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¬obstinate and protracted, but common sense pre- vailed in the end, and sophistical nonsense was overthrown. ¬I wondered much when I heard this strange history, but I 'have wondered much less since I came home; because I never can admit that Armata has more public spirit or wisdom than England, yet what at this moment is our own condition, though we are in complete, unques- tioned possession of the privilege just spoken of, and which for a season only she had lost? — The subject is so clear that I enter upon it without apprehension ; though I declare, upon my honour, that I should have known nothing of the law, nor ever even thought of it, if I had not left my own country and visited the nation I have been describing. ¬The Libel Act of Mr. Fox withdrew a long- exercised jurisdiction over the qualities of wri- tings upon general subjects, even from our most exalted judges, not because their justice and in- dependence were then particularly suspected, but ¬because ¬
