VOL. III. No. 9.]

[ Price 10D

TO JAMES MAC INTOSH, ESQ. SIR,-The trial of MR. PELTIER, on which public expectation has dwelt for so long a time, has, at last, terminated in a manner contrary to the wishes of every man, who entertains a just dread of the all-deyouring influence of France. To say, that you could have prevented the conviction, would, perhaps, be going too far. It is, generally speaking, very unreasonable to blame an advocate for the loss of a cause; but, when that advocate is praised, when his defence is publicly extolled as the most able that a court and jury ever listened to, such praise, if suffered to pass unquestion ed, operates as an additional accusation against the person whom it could not preserve, and as a strong presumptive proof of the fair and honourable motives of his prosecutor; to a juridical condemnation it does, in fact, add a condemnation by the voice of the world. With a hope of being able to afford MR. PELTIER some little shelter against this latter species of condemnation, I have now taken up the pen.

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But, Lefore I proceed to an examination of your defence, it is proper to cite some of the encomiastic publications, to which I have alluded. At the head of your speech, as given in the Morning Post, and as copied, verbatim, by me, were the following words: "Mr. Mac Intosh made a speech of three "hours, which for eloquence, feeling, extent, and variety of information, ingenuity, and depth of argument, was equal "to any thing that the court has ever "witnessed. The following out-line conveys nearly all that was material to Mr. "Peltier's case."-At the end of the speech were these words :-" The learned counsel "concluded his speech, which lasted for "three hours. We confess our inability [modest people!]" even to give a just "character of it. For profound and exten"sive political knowledge it was superior "to any we ever heard in Westminster "Hall. It was truly a torrent of eloquence, "which seized the hearers, and bore them " away with its impetuosity."-Then again, in the same print, of the 24th instant :"The speech of Mr. Mac Intosh, on Mr. "Peltier's trial, is a theme of admiration

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"in all companies. So much information,

eloquence, and reasoning, have seldom "been displayed in a court of law."-The, True Briton of the 25th instant has the following: The neat speech of Mr. Mac "Intosh was so distinguished by genius, "knowledge, and eloquence, that it will, "be his own fault if he does not rise to the "highest distinction at the English bar."—More is useless, or I could add half a score other of the most disgusting puffs that ever disgraced even the columns of the London newspapers."

Now, Sir, I have read this speech with very great attention; and, without having the presumption to attempt what the Morning Post (which has the advantage of belonging to a near relation of yours) has openly confessed its inability to do; without supposing myself able to describe, with suitable sublimity, that which is here represented as having blinded the world with its brilliancy, I shall, nevertheless, venture to approach it, to look into its several parts, and to determine for myself what it really and truly possesses, whether of merit or of defect. And here, I think it necessary to premise, that I do not hold myself bound to consider it as an historical sketch of the balance of power, nor as a treatise on trade and commerce, nor as a lecture on metaphysics, nor as a general eulogium on the typographical art, nor, in short, as any thing but that which it professes to be, and which it ought to have been, a defence of MR. PELTIER against the charges alleged in the information. Viewing it in this light, and in this light only, there are four distinct points, which present themselves for examination. The defence is to be considered relative, 1. To the general character of your cause and of your client; 2. To the precedents on which the prosecution was founded; 3. To the principle which gave rise to those precedents; and, 4. To the application of that principle to the present

case.

1. As to the general character of your cause and of your client.-It appears to me, Sir, that the first object of an advocate ought to be, to give to the jury, if pos izle, a prepossession in favour, not only of his

cause, but also of the general character and conduct of his client. If the case be so desperate as to render the accomplishment of this object utterly impossible, it is, then, wise to refrain from attempting it; but, in no case, however palpably bad, and however heinous the crime, can it, in my opinion, be proper to make any admissions of a contrary tendency. Upon this principle, which I have never heard controverted, it is, that I cannot applaud the opening of your defence.

