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very openly proposed, and the farther consideration of the matter only postponed. It is impossible to contemplate such a change without the greatest alarm; but we even view the entertainment of the subject with apprehension; because it seems to betoken a very superficial acquaintance with the question, and a very light way of treating so weighty a concern. Ifnobility is to expire with each peer that is created, what an enormous influence is given to the crown, over the families of the aristocracy! All men love to transmit their honours in their own blood. What peer, then, will dare to oppose the court, especially towards his latter years, if he can only hope to leave his son noble, by gaining the favour of the sovereign, or his servants? Then, how few sons of peers will dare do their duty, when it may cost them the fall from their father's estate and privileges? A more certain method, as it seems to us, could not be devised, of rendering all the peers subservient to the ministry for the time being; and also of enlisting, on the same side, whatever of weight and influence the families of the peers possess out of the Upper House. Yet, it is in vain to deny that this proposition was grounded upon an over-jealousy of the crown, and a dissatisfaction with the peers for leaning too much against the people, and in favour of the court. We shall not detail the various ways in which it is manifest that such an arrangement would be wholly repugant to the very nature of a nobility. It would, in fact, convert all the aristocracy into so many place-holders for life, without salary; it would be abolishing nobility, and extending the number of orders of knighthood, but with this difference, that the knights would have legislative privileges. Who in England seeks among the bishops for the stout opposers of the court? Yet such a measure would make the whole Upper House bishops or peers for life. We must really take leave to say, that as long as the restrictions upon the rights of primogeniture are so opposed to the accumulation of large estates in the aristocracy, there is no ground for alarm, lest that order should be too powerful: but this plan would not merely annihilate their power-which would be one evil—it would produce a far greater mischief, by annihilating their independence. The order would remain, with much direct legislative power, and some little influence of station; but all this power and influence would be habitually devoted to the service of the court.

Another subject of great alarm to us is the constitution of the National Guard. This is a most important body-for good or for evil, most powerful. It sprung into existence almost in an instant, during the early stages of the first revolution: 100,000 men took up arms in Paris alone, to perform the office relinquished by the distracted government of Louis XVI., of protecting the public peace. They have of late, with the like celerity, been revived: and 60,000 men in arms were lately reviewed by the King and bis generals. There are, certainly, not less than a million of these conservators of the peace, and checks upon the executive government, in all the extent of the country. It is because we desire to see them conserve the peace, and, by the awe of their power, operate as a counterbalance to the army under the sovereign's command, that we are most anxious for the purity of the establishment. The proposal of giving them the choice of their own officers fills us with alarm. Are thousands of armed men a fit and safe deliberative body? Is it wise to make the contest for popular favour a canvass for the command of troops? Would it be well for public men, if to gain popularity, and to have an army under their control, were the same thing? Surely these are questions to which but one answer can be given by any reflecting

person. Can there be any cause of alarm if the crown shall appoint the officers, while the men are all citizens? We clearly think not; and we fervently pray that this view of so important a point may be taken in France. Far better at once say, We can trust no kingly government;" better resolve to have a republic in name and form, as well as in substance; because then it would be utterly impossible to have it on the principle of military election. The republican who honestly desires to see an end of all kingly rule, is grievously deceived if he dreams that the proposed scheme is the path to this consummation. It is the high road, no doubt, to the overthrow of any given government,-regal, or aristocratic, or oligarchical, or democratic; but it takes to a point a good deal farther on-it leads direct to a military despotism.

On

Some things have been thrown out by way of recommending large restraints upon the royal authority. It has been proposed to limit the power of making peace and war; to restrain the number of troops by a fundamental law; to take away some of the patronage usually vested in the crown. these and similar topics we say nothing; being quite satisfied that a little reflexion, independent of the instruction afforded by our experience in this country, will convince any one how impracticable such restraints are, if the government is to be really monarchical. A free press, a reformed representation, a standing army only large enough to defend the country against foreign enemies, and its internal police in the hands of armed citizens,these form the best and safest checks upon prerogative, the most ample security for the liberties of the people. We are all along assuming, that a limited monarchy is the kind of government best suited to the wishes and habits of the French people, and to their love of military glory-a position which, in our humble judgment, it would be wild to question. A republic would inevitably, as before, begin in anarchy, and end, as before, in the despotism of some fortunate soldier.

