Handbill headed 'Mr. Brougham's Speech, In Defence of the Queen, As delivered in the House of Peers.'

Printed on one side of a piece of laid paper roughly 37 x 24.5 cm. Worn and spotted, with particular wear to the extremities, but with the text entirely legible. Printed in two 63-line columns, beneath a 3-line heading in an arrangement of various point-sizes, mixing italics and roman, capitals and lower case. The account of the speech, presumably extracted from a newspaper and intended for sale by street hawkers, begins 'MR. BROUGHAM commenced his speech to the House in a low tone of voice' and ends 'Their Lordships would perhaps expect he should now go into some review of the character of Theodore Majocci. He had been long known in this country, and would be recollected as long as his favourite epxression was remembered. He was an important witness, for he spoke to almost every transaction. After various other remarks Mr. Brougham closed his Speech.' Williams was a radical printer who was prosecuted and found guilty of libel in November 1817, as a result of his republication of William Hone's 1817 liturgical parodies. The trial was intended by the Attorney General as a test case before bringing charges against Hone