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no control over the expenditure of the revenues of the royal burghs, but that they had no voice whatever in the election of those very magistrates who disposed of their property. That grievance, he supposed, the learned Lord meant to leave wholly untouch ed. He regretted now, that he had been prevented by the expectation of this measure, from introducing the subject to the House on a more extended scale. The bill was read a first time; but a considerable number of petitions were presented against it, and it was generally considered, by the persons interested, as unsatisfactory and inadequate. Being found, therefore, rather to aggravate the discontent which it was intended to sooth, the Lord Advocate finally determined to withdraw it.

Lord Archibald Hamilton, on the 10th April, brought forward a motion respecting the interference of a peer in the election of a member of the House of Commons. It had occurred in the course of his Lordship's contest with Sir Alexander Cochrane for the county of Lanark. The of fence was contained in the following letter, from a person pretending to have the authority of Lord Douglas:

"Glasgow, May 24, 1817.

No. 50, Miller street. "Dear Sir,-According to your desire, I communicated to Lord Douglas your wish to have a situation under government for your young friend Mr Dykes; and I am authorized to state, that if you support his Lordship's views in politics, at the first election, his Lordship will secure an eligible situation for your friend, which will be of great advantage to him; and as you are independent of the Hamilton family, I think you should accept of Lord Douglas's offer. If you have not made a promise to Lord Archibald Hamilton, I think you have good

grounds to get clear off from what you mentioned regarding your vote, for you certainly have not been well used.

"If an application is made to you from the Hamilton family to promise your vote, I think you should not grant it, until I see you in Glasgow, when I will tell you all about the matter. Sir Alexander Cochrane is not at home just now, otherwise I would have written you more particularly: have the goodness not to mention this matter until the whole is arranged. I will write you when the noddy is painted, and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs Dykes at Glasgow.-I am, dear sir, your most obedient servant,

THOMAS FERGUSON." (Addressed)

William Dykes, Esq. of Lambhill, by Strathaven.

Lord Archibald acknowledged the receipt of a letter from Lord Douglas, giving a general denial, that the letter in question was written by his authority. He insisted, however, that this did not supersede inquiry; and, besides, the answer which he had received from the noble Lord to the communication which he had made to him, was, as he had before observed, couched in terms so general, as not to be altogether incompatible with the inference that Ferguson's letter had been written with the noble lord's authority.-Mr Wynn said, that this was a case of direct bribery-a most serious invasion on the privileges of the House. The Lord Advocate insisted that there was no proof of the object of the motion,-theinterference of a peer in the Common's election. They had the positive denial of Lord Douglas, while the person using his name was not even a factor on any of his estates; nor, so far as he knew, at all in his employ. He thought the

more proper course would be to put Ferguson upon his trial; and he would be ready, to the best of his abilities, to execute any order the House might give upon this subject. Lord A. Hamilton having complained of other unhandsome measures used to exclude him from Lanarkshire, the Lord Advocate declared, that he knew of, and had been concerned in none; but he could not help observing, that the Duke of Hamilton had made, out of his great estate in Lanarkshire, thirty votes, called parchment votes, to secure the election of the noble Lord. After some farther debate, it was determined to refer the question to a committee of privileges.

On the 27th April, Mr Wynn presented the report of the committee, which bore, that Thomas Ferguson, by the above letter, had grossly violated the privileges of the House. On the reading of this report, Ferguson was immediately ordered into custody. On the 5th May, Sir F. Burdett moved for the immediate discharge of Ferguson. He insisted that his offence was only similar, but in a smaller scale, to that which had been proved against Lord Castlereagh, and some other members of administration. Yet Ferguson had been dragged from his country and family, and shut up in Newgate, for an offence ten times less. Lord Castlereagh observed, that, without giving any opinion on the case of Ferguson, he could not help remarking, that the only object of the honourable Baronet appeared to be, to lower the character of the House. He did not feel at all sore on the personal allusions to himself; that subject having met with the full consideration of the House. Mr Wynn strongly opposed the motion of Sir Francis, which was then negatived.

