public opinion will hardly sanction their being carried out. London is, and long has been, the head-quarters of revolutionary plot. No one knew that better than Louis Napoleon himself. No one had made more unscrupulous use of a domicile in London to carry out political and revolutionary projects. Associations have been formed in London to supply men and money to Don Carlos, to Queen Isabella, to the Polish Revolutionists, to Hungary, to Garibaldi, to the Southern Confederation, to the Circassians, to anybody and everybody who could say that he represented a defeat, or a victory, or a national cause, or anything. In 1860 Lord John Russell admitted in the House of Commons that it would be impossible to put into execution our laws against foreign enlistment, because every political party and almost every man was concerned in breaking them at one time or another. He referred to the fact that, some forty years before, the cause of Greece against Turkey had been taken up openly in London by public men of the highest mark, and that money, arms, and men were got together for Greece without the slightest pretence at concealment. While he was speaking, a legion was being formed in one place to fight for Victor Emmanuel against the Pope; in another place, to fight for the Pope against Victor Emmanuel. Every refugee was virtually free to make London a basis of operations against the Government which had caused his exile. There were, it is right to say, men who construed the conditions upon which they were sheltered in England with a conscientious severity. They held that they were protected by this country on the implied understanding that they took no part in any proceedings that might tend to embarrass her in her dealings with foreign States. They argued that the obligation on them, whether declared or not, was exactly the same as that which rests on one who asks and obtains the hospitality and shelter of a private house the obligation not to involve his host in quarrels with his neighbors. M. Louis Blanc, for example, who lived some twenty years in England, declined on principle to take part in secret political movements of any kind during all the time. But the great majority of the exiles of all countries were incessantly engaged in political plots and conspiracies; and undoubtedly some of these were nothing more or less than conspiracies

to assassinate. Many of the leading exiles were intimately associated with prominent and distinguished Englishmen ; and these same exiles were naturally associated to some extent with many of their own countrymen of a lower and less scrupulous class. It had, therefore, happened more than once before this time, and it happened more than once afterward, that when a plot at assassination was discovered, the plotters were found to have been on more or less intimate terms with some leading exiles in London, who themselves were well acquainted with eminent Englishmen. Men with a taste for assassination are to be found among the campfollowers of every political army. To assume that because the leaders of the party may have been now and then associated with them, they must therefore be acquainted with, and ought to be held responsible for, all their plots, is not less absurd than it would be to assume that an officer in a campaign must have been in the secret when some reprobate of his regiment was about to plunder a house. But the French colonels saw that the assassin this time was not a nameless scoundrel, but a man of birth and distinction like Felice Orsini, who had been received and welcomed everywhere in England. It is not very surprising if they assumed that his projects had the approval and favor of English public opinion. The French Government, indeed, ought to have known better. But the French Government lost for the moment its sense and self-control. A semi-official pamphlet, published in Paris, and entitled "The Emperor Napoleon the Third and England," actually went the ridic ulous length of describing an obscure debating-club in a Fleet Street public-house, where a few dozen honest fellows smoked their pipes of a night and talked hazy politics, as a formidable political institution where regicide was nightly preached to fanatical desperadoes.

Thus we had the public excited on both sides. The feeling of anger on this side was intensified by the conviction that France was insulting us because she thought England was crippled by her troubles in India, and had no power to resent an insult. It was while men here were smarting under this sense of wrong that Lord Palmerston introduced his famous measure for the suppression and punishment of conspiracies to murder. The bill was introduced in conse

