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JAMES THOMPSON CALLENDER. 833

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lished the hook—that the chargea were false, seandalous and mali-
cious, and that he wrote them with intent to defame, aud that if he
could prove the charges he must be acquitted. The same question,
“whether they had formed and delivered an opinion on the charges
againat the traverser,” was put by the Jupas, to eight of the other
jurymen suecessively, before they were sworn in ebief, and they all
answered in the negative.

Mr. Hoy said that it was unnecessary to put this question to the
other three jurymen, and they were accordingly sworn in chief im~
mediately, The eighth juror, Bassett, answered, when the previous
question was put to him, that though he bad never read or heard
the ebarges in the indictment, and knew not what the traverser had
published, yet he had formed an unequivocal: opinion, that such a
book as “The Prospect Before Us,” came within the sedition law.
But no objection was made to him, and he was sworn like the rest.

The Clerk read the indictment to the jury, which was in
these words:

The grand inquest of the United States of America, in and for
Virginia diatriet, upon their respective oatha do present, that James
Thompson Callender, Jate of the distriet of Virginia, printer, be-
ing a person of wicked, depraved, evil disposed, disquiet and tar-
bulent mind and disposition, and felsely and maliciously designing
and intending to defame the Presdent of the Unted States, and to
bring him into contempt and disrepute, and to excite the hatred of
the good people of the United States against him on the first day
of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred,
and of the independence of the United Btatea of America the twen-
ty-fourth, in the Virginia district aforesaid, and within the juris-
diction of this honorable court, did wickedly and maliciously write,
print, utter and publish, a false, seandalous, and malicious writing,

. against the said President of the United States, of the tenor and
effect following, that ia to say, ‘the reign of Mr. Adams (mesaing
John Adams, eq. President of the United States) has been one
continued temptest of malignant passions, As President, he (mean-
ing the said President of the United States) has never opened his
(meaning the seid President of the United States) lips or lifted his
(the said President meaning) pen without threatening and scolding;
the grand object of his (meaning the said President of the United
States) administration, has been to exasperate the rage of contend-
ing parties, to calumniate and destroy every man who differ from
his opinions. Mr, Adams (meaning the President of the United
States) has labored, and with melancholy success, to break up the
bonds of social affection, and under the ruins of confidence aud
friendship, to extinguish the only gleam of happiness that glim-
mers through the dark and despicable fares of life.”

And also, the following false, seandalous, and malicions words,
that is to say, “the eontriver of this piece had been suddenly cone

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