Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846

Andreossi, the French ambassador, has arrived. He is a rude and rough specimen even of the Republican, but a man of intelligence, an engineer, and distinguished for his publications. Still the bone of contention is Malta, and the difficulty seems greater than ever. The French consul insists on its abandonment by England, as an article of the treaty of Amiens; but the answer of England is perfectly intelligible, – You have not adhered to that treaty in any instance whatever, but have gone on annexing Italian provinces to France. You have just now made a vassal of Switzerland, and to all our remonstrances on the subject you have answered with utter scorn. While you violate your stipulations, how can you expect that we shall perform ours? But another obstruction to the surrender of Malta has been produced by the conduct of France herself. She has seized the entire property of the Order in France, in Piedmont, and wherever she can seize it. Spain, probably by her suggestion, has followed her example, and the Order now is reduced to pauperism; in fact, it no longer exists. Thus it is impossible to restore the island to the Order of St John of Jerusalem; and to give it up at once to France, would be to throw away an important security for the due performance of the treaty. Government are so determined on this view of the case, that orders have been sent to Malta for all officers on leave to join their regiments immediately.

Malta is one of the remarkable instances in which we may trace a kind of penalty on the rapaciousness of the Republic. While it remained in the possession of the Order, it had observed a kind of neutrality, which was especially serviceable to France, as the island was a refuge for its ships, and a depôt for its commerce, in common with that of England. But Bonaparte, in his Egyptian expedition, finding the opportunity favourable, from the weakness of the knights, and the defenceless state of the works, landed his troops, and took possession of it without ceremony. No act could be more atrocious as a breach of faith, for the knights were in alliance with France, and were wholly unprepared for hostilities. The place was now in full possession of the treacherous ally. Contributions were raised; the churches were plundered of their plate and ornaments; the knights were expelled, and a French garrison took possession of the island. What was the result? Malta was instantly blockaded by the British, the garrison was reduced by famine, and Malta became an English possession; which it never would have been, if the knights had remained there; for England, in her respect for the faith of treaties, would not have disturbed their independence. Thus, the Republic, by iniquitously grasping at Malta, in fact threw it into the hands of England. It is scarcely less remarkable, that the plunder of Malta was also totally lost, it being placed on board the admiral's ship, which was blown up at the battle of the Nile.

One of the first acts of the French consul has been to conciliate the Italian priesthood by an act which they regard as equivalent to a conversion to Christianity. The image of our Lady of Loretto, in the French invasion of Italy, had been carried off from Rome; of course, the sorrows of the true believers were unbounded. The image was certainly not intended to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, for it was as black as a negro; and, from the time of its capture, it had unfortunately lost all its old power of working miracles. But it has at length been restored to its former abode, and myriads of the pious followed the procession. Discharges of cannon and ringing of bells welcomed its approach. It was carried by eight bishops, in a species of triumphal palanquin, splendidly decorated, and placed on its altar in the Santa Casa with all imaginable pomps and ceremonies. The whole town was illuminated in the evening, and the country was in a state of exultation at what it regards as an evidence of the immediate favor of heaven.

A singular and melancholy trial has just taken place, in which a colonel in the army, with several of the soldiery and others, have been found guilty of a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and kill the king on the day of his opening Parliament. The 16th of November 1802, had been the day appointed for this desperate deed; but information having been obtained of the design through a confederate, the whole party of conspirators were seized on that day by the police at a house in Lambeth, where they arrested Despard and his fellow traitors. On the floor of the room three printed papers were found, containing their proclamation.

They were headed, "Constitution, the independence of Great Britain and Ireland, an equalization of civil and religious rights, an ample provision for the wives of the heroes who shall fall in the conquest, a liberal reward for distinguished merits; these are the objects for which we contend, and to obtain these objects we swear to be united in the awful presence of Almighty God." Then follows the oath: "I, A.B., do voluntarily declare that I will endeavour to the utmost of my power to obtain the objects of this union, viz. to recover those rights which the Supreme Being, in his infinite bounty, has given to all men; that neither hopes, fears, rewards, nor punishments, shall ever induce me to give any information, directly or indirectly, concerning the business, or of any member of this or any similar society, so help me God."

