Great Britain be torn out her best blood be spilther treasure wasted that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves, oh! that you would put yourselves in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrours that you excite. In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings. They were fighting, they knew, to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarque.But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting"Fighting!" would be the answer; " they are not fighting; they are pausing." "Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?" The answer must be, "You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive yourself-they are not fighting-do not disturb them-they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agonythat man is not dead-he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another: they have now no cause of quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting-there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever: it is nothing more than a political pause! It is merely to try an experiment-to see whether Buonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the mean time we have agreed to a pause, in pure friendship!" And is this the way, sir, that you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world to destroy orderto trample on religion-to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in the prosecution of this system, you spread terrour and devastation all around you.

Sir, I have done. I have told you my opinion. I think you ought to have given a civil, clear and explicit answer to the overture which was fairly and handsomely made you. If you were desirous that the negotiation should have included all your allies, as the means of bringing about a general peace, you should have told Buonaparte so. But I believe you were afraid of his agreeing to the proposal. You took that method before. Aye, but you say the people were anxious for peace in 1797. I say they are friends to peace now; and I am confident that you will one day acknowledge it. Believe me, they are friends to peace; although by the laws which you have made, restraining the expression of the sense of the people, publick opinion cannot now be heard as loudly and unequivocally as heretofore. But I will not go into the internal state of this country. It is too afflicting to the heart to see the strides which have been made by means of, and under the miserable pretext of this war, against liberty of every kind, both of power of speech and of writing; and to observe in another kingdom the rapid approaches to that military despotism which we affect to make an argument against peace. I know, sir, that publick opinion, if it could be collected, would be for peace, as much now as in 1797: and that it is only by publick opinion and not by a sense of their duty, or by the inclination of their minds, that ministers will be brought, if ever, to give us peace.

I conclude, sir, with repeating what I said before : I ask for no gentleman's vote who would have reprobated the compliance of ministers with the proposition of the French government. I ask for no gentleman's support to night who would have voted against ministers, if they had come down and proposed to enter into a negotiation with the French. But I have a right to ask and in honour, in consistency, in conscience, I have a right to expect, the vote of every honourable gentleman who would have voted with ministers in an address to his majesty, diametrically opposite to the motion of this night.

MR. ERSKINE'S SPEECH,

ON THE TRIAL OF AN INFORMATION EXHIBITED EX OFFICIO, BY THE KING'S ATTORNEY GENERAL, AGAINST THOMAS PAINE, FOR A LIBEL UPON THE REVOLUTION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE CROWN AND REGAL GOVERNMENT, AS BY LAW ESTABLISHED; AND ALSO UPON THE BILLS OF RIGHTS, LEGISLATURE, GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND PARLIAMENT OF THIS KINGDOM, AND UPON THE KING. TRIED BY A SPECIAL JURY IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, GUILDHALL, ON THE 18TH OF DECEMBER, 1792, BEFORE THE RIGHT

HONOURABLE LORD KENYON.

POSTERITY, who may study the history of our times, will learn with surprise, how strangely they were disfigured by a wild, turbulent, and wicked spirit of innovation which delighted to overturn whatever had been previously raised by the wisdom and diligence of our predecessors, or consecrated by their experiences and prejudices.

This " evil spirit" was especially intent on the demolition of the old and well tried political establishments that had gradually grown up in Europe, and to substitute in their place schemes of new and fantastick polity, resting on views of the qualities and conditions of human nature, the most idle and delusive. In France, its "tricks and devices" produced that desolating revolution which covered with the lava of its bad principles, in a greater or less degree, the other portions of the civilized world. Every country be

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came a prey to its disciples, who busied themselves in making converts and spreading proselytism. Not the least conspicuous of these " architects of ruin," to indicate his devotion to this "holy service," collected from every polluted source, materials of rancorous poison which, putting together, he prepared in a "cheap and portable form," a most potent compound and digest of anarchy," and presented it as an offering to the publick, under the palatable and seductive title of the "Rights of Man." This "manual of mischief," being exactly adapted to the taste and capacity of the low, the ignorant, and seditious, it was read with the utmost avidity in these circles, through which it was gratuitously diffused by certain affiliated clubs that had assumed the province of inculcating the new code of political wisdom.

The author of the work, who had thus insulted the laws of his country, was prosecuted by the attorney general for a libel on the English government, and fortunately, even, at that sinister season, a jury of Englishmen were found sufficiently stanch, virtuous, and intrepid, to stigmatize this nefarious production by a verdict of conviction, and the culprit only escaped by flight the adequate penalty of " fine, imprisonment, and the pillory." The jury decided at once, without leaving their box, or permitting the attorney general to reply.

The speech of Mr. Erskine, in behalf of the defendant, which is here inserted, admirably illustrates with what plausibility a skilful and eloquent advocate will defend the worst of causes. As the speech contains those passages of the work which were selected by the prosecutor as libellous, it is thought unnecessary to prefix the indictment.

SPEECH, &c.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,

THE attorney general, in that part of his address which arose from a letter, supposed to have been written to him from France, exhibited signs of strong