Hicky's Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper by Andrew Otis

Hicky's Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper by Andrew Otis

Author:Andrew Otis [Otis, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9789386850911
Publisher: Westland Publications
Published: 2018-05-26T16:00:00+00:00


A Man Among Dregs

As for the poor they utter their complaints to the wind, the seat of [Justice] is by far too remote from them, for their tales to be heard.

– Anonymous Contributor, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, 30 June 1781.494

9.32 a.m., Friday, 29 June 1781.

Supreme Court House.

Almost no records remain of Hicky’s fourth trial.

Davies opened the prosecution and read Hicky’s article, A HINT AT A DISTANCE TO THE Proprietors of India Stock, which called on the Company’s officers to mutiny, and maybe even launch a coup because their ‘throats’ were devoted to ‘wild chimeras of a madman’.495

‘This libel calling on the whole army to mutiny is much worse than erecting the standard of sedition in one camp. The other part, though it might injure Mr Hastings in the opinion of the people in England, and is therefore very deserving of punishment, is not of so enormous a nature as the part of the paper concerning the Company’s military’s officers,’ he said.

Learning from his first failure, Davies switched tactics and argued that not only did the article refer to Hastings, it was explicitly published with malice. So even if the jury was unpredictable they would still find Hicky guilty.

Still, he reminded the jury that it was the judges’ responsibility to determine whether Hicky printed with malice, not theirs, and they should respect that tradition.496

Hicky stuck to the same arguments too. He again cited Parson Prick. He told the jury that he, like Prick, did not create the libel. He only reprinted it and thus he should be acquitted.

Impey summed up the case to the jury. He made his contempt for Hicky clear.

‘Mr Hicky, a man among the dregs of the people, keeps sepoys at his house,’ he said.

The jury debated for forty minutes and then returned. This time they sided with Davies and agreed that the judges had the right to determine libel. They pronounced their verdict:

Guilty of printing the article.

Impey pronounced the judges’ decision.

Guilty of libel.497

Hicky and Davies wrangled for leverage and the terms of his punishment over the next few weeks. Hicky argued that his advocates had been intimidated, but when his advocates said they had not been intimidated, the Court dismissed his claim. Davies argued that Hicky had aggravated his libels by printing the satiric playbill and distributing special edition extraordinary gazettes the day of the first trial.

Impey agreed with Davies. He told the Court he believed the freedom of the Press was no freedom at all, but actually enslaved people by intimidating them.

‘This is the boasted liberty of the press, the produce of a real slavery. Mr Hicky threatens those who prosecute him. Mr Kiernander swore he had great difficulty to get any lawyer to undertake his cause,’ he said.

‘It is now a very complicated case of crimes and misdemeanours and contempt. I have not yet considered the case to be ready to give judgment. If my brothers are prepared they will say so,’ he continued.

‘We are not,’ Chambers and Hyde replied.

‘Then the court will take time to consider the sentences .



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