Ŏn the 13th May, Mr Wynn moved

for the removal of Ferguson from the office of surveyor of taxes which he now held. This very office rendered it illegal for him to interfere, yet he had not only done so, but had used, without any authority, the name of a peer of the realm. Mr Wynn endeavoured to prove that dismissal from office had been the uniform punishment inflicted by Parliament in such cases. Sir F. Burdett, however, moved the reading of the petition of 1793 from the friends of the people, stating that a majority of the House were nominated by peers; and also the resolution of the 18th April 1793, relating to the great Grimsby Election, by which the Hon. W, W. Pole was declared guilty of bribery through his agents. Lord Folkestone, however, could not agree, that because great offenders escaped, small ones should plead this escape to secure impunity. Mr Bathurst, on the ministerial side, supported the motion; but Mr Sturges Bourne, Mr Lyttleton, Lord Binning, and Mr Canning, thought that Ferguson had already been sufficiently punished; that it would be unfair to use his own evidence against himself, and also to deprive him of all means of subsistence. The motion was then negatived by a majority of 106 to 57.

Meantime, Ferguson continued still under confinement. Having, however, on the 18th presented a petition for release, Lord A. Hamiltion, on the following day, stated that the House not having judged proper to visit this person with loss of office, he considered his confinement to have now continued for a sufficient length of time, and moved that he should be to-morrow called up and discharged. The motion was acquiesced in by Mr Wynn, and Ferguson was accordingly discharged next day, with a severe reprimand.

CHAPTER X.

FRANCE.

State of Parties.-Law respecting the Press-Debates in the Two ChambersRejected.-Law for the Recruiting of the Army-Agreed to.-The Budget. The Concordat.-Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle.-Treaty for the Evacuation of France by the Allied Powers.

FRANCE, at the commencement of the present year, might be considered in a decidedly improved situation. Every period, however short, which elapsed without any actual commotion, was so much gained for the monarchical and constitutional system. The failure of all the hopes and efforts of the votaries of the former regime, tended much to lower the hopes which had hitherto buoyed them up. Those daring spirits, which had lived in the lofty excitement of war and adventure, began in despair to apply themselves to regular and peaceful occupation. A confidence in the permanence of the existing order of things tended, beyond any thing else, to secure that permanence. This confidence began to diffuse itself even among the other powers of Europe; and France was allowed to hope for some release from those enormous burdens, and that humiliating subjection, which had succeeded to her former wide extended dominion. Finding thus, after such awful vicissitudes, the sun of tranquillity be

ginning to dawn, she applied herself now to the settlement of her internal administration. Almost all the measures bearing this tendency, which had been hitherto taken beyond the charter, could only be considered as temporary and provisional; it was now time to fix them on a durable basis. France, thus occupying herself in tranquillity with the establishment of a new order of things, had many sources from which she could cull improvement. She could preserve or restore whatever was worth preserving in her ancient regime; she could retain all the improvements introduced by successive revolutionary systems, cleared from their attendant deformities; in fine, she could borrow from her neighbours whatever appeared most eligible in their respective institutions. These delicate operations, however, were to be performed amid external tranquillity indeed, but a violent conflict of parties within. The parties to which the French Legislative Assemblies afforded the arena of contest,

were arranged in a very unusual order. The natural division in a mixed government, and that always verified by British experience, is into the court and country party, the Whig and Tory, into one which seeks continually to extend, and another, which seeks to limit the power of the monarch. In France, on the contrary, the moderation of the King, with the delicate and perilous situation in which he stood, made him more afraid of his too vehement friends than of his open enemies. His ministers endeavoured to take a middle station between the ultraroyalist party on the one side, and the ultra-liberal or semi-republican on the other. They had thus to contend against not one, but two violent and inflamed oppositions. The strictly ministerial party formed a decided minority, as the votaries of plain reason must always be; yet, by the influence of the Crown, and by concessions to the more moderate members of the parties contending on either side, it was converted, on most questions, into a narrow majority. The hope, which might seem reasonable, of playing off one opposition against the other, was usually disappointed. When the vote came, these two furiously hostile factions usually coalesced against the measure of ministry. They opposed it, indeed, on completely contrary grounds; but still they equally opposed it. The high royalists, perhaps, were those who viewed the measures of the Court with the deepest hostility. These were men of principle, like the old English Tories; they supported monarchy against monarchy itself-supported it without hope of the usual rewards, but in the face of neglect and almost persecution. This body considered itself as deeply and mortally wronged. The Sovereign appeared to them to have been seized

