LETTER LXI.

Despard's Conspiracy. Conduct of the Populace on that Occasion.-War.-The Question examined whether England is in Danger of a Revolution.-Ireland.

A MOST extraordinary conspiracy to kill the king and to overthrow the government has been detected. A certain Colonel Despard and a few soldiers were the only persons concerned. This man had for many years been the object of suspicion, and had at different times been confined as a dangerous person. Whether his designs were always treasonable, or whether he was goaded on by a frantic desire of revenge for what he had suffered, certain it is that he corrupted some of the king's guards to fire at him in his carriage,

from a cannon which always stands by the palace. If it missed, the others were to be ready to dispatch him with their swords. The scheme had spread no further than this handful of associates; and they trusted to the general confusion which it would occasion, and to the temper of the mob. These facts have been proved by the testimony of some of the parties concerned. Despard on his trial steadily denied them, and laid a not unreasonable stress upon the absurdity of the scheme. The jury who pronounced him guilty unaccountably recommended him to mercy; he, however, and some of his accomplices have suffered death. The rest, it is supposed, will be pardoned *. With such lenity are things conducted in England. No arrests have followed, no

* One of these men has just been transported (Dec. 1806), having remained in the Tower since his conviction, upon the allowance of a state prisoner. His expenses it is to be hoped are charged to the nation among the Extraordinaries.-TR.

alarm has been excited; the people åre perfectly satisfied of his guilt, and only say What a blessing that it did not happen under Pitt!-Never had a nation a more perfect confidence in the rectitude of their minister.

The execution was after the ordinary manner, with this difference only, that the criminal after he was dead was beheaded, and the head held up with this proclamation, "This is the head of a traitor." He addressed the people from the scaffold, solemnly protested that he was innocent, and that he died a martyr to the zeal with which he had ever been the friend of their liberties. If revenge were the rooted passion of his soul, never was that passion more strongly exemplified than by this calm declaration of a dying man, which was so well calculated to do mischief,and had it been under Mr. Pitt's administration, a great part of the nation would have believed him. What is most extraordinary is, that the mob applauded him

while he spoke, took off their hats as if in respect when he suffered, and hissed the executioner when he held up his bloody head. They burnt one of the witnesses in effigy,—and attended the body to the grave, as if they had been giving him the honours of a public funeral.

The English are going to war. To the utter astonishment of every body the king has informed parliament, that formidable armaments are fitting out in the French ports, and that it is necessary to prepare against them. There is not a syllable of truth in this, and every body knows it; but every thing in this country is done by a fiction; the lawyers have as complete a mythology of their own as the old poets, and every trial has as regular a machinery as the Iliad. That war will be the result is not doubted, because it is well known that the ministry are disposed to be at peace. They have given a decisive proof of this by prosecuting M. Peltier for a libel upon

the first consul; it is therefore reasonably supposed, that after a measure so repugnant as this to English feelings, and to English notions of the freedom of the press, has been adopted to gratify the first consul, nothing but necessity could induce them to abandon their pacific system.

This sudden turn of political affairs has greatly raised the reputation of lord Grenville and his party. It now appears that he prophesied as truly of the peace as Mr. Fox did of the war. The curse of Cassandra lay upon both; and it seems as if the English, like the Jews of old, always were to have prophets, and never to believe them. The peace, however, short as its duration has been, has been highly beneficial. The English are no longer a divided people. They are ready and almost eager for the cominencement of hostilities, because they are persuaded that war is unavoidable. The tremendous power of France seems rather to provoke than alarm them: volunteers are arming every where ;