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merous. The ruined man is ever a discontented subject: if every one indeed that has no property bears ill-will towards him who has, how much more will he do so that has known the pleasure of possession, and felt the pain of loss. It is enough unless a man's mind be endued with more strength than falls to the lot of most people, to sour the disposition, and reverse every feeling of social order and attachment. Ill success in the world makes the true democrat. Agricultural countries are, for the most part, exuberant in a contrary feeling; unused to change, they neither wish it or expect it. We need but little experience in travelling either in our own country or abroad to show the truth of this remark and this may be urged as one more reason, in addition to what has been before stated, of the necessity of present circumspection and restraint in some fashion or other.

This class of weekly writers, however, are fond of alluding to the revolution that took place within our memory in France: it will be fair, therefore, to follow their example. Arguments without facts are but of little avail. We shall find upon examination that universal suffrage was desired by the legislative assembly; that is, that every man above the age of twenty-one should be entitled to vote in the primary assemblies. Now that period of the revolution, which is so full of disturbance, and slaughter, and rapine, that even the advocates for republicanism themselves, hold it up to general detestation, and consider it as having brought the eause of liberty into discredit. Upon this decree, in fact, were elected the members of the national convention; and mark the consequence-Louis XVI. (than whom a more weak and harmless, and benevolent being never breathed) put to death, and Robespierre (than whom a more ferocious and blood thirsty despot never breathed) was raised to supreme power and this by the same heartless, spiritless, ignorant, brutalised herd of legislators. They bent themselves and their country under a rod of iron. The butcheries and confiscations by which he was obliged to seek to support his government and make the fortunes of his agents, the abominations of Leben, of Carrier, the noyades, the guillotinades, the massacre of Lyons, told a lesson to the thinking part of the world that no day will ever efface from their remembrance. No tyranny is so harsh and grinding as the tyranny of a democrat.

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If we may draw another lesson from the same quarter it should be this, that the factious party discoverable in our own country must not be disregarded merely because the number of the initiated is small: all the greater atrocities that were committed during the French Revolution were said to be chargeable upon a small but active body of confederates. Those indeed must have a strange conception of the French character or indeed of human

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nature, who can suppose that the horrors here alluded to, were the act of the nation, or even generally approved by them. public mind was unsettled and demoralised by the artful writers of the day; and whatever good feeling remained, was prevented from displaying itself by the audacity of the confederate anarchists, and the promptness of their blows: nay, the whole energies of the nation were at one time paralysed by the workings of a system, which has been usually known by the name of the reign of terror. It was, we must allow, infamous enough in the nation to have suffered these acts; but at no time were they so far vitiated or corrupted, as generally to participate in the commission, or to wish for their continuance. But, as has been before remarked, when the public mind is once changed, or even unsettled, it is a poor and bungling proficient that cannot take advantage of the occasion.

In France there were a select few, members of the Jacobin club, who formed themselves into a junta called the Philanthropic Society, of whom Robespierre was one. They are supposed to have directed under-hand all the acts of violence that were committed, their agents being seen employed in their execution on al-' most every occasion. When the massacre of the priests at the convent of the Carmelites was perpetrated, the doors both of the church and the garden were closed, the people took no part, and were not even admitted. Another instance of the same nature might be quoted, and in general the murders of those days were committed, as has since been discovered, by one and the same kind of men, not being more than about fifteen or sixteen in number.

What is still more striking is the following fact: On the 20th August, the greatest blow of the revolution was struck, namely, the attack that was made on the palace of the Tuilleries, by which the King with his family were driven to seek shelter in the Convention, and to surrender not only his power, but his personal liberty, and eventually his life: the very night preceding new elections of the commune of Paris everywhere took place; the assemblies were called in haste, and scarcely any of the electors, except those concerned in the secret, were consequently in attendance. In that of the Lombards only eight persons were collected, and of these, five became commissioners: it is said, indeed, that the numbers who gave their votes on that occasion, throughout all the forty-eight sections, were only about six hundred. It was through the niedium, however, of this new commune, that the chief plots were carried on: and their influence and agency was such with the

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'One or two of the coupe-têtes, or head-cutters, as they called themselves, who displayed their prowess at Versailles in the murder of the guards, wore long beards (doubtless for the same reason that Brandreth let his grow) that they might not afterwards be recognised.

mob who were the terror of the day, that it was more than once complained of by the speakers in the New Convention: but those even in that body who dared to raise their voices against this party, were overawed by the means of revenge which they possessed; and, though then acting as the appointed governors of the nation, were completely kept in check by the ruling powers of the city of Paris.

We too may have among us, for what we know, a small but active band, ever ready to be embodied, as occasion may serve that this was the case at the time of the corn bill riots, we well know, when the same persons, and those neither formidable in number, nor yet men of the lowest classes, formed everywhere the assailing party. We too may have a party like them that may make the most vigorous attacks on the monarchy, under the cry of Vive le Roi! and like them preface every motion of the bloodiest import, with phrases of general philanthropy, and wishes for the general good. Heaven grant the mask may not be worn long! there is indeed a melancholy similarity to be traced in points like these.

