In conversation with Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward said, "My lord, I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much?"

The Earl of Chatham said:

"THE POOREST MAN IN HIS COTTAGE MAY BID DEFIANCE TO ALL THE POWER OF THE CROWN. IT MAY BE FRAIL; ITS ROOF MAY SHAKE; THE WIND MAY BLOW THROUGH IT; THE STORM MAY ENTER; THE RAIN MAY ENTER; BUT THE KING OF ENG

LAND CANNOT ENTER: ALL HIS POWER DARES NOT CROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THAT RUINED TENEMENT.”

Here we have presented the difference between the liberties of the American citizen, and the rights of the English subject JUDGE H. Yes, it presents a melancholy picture.

"He that takes

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp
Designed by loud declaimers on the part
Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,

Incurs derision for his easy faith

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough:
For when was public virtue to be found
Where private was not? Can he love the whole
Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend
Who is in truth the friend of no man there?
Can he be strenuous in his country's cause
Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake
That country, if at all, must be beloved?"

It is to be hoped that the men in power, who have abused the confidence of the people, will soon be displaced.

AUTHOR. Your language in reference to "abusing the

confidence of the people," reminds me very forcibly of that uttered by Cicero, in his celebrated speech against Catiline, in which he says: "How far, then, Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long, too, will that frantic wickedness of thine baffle our efforts? To what extent will thy uubridled audacity insolently display itself?"

JUDGE H. Yes, and the same language might have been appropriately used in our own country during the late Administration.

AUTHOR. I think it would have been quite apropos, for there were then in our midst many Catilines. Then Liberty was the synonyme of Fort. Could but the walls of Fort La Fayette of Fort Warren - of Fort McHenry speak, what untold wrongs of vindictive persecution would the American people hear from those dark, damp, loathsome casemates! But a day of retribution will come, must come. Crimes and criminals never go unpunished. The wail of the motherthe grief of the wife or the cry of the daughter may be suppressed for the time, by the gleaming bayonets of an obedient soldiery; but retributive justice will follow him who robs the citizen of his liberty, even unto the very precincts of the cold and silent grave; conscience will smite him on earth, and he will exclaim:

"The thorns that I have reaped, are of the tree I planted.

They have torn me, and I bleed!"

JUDGE H. Some day the history of the political imprison ments during the late Administration will be written, and what a sad chapter to be read by posterity! It makes my heart weep to think that in this land of so-called liberty there has been so much oppression. We can no longer point to the Bastiles of France-the Towers and castles of Eng.

land, as "barbarous relics of a barbarous age. The Ame rican Bastile is now identified with the institutions of our country. Here the word of the informer was the law-the sound of the "little bell" the signal- and the telegraph the messenger. Citizens were arrested by thousands, and incarcerated without warrant. Judges were torn from the bench, bruised and bleeding. Ministers of the Gospel, while performing the sacred and holy duties of their offices, were stricken down, dragged through the streets, and imprisoned. Women were incarcerated, and subjected to insult and outrage. Doctors were ruthlessly taken from the bedside of the dying patient, and immured for months without warrant, and lawyers arrested and consigned to the same cells with their clients, whose release they were endeavoring to effect. Post-offices were searched; newspapers seized and suppressed, while the editors were handcuffed and secretly hurried to prison. The writ of Habeas Corpus was a blank, and all our inheritable rights, "poor, poor, dumb mouths."

AUTHOR. Nor was that all. The citizen was not only de nied the great bulwark of personal liberty-the writ of Habeas Corpus but even the guns upon the ramparts of strongly garrisoned fortresses, placed there to defend the Citadel of Liberty against a foreign enemy without, were used to prevent the execution of the writ to effect the release of the citizen incarcerated within, and derisively called the "Habeas Corpus." What solemn mockery!

JUDGE H. Yes, the civil law was powerless, while military law ruled supreme. The citizen was utterly helpless. His liberty and life were in the hands of a reckless military com mission, or an obedient Secretary, who had neither conscience uor mercy

AUTHOR. Ay, it makes one sad to think there was such an useless disregard of all personal rights. A Government so young should protect the liberties of the people, for dissolution will soon follow tyranny in a free government.

JUDGE H. How would you like to write a history of the political imprisonments during the Administration of the late Mr. Lincoln?

AUTHOR. My dear Judge, I should prefer to write a brighter page in the history of my country.

JUDGE H. That is true. But do you not think it is a duty we owe to our country, as good citizens, to give the facts to the people, show them that they have been misinformed and deceived, and thus, if possible, prevent a repetition of like encroachments upon their chartered rights?

AUTHOR. Do you not think the prejudices of those who ought to listen, are so strong that they would turn a deaf ear to the truth?

JUDGE H. No. On the contrary, I believe a large portion of the Republican party was opposed to the illegal arrests of citizens, and regret that such a course of arbitrary power was exercised.

AUTHOR. I should think so too; for the name of "BASTILE," in free America, involuntarily carries us back to the French Revolution, where crimes untold were committed, as in our own country, in the name of liberty.

JUDGE H. Can you give me a short history of the Bastile in Paris? I know it was demolished, but I have forgotten the facts in connection with it.

AUTHOR. I will endeavor to do so; but you will excuse me, Judge, if you find me a little rusty. The Fortress of the Bastile, I think, was erected in the fourteenth century,

(in the reign of Charles V.,) about the time the city was surrounded by walls and ditches, to defend it from the incur. sions of the English. It was then in the fashionable quarter of the city. About the year 1594, Henri II. received a wound, in tilting at a tournament, from the Comte de Montgomery, and in consequence of the death of Henri from thie wound, Catherine de Medicis deserted this quarter, and in later years the Fortress of the Bastile was used only as a state prison. Like most edifices of this nature, it became odious in the sight of the people, "and as the receptacle of individuals arrested by virtue of Lettres de Cachet, was the scene of many memorable abuses of authority." It was consequently against this monument of arbitrary power that the people directed the attack in 1789. They captured it, and liberated the many unhappy and unfortunate victims therein confined. It was afterwards totally demolished by a decree of the National Assembly. On its site stands the Column July, an ornament of the city of Paris, and an index to the progress and civilization of the times. One part of this column is devoted to commemorate the names of those who fell in the taking of the Bastile, and the other to those who were killed on the spot in July, 1830. When I stood at the base of this column in 1859, I thought of the presentation of the key of the Bastile by La Fayette to Washington.

The key was placed in the hands of La Fayette, who for. warded it, through Thomas Paine, an American in London, as a present to Washington, together with a drawing representing the destruction of the prison. In the letter to Wash ington, accompanying the gift, the Marquis says:

"Give me leave, my dear general, to present you with a picture of the Bastile, just as it looked a few days after I