can whoop with safety. Not so his adventurous friends-those new knight-errants who rescue from their prisons, not distressed damsels, but convicted traitors, and for their generous conduct lay claim to the admiration of mankind. Let us not be misunderstood we do not rejoice at their distress-we lament it, because it is the consequence of acts injurious to our country. They are about to be put upon their trial, before a tribunal in every way competent to try them, and from the same motive, and in the same spirit we can say, with the public organ of prosecution on every criminal arraignment by our own law, God send them a good deliverance! Fortunately for them the singular lenity of the French laws in the punishment of their particular crime, will make the consequences of their conviction infinitely lighter than our own would have done; but we have already fully explained the difference. Should they even be acquitted, their situation will not be the most enviable. The terms applied to Tooke and Hardy after their acquittal, may not unfrequently be applied to them; and this, at least, is certain, that they will be for ever banished from France, and will be viewed in any other country to which they may repair, with more or less suspicion and distrust. It is matter of regret that British subjects, distinguished by rank or the honourable character of their profession, should be liable to such treatment; this regret is however considerably diminished by the reflection, that it is entirely the result of their own imprudence, and that it will probably afford a salutary lesson to other friends of freedom, or of frolic, now upon their travels.

But we must turn from the consideration of the conduct of his friends, on the generosity of whose motives Lord Kinnaird has pronounced so animated an eulogium, to a few plain remarks on that which he admits to have been his own. The charge preferred against his Lordship by the French Prefect of Police, and his singular defence, were given in the article on Public Affairs in our last Number, and referring our readers to that statement of the case, we would simply observe, that if we are asked for proof of the assertions, that the French government "has annihilated the liberty of the press; has revived "penal statutes, known only in the worst periods of the monar "chy; fosters a spirit of proscription and persecution, fami"liar to the blackest epochs of the Revolution; already counts "nineteen thousand prisoners for state offences; and by a "liberal interpretation of the Act of Amnesty, seems inclined "to satisfy the passions of all its creatures" (p. 22, 3.) we really know not where to find them, unless some astute logician

can deduce them from the simple facts of only two or three individuals having as yet been put to death for their treasons against the state, and fifty others, chiefly regicides, sent into exile; of the liberty of the press being more fully recognized than it was at any period of Bonaparte's usurpation; and of only 311 persons having been confined for state offences, since the restoration of the King, although the number of the guilty has exceeded 300,000. The latter fact we state from the official report of the Minister of Police; and whether he, or Lord Kinnaird, is likely to possess the more accurate information on the subject, and the greater candour, we leave our readers to determine. With such a disposition towards the French government, as that which he here displays, we must also leave it to them to decide whether, during a protracted residence in France, his Lordship was at all likely to have set so watchful a guard over his tongue and pen, as never to have given utterance to opinions which seem to have taken so fast a hold on his mind. Of his intimacy with Fouché, Lord Kinnaird, far from being ashamed, seems to be even proud. He bestows upon him appellations which we were not before aware that he merited. But though we are most carefully reminded of all his connections with his lawful sovereign, since his majesty's restoration; we do not hear a syllable of his servility to Bonaparte, or of the conspicuous part which he acted in the most sanguinary epochs of the Revolution. We cannot but greatly lament, that any political prejudice should have induced an English nobleman of his Lordship's acknowledged respectability, to boast of such a friend, or to eulogize a man so infamous! Nor has it escaped the recollection of many who disapprove such conduct, that the period of Lord Kinnaird's intimacy with this veering politician, was precisely the eve of his former master's escape from Elba; and that a certain English paper, the last to own the falling, and the first to hail the rising fortunes of the house of Ajaccio, published about that time some severe reflections on the King and government of France, on the authority of a British nobleman then resident at Paris, under the signature K. The personage in question, we must observe en passant, is by no means the only nobleman in this country whose sirname begins with K; and almost any other letter of the alphabet would have been as good a signature at the time alluded to, as the one used. Even at that time, however, the French government appears to have been informed of some of his Lordship's movements; and the Duke of Richelieu told him, previously to his departure," that the mild system of those days had deferred

"the execution of the measure, which the government, made "wiser by experience, had now determined to adopt;" (p. 16.) That they did not adopt it without a reason in their opinion sufficient to justify their conduct, we cannot doubt.

