ably to his orders, the Swiss corps in the garrison of Orleans was on the point of marching to Paris.

M. de Peyronnet earnestly declared, that he had sent no such orders; it must have been either the spontaneous act of the minister of the Loire, or an order of the minister at war, of which he had no knowledge.

A Peer said, that possibly the order might have been given by telegraph. Then, rejoined Pey ronnet, some trace of such an order must remain in some of the offices.

M. Lajord, member of the institute, proved, that he saw Mangin, the prefect of police, at Peyronnet's, on the Sunday evening.

The marquis de Semonville, the grand referendary of the Chamber of Peers, aged 71, gave his testimony relative to his efforts on the Wednesday to save the monarchy and France from the policy of the ex-ministers. He described the dangers which he and count Argout encountered in making a great circuit to get first to the Tuilleries, and next to St. Cloud, where he in vain implored marshal Marmont, Polignac, and the king, to revoke the obnoxious orders. The marshal he described as dreadfully agitated at the duty he had to perform; Polignac cold and reserved; Peyronnet most earnest for hastening him (witness) to St. Cloud, to see what impression could be made on the infatuated king; and finally, the failure of his well-meant efforts.

The President.-M. le marquis, the court are aware of the motives of the silence of M. de Semonville respecting the conversation which he had with the king, in the king's closet, at St. Cloud, yet it is my duty to remind him that he has sworn to tell the whole truth. In

consequence of this obligation, I ask him, what was the opinion he formed from his own observation, of the real intentions of the king, and if he thought his majesty was at the time under the influence of his ministers ?

M. de Semonville.-I am about to reply to the president's question. I have always thought, that the opinion of the king was of old and long formation, and of his own personal conviction, as well as being the result of the combined influence of what he deemed to be a political and religious system. My urgent entreaty met from the king for some time an obstinate resistance, which I did not succeed in overcoming, until I thought I had made him fully understand the imminent danger of his dynasty. I succeeded in compelling him to understand that the safety of the dauphiness, at least, required a prompt answer-for he turned aside from the details of the state of the people-(the duchess of Angoulême was then in a distant part of the country)-that, absent from Paris, she had to pass through provinces where she was liable to detention. The king then, moved by entreaties, at length yielded, placed his head between his hands, and declared that he would at once assemble his council.

M. Persil begged the witness to explain a conversation which he had had with M. de Polignac concerning the Chamber of Peers.

M. de Semonville replied, that prince Polignac had often spoken to him of changes which he wished to make in the constitution of the Chamber of Peers; but that there never was a question of acting without the Chamber of Deputies, and he never spoke of coups d'état.

Considering that it appears from the proceedings, that Auguste Jules Armand Marie, Prince de Polignac, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of War ad interim, and President of the Council of Ministers; Pierre Denis, Comte de Peyronnet, as Minister of the Interior; Jean Claude Balthazar Victor Chantelauze, as Garde des Sceaux, and Minister of Justice; and Martial Comte Annibal Perpetue Magloire, Comte de Guernon Ranville, as Minister of Public Instruction and Ecclesiastical Affairs; all responsible in the terms of the 13th article of the charter of 1814, countersigned the ordonnances of the 25th July, the illegality of which they themselves

acknowledge; that they took every means to enforce the execution of them; and that they advised the king to declare the city in a state of siege, in order to subdue by arms the legitimate resistance of the citizens;

"Considering that these acts constitute the crime of treason, provided against by the 56th article of the charter of 1814;

"Declares le Prince de Polignac, le Comte de Peyronnet, Victor Chantelauze, and le Comte de Guernon Ranville, guilty of the crime of treason;

"Considering that no law has determined the punishment of treason, and that the Court is therefore under the necessity of supplying the deficiency;

"According to the 7th article of the Penal Code, which classes transportation among the punishments stigmatizing with infamy peines afflictive et infamantes;

"According to the 17th article of the same code, which declares transportation to be for life;

"According to the 18th article, which declares that transportation involves civil death; and the 25th article of the Code Civile, which regulates the consequences of civil death;

"Considering that there is not any place, out of the continental dominions of France, to which criminals sentenced to transportation can be taken and detained;

"Condemns le Prince de Polignac to be imprisoned for life in the continental dominions of the kingdom; declares him deprived of his titles, rank, and orders; declares him civilly dead; all the other consequences of transportation remaining in force, as regulated by the articles before mentioned.

