Mr. Hobhousesaid, that he had been intrusted with a petition from an individual who considered himself aggrieved by the Association of which the House had recently heard so much. It was from a person of the name of King, against whom an indictment had been preferred by this Constitutional Association, supported before the grand jury by the evidence of only one witness, Horatio Orton. Indignant at the attempt that had thus been made to render him amenable to the laws, when the indictment was thrown out, Mr. King published his case in the newspapers. This step had induced Mr. Orton to make an affidavit, which the petitioner asserted contained direct falsehoods. He did not know that in a legal point of view, the offence was of that extent; but assuredly in a moral sense Orton had been guilty, if the petitioner were believed, of the crime of perjury. It was said that Orton had inquired of King who was the publisher of the pamphlet on which the prosecution was founded, when he must have known at the time that it was Dolby, because an indictment was preferred against Dolby on the 17th May, and his name as the publisher was on the back of the first part of the work, bought by Orton on 16th May. It seemed quite clear that some person or persons had suborned Orton to what appeared to the petitioner very like perjury. One point was undeniable, viz. that King had committed no crime whatever. When it was inquired for, he had not the objectionable publication in his possession. This was on the 16th of May; consequently, the individual sent out by the Association endeavoured to entrap an innocent man in the commission of a crime. The object of the petitioner was, that some means might be devised by which he should be able to get at the real names of the committee which induced Orton to go to the shop of Mr. King. The case was one of a most atrocious nature; it was an attempt to ruin an industrious man by bringing him into a court of justice for a work of which He was not only not the publisher, but which he had not even in his shop. The individuals forming this association seemed resolved to make crimes if they could not find them ready Made to their hands. The Society for the Suppression of Vice 1182 had stated, that the prosecution of Davidson cost it 177l. If, then, a prosecution cost a whole body of men so much, what must a defence cost an individual? How were these small traders, selected as victims, to find funds to resist this powerful Association? Prosecutions might be suspended over the heads of innocent men to eternity. In crown prosecutions copies of the indictment or information were to be given to the party accused; but in proceedings instituted by this body, such copies might cost the person charged from 10l. to 20l. This was a state of things not to be endured. As to the legality of the society, the solicitor-general had said that the judges of the King's bench had declared that the Association was legal. That was not the fact: the point of legality never came before the court, and the judges had said nothing about it. It had been said, that as a society to prosecute felons was legal, this Association must be so: but the distinction was clear. When a felon was committed, there was a corpus delicti; a criminal act had been done; and the question was, who had done it s but in a case of libel there was no corpus delicti; and it was a question for the jury to decide, whether any offence at all had been committed. Whatever doubts, however, might exist as to the legality of the Association, there could be but one opinion as to its tendency. If its object had been fair and honest, it would have prosecuted Dolby the publisher at once, and not have sent its agent three or four times to the shop of the petitioner. The effect of the Association would unquestionably be, to foment and extend political animosities.
§ The petition was read, and ordered to be printed.