flattered by a communication of the motives for such a proceeding against the individuals in question. The Duke, on the same day, not as an answer, wrote a note to Sir Charles Stuart. enclosing a letter from the minister of police, which stated that Sir R. Wilson, Mr. Bruce, and another person, were accused of having favoured the escape of Lavalette; adding, that their trial was going to commence, but that they would fully enjoy all the facilities afforded by the French laws for their justification.

On that and four subsequent days Sir Robert Wilson was submitted to interrogatories from commissioners of the police, which he refused to answer, and on the 17th he was removed to the prison of la Force. Interrogatories were also put to Messrs. Bruce and Hutchinson, who were removed to the same prison. In the subsequent examinations, the share taken by these gentlemen in the escape of Lavalette from France was freely admitted, as indeed it was rendered undeniable by Sir R. Wilson's intercepted letter to Lord Grey; but the charge of conspiring against the French government, which was deduced from expressions in this letter and other seized papers, was strenuously disavowed and refuted

The prisoners having demanded to be released on bail, an ordonnance of the chamber of council was made on January 30th, which pronounced that there was no ground at present for determining upon the said demand. This produced a memorial from these gentlemen, in which an ap

peal is maintained against the ordonnance on the legal argument that the title of the accusation indicated only correctional and not criminal penalties, and therefore did not exclude bail. Of this no notice was taken. They afterwards made an application for the communication to their counsel of the papers connected with the trial, which was refused in conformity with the law; and they were transferred to the Conciergerie.

The result of the examinations and inquiries was, that the Tribunal of First Instance charged Wilson with a plot directed generally against the political system of Europe, with the particular object of changing the French government, and exciting the people to take up arms against the king's authority; also with effecting the escape of Lavalette. Hutchinson and Bruce were charged only with being his accomplices in the latter action, The Court, entitled the Chamber of Accusation, after its deliberations, published an arret, in which it was declared that upon due consideration of the documents produced, it not appearing that sufficient evidence existed against the three persons accused, of a plot against the French government and the royal authority, there was no ground of accusation in that respect; but that there resulted from the documents a sufficient charge of their being accessary to the concealment and escape of Lavalette. In consequence, the chamber committed to the Court of Assize of the Department of the Seine the trial of the prisoners for these offences. Some Frenchmen were implica

ted

ted in the same charge; but their trial does not belong to the present narrative. It may, however, be remarked, that the wife of Lavalette was entirely discharged from prosecution.

The Assize Court sat on April 22, when the trial of the three English prisoners, which attracted a very numerous auditory, among whom were many English gentlemen and ladies, commenced at eleven o'clock. The president was M. Romain de Seze, son of the person honourably distinguished by his defence of Louis XVI. M. Hua, advocate-general, acted as public prosecutor. The advocite for the prisoners was M. Dupin. Sir R. Wilson appeared in grand uniform, decorated with seven or eight orders of different European States, one of which was the cordon of the Russian order of St. Anne. Capt. Hutchinson wore the uniform of his military rank. When the accused were called upon to give their names and qualities, Mr. Bruce said with energy, I am an English citizen." The president observed, that though relying on their correct knowledge of the French language, they did not ask for an interpreter, yet the law of France willed that the accused should not be deprived of any means of facilitating their justification, even when unclaimel; M. Robert was accordingly named and sworn to that office.

Mr. Bruce, speaking in French, then said, that although he and his countrymen had submitted to the law of France, they had not lost the privilege of invoking the law of nations. Its principle was reciprocity; and as in England French culprits enjoyed the right

of demanding a jury composed of half foreigners, it appeared to them that the same right, or favour, could not be refused to them in France. The decision of several eminent lawyers of their own nation had strengthened them in this opinion; but the justice which had been rendered them by the Chamber of Accusation, in acquitting them of one charge, had determined them to renounce this right, and they abandoned themselves without reserve to a jury entirely composed of Frenchmen. no precedent might be drawn from their case against such of their countrymen who might hereafter be in the same situation, they had made a special declaration of the purpose of their renunciation.

That, however,

M. Dupin moving the court that this declaration might be entered on the record, the Advocategeneral expressed his astonishment at a claim in France, for an offence committed in France, of the privileges of a foreign legislature, and opposed entering the declaration. After some arguing on the subject, the court pronounced the following decision : "Because every offence committed in a territory is an object of jurisdiction, and because the exception demanded by the prisoners is not allowed by any construction of the criminal code of France, the court declares that there is no ground for recording, at the request of the English prisoners, the declaration now made by them; the court therefore orders the trial to proceed."

The arret of the act of accusation drawn up by the procureurgeneral was then read, which

took

took up more than two hours. The Advocatc-general then briefly recapitulated the facts in the indictment, distinguishing them as they applied to the different prisoners; and remarked that the chamber had remitted to the three Englishmen the charge of having conspired against the legitimate government of France. After the interrogatories of some of the other prisoners, the president addressed himself to Mr. Bruce. To the question, whether it was not to him that the first overture was made of the plan of transporting Lavalette out of France; he replied, "If possible I would have effected his escape alone; for I could not repulse a man who had put his life into my hands. I, however, obtained his consent to confide his secret to

one of my friends. I spoke to one friend, who gave me a charge to another. I will not name these friends; they will name themselves." Captain Hutchinson then declared it was himself who received Lavalette at his house previously to his escape, and escorted him on horseback; and Sir R. Wilson took upon himself the whole measures adopted for his escape, and acknowledged all the facts related in the act of accusation. This open confession rendered superfluous with respect to them the testimony of any witnesses; the appearance of Madame Lavalette was, however, too interesting to be passed over. At her entrance a general murmur of feeling or curiosity was heard, and the three gentlemen saluted her with a profound bow. Overpowered by her emotions,

she was scarcely able to articulate; at length, being told by the president that she was summoned only on account of some of the accused, who had invoked her testimony, she said, I declare that the persons who have called me contributed in no respect to the escape of M. Lavalette (meaning from prison): no one was in my confidence; I alone did the whole." Being desired to say whether she had ever seen or known the English gentlemen, she looked at them for a moment, and declared that she had never known nor before seen them.