"Considering the facts of the case as appearing from the proceedings;

"Condemns le Comte de Peyronnet, Victor Chantelauze, and le Comte de Guernon Ranville, to imprisonment for life; directs them to be placed in a state of interdiction, conformably to the 28th and 29th articles of the Penal Code; declares them equally deprived of their titles, rank, and orders.

"Condemns all the accused, individually and collectively, to pay the expenses of the proceedings;

"Orders the present sentence to be communicated by message to the Chamber of Deputies;

"Orders, that it shall be printed and posted up in Paris, and every other commune of the kingdom, and transmitted to the Garde des Sceaux, Minister of Justice, for the purpose of being carried into execution."

John Mitford, lord Redesdale, was born on the 18th of August, 1748. His grandfather, William Mitford, of Newton House, in the county of Kent, esq., the fifth in descent from Robert, had an heir, John, by Margaret, daughter of Robert Edwards, of Wingfield, in Berkshire, and of London, merchant. This gentleman was a member of Lincoln's Inn, and married Philadelphia, daughter of William Reveley, of Newby Wisk, in Yorkshire, esq., and a first cousin to Hugh, duke of Northumberland; whose mother, Mrs. Smithson, was also a daughter of William Reveley, esq., and was aunt to Mrs. Mitford. They had two sons—the elder the celebrated historian of Greece, who died in 1827; the younger the subject of the present memoir.

Having received his education at Winchester school, and New College, Oxford, Mr. Mitford determined to follow the profession of his father, who died when he was only fourteen years of age. He accordingly became a student at the Temple, and being called to the bar, attached himself to the practice of the Court of Chancery.

So early as in the year 1782, he published "A Treatise of Pleadings in Suits in the Court of Chancery by English Bill." Another edition was printed in 1787, and two other editions have since appeared. Mr. Mitford's labours were crowned with the most complete success; and he soon obtained a silk gown.

By the interest of the duke of Northumberland, Mr. Mitford was, in 1788, returned member of parliament for the borough of Beeralston; for which place he was re-elected in July, 1789, having vacated his seat by accepting the office of one of the Judges of the Grand Sessions for the counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, and Carmarthen.

At first, he spoke but little in the House, but soon afterwards engaged in the debates on most of the great subjects that came under discussion. He made several able speeches during the trial of Mr. Hastings; and especially in support of the petition of that gentleman, complaining of the introduction of irrelevant matter at the bar of the House of Lords. that occasion he reminded the

On

members of the House of Commons, that the prosecution ought to be conducted in such a manner as to do honour to their branch of the legislature; and that two things, in particular, ought to be adhered to, viz. "never to bring forward a fact that was matter of calumny to the accused, and never to inflame the passions of those who were to decide as judges."

On the 23rd of June, 1789, Mr. Mitford obtained leave to bring in a bill "to relieve, upon certain conditions, and under due restrictions, persons called Protestant-Catholic Dissenters, from certain penalties and disabilities to which Papists, or persons professing the Catholic religion, are by law subject." Men of different parties in parliament approved of this measure; yet a period of nearly two years elapsed before the provisions of the bill were carried into a law.

At the general election in 1790, Mr. Mitford was again returned for Beeralston. Soon after the meeting of the new parliament, a question arose, with reference to Mr. Hastings, namely, "Whether an impeachment ought not to abate by the dissolution of parliament ?" Mr. Mitford contended, "that the House had no power to revive an impeachment, since it was an acknowledged principle of the constitution, that the parliament should die, and all proceedings determine with its existence."