It is certain that, in framing a constitution, no regard is to be had to the personal qualities of the individuals who may first be called to administer its powers. But there is one circumstance not to be left out of the account, in providing for the powers of, and restraints on, the crown-we allude to the certainty, that for some generations the King of the French will have a competitor. The ex-King of France will be a pretender; and more than the word is unnecessary to remind those who are acquainted with English history, how materially this circumstance tends to keep the reigning family in check, or, in the ordinary phrase, to set them upon their good behaviour. II. The first consideration that meets us in bringing our regards homewards, and surveying the bearing of the late revolution upon our own concerns, relates to the kind of part which the English government has sustained throughout those events of which we have been sketching the history. That it labours under very grievous suspicions of having befriended the infatuated tyrant and his ministers, unfortunately admits of no doubt; and that these suspicions extend to the French nation as well as our own countrymen, is unhappily equally true. Are they, can they be, likely to rest upon any foundation? Or do they merely proceed from the known sentiments of our ministers regarding every thing free, all popular rights, all royal immunities upon the Continent? Certain it is, that, however much they may have yielded to the people at home, or rather whatever concessions the people may have extorted from them-abroad, where they have neither parliamentary opposition, a free press, nor associations, nor

VOL. IV.

25

sisted by their pens, led the way in recommending that writer's doctrines to the people of this country, and to the French, as adapted to the state of France. The periodical works of less importance, the weekly and daily papers, with a single exception, which espouse the ministerial side of the question, adopted the same line; and weekly and daily laboured in their vocation to vilify all that the French patriots did, to defend the Polignac ministry, and to exhibit the bitterness of their disappointment at the signal failure of its late measures.

In answer to all this, how ridiculous is it to cite the recognition by the English government of the Duke of Orléans as King of the French? Had they any choice? Could they have refused to acknowledge the King whom all France had with one voice set upon the throne? Were they prepared to summon the new Parliament, and such a Parliament as had just been returned, and to meet it with an announcement of a new war of five-andtwenty years for the restoration of the Bourbons? The idea is ridiculous; but we verily believe that the recognition of Louis-Philippe I. was hastened by the loud expression of public opinion at the elections, and by the gratifying fact that no persons held more decided language against the dethroned tyrant and his ministers than the staunch Tory supporters of the government and of all governments. In the face of such appalling warnings, to have refused the recognition was at once to have signed their own expulsion from office. The recognition, therefore, proves absolutely nothing. The English ministers may have made Polignac minister by direct interference-they may have prescribed his whole conduct-they may have dictated through their ambassador every Ordinance he issued-they may have sent over the draft from Downing Street of every state paper he signed and yet when the whole plot failed-when their tools were driven with ignominy out of France, or detected in the plot, and shut up in the dungeons of Vincennes, -they were compelled to submit, exactly as Charles X. was. It would be precisely the same argument as is urged for our ministers, if that sovereign were to deny that he had any concern in the events which brought about the Revolution, because he at once yielded to it, abdicated the throne he had polluted, and quitted the country he had vainly attempted to enslave.

The mention of that personage brings to mind another passage in the conduct of our ministers, and one not immaterial to the present enquiry. When a criminal is detected in plotting some foul enterprise, or, having attempted to carry it into execution, fails, and flies from the scene of his iniquity, does the government of this country make it a practice to receive him with open arms,-to direct that the revenue laws shall be suspended in his favour, and to give him shelter and comfort, with much deference and respect, on our shores? No such thing-and why? Because our government never avows a patronage of rapine or murder, and regards with just abhorrence the perpetrators of such crimes. Then why, we ask, has Charles and his family been received, not only with courtesy, but with a degree of favour, which no man living believes would have been shown to the most illustrious patriot that ever bled for freedom-the most venerable philosopher that ever enlarged the powers of man, or bettered the lot of humanity? Had Washington sought our shores, after resigning the sceptre which he might have held for life, possibly transmitted to his kindred, but that he loved his country better than all power—would his baggage have been suffered to pass without search at any custom-house