One of the witnesses, a private in the Guards, gave evidence that the object of the conspiracy was to overturn the present system of government; to unite in companies, and to get arms. They subscribed, and the object of the subscription was, to pay delegates to go into the country, and to defray the expense of printing their papers. All persons belonging to the subscription were to be divided into ten companies, each consisting of ten, with an eleventh who was called captain. The next order was, that the oldest captain of five companies took the command of those fifty men, and was to be called colonel of the subdivision. Every means was to be adopted to get as many recruits as possible. There was to be no regular organization in London, for fear of attracting the eye of government. But the system was to be urged vigorously in the great manufacturing towns; the insurrection was to commence by an attack on the House of Parliament; and the king was to be put to death either on his way to the House, or in the House. The mail-coaches were then to be stopt, as a signal to their adherents in the country that the insurrection had triumphed in the metropolis. An assault was then to be made on the Tower, and the arms seized. At subsequent meetings, the question of the royal seizure was more than once discussed; and Despard had declared it to be essential to the success of the plot, that no effect could be produced unless the whole royal family were secured. The first plan for the seizure of the king was to shoot his carriage horses, then force him out of the carriage, and carry him off. A second plan was then proposed, viz. that of loading the Egyptian gun in St James's Park with chain shot, and firing it at the royal carriage as it passed along.

Lord Nelson and General Sir Alured Clarke were brought as evidence to character. Lord Nelson said, that he and Colonel Despard had served together on the Spanish Main in 1799, and that he was then a loyal man and a brave officer. Lord Ellenborough strongly charged the jury. He declared that there was no question of law, and that the whole case resolved itself into a question of fact. The jury, after retiring for half an hour, brought in a verdict of guilty.

In a few days after, Despard, with six of his accomplices, were executed in front of the new jail in the Borough. The men were chiefly soldiers whom this wretched criminal had bribed or bewildered into the commission of treason. Despard made a speech on the scaffold, declaring himself innocent, and that he was put to death simply for being a friend to truth, liberty, and justice. How he could have made this declaration after the evidence that had been given, is wholly unintelligible except on the ground of insanity, though of that there was no symptom, except in the design itself. What prompted the design except narrow circumstances, bad habits, and the temptations of a revengeful spirit, was never discovered.

A trial, which exhibited extraordinary talent in the defence, by a counsel hitherto unknown, has attracted an interest still more general, though of a less melancholy order. Peltier, an emigrant, and supposed to be an agent of the French emigrant body, had commenced a periodical work, entitled L'Ambigu; the chief object of which was to attack the policy, person, and conduct of the First Consul of France. His assaults were so pointed, that they were complained of by the French government as libels; and the answer returned was, that the only means which the ministry possessed of punishing such offences, was by the verdict of a jury. The Attorney-general, in opening the case, described the paper. On its frontispiece, was a sphinx with a crown upon its head, the features closely resembling those of Bonaparte. A portion of the paper was devoted to a parody of the harangue of Lepidus against Sylla. It asks the French people, "Why they have fought against Austria, Prussia, Italy, England, Germany, and Russia, if it be not to preserve our liberty and our property, and that we might obey none but the laws alone. And now, this tiger, who dares to call himself the Founder, or the Regenerator of France, enjoys the fruit of your labours as spoil taken from the enemy. This man, sole master in the midst of those who surround him, has ordained lists of proscription, and put in execution banishment without sentence, by which there are punishments for the French who have not yet seen the light. Proscribed families, giving birth out of France to children, oppressed before they are born. In another part, the paper urged to immediate action. It says, "Citizens, you must march, you must oppose what is passing, if you desire that he should not seize upon all that you have. There must be no delays, no useless wishes; reckon only upon yourselves, unless you indeed have the stupidity to suppose that he will abdicate through shame of tyranny that which he holds by force of crime." In another part, he assails the First Consul on the nature of his precautions to secure his power. He charges him with the formation of a troop of Mamelukes, composed of Greeks, Maltese, Arabians, and Copts, "a collection of foreign banditti, whose name and dress, recalling the mad and disastrous Egyptian expedition, should cover him with shame; but who, not speaking our language, nor having any point of contact with our army, will always be the satellites of the tyrant, his mutes, his cut-throats, and his hangmen. The laws, the justice, the finances, the administration; in fine, the liberty and life of the citizens, are all in the power of one man. You see at every moment arbitrary arrests, judges punished for having acquitted citizens, individuals put to death after having been already acquitted by law, sentences and sentences of death extorted from judges by threats. Remains there for men, who would deserve that name, any thing else to do, but to avenge their wrongs, or perish with glory?"