Yet may we from the same source draw, perhaps, some ground of consolation: and when we see, even after the seeds of ruin had been so long sown among the French nation by their specious and false philosophers, how long a struggle still was necessary before the people could wholly renounce their attachment to the old course of things; when we reflect how much was requisite to wean their love from even a despotic monarchy, and to estrange them from their connexion with a vain, overbearing, and impotent aristocracy, we must confess that we view in our condition much reason for assurance and exultation. We derive some comfort from the character of the times, and the promises of stability afforded by our own better state of things.

We have not heard an incapable prime minister publicly solicit the advice and opinions of the pamphleteers of the day. We have not seen a king incapable of conducting himself with the firmness which his station requires. We have not amongst us a flattering nobility, that would on the first alarm desert their posts, and seek that support abroad which they might themselves have afforded at home. We are as yet sound in heart and whole.

The French Revolution arose, because the bad faith and habit of deceit, engendered by a vicious and arbitrary government, had deranged the moral feeling of every rank in the nation: whence sprung up a viperous race of witlings, who found ample matter for their malice in the state of things around them, sciolists in the school of real philosophy, giants in the manoeuvre of the glossy language of the court and the times. The French Revolution arose, because the nobility and privileged orders, bred up in a corrupt court, were a race unapt for the struggles of the world: the older

men bigotted to old ideas, and unable to comprehend the changes of the season; the younger men, vain indeed as their fathers, but displaying their weakness in a manner more suitable to the rawness and inexperience of their life; enthusiastic in the adoption of democratic ideas and principles of liberty, of which they understood only (alas!) a few phrases. Because the clergy, the constant supporters of order, were as nothing in the eyes of an atheistical age. Because a dissolute Prince of the blood possessed command of wealth enough to corrupt the populace, and buy them over to his own criminal purposes. Because the tiers état was composed of men burning with rage against the oppression of the privileged classes, and who found themselves (as if on a sudden) invested with a species of new and untried authority that turned their brains. What wonder is it then that in the midst of classes so superficially set out, so ill combined together, so devoid of any true principle of moral action, should be found a nest of traitors who sought to build their own fortunes on their neighbours' ruin? Or what wonder if there was bred up under such classes as their superiors, a race of common people ignorant and poor, and the willing and fit machines of the crafty and avaricious.

Nevertheless we must not presume too far on the advantages of our condition, or on the experience we have enjoyed of the real nature and powers of freedom. If our state is different, our natural means of self-destruction may be so too, and we may yet contain within ourselves some poisonous element that lurks unseen.

The main point to be regarded is, the best mode of invigorating the public mind by fairer and juster representations of affairs, than is now afforded them; and preventing the continuance of that species of deception, which has so long been too successfully carried on. But in doing this, we must accommodate our ideas to the condition of the times, and the progress of light and letters which characterises the present æra, and propose such new measures for circumstances, as those means themselves may place in our hands.

As a free press is necessary to the existence of our constitution, the first object should be to insure the punishment of those who abuse that freedom, and seek to impose upon the public mind. Now for this purpose, the existing laws are manifestly and avowedly insufficient. No man, however guilty, will be convicted by a London jury, if the tenor of the libel for which he is indicted be in consonance with the popular notions of the day. The public writers form the minds of their jury before-hand, and turn them as they wish; tampering as it were in anticipation with those who are hereafter to stand in judgment over them. While as now

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the jury give a verdict " upon the whole matter in issue," practically speaking, the law tends to favor the circulation of popular prejudices and calumnies.

The present race of Sunday journalists have chiefly grown up since the day that the acquittal of the editor of the Black Dwarf, for a libel, gave an assurance of impunity to all who embarked in similar pursuits. Every little bookseller now who has been injured by the difficulties of the times, or, perhaps, by his own misconduct, sets up, as it is called, in the 'sedition line:' he sticks up his bill of rights and wrongs, plasters his windows with abuses in capital letters, prints hand-bills about tax-payers and tax-caters, and lures his customers, if not by his sense or argument, at least, by his wantonness and audacity.

As to our modern exposition of the doctrine of libel, (whether it agree with the Roman law, or not, is of little consequence); but that the truth should be a libel, is a subtilty far beyond the comprehension of our jurymen in ordinary. If we tell them that it tends to a breach of the peace, and therefore ought to be punished, they will agree; but the word libel still stands in the way—a libel is a libel, and that is, according to the acceptation of the word in common language, a false malicious writing. This is the idea uppermost in the minds of the jury: nor can we by any explanation by the court at the time, or even by any future act of parliament that may be enacted, reasonably expect to get rid of the effect produced by the common acceptation of plain terms.

The remedy proposed should be of another nature, not more strict in word, but of wider scope or aim. Neither the pecuniary compensation as in a civil suit, or the tendency to commit a breach of the peace by an act of defamation (in writing or print) should form the object of the law. Yet it should still be the offence against society, not against the individual aggrieved, for which a punishment should be provided.

To tell a lie or make a false statement, is a moral offence not of magnitude sufficient for the visitation of the law :' to commit it to writing is worse; but to print it and publish it, is an offence against society of the highest description; and this, therefore, in consonance with every acknowledged principle of legislation, should be made an offence cognisable in a court of law. To deceive intentionally or unintentionally, when the power of reading is so widely spread, and while periodical works circulate their tens of thousands, by the month, or even by the day, is to injure the best interests of society. The malus animus is a personal question regarding the offender only as to the quantum of punishment, not the injury done to so

' In the kingdom of Japan liars are punished with death. Ed.

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