quay in all England? No man dreams of such a thing. Suppose Polignac had succeeded, if any of the unoffending Parisians whom the tyrant ordered his artillery to mow down by thousands, had escaped from the slaughter he was destined to, who believes that the wreck of his fortunes would have been allowed to pass duty-free, and unexamined? Indeed, had the alien bill still armed our ministers with the power, such a refugee would have been sent back to certain execution by the next tide. Then why was the oppressor so differently treated? This is the question which we ask now; the question which the people of England are asking, and which it is the bounden duty of their representatives to ask. Charles X., by the very act of our government recognising Louis-Philip, is admitted by that government to be no longer a king-is ranked by that government among private persons. What right, then, had that government to treat him as a king? What possible motive could they have for thus flying in the English people's face, and insulting the French people also, except to show ostentatiously their sorrow for his failure, and their fellow-feeling for his fate-a fate brought on by his crimes-a failure in the attempt to perpetrate the most atrocious wickedness of which a monarch can be guilty? But it was not a mere attempt. The abdicated king came among us stained with the blood of his unoffending subjects. He had ordered his soldiers to the charge; the onslaught had been tremendous; the artillery had been, with a cold-blooded cruelty unknown to the most atrocious tyrants, brought to bear upon crowded streets, and to sweep down thousands of all ages, and of either sex. From the miserable slaughter which he had commanded, the wretched despot had withdrawn his own person to a place of safety; and providentially discomfited, he had fled from the scene of his crimes. This is he for whom the sympathies of our ministers are speedly unlocked; for whose accommodation the laws are suspended; who is received with distinctions which would have been denied to the greatest benefactor of his kind who had never been a king, and a tyrant! What right, then, have those ministers to complain, if they are suspected of a leaning towards his designs? Do they not become accessaries after the fact, by this their conduct? any man is seen submitting to a criminal's fellowship, whom all others detest, the conclusion is immediate, that he was a partner in his guilt, and that he has put himself in the offender's power. Are we to infer that our ministers dare not turn their backs upon their French allies for fear of disclosures? Certain it is, that a strange alacrity to get into suspicion by their conduct has been succeeded by as strange a reluctance to disavow the charge by words. The more respectable of the treasury journals announced that the Duke of Wellington would deny the odious charge at the late Manchester meeting. His Grace made no sign. He listened to some of his adherents expressing their alarms at the progress of public opinion, and their sagacious apprehensions that the people were becoming so well educated, as to overwhelm the higher orders.' Without stopping longer than to observe, that if by overwhelm he meant outshine, a scanty portion indeed of knowledge might cause such wiseacres to be overwhelmed by any class of the community, at least on the supposition that a man's sense is in proportion to his information.* No other remark of a political cast was made. Yet, was it beneath the Duke of Wellington's dignity to defend

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sisted by their pens, led the way in recommending that writer's doctrines to the people of this country, and to the French, as adapted to the state of France. The periodical works of less importance, the weekly and daily papers, with a single exception, which espouse the ministerial side of the question, adopted the same line; and weekly and daily laboured in their vocation to vilify all that the French patriots did, to defend the Polignac ministry, and to exhibit the bitterness of their disappointment at the signal failure of its late measures.

In answer to all this, how ridiculous is it to cite the recognition by the English government of the Duke of Orléans as King of the French? Had they any choice? Could they have refused to acknowledge the King whom all France had with one voice set upon the throne? Were they prepared to summon the new Parliament, and such a Parliament as had just been returned, and to meet it with an announcement of a new war of five-andtwenty years for the restoration of the Bourbons? The idea is ridiculous; but we verily believe that the recognition of Louis-Philippe I. was hastened by the loud expression of public opinion at the elections, and by the gratifying fact that no persons held more decided language against the dethroned tyrant and his ministers than the staunch Tory supporters of the government and of all governments. In the face of such appalling warnings, to have refused the recognition was at once to have signed their own expulsion from office. The recognition, therefore, proves absolutely nothing. The English ministers may have made Polignac minister by direct interference-they may have prescribed his whole conduct-they may have dictated through their ambassador every Ordinance he issued-they may have sent over the draft from Downing Street of every state paper he signed-and yet when the whole plot failed-when their tools were driven with ignominy out of France, or detected in the plot, and shut up in the dungeons of Vincennes, -they were compelled to submit, exactly as Charles X. was. It would be precisely the same argument as is urged for our ministers, if that sovereign were to deny that he had any concern in the events which brought about the Revolution, because he at once yielded to it, abdicated the throne he had polluted, and quitted the country he had vainly attempted to enslave.

The mention of that personage brings to mind another passage in the conduct of our ministers, and one not immaterial to the present enquiry. When a criminal is detected in plotting some foul enterprise, or, having attempted to carry it into execution, fails, and flies from the scene of his iniquity, does the government of this country make it a practice to receive him with open arms,-to direct that the revenue laws shall be suspended in his favour, and to give him shelter and comfort, with much deference and respect, on our shores? No such thing-and why? Because our government never avows a patronage of rapine or murder, and regards with just abhorrence the perpetrators of such crimes. Then why, we ask, has Charles and his family been received, not only with courtesy, but with a degree of favour, which no man living believes would have been shown to the most illustrious patriot that ever bled for freedom-the most venerable philosopher that ever enlarged the powers of man, or bettered the lot of humanity? Had Washington sought our shores, after resigning the sceptre which he might have held for life, possibly transmitted to his kindred, but that he loved his country better than all power-would his baggage have been suffered to pass without search at any custom-house

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