Another portion of this paper contained an ode, in which all things were represented as in a state of convulsion, all shaken by a tremendous storm; but nature, either blind or cruel, sparing the head of the tyrant alone: – still carrying on the parody of the Roman speech, it pronounces that a poniard is the last resource of Rome to rescue herself from a dictator. It asks, is it from a Corsican that a Frenchman must receive his chains? was it to crown a traitor that France had punished her kings? In another, a libel, which traced the rise of Bonaparte, and charged him with the intention of assuming imperial power, concluded in these words: – "Carried on the shield, let him be elected emperor; finally, (and Romulus recalls the thing to mind,) I wish that on the morrow he may have his 'apotheosis.'" This the Attorney-general certainly, with every appearance of reason, pronounced to be a palpable suggestion to put the First Consul to death; as history tells us that Romulus was assassinated.

The defence by Mackintosh was a bold and eloquent performance. He commenced by a spirited animadversion on the Attorney's speech, and then extended his subject into a general defence of the liberty of the press, which he pronounced to be the true object of attack on the part of the First Consul. He followed the history of its suppression through all the states under French influence, and then came to the attempt at its suppression here. He then invoked the jury to regard themselves as the protectors of the freedom of speech on earth, and to rescue his client from the severity of an oppression which threatened the universal slavery of mankind.

This speech has been strongly criticised as one in which the advocate defended himself and his party, while he neglected his client. But the obvious truth is, that unless the suggestion of assassination is defensible, there could be no defence, and unless the laws of nations justify the most violent charges on the character of foreign sovereigns, there could be no justification for the language of the whole paper. Mackintosh evidently took the best course for his cause. He made out of bad materials a showy speech; he turned the public eye from the guilt of the libel to the popular value of the press; where others would have given a dull pleading, he gave a stately romance; where the jury, in feebler hands, would have been suffered to see the facts in their savage nudity, he exhibited them clothed in classic draperies, and dazzled the eye with the lofty features and heroic attitudes of ancient love of country. All the skill of man could not have saved Peltier from a verdict of guilty; but the genius of the orator invested his sentence with something of the glory of martyrdom. The breaking out of the war relieved Peltier from the consequences of the verdict. But there can be no question that, if he had been thrown into prison, he would have been an object of the general sympathy; that the liberty of the press would have been regarded as in some degree involved in his sufferings; that he would have found public liberality willing to alleviate his personal and pecuniary difficulties; and that his punishment would have been shortened, and his fine paid by the zeal of the national sympathy. Such are the triumphs of eloquence. Such is the value of having a man of genius for an advocate. Such is the importance to the man of genius himself, of resolving to exert his highest powers for his client. Mackintosh has been called an indolent man; and he has been hitherto but little known. But he has at last discovered his own faculties, and he has only to keep them in action to achieve the highest successes of the bar; to fill the place of Erskine; and if no man can make Erskine forgotten, at least make him unregretted. This speech also has taught another lesson, and that lesson is, that the bar can be the theatre of the highest rank of eloquence, and that all which is regarded as the limit of forensic excellence, is a gratuitous degradation of its own dignity. The sharp retort, the sly innuendo, the dexterous hint, the hard, keen subtlety, the rough common sense, all valuable in their degree, and all profitable to their possessor, are only of an inferior grade. Let the true orator come forth, and the spruce pleader is instantly flung into the background. Let the appeal of a powerful mind be made to the jury, and all the small address, and practical skill, and sly ingenuity, are dropped behind. The passion of the true orator communicates its passion; his natural richness of conception fills the spirit of his hearers; his power of producing new thoughts and giving new shapes to acknowledged truths; his whole magnificence of mind erecting and developing new views of human action as it moves along, lead the feelings of men in a willing fascination until the charm is complete. But after such a man, let the mere advocate stand up, and how feebly does his voice fall on the ear, how dry are his facts, how tedious his tricks, how lacklustre, empty, and vain are his contrivances to produce conviction!

Mackintosh wants one grand quality for the jury, – he speaks like one who thinks more of his argument than of his audience; he forgets the faces before him, and is evidently poring over the images within. Though with a visage of the colour, and seemingly of the texture of granite, he blushes at a misplaced word, and is evidently sensitive to the error of a comma. No man ever spoke with effect who cannot hesitate without being overwhelmed, blunder without a blush, or be bewildered by his own impetuosity, without turning back to retrace. En avant is the precept for the orator, as much as it is the principle of the soldier. Mackintosh has to learn these things; but he has a full mind, a classic tongue, and a subtle imagination, and these constitute the one thing needful for the orator, comprehend all, and complete all.

