this kingdom by choosing it as his refuge, that, after performing prodigies of valour at the head of his handful of heroic peasants on the field of Morgarten (where his ancestor, the Landamman Reding, had, five hundred years before, defeated the first oppressors of Switzerland), he had selected this country to be his residence, as the chosen abode of liberty, as the ancient and inviolable asylum of the oppressed, would my Learned Friend have had the boldness to have said to this hero, "that he must hide his tears," (the tears shed by a hero over the ruins of his country!) "lest they might provoke the resentment of Reubell or Rapinat, that he must smother the sorrow and the anger with which his heart was loaded, that he must breathe his murmurs low, lest they might be overheard by the oppressor! Would this have been the language of my Learned Friend? I know that it would not. I know, that by such a supposition, I have done wrong to his honourable feelings to his honest English heart. I am sure that he knows as well as I do, that a nation which should thus receive the oppressed of other countries, would be preparing its own neck for the yoke. He knows the slavery which such a nation would deserve, and must speedily incur. He knows, that sympathy with the unmerited sufferings of others, and disinterested anger against their oppressors, are, if I may so speak, the masters which are appointed by Providence to teach us fortitude in the defence of our own rights, - that selfishness is a dastardly principle, which betrays its charge and flies from its post, and that those only can defend themselves with valour, who are animated by the moral approbation with which they can survey their sentiments towards others, - who are ennobled in their own eyes by a consciousness that they are fighting for justice as well as interest, a consciousness which none can feel, but those who have felt for the wrongs of their brethren. These are the sentiments which my Learned Friend would have felt. He would have told the hero : "Your confidence is not deceived: this is still that England, of which

the history may, perhaps, have contributed to fill your heart with the heroism of liberty. Every other country of Europe is crouching under the bloody tyrants who destroyed your country: we are unchanged. We are still the same people which received with open arms the victims of the tyranny of Philip II. and Louis XIV. We shall not exercise a cowardly and clandestine humanity. Here we are not so dastardly as to rob you of your greatest consolation; — here, protected by a free, brave, and high-minded people, you may give vent to your indignation, — you may proclaim the crimes of your tyrants, you may devote them to the execration of mankind. There is still one spot upon earth in which they are abhorred, without being dreaded!"

I am aware, Gentlemen, that I have already abused your indulgence; but I must entreat you to bear with me for a short time longer, to allow me to suppose a case which might have occurred, in which you will see the horrible consequences of enforcing rigorously principles of law, which I cannot contest, against political writers. We might have been at peace with France during the whole of that terrible period which elapsed between August 1792 and 1794, which has been usually called the "reign of Robespierre!"- the only series of crimes, perhaps, in history, which, in spite of the common disposition to exaggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure underrated in public opinion. I say this, Gentlemen, after an investigation, which I think entitles me to affirm it with confidence. Men's minds were oppressed by the atrocity and the multitude of crimes; their humanity and their indolence took refuge in scepticism from such an overwhelming mass of guilt and the consequence was, that all these unparalleled enormities, though proved, not only with the fullest historical, but with the strictest judicial evidence, were at the time only half-believed, and are now scarcely half-remembered. When these atrocities, of which the greatest part are as little known to the public in general as the campaigns of Genghis Khan, but are still

protected from the scrutiny of men by the immensity of those voluminous records of guilt in which they are related, and under the mass of which they will lie buried, till some historian be found with patience and courage enough to drag them forth into light, for the shame, indeed, but for the instruction of mankind, — which had the peculiar malignity, through the pretexts with which they were covered, of making the noblest objects of human pursuit seem odious and detestable, which had almost made the names of liberty, reformation, and humanity, synonymous with anarchy, robbery, and murder, which thus threatened not only to extinguish every principle of improvement, to arrest the progress of civilised society, and to disinherit future generations of that rich succession to be expected from the knowledge and wisdom of the present, but to destroy the civilisation of Europe (which never gave such a proof of its vigour and robustness, as in being able to resist their destructive power), - when all these horrors were acting in the greatest empire of the Continent, I will ask my Learned Friend, if we had then been at peace with France, how English writers were to relate them so as to escape the charge of libelling a friendly Government?