After the examination of the witnesses, the advocate-general made his address to the court. When he came to the agency of the three Englishmen in the offence which was the subject of the trial, he particularly directed the attention of his auditors to the point of the asylum given to the culprit before his departure from Paris, and that given upon the road, in a house at Compeigne, which, in the language of the laws, constituted what is called a recelé. The simple fact, said he, of concealing a condemned criminal is of itself a crime and he quoted Blackstone to shew that it is regarded as such not less in England than in France. This authority, however, he cited only in the character of written reason, for it was sufficiently understood that there are no other laws in exercise regarding crimes committed in France, than French laws. On this idea he somewhat enlarged by way of stricture upon Sir R. Wilson's reference to the judicial

:

forms

forms of England Touching upon the head of accusation, by which the three culprits were charged with being accomplices in concealing Lavalette knowing that he was condemned to die, and as a consequence, that they facilitated and consummated his escape, he said, he must here anticipate a dispute about words. It would be alleged, that the escape Was the act of issuing from prison, which was consummated when he was on the outside of the gates; wherefore it was false to charge them with facilitating and consummating a thing already done. But the fact constituting the crime was the concealment, and it did not signify whether it did or did not aid the escape; for had he been retaken in the place which served as his asylum, the person who had procured it for him would not have been the less guilty. Art. 248 of the penal code declares guilty those who have concealed or caused to be concealed. The na ture of the facts in this case was such, that there was a moral certainty, that those who concerted to get Lavalette out of France, also came to an understanding as to the mode of its accomplishment the moment his escape from prison took place. It has not been asserted that they had any communication with the first asylum in which he was secreted; it was sufficient that they provided him with an intermediate a-ylum; and by his passing the night there, this became the place of concealment. A person may conceal a man either in his own house, or in that of another;

hence the law speaks of concealing or causing to be concealed. He who procures the asylum, who has made arrangements for procuring it, who facilitates his entrance into it, are all abettors and accomplices in this species of crime. The advocate-general then applied these principles to the facts acknowledged by the three prisoners, and endeavoured to include them all equally in the crime of concealment, (le recelé), which was the essence of the accusation.

On a sub-equent audience, April 24th, M. Dupin opened his defence of the English gentlemen. In the exordium, taking notice of Sir R. Wilson's resistance to the first interrogatories, he imputed it solely to ignorance of the French laws. But (said

he) the moment he had communicated with his ambassador, what frankness, what good faith, in all that was personal to himself! and his two friends acted a similar part." He proceeded to remark on some serious errors, which had crept into the translation of Wilson's and his brother's letters, and which had called forth severe animadversions from the advocate-general; and the interpreter was directed by the president to amend the translation, when the advocate-general declared that he abandoned all the deductions which might be drawn from this correspondence. M. Dupin then made some apologetical observations on the political sentiments disclosed in the letters; and proceeded to a panegyrical explanation of those hieroglyphics of honour which Sir R. Wilson wore on his breast, in

which he introduced letters of acknowledgment for his services from the emperor Alexander, the king of Prussia, and prince Metternich. Coming to the principal legal point of the case, he reduced it to the two propositions, 1. There was no act of complicity between the accused persons and the principal culprit: 2. The fact imputed to them cannot be considered as a crime, nor as an offence. As the arguments employed to support them were little more than legal sophisms, it is unnecessary to recite them. The pleading concluded with a particular recommendation of the accused to the court as strangers and Englishmen.

The proceedings having closed, Sir R. Wilson rose, and with a dignified confidence delivered a speech, of which the conclusion cannot be thought too long for quotation. Having acknowledged that he had been interested in the fate of Lavalette on political grounds, he declared that such considerations had a very inferior influence on his determination. "The appeal (said he) made to our humanity, to our personal character, and to our national generosity; the responsibility thrown upon us of instantly deciding on the life or death of an unfortunate man, and above all, of an unfortunate stranger this appeal was imperative, and did not permit us to calculate his other claims to our good will. At its voice we should have done as much for an obscure unknown individual, or even for an enemy who had fallen into misfortune. Perhaps we were imprudent; but we would rather incur that re

proach than the one we should have merited by basely abandoning him, who, full of confidence, threw himself into our arms : and these very men who have calumniated us, without knowing either the motives or the details of our conduct-these very men, I say, would have been the first to stigmatize us as heartless cowards, if, by our refusal to save M. Lavalette, we had abandoned him to certain death. We resign ourselves with security to the decision of the jury; and if you should condemn us for having contravened your positive laws, we shall not at least have to reproach ourselves for having vioJated the eternal laws of morality and humanity."

This address, we are told, produced a strong impression, and the respect due to the majesty of justice would scarcely prevent the open expression of it.

Mr. Bruce pronounced a speech of the same general tenor in animated language, and with a firm and manly tone. "Gentlemen (he concluded,) I have confessed to you, with all frankness and honour, the whole truth with respect to the part which I took in the escape of M. Lavalette; and notwithstanding the respect which I entertain for the majesty of the laws, notwithstanding the respect I owe to this tribunal, I cannot be wanting in the respect I owe to myself so far as to affirm that I feel not the least compunetion for what I have done. I leave you, Gentlemen, to decide upon my fate, and I implore nothing bu justice."

The president then concisely. summed up the evidence, and