The late Lord Orford, the relative of the well-known Horace Walpole, is one of the curious evidences that every man who takes it into his head to be conspicuous, right or wrong, may make for himself a name. Lord Orford, while his relative was writing all kinds of brilliant things, collecting antiquities, worshipping the genius of cracked china, and bowing down before fardingales and topknots of the time of Francis I., in the Temple of Strawberry Hill, was forming a niche for his fame in his dog-kennel, and immortalizing himself by the help of his hounds. Next to Actæon, he was the greatest dog-fancier that the world has ever seen, and would have rivalled Endymion, if Diana was to be won by the fleetest of quadrupeds. He was boundless in his profusion in respect of his favourite animals, until at last, finding that his ideas of perfection could not be realized by any living greyhounds, he speculated on the race unborn, and crossed his dogs until, after seven summers, he brought them to unrivalled excellence. He had at various times fifty brace of greyhounds, quartering them over every part of his county Norfolk, of which he was lord-lieutenant, probably for the sake of trying the effect of air and locality.

One of his lordship's conceptions was, that of training animals to purposes that nature never designed them for; and, if lions had been accessible in this country, he would probably have put a snaffle into the mouth of the forest king, and have trained him for hunting, unless his lordship had been devoured in the experiment. But his most notorious attempt of this order, was a four-in-hand of stags. Having obtained four red deer of strong make, he harnessed them, and by dint of the infinite diligence which he exerted on all such occasions; was at length enabled to drive his four antlered coursers along the high-road. But on one unfortunate day, as he was driving to Newmarket, a pack of hounds, in full cry after fox or hare, crossing the road, got scent of the track. Finding more attractive metal, they left the chase, and followed the stags in full cry. The animals now became irrestrainable, dashed along at full speed, and carried the phaeton and his lordship in it, to his great alarm, along the road, at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Luckily they did not take their way across the country, or their driver's neck must have been broken. The scene was now particularly animating; the hounds were still heard in full cry; no power could stop the frightened stags; his lordship exerted all his charioteering skill in vain. Luckily, he had been in the habit of driving to Newmarket. The stags rushed into the town, to the astonishment of every body, and darted into the inn yard. Here the gates were shut, and scarcely too soon, for in a minute or two after the whole dogs of the hunt came rushing into the town, and roaring for their prey. This escape seems to have cured his lordship of stag-driving; but his passion for coursing grew only more active, and the bitterest day of the year, he was seen mounted on his piebald pony, and, in his love of the sport, apparently insensible to the severities of the weather; while the hardiest of his followers shrank, he was always seen, without great-coat or gloves, with his little three-cocked hat facing the storm, and evidently insensible to every thing but the performances of his hounds.

His lordship was perhaps the first man who was ever made mad by country sports, though many a man has been made a beggar by them; and none but fools will waste their time on them. His lordship at length became unquestionably mad, and was put under restraint. At length, while still in confinement, and in a second access of his disorder, having ascertained, by some means or other, that one of his favourite greyhounds was to run a match for a large sum, he determined to be present at the performance. Contriving to send his attendant from the room, he jumped out of the window, saddled his piebald pony with his own hands, all the grooms having gone to the field, and there being no one to obstruct him, and suddenly made his appearance on the course, to universal astonishment. In spite of all entreaties, he was determined to follow the dogs, and galloped after them. In the height of the pursuit, he was flung from his pony, fell on his head; and instantly expired.

The fluctuations of the public mind on the subject of the peace, have lately influenced the stock market to a considerable degree. The insolence of the First Consul to our ambassador, Lord Whitworth, naturally produces an expectation of war. Early this morning, a man, calling himself a messenger from the Foreign Office, delivered a letter at the Mansion-house, and which he said had been sent from Lord Hawkesbury, and which was to be given to his lordship without delay. The letter was in these words: – "Lord Hawkesbury presents his compliments to the Lord Mayor, and has the honour to acquaint his lordship, that the negotiation between this country and the French republic is brought to an amicable conclusion. Signed, Downing Street, eight o'clock, May 5, 1803."

The Lord Mayor, with a precipitancy that argued but little for the prudence of the chief magistrate, had this letter posted up in front of the Mansion-house. The effect on the Stock Exchange was immediate; and consols rose eight per cent, from 63 to 71. The delusion, however, was brief; and the intelligence of the rise had no sooner reached Downing Street in its turn, than a messenger was dispatched to undeceive the city, and the city-marshal was employed to read the contradiction in the streets. The confusion in the Stock Exchange was now excessive; but the committee adopted the only remedy in their power. They ordered the Stock Exchange to be shut, and came to a resolution, that all bargains made in the morning should be null and void. Immediately after, another attempt of the same kind was made; and the Lord Mayor was requested by the people of the Stock Exchange to inquire into its reality from the government. The inquiry was answered by Mr Addington, of course denying it altogether, and finishing with this rebuke to civic credulity: – "I feel it my duty distinctly to caution your lordship against receiving impressions of the description alluded to, through any unauthorized channel of information." The funds immediately fell to 63 once more.