When Robespierre, in the debates in the National Convention on the mode of murdering their blameless sovereign, objected to the formal and tedious mode of murder called a "trial," and proposed to put him immediately to death without trial, "on the principles of insurrection,”—because, to doubt the guilt of the King would be to doubt of the innocence of the Convention, and if the King were not a traitor, the Convention must be rebels, — would my Learned Friend have had an English writer state all this with "decorum and moderation?" Would he have had an English writer state, that though this reasoning was not perfectly agreeable to our national laws, or perhaps to our national prejudices, yet it was not for him to make any observations on the judicial | proceedings of foreign states? When Marat, in the same Convention, called for two hun

dred and seventy thousand heads, must our English writers have said, that the remedy did, indeed, seem to their weak judgment rather severe; but that it was not for them to judge the conduct of so illustrious an assembly as the National Convention, or the suggestions of so enlightened a statesman as M. Marat? When that Convention resounded with applause at the news of several hundred aged priests being thrown into the Loire, and particularly at the exclamation of Carrier, who communicated the intelligence:-"What a revolutionary torrent is the Loire !" — when these suggestions and narratives of murder, which have hitherto been only hinted and whispered in the most secret cabals, in the darkest caverns of banditti, were triumphantly uttered, patiently endured, and even loudly applauded by an assembly of seven hundred men, acting in the sight of all Europe, would my Learned Friend have wished that there had been found in England a single writer so base as to deliberate upon the most safe, decorous, and polite manner of relating all these things to his countrymen? When Carrier ordered five hundred children under fourteen years to be shot, the greater part of whom escaped the fire from their size,when the poor victims ran for protection to the soldiers, and were bayoneted clinging round their knees, would my Friend - But I cannot pursue the strain of interrogation; it is too much! It would be a violence which I cannot practise on my own feelings; it would be an outrage to my Friend; it would be an affront to you; it would be an insult to humanity.

well as my own, when I say, God forbid that the dread of any punishment should ever make any Englishman an accomplice in so corrupting his countrymen, a public teacher of depravity and barbarity! Mortifying and horrible as the idea is, I must remind you, Gentlemen, that even at that time, even under the reign of Robespierre, my Learned Friend, if he had then been Attorney-General, might have been compelled by some most deplorable necessity, to have come into this Court to ask your verdict against the libellers of Barrère and Collot d'Herbois. Mr. Peltier then employed his talents against the enemies of the human race, as he has uniformly and bravely done. I do not believe that any peace, any political considerations, any fear of punishment, would have silenced him. He has shown too much honour and constancy, and intrepidity, to be shaken by such circumstances as these. My Learned Friend might then have been compelled to have filed a Criminal Information against Mr. Peltier, for "wickedly and maliciously intending to vilify and degrade Maximilian Robespierre, President of the Committee of Public Safety of the French Republic!" He might have been reduced to the sad necessity of appearing before you to belie his own better feelings by prosecuting Mr. Peltier for publishing those sentiments which my Friend himself had a thousand times felt, and a thousand times expressed. He might have been obliged even to call for punishment upon Mr. Peltier, for language which he and all mankind would for ever despise Mr. Peltier, if he were not to employ. Then indeed, Gentlemen, we should have seen the last humiliation fall on England; - the tribunals, the spotless and venerable tribunals of this free country, reduced to be the ministers of the vengeance of Robespierre! What could have rescued us from this last disgrace? the honesty and courage of a jury. They would have delivered the judges of their country from the dire necessity of inflicting punishment on a brave and virtuous man, because he spoke truth of a monster. They would have

despised the threats of a foreign tyrant as their ancestors braved the power of oppressors at home.

In the court where we are now met, Cromwell twice sent a satirist on his tyranny to be convicted and punished as a libeller, and . in this court, almost in sight of the scaffold streaming with the blood of his Sovereign, — within hearing of the clash of: his bayonets which drove out Parliaments with scorn and contumely, — a jury twice rescued the intrepid satirist * from his fangs, and sent out with defeat and disgrace the Usurper's Attorney-General from what he had the impudence to call his court! Even then, Gentlemen, when all law and liberty were trampled under the feet of a military banditti, - when those great crimes were perpetrated in a high place and with a high hand against those who were the objects of public veneration, which more than any thing else upon earth overwhelm the minds of men, break their spirits, and confound their moral sentiments, obliterate the distinctions between right and wrong in their understanding, and teach the multitude to feel no longer any reverence for that justice which they thus see triumphantly dragged at the chariot wheels of a tyrant,

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even then, when this unhappy country, triumphant indeed abroad but enslaved at home, had no prospect but that of a long succession of tyrants wading through slaughter to a throne," even then, I say, when all seemed lost, the unconquerable spirit of English liberty survived in the hearts of English jurors. That spirit is, I trust in God, not extinct and if any modern tyrant were, in the plenitude of his insolence, to hope to overawe an English jury, I trust and I believe that they would tell him: :- "Our ancestors braved the bayonets of Cromwell; -we bid defiance to yours. Contempsi Catilinæ gladios; non pertimescam tuos!"

What could be such a tyrant's means of overawing a jury? As long as their country exists, they are girt round with im

* Lilburne.

penetrable armour. Till the destruction of their country, no danger can fall upon them for the performance of their duty. And I do trust that there is no Englishman so unworthy of life as to desire to outlive England. But if any of us are condemned to the cruel punishment of surviving our country, if in the inscrutable counsels of Providence, this favoured seat of justice and liberty, this noblest work of human wisdom and virtue, be destined to destruction (which I shall not be charged with national prejudice for saying would be the most dangerous wound ever inflicted on civilisation), at least, let us carry with us

into our sad exile the consolation that we ourselves have not violated the rights of hospitality to exiles, that we have not torn from the altar the suppliant who claimed protection as the voluntary victim of loyalty and conscience.

Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate Gentleman in your hands. His character and his situation might interest your humanity: but, on his behalf, I only ask justice from you. I only ask a favourable construction of what cannot be said to be more than ambiguous language; and this you will soon be told from the highest authority is a part of justice.

GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY,

The present calendar is unfortunately remarkable for the number and enormity of crimes. To what cause we are to impute the very uncommon depravity which has, in various forms, during the last twelve months, appeared before this Court, it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to determine. But the length of this calendar may probably be, in a great measure, ascribed to the late commendable disuse of irregular punishment at the Office of Police: so that there may be not so much an increase of crimes as of regular trials.

To frame and maintain a system of police, warranted by law, vigorous enough for protection, and with sufficient legal restraints to afford a security against oppression, must be owned to be a matter of considerable difficulty in the crowded, mixed, and shift

ing population of a great Indian sea-port. It is no wonder, then, that there should be defects in our system, both in the efficacy of its regulations and in the legality of its principles. And this may be mentioned with more liberty, because these defects have originated long before the time of any one now in authority; and have rather, indeed, arisen from the operation of time and chance on human institutions, than from the fault of any individual. The subject has of late occupied much of my attention. Government have been pleased to permit me to lay my thoughts before them, - a permission of which I shall in a few days avail myself; and I hope that my diligent inquiry and long reflection may contribute somewhat to aid their judgment in the establishment of a police which may be legal, vigorous, and unoppressive.

In reviewing the administration of law in this place since I have presided here, two circumstances present themselves, which ap- | pear to deserve a public explanation.

The first relates to the principles adopted by the Court in cases of commercial insol

vency.

In India, no law compels the equal distribution of the goods of an insolvent merchant we have no system of bankrupt laws. The consequence is too well known. Every mercantile failure has produced a disreputable scramble, in which no individual could be blamed; because, if he were to forego his rights, they would not be sacrificed to equitable division, but to the claims of a competitor no better entitled than himself. A few have recovered all, and the rest have lost all. Nor was this the worst. Opulent commercial houses, either present, or well served by vigilant agents, almost always foresaw insolvency in such time as to secure themselves. But old officers, widows, and orphans in Europe, could know nothing of the decaying credit of their Indian bankers, and they had no agents but those bankers themselves they, therefore, were the victims of every failure. The rich generally saved what was of little consequence to them, and the poor almost constantly lost their all. These scenes have frequently been witnessed in various parts of India: they have formerly occurred here. On the death of one unfortunate gentleman, since I have been here, the evil was rather dreaded than felt.

Soon after my arrival, I laid before the British merchants of this island, a plan for the equal distribution of insolvent estates, of which accident then prevented the adoption. Since that time, the principle of the plan has been adopted in several cases of actual or of apprehended insolvency, by a conveyance of the whole estate to trustees, for the equal benefit of all the creditors. Some disposition to adopt similar arrangements appears of late to manifest itself in Europe. And certainly nothing can be better adapted to the present dark and unquiet condition of the commercial world.

ever they are adopted early, they are likely to prevent bankruptcy. A very intelligent merchant justly observed to me, that, under such a system, the early disclosure of embarrassment would not be attended with that shame and danger which usually pro-, duce concealment and final ruin. In all cases, and at every period, such arrangements would limit the evils of bankruptcy to the least possible amount. It cannot, therefore, be matter of wonder that a court of justice should protect such a system with all the weight of their opinion, and to the utmost extent of their legal power.

I by no means presume to blame those creditors who, on the first proposal of this experiment, withheld their consent, and preferred the assertion of their legal rights. They had, I dare say, been ill used by their i debtors, who might personally be entitled to no indulgence from them. It is too much to require of men, that, under the influence of cruel disappointment and very just resentment, they should estimate a plan of public utility in the same manner with a dispassionate and disinterested spectator. But experience and reflection will in time teach them, that, in seeking to gratify a just resentment against a culpable insolvent, they, in fact, direct their hostility against the unoffending and helpless part of their fellow-creditors.

One defect in this voluntary system of bankrupt laws must be owned to be considerable: it is protected by no penalties against the fraudulent concealment of property. There is no substitute for such penalties, but the determined and vigilant integrity of trustees. I have, therefore, with pleasure, seen that duty undertaken by European gentlemen of character and station. Besides the great considerations of justice and humanity to the creditors, I will confess that I am gratified by the interference of English gentlemen to prevent the fall of eminent or ancient commercial families among the natives of India.*