Note 3 — Chapter XIX · “THE FOLLY, COMMON TO ALL TYRANTS, IS THAT THEY PUSH THINGS TOO FAR.”

“The use which Sir Vicary Gibbs generally made of his power of issuing ex officio informations was to lay an information against the offending writers, but not to proceed to trial, exacting a promise from them that, if he did not pursue it, they would write nothing offensive to the Government, and thus holding it in terrorem over their heads.”—Andrews’s “British Journalism,” ii. 57.