ABSTRACT
The law and the press have been described as the two central generators of ideology in early eighteenth-century England. Letters were among the principal genres through which they intersected and the phrase 'the tribunal of the public' was commonly invoked to describe this place of intersection. This chapter explores a selection of cases aired before the tribunal of the public, distinguishing them from letter-writing by individuals accused of crimes, in which they appealed to people with influence for help. These kinds of letter-writing overlap in various ways, but the latter were not often published. Legal uses of letters in the eighteenth century show the interdependence of personal and public worlds; paralegal uses underline it. Letter-writers and readers recognized that the choice of politeness or rudeness towards those with power had material consequences. Those seeking to clear their names or secure livelihoods had to balance the efficacy of plain writing against polite writing: plain might offend, polite might be ignored.
