ment, for alteration of matters eftablifhed by law, or redrets of alledged grievances in church and ftate, may be made ufe of to ferve the ends of factious and feditious perfons, to the violation of the public peace, and the great and manifeft encouragement of riot, tumult, and diforder: and it enacts, that all fuch affemblies, committees, or other bodies of perfons elected, or otherwife conftituted or appointed are unlawful affemblies: and that all perfons giving or pubTithing notice of the election to be made of fuch perfons or delegates, or attending, or voting, or acting therein by any means, are guilty of an high mildemeanor. The act concludes,with a declaration, "that nothing in it thali impede the undoubted right of his majefty's fubjects, to petition the king or parbrament for redrefs of any public or private grievance." It must be allowed, that this was a ftrong meafure; but, at the fame time, it cannot be denied, that the feditious difpofition which had appeared among certain claffes of people, combined with the circumftances of the times, feemed imperiously to demand it. Two acts were alfo pafled fimilar to thofe which the vigilance of the British govern ment had enacted under the titles of the alien and traitorous correfpondence bills. In the fame feflions alfo, an act was paid on the fame principle, and affording the fame illuftration of the law on libels, as that which had been introduced into the British parliament, by Mr. Fox. In order that the legiflature of Ireland might poffels the fame controul over the application of the public money, as is enjoyed by that of Great Britain, his majefty had thought proper to furrender his power over the hereditary revenues of Ireland, and to accept a limited fum for the expences of his civit lift. The parliament, therefore, granted a civil lift eftablishment of 225,000l. per ann, and limited the power of the crown to grant penfions to 80,cool. per ann, and not to exceed 1200ol. to any one perfon, except the branches of the royal family. An act was alfo paífed, during this feflions, for excluding certain placemen and penfioners from the House of Commons. The fame caufes which had combined to give a temporary check to the commercial credit of Great Britain, had operated with equal alarm in the fifter kingdom. The parliament of Ireland, therefore, evinced the fame prompt and preventive care as had been manifefted by the Englith government, by undertaking to make good the fum of 200,000l. which the bank had engaged to advance to certain mercantile houfes, with intereft at 5 per cent; a measure, which renewed and enlivened the current of commercial credit, and prevented its fhort fufpenfion from being attended with any confequences prejudicial to the trade of the country. In thort, the vigorous conduct of the government of Ireland, during this period, was admirably adapted to reftore tranquillity, and defeat the defigns of thofe who withed to raife public difcontent, and to introduce the principles of French anarchy; while the falutary laws with which this feflion of parliament ftrengthened the executive power, were wifely formed to fecure the bleflings of domeftic peace and public fecurity. The ipirit of parliamentary reform had found its partizans, and produced its affociations in Scot land, fand, as well as in England and Ireland; and Mr. Muir, one of the faculty of advocates, and Mr. Palmer, formerly of the univerfity of Cambridge, but fince a diffenting minifter at Dundee, had been tried for feditious conduct, at different meetings, affembled for the purpofe of improving the parliamentary reprefentation of the country. They were found guilty, and fentenced to be tranfported beyond the feas, to fuch place as his majefty, with the advice of his privy council, fhould judge proper, for the fpace of fourteen years. But this neceflary and affecting example did not prevent a very numerous affociation from eftablishing itself at Edinburgh, which, under the forms and affumed authority of a legiflative affembly, dated their refolutions in the first year of the British convention, one and indivifible. They adopted the phrafes and modes of proceeding of the French government, established after its ex ample, committees of organifation, finance, and of fecrecy; made ho. nourable mention of fervices; decreed their authors the honour of the fitting; inftituted primary and provincial affemblies and departments; and as they adopted the forms, feemed to poffefs the revolutionary fpirit of the French convention. Several of the leaders were, however, taken into cuftody, and, by the vigilance and activity of the Scottish magiftrates,this convention was difperfed. It appeared, nevertheless, to fpring up again, though in feparate forms, and with more expanded character: but the power of the laws, the vigour with which they were employed by thofe who had the adminiftration of them, and the general loyalty and good fenfe of the people, controuled the fpirit, fruftrated the defigns, and at length diffolved the attociation of thefe ignorant, mifguided, and feditious people. CHAP. V. Affairs of France. Preliminary