Star.
London, England, 1816-05-24 00:00:00

lOW

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k Vat •-• • " •
personal 0 MIS Wu) say, that til
could nee no milder terms towards a 'person.wito had
most unjustly. charges, bhn with an intention of
kindling'the eMbers of religious disturbance in the
Departments of France. in Paris, and in other quar-
ters. He could not coolly look at such a misre•
presentation withoirt feeling the force of its injusH
tice. The Noble Lord might not, perhaps, have in-
tended it as such, but sure he was, that nothing he
(Sir S bad uttered, could have justified the
imputation. (gear, hear, hear.) It wits said, that
he had indulged in great exaggeration—that .he had
given a strong colouring to crude feelings—that his
object was to call for a dangerous and unusual na-
tional interference. Thi.i was not the tact—he had.
done no such thing. lie only wanted to follow up
interference where it had already taken plate
It was sai.l, indeed, that interference would do iuj try
rather tit in service, although it was admitted by those
who used the expression, by the precedent of aheir
own act, that'll() other course of redress was ope:t to
the injured party. The only way in which he pro.
posed intermediation was by the good offices of our
Government Could any one believe he meant nut
other mode of interference? yet both the Noble Lords
apposite seemed to argue as if he did. He (Sir S.
Romilly) was, however, most highly gratified to fiad,
that in all that had been saia against his motion, no
attempt had been made to no:lets:ate the facts on
which his proposiiion was grounded. It was, indeed,
broadly Linted. that he.dera-ed his information from
the source of dangerous pamphlets. This was not the
fact. If the Noble Lord bad read the Report to
which he alluded, he must know, that he (Sir S.
ltomilly) lad refrained from the recital of tales of
horror, of acts of barb irons and estrz...trdinary cruelty.
What then had he exaggerated ? He did, indeed,
speak of acts of colif-blood atrocity, with that warm
indignation which it became a man to feel At the prac•
nice of :Itch deeds. He mentioned them, perhaps,
with heat, for his temperament denied him the man-
ner of speaking with coolness of transactions which
roused the strong feelings of his heart—(Hesr, hear.)
—One man had been shot in his bed—others had
been equally massacred—he, however, refrained from
entering upon the terrible detail, lest the extreme
outrage inflicted might lead to a supposition that the
allegations were untrue, becaux the event of their
enormity rendered them i probable.(Hear, hear).—
During the time that the B'mapartists were at Nismes,
no murders had taken place.—(Hear, hoar).—The
Noble Lords opposite admit that that was not the
case with the Mice of Am!ouleme's stragtling troops
in that Province—but they say, the utmost efforts
vere usld on tae part of Government to check acrd
_suppress die insab:ardination—that Proclamations
were issued to that effect. Why, nobody denied this;
'tut were the Proclamations lollowed ty by the punish •
ni- nt of the crintin,ls, or did they limit in some para.!
graph; of their contents say,, That the Acts :orn-
plaint...l of ureic in some de,iree ;ustifiehle ?—(Hear,
hear).—When he was said to have atti:suted those
outraees to religious persecution, be had been misre-
pres-mcd. What he had said was this—that they

• .
because they Were said to be I3onapartims-,
atid they were so denominated, because they were Pro-
; regains ; the terms, indeed, had brcome synonimous.
The written paper read by the iNioNe Lord cotro-
burated this fact. Ile had further to complain cf the
.imputations most unworthily cast upon iiiill,9l raking
up flaAting calumnies and niisrepresentations. Nate,
w:,:tt :i st.tted ? 'twat in the department of the

G true viol • " •
ent persecutions had tagen,ptace, which
see: unknown in former times—persecutions that had
} arisen from feelings of a rooted kind, that had been
ILu tiered to accumulate. Was this misrepresentation?
if it were, the Noble Lord himself was the author of
it, who, on the question of the Spanish Patriats, had
himself gone into the past history of those districts,
to accort for the causes of their present insubordi.
nation—(Hear, hear,) —and yet he Sir Samuel) was
charged with such au intention. Whatever imputt.
tinn might be cast upon him for the discharge of his
duty, sore he was that the warning voice of the pro.
phetic consequences of proceeding with suck proscrip-
tion would not be raised in vain. Why, it was some
consolation to the cause of humanity, that so obsc:ao,
an individual as liiinseli:coald bring into public dis.
cussion a topic of this kind, and that there was one
place at least in Europe where the °pyres:ea could
find appeal, and where, so long .as public justice
lingered, acts of atrocity could be stamped with in-
famy, and men who were suffered to go unpunished,
visited with public detestation. It was right for
Europe to know that there yet existed one place in
which the voice of truth could be raised, and that
that place was the British House of Commons.—
Here the Honourable Gentleman referred to the ex-
tent of the perlectitions it the departments of the
Garde and the Upper Rhone ; and when it was said
that those disturbances were only confined to one dis-
trict, it ought to be considered that that district con-
mired a population of 160,000 persons—(Hear, hear.)
Allusions had been made to the ;jots of 1780; but
was there any comparison between the two circum-
stances ? The riots which disgraced this metropolis
were met on the part of Governmeqt by the must
prompt opposition. The complaint then was, even
by Mr. Burke, who could not be supposed to have a
strong leaning for the rioters, that a useless sacrifice
of victims had been made; and if the great leader a
that tumult had not forfeited his life, the fault was
not on the side of Government. Did such a maui.
lestation of feeling prevail in France on the part of
Government ? Certainly not.—(Hear, hear, hear.)—
It was not true that he (Sir Samuel Romilly) bad
represented the Government at France in a cruel light;
he had iudecd spoken with the same freedom of the
public acts of that Government as he would of his own,
and he would continue to pursue the same course.—;
But. in doing so. he begged not to be understood as
passing a personal censure on the Monarch on the
throne of France, who, he believed, wps influenced
by the most pure and benevolent motives, but who.
I like other Princes, was of course liable to the Wu-
' once of bad advisers—(Hear, hear).—Having heard
1 the whole case, of his Majesty's Government,. he
would now freely say, that in the instance of the
Duke of Wellington's letter his Grace's communica-
don was most unjustifiable. The Duke bad said,
not from his belief, but from his own knowledge,
that the Government of France had done all in its
power to secure freedom of worship to the Protestants,
and its enstoration, where isterropted--414 assertion
not bane out by the feet. 'The Honourahle.and
Learned Gentleman concluded a most entry&