quence of the despatch of Count Walewski. In that despatch it was suggested to the English Government that they ought to do something to strengthen their law. "Full of confidence," Count Walewski said, “in the exalted reason of the English Cabinet, we abstain from all indication as regards the measures which it may be suitable to take. We rely on them for a careful appreciation of the decision which they shall judge most proper, and we congratulate ourselves in the firm persuasion that we shall not have appealed in vain to their conscience and their loyalty." The words were very civil. They were words as sweet as those of which Cassius says, that "they rob the Hybla bees, and leave them honeyless." Nor was the request they contained in itself unreasonable. Long afterward this country had to acknowledge, in reply to the demand of the United States, that a nation cannot get rid of her responsibility to a foreign people by pleading that her municipal legislation does not provide for this or that emergency. If somebody domiciled among us shoots his arrow over the house and hurts our foreign brother, it is not enough for us to say, when complaint is made, that we have no law to prevent people from shooting arrows out of our premises. The natural rejoinder is, "Then you had better make such a law; you are not to injure us and get off by saying your laws allow us to be injured." But the conditions under which the request was made by France had put England in the worst possible mood for acceding to it. We have all heard of the story of General Jackson, who was on one occasion very near refusing in wrath a reasonable and courteous request of the French Government, because his secretary, in translating the letter for Jackson, who did not know French, began with the words, "The French Government demands." Jackson vehemently declared that if the French Government dared to demand anything of the United States they should not have it. It was only when it had been made quite clear to him that the French word demander did not by any means correspond with the English word "demand," that the angry soldier consented even to listen to the representation of France. The English public mind was now somewhat in Jackson's mood. It was under the impression that France was making a demand, and was not in the temper to grant it. Omi

nous questions were put to the Government in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Commons Mr. Roebuck asked whether any communications had passed between the Governments of England and France with respect to the Alien Act or any portion of our criminal code. Lord Palmerston answered by mentioning Count Walewski's despatch, which, he said, should be laid before the House. He added a few words about the addresses of the French regiments, and pleaded that allowance should be made for the irritation caused by the attempt on the life of the Emperor. He was asked a significant question-had the Government sent any answer to Count Walewski's despatch? No, was the reply; her Majesty's Government had not answered it; not yet.

Two or three days after, Lord Palmerston moved for leave to bring in the Conspiracy to Murder Bill. The chief object of the measure was to make conspiracy to murder a felony instead of a mere misdemeanor, as it had been in England, and to render it liable to penal servitude for any pe- . riod varying from five years to a whole life. Lord Palmerston made a feeble and formal attempt to prove that his bill was introduced simply as a measure of needed reform in our criminal legislation, and without special reference to anything that had happened in France. The law against conspiracy to murder was very light in England, he showed, and was very severe in Ireland. It was now proposed to make the law the same in both countries-that was all. Of course no one was deceived by this explanation. The bill itself was as much of a sham as the explanation. Such a measure would not have been of any account whatever as regarded the offences against which it was particularly directed. As Lord John Russell said in the debate, it would argue great ignorance of human nature to imagine that a fanatic of the Orsini class, or any of those whom such a man could fascinate by his influence, would be deterred by the mere possibility of a sentence of penal servitude. Lord Palmerston, we may be sure, did not put the slightest faith in the efficacy of the piece of legislation he had undertaken to recommend to Parliament. It was just as in the case of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. He was compelled to believe that the Government would have to do something; and he

came, after awhile, to the conclusion that the most harmless measure would be the best. He had had an idea of asking Parliament to empower the Secretary of State to send out of the country foreigners whom the Government believed to be engaged in plotting against the life of a foreign sovereign; the Government being under obligation to explain the grounds for their belief and their action to a secret committee of Parliament, or to a committee composed of the three chiefs of the law courts. Such a measure as this would probably have proved effective; but it would have been impossible to induce the House of Commons to pass such a bill, or to intrust such power to any Government. Indeed, if it were not certain that Palmerston did entertain such a project, the language he used in his speech when introducing the Conspiracy Bill might lead one to believe that nothing could have been farther from his thoughts. He disclaimed any intention to propose a measure which should give power to a Government to remove aliens on mere suspicion. He "was sure it was needless for him to say he had no such intention." He had, however, such an intention at one time. His biographer, Mr. Evelyn Ashley, is clear on that point, and there cannot be better authority. It must have been only for a moment that Palmerston even thought of making a proposal of the kind to an English Parliament. He had not been long enough in the Home Office, it would seem, to understand thoroughly the temper of his countrymen. Indeed, in this instance he made a mistake every way. When he assented to the introduction of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, he was right in thinking that English public opinion wished to have something done; but in this case the inclination of public opinion was the other way; it wished to have nothing done at least, just at that moment. Kinglake moved an amendment, formally expressing the sympathy of the House with the French people on account of the attempt made against the Emperor, but declaring it inexpedient to legislate, in compliance with the demand made in Count Walewski's despatch of January 20th," until further information is before it of the communications of the two Governments subsequent to the date of that despatch." A discussion took place, in which Mr. Roebuck pointed out, very properly, that in any new measure of legislation it was not

Mr.