After a high eulogium on that intrepidity, by which the British Bar had been distinguished, and of which intrepidity you were, one would have hoped, about to give so striking and memorable an instance, you began your defence of MR. PELTIER with an ill-boding acknowledgment of the numerous difficulties, which you had to encounter, and, as a proof of your sincerity, in this respect, you added an explicit de claration, that if you could have avoided these difficulties, you would not have encountered them. The words ascribed to you by the Morning Post are these :--"You

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may, indeed, conceive that having had "the presumption to encounter those dif

ficulties, I have no title to indulgence in " contending with them. I did not seek "them, but having unexpectedly fallen in with "them, I will not now turn my back on "them here I found them, and here I "will meet and engage them with every "exertion of whatever power I possess. Acting on these principles, before an "English jury, I am sure that if my feel❝ings shall, in any instance, betray me into

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any excessive warmth, my client will not "suffer for my error. He imposed on me "the trust of his defence, and I could not "decline it." Which was, certainly, as much as to say, that you would have declined it if you could. It is common, I believe, for advocates, who are, either ex officio or otherwise, charged with the defence of persons, who are accused of what the law justly calls infamous and horrid crimes, and whose guilt is manifest; it may be common, in such cases, which seem to communicate a sort of contamination to every one at all concerned in them, to apologize to the court and jury for having undertaken the cause. Even this, however, does not seem to be quite just; for, every man is, in a court of justice, to be presumed innocent, until he is legally found, and declared to be, guilty; and, if this presumption ought to exist, in full force, in the minds of others, nothings surely ought to be said to impair it by the sworn defender of the person accused. But, whatever excuse there may

be for the timidity of advocates engaged in causes of this sort, it will not, I am certain, by any man of sense, be found applicable to that of MR. PELTIER; yet, it would be difficult to imagine, how you could have been more shy, how you could have disowned a cause more explicitly, how you could have testified greater anxiety to apologize for the defence you were about to make, if your client had stood charged, on the clearest evidence, of the blackest, the foulest, the most detestable and most horrid of crimes. The defender of Despard himself could not have exhibited stronger marks of conscious disgrace. You" did "not seek" the cause, it was "imposed" on you, and you "could not decline it." Suppose this to be true. It is the business of an advocate to defend causes which he does not seek; and, indeed, though I will not, with the ill natured Dean, compare a brief hunting lawyer to a street-walking beauty, I must avow my belief, that a lawyer of worth will be almost as reluctant as a woman of virtue to make the first advance. With regard to the liberty, which a practising advocate has of refusing to undertake a cause, there may be some difference of opinion; but, when once he has undertaken it, whether from friendship, from interest, or from a sense of the obligation imposed on him by his profession, he is by no means at liberty to injure it, in any manner, or for any purpose whatever, particularly for that of gratifying any feelings of his own. It is, indeed, possible to suppose a case of absolute force. We have all heard of an admiral, who, being in great need of a court of vice-admiralty, sent out his cruizers, actually captured a judge upon the high seas, brought him in, and set him instantly to the glorious work of adjudication. Compulsion like this might justify an apology on the part of the learned person here spoken of, just upon the same principle that a pressed-man always thinks himself at liberty to desert; but, I know of nothing short of the use compulsion, of actual physical force, or, at least, of a threat against life or limb, that can possibly justify an advocate in disowning a cause which he has once undertaken.-Very dif ferent, however, very different indeed, was the situation, in which you stood, with regard to the cause of MR. PELTIER. You will, doubtless, anticipate what I am now going to say, and I assure you I feel no other pleasure in saying it, than that which arises from an act of justice done towards an injured and oppressed individual.-You could have declined the defence of MR. PELTIER; it Was not IMPOSED on you: nay,

