From The London Times, January 15, 1824
"The Vision of Judgment"  - The King vs. Hunt
A Record of the Libel Trial before the Court of the King's Bench
On January 16, 1824, John Hunt was put on trial for slandering the late King George III and causing pain and suffering to his family by publishing Byron's "The Vision of Judgment" in The Liberal. The case was an important test of free speech, and it was obvious that John Hunt was being tried as a proxy for Lord Byron, who was then residing in Italy and beyond the reach of English law. As is often the case in such trials, the effort to suppress "The Vision of Judgment" actually served to bring it to the attention of a wider audience, especially since the entire text of the poem was entered into the trial record and subsequently published as part of the news story in the London Times.

The following image files come directly from the Friday, January 16, 1824, edition of the Times. A portion of the front page is included, in part because of the historical curiosity of the "Help Wanted" ads that were then the primary features of the page.

Please note that some of these image files are quite large and may take some time to load onto your computer. Please be patient.

The front page of the London Times, Jan. 16, 1824 (235K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 1 (149K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 2 (130K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 3 (147K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 4 (163K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 5 (155K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 6 (132K jpg file)
(At the end of this section, the full text of "The Vision of Judgment" was reprinted in the newspaper. I have not thought it necessary to scan that portion of the article.
The account of the trial -- pt. 7 (124K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 8 (158K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 9 (177K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 10 (136K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 11 (73K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 12 (50K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 13 (144K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 14 (151K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 15 (157K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 16 (147K jpg file)
The account of the trial -- pt. 17 (58K jpg file)


Images scanned by Jeffrey D. Hoeper. For further information please email me at jhoeper@astate.edu
Last edited 8/28/03