Yet this is now our policy.

We are exposed to all the dangers--dangers, I conceive, greatly over-rated--of a free Press; and at the same time we contrive to incur all the opprobrium of a censorship.

It is universally allowed that the licensing system, as at present administered, does not keep any man who can buy a press from publishing the bitterest and most sarcastic reflections on any public measure, or any public functionary.

Yet the very words 'license to print' have a sound hateful to the ears of Englishmen in every part of the globe.

It is unnecessary to inquire whether this feeling be reasonable; whether the petitioners who have so strongly pressed this matter on our consideration would not have shown a better judgment if they had been content with their practical liberty, and had reserved their murmurs for practical grievances.