Sir, you did seek this defence, you did actually ask for it, you did earnestly solicit to be employed by the very person whom you represented as having imposed his defence upon you in such a way that you could not decline it! Nor was this application made, on your part, in a manner easily to be for gotten. It was by letter, by a letter written with your own hand, and in your own name, that you asked for this cause; and, lest the application to MR. PELTIER (to whom you were an utter stranger), should fail of success, you backed it by another letter to MR. DULAU, of Soho Square, through whom you obtained an introduction to your intended client. MR. PELTIER had never known you; I do not believe that he had ever heard of you; you took him totally by surprize; you fastened on him in a way that rendered it next to impossible for him to disentangle himself: in short, the very reverse of your statement is true: you sought the defence of Mr. Peltier, you imposed yourself on him, and he could not, without absolute rudeness, decline your cfficious interference!

Having thought it right to begin your defence with an apology for undertaking it, the general character and leading principles of your client naturally enough presented themselves as the next objects of degradation. Accordingly you represent MR. PELTIER as the publisher of an "obscure journal." You call him “ a poor, "proscribed, French emigrant;" a person in a state of dependence and destitution ;" an "unfortunate stranger;" a "weak, defenceless

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fugitive."-Is this the way, Sir, for an advocate to maintain the character of his client? Was this a likely way to efface the imputations cast on MR. PELTIER by the charges of the information? Was this picture a true one? Was your client so poor, so mean, so wretched a caitiff as to have no hope but what was built on compassion, on that most weak and most short-lived of all the feelings of the human breast? MR. PELTIER, is no stranger, Sir, in England; no, nor in any other country where literature is known. MR. PELTIER is not so much a stranger in England as you are, Sir; and, as to the rest of the world, there is not a day, when he is not spoken of with admiration by thousands upon thousands, who never have heard, and never will hear, the name of Mac Intosh pronounced. Peltier was amongst the very first to oppose the destructive principles of the French revolution, and, had there been only a few such men, a very small number, those principles never would have prevailed. Brissot, in speaking of the Actes des Apôtres (one of

Mr.

He

the first of Mr. Peltier's works), declared that it had done more harm to the republ lican cause than all the armies of the allies. This gentleman had, at the moment when he honoured you with his defence, been fifteen years engaged, most earnestly engaged, without an hour's relaxation or repose, in the cause of royalty against republicanism, of social order against anarchy, of religion against blasphemy. In the progress of these his most laudable endeavours het written, translated, and compiled, nearly a hundred octavo volumes, every part of which had had an immense circulation, and the whole must have produced in the world a considerable portion of that effect, which has obtained, for this country, a respite, at least, from destruction. attacked the revolutionary monster with every species of weapon, reason, eloquence, and ridicule. That this last is not usually the least efficacious has been but too amply proved by Voltaire, who employed it as successfully for a bad purpose as Mr. Peltier has done for a good one. In the use of this weapon the latter has been particularly happy, and, in the midst of all his millions of pleasantries, he never has, notwithstanding the great haste in which many of his pieces must have passed from his pen to the public eye; he never has, in all his voluminous writings let fall one sentence calculated to encourage or to excuse vice of any sort his wit has always been held in due subordination to virtue and religion. As a striking and most honourable proof of the great talents and sound principles of MR. PELTIER, I shall here cite the testimonial given, no longer ago than the 16th instant, under the hand and seal of His Royal Highness the Prince of Condé."The attachment which MR. PELTIER has "constantly shewn in his writings, to the "person of the unfortunate Lewis the "XVIth, as well as to the persons of his "legitimate successors; his zeal and his

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energy in defending, from the commence"ment of the revolution, the cause of "kings, of social order, and the true con"stitution of France, do honour, in our "opinion, to his talents and his courage, "and entitle him to peculiar claims on the "gratitude of the House of Bourbon: for "this reason, we hereby grant him the

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present testimonial of our special esteem, "and authorize him to produce it where"ever it can be serviceable to him; desir"ing that those persons to whom it shall "be presented, will consider it as the ex"pression of our personal regard for Mr. "Peltier, and a tribute of justice to his fidelity to his legitimate sovereign, as

"well as to the ardour of his invariable "attachment to the most sacred of duties."

