the publick advantage, they should have my support, though I should reserve to myself the right of bring. ing forward the question of parliamentary reform whenever the proper moment arrived.

But the calumniators to which I have alluded, hot satisfied with these charges, have also dared to insinuate, that I am not averse to the success of the French in their designs against this country. Much as I despise the authors of these attacks I think it necessary to repel calumnies so gross. I cannot help considering it as a disadvantage to this country to hold out to the enemy that on landing here they would find supporters. Yet such are the falsehoods which these calumniators assert, such are the means by which they encourage the French to make the attempt. Af ter they have by their own lies induced the enemy to judge unfavourably of the temper of many people here, they turn round and impute the blame of encouragement to those against whom they forge the original calumny, and ascribe to us those impressions of the enemy which they have occasioned. But in case of invasion, who would be the men from whom the directory might flatter themselves with assistance ! Would it not be from those mean sycophants of power who follow every change, who have alternately been the creatures of every one in authority, and whose loyalty

Is the blind instinct that crouches to the rod, And licks the foot that treads it in the dust! Every man in the country must know that if the French were to succeed we should be the most de graded and absolute slaves that ever existed. No man can believe that those who oppose administration could for a moment abet the designs of an invading enemy. What then can we think of ministers, when we see them encouraging these base calumnies? What shall we think, when we see them holding out a person whom no man could suspect of disloyalty to his sovereign, or treachery to his country, as unfit to be trusted with arms for their defence. Of this subject, however, it would be irregular to say more on the

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present occasion, as it would more naturally form a separate consideration. Yet such calumnies as this did the creatures of ministers industriously propagate, and I mention them only to show that no man can take any share in opposition to the measures of administration, without being in this manner stigmatized. For my own part, though I never shall contribute to preserve his majesty's present ministers in office, I will exert every effort in repelling invasion from our coasts. I shall wait only my sovereign's command to take arms to defend my country, anxious to mingle in the hottest of the battle. Though I conceive there can be no more decided enemy to his king and country than the present minister, I should suspend all difference of opinion till the hostile attack was repelled. Then, however, I should return with the same abhorrence of his principles and detestation of his conduct, and vow eternal enmity to his system. I vow eternal hatred to the system on which they act. Were I ever to join them, may the just indignation of my country pursue me to the grave, may I be execrated by all mankind, and may the Great Creator of all things shower down his curses on my apostate head!

MR. M'INTOSH'S SPEECH,

IN DEFENCE OF MONSIEUR PELTIER, IN a TRIAL FOR A LIBEL AGAINST BUONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL OF THE FRENCH REPUBLICK, AT THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, ON THE 21ST OF FEBRUARY, 1803.

DURING the late temporary suspension of hostilities in which a weak, and irresolute ministry permitted the British nation to be unwarily seduced by the stratagems of an artful and perfidious enemy, there arose out of the pacifick relations thus established, one of the most memorable and interesting trials which was ever agitated in Westminster Hall.

The parties in this case were on the one side the Chief Magistrate of the French Republick, and on the other a stanch and virtuous Royalist, who was exiled and proscribed.

At an early stage of the dreadful revolution which scourged and desolated France, M. Peltier, the defendant, discerning in its principles and tendencies every thing that was abhorrent to his dearest attachments, and most sacred duties, sought an asylum in a foreign land.

To England, whither he fled, he brought all that remained to him of his wrecked fortune, an unsullied honour, the splendid endowments of intellect, and an honest, faithful, and ardent devotion to a righteous

cause.

While the eventful contest continued, he with unwearied perseverance appropriated his admirable lite

rary talents to the service in which he was embarked. Written in an animated, brilliant, and exhortative style, his various literary productions were widely circulated, and eagerly read. Throughout Europe they had confessedly a very salutary effect in arousing the supine, fixing the wavering, and encouraging the stedfast. When the Truce of Amiens took place, he drooped in despair, and remitted his exertions, But, after a short interval, gathering hope from the troubled aspects which Europe exhibited, he renovated his zeal, and once more put on his armour to resist the implacable foe of "Europe's peace, and Europe's happiness."

To facilitate the diffusion of his writings, he established a weekly paper under the title of l'Ambigu.*

Leaving the task of graver reasoning, and more formal political disquisition to others, he resorted in his journal to weapons of attack, which, if of less weight, were, perhaps, equally felt. With the sallies of wit, and the points of epigram, the shafts of ridicule, and the causticity of sarcasm he very successfully exposed, derided, and contemned, as they successively appeared, the multifarious incidents of the tragi-comedy which, was then rehearsing before the eyes of the world, by an insolent upstart, and an audacious usurper.

Determined, at once to suffocate the voice of the press, his Consular Majesty instructed M. Otto, his diplomatick representative at the court of St James, to demand, in his name, the punishment of the editor of Ambigu. The matter indicated as particularly offensive, was several articles contained in the initial numbers of the journal, which were alleged to be covertly designed to instigate to the assassination of the chief of the French Republick.

This application being most unaccountably complied with by the British ministry, a prosecution was

* A title adopted in reference to the ambiguity of the conduct of the French government, at this period, which the editor professed to uncover and expose.

accordingly instituted against M. Peltier, for a " Libel on Buonaparte, the first consul of the French Republick, and still more unaccountably, a British jury found the defendant guilty.

But though M. Peltier had to encounter the mortification of a disgraceful verdict, he escaped the penalty which it authorized. Before he was called up to receive the judgment of the court, the war broke out between the two countries, which stopt all further proceedings against him.

We cannot help considering both the prosecution, and the verdict, as unworthy of the stern and proud character which has ever attached itself to the English nation. "They were mean attempts to conciliate the favour of a sanguinary upstart; a haughty, ferocious, and tyrannical usurper, whose rooted hatred to England, was at the period of the prosecution, known by many, and despised by all. Dispassionate reason smiles at the idea of vilifying and defaming the character of Napoleon Buonaparte, that spotless, and immaculate character which the breath of slander never yet dared to taint!

It is painful to an honest mind to reflect, that political motives, or any motives, could influence a great nation to suppress, by the terrours of the law, the indignant feelings of virtue and probity, excited by the contemplation of the most atrocious deeds that ever disgraced, that ever sullied the human character. The first step towards slavery and vice is the impunity of guilt. When the preventive checks are removed, virtue must fall, and patriotism will be buried under the ruins of justice. There should be a moral tribunal, before which the greatest potentates ought to be amenable. That moral tribunal is the opinion of the world, the opinion of civilized society. The force that should drag man thither is the press, a kind of universal judicature, where every one arraigns his superiours, aud interrogates them; where every one pronounces upon the guilt, the infamy, and the disgrace; or upon the innocence, the virtue, and the