Obfervations. State of Parties in the Convention. Preparations for the Trial of Louis XVI. Reports of the Committees concerning it. The Order of conducting it. Criminating Papers produced. The Mayor conducts the King from the Temple to the Convention. His Conduct and Examination at the Bar of it. He demands Counfel to affift him in his Defence. Counfl are appointed him. His intermediate Employ ment in the temple. His return to the Bar of the Convention. His Defence delivered by M, Defeyes, one of his Council. The King's Addrefs to the Convention, He is found guilty, and condemned to die. The Court of Spain applies to the Affembly, in behalf of the depofed Sovereign. State of the Votes on the Occafion. The Preparation of Louis for his End. The King is allowed Mr. Edgworth to attend him as Prieft and Confeffor. Laft Separation from his Family. Various Circumstances that accompanied and followed upon his Death. The Character of Louis XVI. Subfequent Circumstances. E now proceed to confider tranfactions of France; and the first WE the ftate, condition, and event that presents itself to our attention, is among the most atrocious and difgraceful acts that have stain ed ed the annals of the world. We tremble to draw afide the veil, and unfold the horrid crime. Over the bloody threthold we hefitate to advance; and the fame infcription which the poet read on the outward gate of hell, teems here engraved to turn us afide from fuch a path of horror. Per me fià nella cit à dolente; But, before we conduct the reader to the prifon of the temple, the bar of the convention, and the fatal fcaffold, it may be neceffary to offer fome preliminary remarks to his attention. It was an undoubted principle, with the most active party of the convention, that, while Louis lived, there would be no permanent fecurity for them; the object, therefore, of all their councils and defigns, was to bring the unhappy monarch to that fate which he fo foon fuffered. But their views were not accomplished without much in terruption, confiderable difficulty, and the exertion of the most fubtle manœuvres. Many members of the convention regretted that decree which produced fuch a precipitate abolition of royalty, and moft fincerely wifhed, that the king and conttitution might be re-established. A ftill more confiderable number were of opinion, that, when the republican form of government was once adopted, that the king and royal family fhould be escorted, with every exterior mark of regard, to the frontiers of France, that an ample fettlement should be made on them, which might appear, in the eyes of Europe, as fuited to their former ftation, and that they might be qualified to live in tranquillity. and respect, in any other part of Europe they might chufe for their refidence. There were others of the convention who were very anxious to fave the king; but dreading the confequences of avowing their opinions, endeavoured to delay any proceedings against him, until the public fhould be in fuch a state of mind as to admit of a fair and honeft trial. When their endeavours to attain this object failed of fuccefs, they attempted to carry the fentence of confinement, during the war, and exile after it. When they were baffled in that attempt, they tried the appeal to the primary affemblies; and, finally, they ftrove to fave the devoted monarch, by propofing to poftpone the execution of his fentence. But the party who confidered the king's death as effentially neceflary to the views of their ambition, and were, therefore, moft violent against him, left no measure unexerted, and no artifice unemployed, both within and without the affembly, to cut short all forms of procefs, by a fudden and bloody catastrophe. Legendre propofed, that all who had configned their opinions on the fubject of the king's conduct to writing fhould lay them on the table of the affembly, and that after the intervention of one day, they fhould pronounce fentence on the culprit, without fuffering him to utter a word in his defence. Robefpierre thought the whole bufinefs might be completed in twenty-four hours, and that the affembly thould not feparate till it was concluded. St. Andrè declared, that Louis had been judged and cou from the king, and it was merely from the zealous curiofity of Clery, his faithful valet de chambre, that he barely knew the intentions of the convention to call him to their bar, a very few days before it happened. To keep him ignorant, to the laft moment, of any defign of this nature, and then hurry him, unprepared, before them, was a contrivance worthy of the hellish fpirits that conceived it. This circumftance, with the cruel and fudden feparation from his fon, might have difconcerted him in fuch a manner, as to have given his enemies the opportunityof imputing the diforder and confufion of his anfwers to confcious guilt. But condemned by the people on the roth of Auguft, and nothing was left for them to do, but to proceed to execution. Thofe who defired the death of the king were alarmed at the effects which might be produced in the minds of the people by his appearance at the bar of