And yet it remains a delicate question, whether any committee can have the power of declaring the bargains null and void. Of course, where the inventors of the fraud have been parties, they have no right to gain by their own fraud; but where individuals, wholly unacquainted with the fraud, have gained, there seems no reason why a bonâ fide transaction should not stand.

The question of war is decided. On the 17th of May, an Order in Council, dated yesterday, has appeared in the Gazette, directing general reprisals against the ships, goods, and subjects of the French Republic. The peace, which rather deserves the name of a suspension of arms, or still more, the name of a prodigious act of credulity on the part of well-meaning John Bull, and an act of desperate knavery on the part of the First Consul and his accomplices, has lasted exactly one year and sixteen days, – England having occupied the time in disbanding her troops and dismantling her fleets; and France being not less busy in seizing on Italian provinces, strengthening her defences, and making universal preparations for war. Yet the spirit of England, though averse to hostilities in general, is probably more prepared at this moment for a resolute and persevering struggle than ever. The nation is now convinced of two things: first, that it is unassailable by France – a conviction which it has acquired during ten years of war; and next, that peace with France, under its present government, is impossible. The trickery of the Republican government, its intolerable insolence, the exorbitancy of its demands, and the more than military arrogance of its language, have penetrated every bosom in England. The nation has never engaged so heartily in a war before. All its old wars were government against government; but the First Consul has insulted the English people, and by the personal bitterness and malignant acrimony of his insults, has united every heart and hand in England against him. England has never waged such a war before; either party must perish. If England should fail, which heaven avert, the world will be a dungeon. If France should be defeated, the victory will be for Europe and all mankind.

Lord Nelson has sailed in the Victory from Portsmouth to take the command in the Mediterranean. A French frigate has been taken; and a despatch declaring war has been received from France, ordering the capture of all English vessels, offering commissions to privateers, and by an act of treachery unprecedented among nations, annexed to this order is a command that all the English, from eighteen to sixty, residing in France, should be arrested; the pretext being to answer as prisoners for the French subjects who may have been made prisoners by the ships of his Britannic Majesty, previously to any declaration of war.

This measure has excited the deepest indignation throughout London; and an indignation which will be shared by the empire. The English in France have been travelling and residing under French passports, and under the declared protection of the government. No crime has been charged upon them; they remained, because they regarded themselves as secure, relying on the honour of France. Their being kept as pledges for the French prisoners captured on the seas, is a mere trifling with common sense. The French subjects travelling or residing in England have not been arrested. The mere technicality of a declaration of war was wholly useless, when the ambassador of France had been ordered to leave England. The English ambassador had left Paris on the 12th; the French ambassador had left London on the 16th. The English order for reprisals appeared in the Gazette of the 17th. The English declaration of war was laid before Parliament on the 18th; and the first capture, a French lugger of fourteen guns.

THE "OLD PLAYER."

Imitated From Anastasius Grün

By A. Lodge

Aloft the rustling curtain flew,
That gave the mimic scene to view;
How gaudy was the suit he wore!
His cheeks with red how plaster'd o'er!

Poor veteran! that in life's late day,
With tottering step, and locks of gray,
Essay'st each trick of antic glee,
Oh! my heart bleeds at sight of thee.

A laugh thy triumph! and so near
The closing act, and humble bier;
This thy ambition? this thy pride?
Far better thou had'st earlier died!

Though memory long has own'd decay,
And dim the intellectual ray,
Thou toil'st, from many an idle page,
To cram the feeble brain of age.

And stiff the old man's arms have grown.
And scarce his folded hands alone
Half raised in whisper'd prayer they see,
To bless the grandchild at his knee.

But here – 'tis action lends a zest
To the dull, pointless, hacknied jest;
He saws the air 'mid welcome loud
Of laughter from the barren crowd.

A tear creeps down his cheek – with pain
His limbs the wasted form sustain;
Ay – weep! no thought thy tears are worth,
So the Pit shakes with boist'rous mirth.

And now the bustling scene is o'er,
The weary actor struts no more;
And hark, "The old man needed rest,"
They cry; "the arm-chair suits him best."

His lips have moved with mutter'd sound —
A pause – and still the taunt goes round;
"Oh! quite worn out – 'tis doting age,
Why lags the driveller on the stage?"

Again the halting speech he tries,
But words the faltering tongue denies,
Scarce heard the low unmeaning tone,
Then silent – as tho' life were flown.