This testimonal, Sir, you had in your possession before you went into court; it was, perhaps, in your pocket at the very moment that you were representing your client as the most wretched of mortals. I do not know how you may value a testimonial like this: perhaps not very highly: but, I am persuaded, that every man unadulterated by the new-fangled doctrines, and particularly every sincere royalist, will regard it as an honour, which ought not to have been overlooked by MR. PELTIER's advocate.-It is not the Bourbons only, however, who owe a debt of gratitude to MR. PELTIER. He has laboured in the cause of the British as well as that of the French monarchy. During the last war he wrote and translated hundreds of pieces for the government here. He was the ablest as well as the most faithful writer which that government ever employed, and he rendered it the most ef fectual service. One of his last acts of this sort was, if I am not misinformed, a translation of that famous speech, wherein MR. PITT described the character of the Child and Champion of Jac binism, and which speech, by the help of MR. PELTIER, was sent, in sprightly and elegant French, to every court in Europe! And, that Mr. Peltier did not render these services merely for emolument, and without regard to principle, you might have deduced a very satisfactory proof from the circumstances of his prosecution; for, if he had been a hireling, he would have followed the tergiversations of government; he would, with Lord Hawkesbury, have abused and libelled Buonaparté in 1800, and, with the same "safe politician," would have sung his praises in 1801. Had he been a hireling, he would, like the rest of the servile scribblers, of whom Mr. George Rose was paymaster-general, have escaped the fangs of the law. Had he been a downright, steady, thorough-paced hireling, a slave without a will, without a soul, without a thought of his own; had he been one of these dishonoured, these base, these prostituted mortals, he would never have been prosecuted by the British government, which, if it ever happens to be supported by a man of honour and independence, seems constantly to lie in wait for an opportunity to reward him with some special mark of its ingratitude and malice.-These, amongst other things, you should have told the court and

You should have described your client y was a gentleman of high repuby both public and private; of inexesgarces of mind, of incredible

facility of execution, of unwearied industry, of inflexible perseverance, of unshaken integrity, and as having great claims of gratitude on the whole civilized world, but particularly on England. Inftead of descanting on the writings of the Marquis of Montrose, of Cowley, and of God knows who besides, you might have occupied a small portion of the three hours" in a description of the works of Mr. JEAN PELTIER. You might easily have shown, that, from the year 1792 to the close of the war, during nine of the moft eventful years that this kingdom ever saw, Mr. PELTIER was constantly employed in combatting our enemies; that his pen was continually upon the watch to unveil the thousands of falsehoods and misrepresentations circulated against us, by means of the French press; that, in the Weft Indies, and in all foreign colonies and countries, he was our great, and almost our only, literary defender; that, with respect to this nation itself, he was ever the first to bring to light, and to expose to the people, the treacherous intentions and the horrid deeds of the republican tyrants; and, in short, you might safely have asserted, that to the ef forts of your client, more than to those of any other individual, the very audience, to whom you were speaking, owed the existence of that liberty which they yet enjoyed. And was this gentleman, who has resided so many years in the kingdom, who, besides his having married an English lady, has bound us to him by so many such powerful and such honourable ties; was this gentleman, Sir, to be represented as a "poor defenceless fugitive," as an "unfortunate stranger,” as the writer of an "obscure journal," as being in a "state of dependence and desti tution," as something, in short, very little better than a pauper, whom it might, in fact, be a charity to remove from his miserable garret to a good warm rent-free room in the King's-bench prison? Was this the light, Sir, in which to exhibit Mr. PELTIER? Was it for the purpose of making this exhibition, that you sought his acquaintance and solicited his defence?

Leaving you, Sir, to answer these questions, I should now proceed to consider your speech as relative to the merits of the case itself; but, when you perceive the press of other important matter, with which I am surrounded, I make no doubt you will have the goodness to excuse me for postponing this part of the subject till next week. In the mean time, I remain your most obedient servant, London, 26 Feb. 1803.

