Folios 186 -187. Folio 186. Attorney-General's report to [?Lord Weymouth] regarding...

Folios 186 -187. Folio 186. Attorney-General's report to [?Lord Weymouth] regarding punishment of the printer and author of a libel. As he is unable to start the prosecution until 6 November when the new Law Term begins he has directed steps to be immediately taken to establish proof of publication. He writes 'There is no doubt but that it is criminal by our laws to offer such insults to Princes in alliance with His Majesty, as may tend to disturb the public peace, or break the friendship between His Majesty and his allies; but your Lordship will see reason to think that the absurd fiction of this scurrilous writer was rather introduced for a purpose that comes nearer to ourselves than to violate the sacred characters of those great sovereigns whose names are made use of. But, however the event may turn out, nothing shall be omitted that the law will enable me to do, to carry His Majesty's intentions into execution. If the issue should not be such as might be expected in other countries governed by a different constitution, I presume to imagine, that the ministers of those great courts, who are so justly offended with the licentious insolence of this paper, are to enlightened to ascribe the inadequate result of such proceedings to anything but the difference of the laws'. Signed Wm [William] de Grey. Folio 187. Note [? in de Grey's hand] 'If your Lordship think it proper I see no objection to yout sending to the printer to let him know the offence such publications must necessarily give and the mischief they will do, and to forbid him publishing any more such papers but this must be done in such a way as that the man must not understand that his forbearing to print for the future is to exempt him from punishment for what is past'.