But we are much less anxious about the prudence or impru dence of this nobleman, than we are to show the futility of the excuse which he offers for such of his countrymen, as have acted in a manner similar to that in which he is said to have done. "As for his countrymen," he told the Prefect of Police, "he well knew the freedom with which they spoke of their "own government, and must not be surprized at the liberties "they might occasionally take with the institutions of other "countries." (p. 10.) "And is this liberty," the Prefect might have rejoined, "to be extended to Englishmen who, travelling in the public carriages in France, frequently give money to those who ask it, upon condition of crying Vive L'Empereur: for of such imprudencies the procès-verbaux of my office afford abundant evidence?" For our own parts, we must enter a decided protest against the doctrine, that because the constitution under which we have the happiness to live, admits of an almost unbounded freedom of political discussion, we are justifiable in carrying the same spirit with us into those states, which we may choose for the place of our temporary residence, and in applying it without reserve to the government by which we are protected. "Every cock may crow upon own dunghill;" and if we choose to discuss the internal polity of other governments, whilst resident in our own, the only risque we run in so doing, is that of having our wings clipped by an ex officio information filed by the Attorney General for a libel on a power at peace and amity with us. But the case is widely different, when we are living in the country whose government we may think proper to libel; and as we have just thought proper to admit a homely proverbial expression, we shall remind our readers of a prudential maxim alike familiar and just, "When you are at Rome do as Rome does." Indeed we never heard of any of our countrymen carrying their passion for tree discussion so far as to take upon them either at Rome, or in Spain, to ridicule the mummeries of the Catholic religion, -to venture to declaim against piratical free-booters, at Algiers,

his

or to abuse the Koran, or profane by their presence the mosques of Allah, at Constantinople. The bow-string and the Inquisition have admonished them of the necessity of bridling their tongues, if a sense of propriety did not. And yet they are no more called upon to express their opinions of the internal

regulations of France, than they were to discuss the religious faith, or political systems of the countries we have alluded to. If it be once admitted, that the manners and customs of one country are to form the rule of action during a residence in other countries, we must not complain should Spanish or Italian stilettos avenge quarrels in our streets, because they do so at Madrid and at Naples; or should the beaux esprits of Paris unceremoniously introduce themselves into the bedchambers of our fair countrywomen, because such freedoms are not very reprehensible at Paris. But we trust we have said enough on this topic: we therefore turn to another part of the letter before us, that seems to require some slight animadversion. We allude to the manner in which he speaks of the preponderating influence of Russia on the cabiner of the Tuilleries; to which he seems inclined to attribute his own expulsion from the capital, where he is said to have taken so active a part in circulating the Report so falsely attributed to M. Pozzo de Borgo, the Russian envoy. To this is added, a lamentable account of the decline of our ascendancy in Europe; though, amidst the gloom which he occasions, he affords us some consolation, in the assurance that he is "not "the less convinced, that this temporary superiority of Russian "influence, when once fairly resisted by England, will finally "yield to the vigour of her councils, the glory of her arms, " and the freedom of her press; and above all, to her continued " interference in the cause of civil and religious liberty." This passage, if it is meant for any thing more than a spirited conclusion of a very spirited letter, contains an assertion most incorrect, and proposes remedies for the evil (supposing it to exist) of all others the most certain to increase it. The character of England never stood higher in the estimation of Europe and the world, than at the present moment; and if any thing can destroy that character, it will be the disposition manifested by individuals (though wisely discountenanced by our government) to interfere with the internal affairs of other states, under pretext of supporting either civil or religious liberty. The very term "interference," carries with it something odious. Lord Holland differs from his noble friend as to the degree of British influence at Paris. In the questions he addressed to the Premier, no doubt with Lord K.'s concurrence, he saw this matter in so very different a light, that he expressly asserts, that "the acts of the French government could scarcely be considered in any other light than as the acts of the English government." And who will suspect him of thinking too highly of the respect and influence enjoyed by his country abroad? Nemo, me hercule, nemo !

There is one part of this letter, with which we can express our hearty concurrence. noble writer indignantly refutes the charge preferred against our We allude to that in which the troops, of gross neglect of discipline. But whilst we readily avow our firm persuasion, that their general conduct has been worthy of praise; we cannot conceal our regret that not British soldiers but British officers, have so far forgot their duty, as to aid in destroying rather than in securing obedience to the laws of a country, whose government they had gallantly assisted in re-establishing, and which they were bound by every tie of honour to protect. But that government is every day evincing more ability to support itself, and, as a proof of its increasing vigour, it has desired a British nobleman to quit the seat of a government which he had not thought proper to respect.

ART. VIII.-The Life of James II. King of England, &c. collected out of Memoirs writ of his own hand. Together with the King's advice to his Son, and his Majesty's Will. Published from the original Stuart Manuscripts, in Carlton House. By the Rev. J. S. CLARKE, LL. B. F. R.S. Historiographer to the King, Chaplain of the Household, and Librarian to the Prince Regent. 2 Vols. 4to. pp. 824, 735. London: Longman, 1816.

THERE is no period of English history more interesting, or important than that which the work before us embraces. From its commencement with the open rupture between Charles the first and his parliament, to its close at the death of James the second in exile, it presents one continued scene of commotion, and intrigue. It is moreover the period in which the eyes of mankind were opened to the nature both of that arbitrary power, which in the hands of the Tudors had served to establish them the more firmly on the throne; and of those rude and undefined notions of the liberty of the subject, which, because they had long lain dormant, the Stuarts held never to have existed but in theory-an error which one of them expiated with his life, and another atoned for by the forfeiture of his crown. But in proportion to its importance and its interest, is the difficulty of discovering the truth of the details, of appreciating the motives, and of estimating the characters, to which the party feelings of cotemporary writers have given a false coloring; and which the political prejudices of subsequent historians have not