WM. COBBETT.

TO THE RT. HON. LD. HAWKESBURY, &c. MY LORD,-In my last letter, (1) I gave your lordship an account of the measures, which have already taken place, with espect to the interests of the Anglo-Americans, as connected with the cession of Louisiana, and, at the same time, I endeavoured to describe the feelings excited by those measures, reserving, for the subject of the present letter, the remaining two points; to wit: the conduct which will hereafter be pursued by the French, together with the effect thereof on the Americans; and, the ultimate consequences, with respect to the commerce, the navigation, the power, and the independence of England.

To you, my lord, and your most worthy colleagues, whose minds seldom wander beyond the places which you occupy, and which you hope to occupy to the termination of your natural lives; to you, whose travels and whose topographical knowledge extend no farther than to Richmond Park, or thereabouts; to you, or to that wise man the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who thought that the United States might be annoyed as effectually by a military post in St. Domingo as by a similar post at New Orleans to such near-sighted, slow-paced, caterpillar politicians, the task, here undertaken, must, of course, appear perfectly "quixotic;" but, to men of other minds, it falls within the ordinary efforts of diligent inquiry and sober reason.

Buonaparté, aided by the advice of the better informed and more politic men, by whom he is surrounded, will pay due attention to all the American Official Papers, to which I have referred your lordships (2); and being regularly, minutely and correctly informed, by his agents in America, of the feelings, the wishes, the intentions, and the means, of the different classes of the people as well as of the different parties in the legislature and in the executive government, will fashion his system accordingly. He will perceive, that the cool and dubious language of the government by no

means

comes up to the public feeling, as expressed in the newspapers (3). He will perceive, that, while the people are loud for arming, the President talks of nothing but economy, and expressly discourages the idea of any augmentation of the military force of the country (4). But, he will, at the same

time, see the possibility of Jefferson and his party being secretly hostile to him, on account of his late assumption of regal pow ers, and particularly on account of his obvious contempt of them, of which Mr. Chancellor Livingston, the American Minister at Paris, has not, undoubtedly, failed to inform them. From this cause, aided by the resentment of the people of America, the Consul may be led to apprehend the adoption of such measures as might render the occupation of Louisiana an enterprize not entirely free from trouble, danger, and delay. To prevent this latter alternative, it, from his information, it appears likely to happen, the Corsican will instantly signify his disapprobation of the measures of the Spanish Intendant; he will order the prohibition at New Orleans to be taken off; and, will communicate to the Americans, this his gracious act of condescension, in terms which shall at once inspire the mass of the people with gratitude, with respect, and with that sort of fear which never fails to prepare the vulgar mind for implicit submission. Instantly the English traitors, and all his other typographical partizans, will begin to pour forth the praises of France. The odium of the prohibition will be thrown exclusively on the Spaniards; the people of the Western States, rejoiced at getting rid of these neighbours, more rejoiced at the restoration of their commerce, without the dangers and expenses of war, will hail Buonaparté as their deliverer: and, even the people of the Atlantic States, finding that the Swiss have been basely abandoned, finding that England has now clearly, though tacitly, acknowledged her incapacity ever again to draw the sword against France, will once more congratulate themselves, as they did when they first heard of the treaty of peace, that they no longer have any political connexion with this disgraced and falling empire."Scarcely will this impression, so favourable to the views of France, have been produced in the United States, when her army, her captains-general, her engineers, her commercial agents, her savans, her commissaries, her juges de paix, all her endless train of spies and inquisitors, of great and little tyrants, will land at New Orleans. For some months, perhaps for a year, all possible liberty of commerce will be given to the Americans; and, in the mean time, the country round the mouth of the Mississippi will be carefully explored the best positions will be fortified; the friendship of the Indians, who are very numerous and very brave, will be cultivated; the States of Ohia, Tennessee, Kentucky, &c. &c. will