GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON A BODY OR CLASS. [To the Editor
of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It has been asked, apropos of a recent attack on us
(Hebrews), whether the law cannot protect the libelled. The following case (conflated from two reports : 2 Barnardiston, 138, 106 and W. Kelynge, 230 or 402) in 1732 shows, I think, that it can. (I omit nothing material.)
" The King and Osborne. Information was moved for against the Defendant for publishing a Paper entitled, A true and sur- prising Relation of a Murder and Cruelty that was committed by the Jews lately arrived from Portugal ; shcwing how they burnt a Woman and a new born Infant . . . because the Infant was begotten by a Christian . . . several Jews have been insulted by the mob upon this occasion. . . . The like cruelty had often been committed by the Jews, notwithstanding an Act of Parliament made in the Reign. of King Car. 2 to prevent Murders, &c., com- mitted by the Jews. It was objected that admitting that this
Paper was libellous yet the Charge was so general that no particular Persons could pretend to be injured by it. The Court : This is not by way of Information for a Libel that is the Foundation of this Complaint but for a Breach of the Peace, in inciting a mob to the Distraction of a whole Set of People ; and tho' it is too general to make it fall within the Discription of a Libel, yet it will be pernicious to suffer such scandalous Reflections to go unpunished . . . in the present Case several Affidavits were made that this Paper had so much incensed the mob against the Jews that they had assaulted and beat in a most outrageous Manner the Prosecutor, who was a Jew. The Court said that in the present case it is related in the Paper that the Fact there told is a Fact which the Jews have frequently done and therefore the whole Community of the Jews are struck at. And wherever that is the Case, they thought this Court [K.B.] ought to interpose. Accordingly they made the Rule absolute."
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