In May, 1791, Mr. Fox brought in his celebrated libel bill, the object of which was "to declare and enact that the right of juries to give a general verdict on a general issue, extended to prosecutions on libels, as well as all other proceedings whatever, in criminal matters." Mr. Mitford opposed the measure;

observing, "that no man could revere more than he did, the institution of juries, which he considered as the bulwark of public and private liberty; but that, at the same time, he thought the House would do well to pause a little, before it resolved to unsettle doctrines of law which had almost uniformly prevailed ever since the Revolution; or to take away that jurisdiction which appeared, from the practice of the courts ever since that period, to belong to the judges, and not to the jury."

In February, 1793, on sir John Scott being promoted to the office of Attorney-general, Mr. Mitford was made Solicitor-general, and received the honour of knighthood. He was also returned a fourth time for the borough of Beeralston.

In his official capacity, sir John Mitford was, of course, employed by government to conduct the celebrated state trials in the year 1794.

The prosecution of Mr. Horne Tooke, sir John Mitford opened by a long and elaborate argument on the law of treason, and an application of its specific provisions to the case in question. In the course of his speech, in anticipation of the probable assertion that the prisoner at the bar had, on various occasions, expressed himself as a man attached to the constitution of his country, attached to the hereditary monarchy, and to the House of Lords, and that he had always professed to approve of both, the Solicitor-general eloquently observed, "Men, however, frequently profess that which they do not mean. A man may have monarchy on his lips, when his heart is far from it. Lord Lovat, for instance, was perpetually protesting his loyalty, whilst he was engaged for a course of years

in a deep scheme to overturn that government to which he professed and avowed such attachment. The language of the French Assembly, in 1791, was noticed by Mr. Paine, by Mr. Barlow, and by others of their eulogists, whose works were admired by the prisoner at the bar. Several of the members of that Assembly spoke with the greatest reverence of monarchy, until the time arrived when they thought they could overturn it. And there has been a memorable instance that the greatest of traitors may pretend attachment in the moment of the deepest treason. We know, that the vilest traitor professed his loyalty whilst he was contemplating an act of the meanest treachery; and, in the completion of that act, cried- Hail, Master! and kissed him.'" The close of his address was peculiarly emphatic" And now, gentlemen of the jury, I have nothing more to offer. I have discharged, God knows, with much pain, the harsh duty imposed upon me. You will now do yours. If your verdict shall discharge the prisoners, I know you will give it with joy; if the contrary, yet it must be given. The cup, although it may be bitter, must not pass away from you. I have had a duty to perform beyond my strength and my ability; but I have discharged it faithfully and satisfactorily to my conscience."

In 1799, when sir John Scott was created lord Eldon, and appointed lord chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, sir John Mitford succeeded him as Attorney-general. Soon after, he was returned for the borough of East Looe; and, on Mr. Addington's quitting the chair of the House of Commons to succeed Mr. Pitt as

premier, sir John Mitford was deemed a fit person to sustain the important office of Speaker; and was accordingly elected on the 18th of February, 1801. He was proposed by lord Hawkesbury, who was seconded and supported by Mr. J. H. Browne, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Martin, and others. He occupied the chair of the House of Commons, however, only during that session, and a part of the next; for, on the death of the earl of Clare, it was determined that he should receive the Great Seal of Ireland, with an English peerage.

On the 15th of February, 1802, sir John Mitford was created baron Redesdale, of Redesdale, in the county of Northumberland, and a member of the privy council of Ireland. To that kingdom his lordship soon after proceeded; and, on the 5th of May, 1802, sat for the first time in the Court to which he had been appointed.

With the Roman Catholic party in Ireland, lord Redesdale was not popular; for, although a decided friend to toleration, he had ever been as decided an advocate for the paramount rights and privileges of the Anglican church. The unauthorised publication of a correspondence into which he had entered with the earl of Fingal, also tended to inflame the minds of the Catholics against him. It was acknowledged, however, by every one, not only that the business of his Court was transacted with perfect propriety and decorum, but that his conduct as a chancellor was always free from the slightest suspicion of bias.

Although lord Redesdale had at first repaired to Ireland with a certain portion of reluctance, yet he began to familiarise himself, by