the convention; but when they found that their power did not reach fo far as to exclude him from the privilege of being heard in his defence, they employed the moft abominable and profligate means to prevent any circumftance favourable to the king from being produced by fuch an awful and affecting fpectacle, as would be presented on such an occafion. Inflammatory papers were accordingly dif-thefe arts to eninare the unhappy perfed among the people, inciting them to infift on his immediate execution,orto execute him themselves; to imprefs an opinion that the death of the royal fufferer was neceffary to the exiftence of the French nation; that the Gironde party was bribed by the powers at war with France, to fave Louis, and that their final object was to re-establish him and defpotifm together on the throne. But while they endeavoured to difpofe the public mind to co-operate with them, they artfully contrived that the object of their diabolic enmity and injuftice fhould be placed in a fituation the moft difadvantageous to himfelf, as it might forcibly tend to unfettle and trouble his mind, at a moment when he required all its powers to fupport him; and when his underfianding, to do him fervice, must be clear and unclouded. To effect this bafe and infamous purpofe, the whole of the intended proceedings were carefully concealed monarch failed of their aim: for though the queftions propofed to him, were prepared by a committee appointed for that purpofe, and afterwards reconfidered by the convention; and though he was fuddenly led away amidft infult and indignity, and without the leaft preparation to answer them on the inftant; yet fuch was his conduct on this trying occafion, fuch the calm and majestic character of his deportment, fuch the readiness and fagacity of his replies, and fuch the predominating proofs of his innocence, that feveral of his moft virulent enemies were filled with alarm, left fuch a combination of affecting circumftances fhould have at once recalled the fpirit of ancient loyalty into the bofoms of his former fubjects who heard and be held him. A commiffion of twenty-four deputies, flected from various committees, having been for fome weeks employed in ranfacking every fufpected place for criminat ing papers, and in collecting evidence against the depofed monarch, produced, on the fixth of November, a report full of vague and unfupported accufations; and on the following day the committee of legiflation prefented a plan for his trial; in the preface to which it was declared-"That the moment is now arrived when the French nation can give to the world an example of the juftice of a great people, exempt from any impure mixture of the human paffions." This plan is detailed in the following articles: 1. Louis XVI. may be tried. 2. He fhall be tried by the national convention. 3. Three commiffioners, chofen from the convention by public election, fhall be charged with the care of collecting all the documents neceffary for the trial, and of prefenting the refult of them to the convention. 4. The commiffioners fhall terminate their report by an enumeration of the crimes. 5. The enumeration fhall be printed and diftributed. 6. Eight days after, a difcuffion fhall commence on the act of accufation, when the charges fhall be adopted or rejected. 7. If the act is adopted, it fhall be communicated to Louis XVI. that he may provide for his defence. 8. A copy of the report and other papers refpecting it, fhall be alfo prefented to Louis XVI. 9. If he demands the originals, they fhall be carried to him by twelve commiflioners. 10. The originals fhall not be carried from the archives, until copies of them are taken. II. The national convention fhall fix a day on which Louis XVI. fhall prefent his defence. 12. Louis XVI. fhall present his defence in writing and figned by himself. 13. Louis XVI. may give verbal answers. 14. After he has made his defence, and the expiration of any interval fettled by the convention, they fhall país a fentence by public vote. This mode of paffing fentence was fupported with great violence by the inveterate faction of the mountain, in the expectation that fome whofe confciences acquitted the king, might, from terror of the populace, be influenced to pronounce against him. If the opinion of the convention had been taken in the ufual way, it would have been lefs fubject to the operations of fear; but if it had been determined by ballot; there would moft probably have been a majo rity in favour of the king on the firft queftion; and, without doubt, a very decifive one, against his death. The following were the principal proofs of guilt which were produced against the king. 1. A receipt from Bouillé, dated Mayence, October 15, 1791, containing an account of the expenditure of the fum of 993 millions, iffued for the formation of the camp of Montmedy. This money had been diftributed among the following perfons:-Monfieur, the comte d'Artois, the prince de Naffau, the duc de Choifeul, Demandell, Bon, Hamilton, Lafiale, Weyman, and feveral other general officers and private perfons. 2. Another figned Choifel Stan |