with a fatal frenzy, which made him treat as enemies the only persons who were really attached to himself and his cause; while some of his worst enemies were counted in the number of his friends. To this preposterous system they attributed all the disasters which had befallen the house of Bourbon since its first restoration, and augured others equally fatal as likely to ensue from their obstinate perseverance in it. The opposite party considered the Court as its natural enemy, and though it pushed the opposition with rigour, felt not those stings of disappointed expectation and personal enmity, by which the others were so deeply embittered.

In this state of things, the session of the Legislative Body, opened on the 5th November, 1817, excited an extraordinary interest. The first question which gave rise to discussion was the law proposed by government relative to the liberty of the press. A free press had been nominally recognised by Louis in the charter; but subject to such regulations as might be necessary to repress its abuses. The regulations made on this ground had been hitherto such as to render the principle in a great degree nugatory. In the present proposition, the restraints were very far from being abrogated. A distinction was made between crimes and offences against the law; the former, of rare occurrence, were alone carried to the higher tribunals; the latter, including almost all those which incurred the animadversion of government, were placed under the jurisdiction of the police, before which were dragged the most distinguished authors along with the refuse of society. There was, nominally, no censorship, unless on the journals; but an author was required, some time before the actual publication of

his work, to deposit a copy in the office of police; and this deposit was, in the eye of the law, considered as publication. In mitigation of this, he was, upon allowing the whole impression to be seized, absolved from any farther penalty. The offence was also proscribed at the end of a year, reckoning from the day of deposit. The censorship on Journals and periodical works, which treated on politics, was proposed to be continued till the 1st January, 1821. This last article was defended by M. Pasquier, the keeper of the seals, as necessary in the situation of the kingdom, in circumstances improved doubtless, but still serious, among a people scarcely escaped from a long political convulsion, which had seen almost all its ancient legislation condemned, without being able to conceive for the new system that species of veneration which time alone brings in aid of human institutions.

In France, all projects of law must pass through a committee before any debate on them takes place. The committee could not consider the deposit of a book as a publication; at the same time, they considered it advisable, that government, thus advertised of the existence of a work dangerous to the state, should have the power of prosecuting prior to the actual publication. To exempt, however, an author from prosecution, upon his agreement to suppress his work, appeared to them "an awkward capitulation between the accusers and the accused, suited to the dignity neither of the man of letters nor of the judicial power." It proposed to continue the censorship on the Journals only till the end of the following session. Trial by jury, and even by a special jury for the purpose, had been proposed by some members, but rejected by the majo rity.

The first opponent of the measure was Baron Martin de Gray, who considered the subjection of the press to the police, and the system of prosecution and seizure prior to publication, as more injurious than censorship itself. What the law called offences against the press, were much more important than what it called crimes. These last were only of rare occurrence. Offences against the press differed from all other offences. They acted on the whole social system. "They are connected," said the orator, "with the liberty of thought, on which all other liberties depend; for the manifestation of thought is the moving and vital principle of every free and representative government. In the judges, who are to pronounce on those offences, how important to secure impartiality, independence, intelligence, and almost a turn of mind expressly suited to that particular object. Yet, in a country which has consecrated the institution of a jury, the police courts are to decide on the exercise of a right which is the very soul of our constitutional system; these subaltern tribunals are to sit in judgment on thought, on genius, on opinion, that queen of the world, as they sit on beggars and on vagabonds. You empower a common police-officer to fix the limits of thought, and to say to human reason, thou shalt go no farther.'-Another respect in which these offences differed from all others consisted in the interest which government must always take in the decision. All governments aim at the extension of their power: for they are composed of men; they aspire to despotism, and their main attack is uniformly directed against the liberty of the press, because it is the strongest barrier against absolute power. Hence that natural, and as it were innate struggle, between

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