have heard counsel for the accused. You have heard the Attorney General. You have heard the offending article read out to you. Now it is your duty to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused.

You must put out of your minds all extraneous matter. You must review the evidence in isolation, absolute isolation from your knowledge of or participation in events affecting our community. You must disregard references to attacks upon His Excellency, the Lieutenant-Governor; you must disregard references to myself and members of my family. But you must bear down upon the evidence, and the evidence alone.

If it has been established to your satisfaction that the accused wrote and published the article in question -- and this has been admitted -- then the only matters remaining for you to decide are whether the comments contained therein are libellous in nature, and were written with the definite purpose of holding up to public ridicule not only a Judge of this Court, my colleague, Judge Hagerman, but also with the purpose of defaming two Officers of the Crown, the Attorney General, Mr. Robinson, and the Solicitor General, Mr. Boulton.

You listened to the offending article as it was read. In it the accused speaks (looking at notes) of his "old customer" Judge Hagerman. Now, Mr. Rolph and his latinity to the contrary, I view the expression "customer" as a figurative allusion to the business of merchants and mechanics, and it clearly implies that the accused, the editor of this paper, has dealt with my colleague previously, has made remarks about my colleague previously, as a retailer of calumny. But, gentlemen, in my opinion this editor is no petty retailer, but a wholesale retailer of calumny. This is my opinion, gentlemen, and as a Judge of this Court I have a right to express it.

It is contended by some that a judge has not the power to express his opinion in this way; but I contend he has the power, a constitutional power, to express his opinion on all matters that come before him -- a power that ought always to be exercised by a judge in the discharge of his duty; and I shall always give my opinion freely when I think my duty calls me so to do.

I think, gentlemen, that this is a libel, a gross and scandalous libel; but you can determine as you think proper. And whether you determine that it is a libel, or is not, I shall still retain my good opinion of you, as I know you will determine as you think right, and I have done my duty.

Gentlemen, you will now retire, and when you return you will present your verdict.