The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-07-28 00:00:00

S'ATSMALN.

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pFitiii-Ain-tind constitutional law; and were it not
the ofiThe of a•Jary to determine on Caw as well es
fact,'useless to us would he the excellent free prin-
ciples. of our ancestors. The modern act to this
effect has but restored the spirit of the constitution
in this psiticolar 'instance, would it were revived
generally ! :However, •in the case alluded to, the
Jury did their duty ; they rejected the false glosses
of and ALLVEONE for the constitutional
interpretations of the too other. Judges, Power, and
HOLLOWAY, and never was there a more important
decision in a British Court of Justice. By it the
first estate in the empire was subjected to the law,
Instead of the law being subjected to him, as the
Society of the Middle 'remple would have had it,
who, in their address to this KING professed their
, attachment to the tory maxim, a Deo Rex, a Rege
Lex. By' it the people's right of petitioning against
1 •iolations of the law, even when committed by the
first estate of the empire, was firmly established ; and
; this great right closely interwoven with the rights
of the present Family, whose accession to the throne
was one of the Consequences resulting from the na.
lion's accession, or rather restoration, to its ancient
' fundamental franchises, by virtue of this decition.
If the petition of the seien. Bishops had been de-
di J

neght not, now at least, whatever might have been
the case in the time of, the Sur tars, to exist any
- cpsestion or dispute respecting thy legititnesy of that
t ule. • .
In my last letfir, addressed to the Feitminster
Electois, -I observed, tkit if .a Petition advanced that
which is false, libellous, or seditious, the parties were
responsible. Slat writing 'that letter I hare -rand
the report. of a debtite in a. Right Honourable A.
acinialy, in Which.one of the speakers declared that
"it was time to make a stand against Petitions
w DAM in offensive langnagi;" intletating at the
• same time, that " Petitions' relay contain seditious lip-
• bets." .Now we hare a tueous case upon reeotd,
. where seven Bishops Were tiled for a iibel, which
libel, it Nis pretended, was contained in a Petition
presented to King JAN= 11. The words of the in.
• dictment were, that the said Bishops did, 66 on the
18th May, 1688, frame, compose, and write a cer.:
tain false, feigned# malicious, and seditious libel'
concerning the King, under pretence of a Petition."
I quote from the trial printed by BASseT and Fox,
London, 1689. Here we behold 'what a Petition
ought not to be. It ought 'not to be false, feigned,
malicious., and seditioits. it ought not to possess
these diabolical qualities ; but if, on the contrary, it
iooal Petition ; if 'it real

is a Constitutt complain of re! dared a • libel by the verdict of a Jury, no., Ince
not feigned grievances; if it set forth crimes corn- of the Rouse of Bnu NSWICK WOUlti have ever
milted against the Law and Constitution of the king_ .sat .on the British throne. lam not disposed
dual, however atrocious atod.idetestable those offonees to show such disrespect to that House as- to
may ap_proar..asulfusu-ever exalted the iheractere of imagine it possible that any Prince belonging
toe tstets Truly be who by such acts shall be branded •to it, will ever consent to the prosecution of
asith infamy, provided the allegations ere true and an Englishman for having by Petition claimed end
stotfeigtred, the Pension is trotlibellous. •• demanded, even though it were in improper and•in.-
Justice is the great basis' e 4 civil society. %ft is 'decorous terms, that the Ltw and Constitution of
that which, according to Sai—irr!...ActiOsvrive*(a writer; the land shall be maintained, mud the vlolalors
from whom much political knowledge slaty be gleaned), thereof punished. This I sill not !oppose; but one
distinguishes the civil associations of men from what ! point, however, 1 aril confident of, that were such is
he terms mugna lafrocinirt.. But justice would be: degeneracy, too horrible for me to suppose actually
totally subverted, the moral light planted by GOD to take place, no Jury would be 'found •so lost to
himself in the human mind extinguished, and ail t British feelings as •to consign a fellow-citizen to
the bonds:cif social order broken asunder, if the punishment frit.; that which was an object of glory
man who is 'ready to prove the existence of crimes with our ancestors at the "Revolution; as it ever
against the community, instead of obtaining an im- l'sitould be-our gratitude, namely,-the endeavour to
partial hearing, were to be exposed to' persecution preserve and 'transmit to future age's, our•nalienal
under the pretence of being a libeller. Civil Go. ' birth-right. . Yes7 Sir, 44 110 PiTITION IS TUE
verninent, deformed and Tted to such an' ex- ; DOUBTED 'IIIIIITDRIGIr or " lnd if

Same time, avowing that attacked; in regard to the
House of Parma, the sacred principle of legitimacy,
at the-same tinte•that it founded on that very princi-
'ple'the restoration of the French Monarchy, or more
properly speaking, the safety of Europe, which
eould never be tranquil or happy while a single legi-
timate Sovereign was not in his States. Now, how-
ever, the Treaty of Fontainbjeaii no longer exists,
and her Imperial Ilighnen the Archduchess Maria
Louisa has no right or title te the three Duchies, in
like manner as the Emperor of Austria has no reason
'for continuing to occupy them, nor to receive their
revenues, while the Sovereigns who derived them from
their ancestors are wanderers, and owing their sub-
sistence to the generosity of their relatives. As it is
high time that this state of things should cease, the
undersigned requests Prince. Metternich to lay this
reclamation before his imperial Majesty, whose love
of justice is. so well known, that it is impossible the
King of Etruria should not obtain from it that. which
Is his due; or that if day unforeseen obstacle prevent
his Imperial Majesty from doing this, Prince Metter- •
ssich will hate the goodness to fix an early day for sob-
'Mating the contents of this Note to the Congress, the
endersigned being unable to' belittle that the Powers
who 'signed and published the Declaration of the 13th
of March', will refuse to put In execution an essen-

fiat part of it; a circumstance vrhith'sitiald forpisis
the malignant, and the partisans of t*, usurper, with
reasons for hoping that tire same thing might happen
as to other matters.
,• .Tbe Spanish Plenipotentiary might complain of the
strange turn which has from the first been given to
his reclamations in favour of the House of Parma.—
He might remark, that in the conference of the 10th
Deminber, a Committee, of which he formed a part,
was appointed to discuss the business, and that this
Committee has never met, a thing unexampled in all
other Congresses; and '.even in this one, so extraof-
dinar), in many respects ; that a projet hiving been
given by a Member of the Committee, iii January?
to Prince Metternich,- he replied thereto by tveoun-
ter projet, which was officially communicated to the
undersigned, whowccepted it iii substance, and sent
it to his Court ; that the latter deemed it very ex-
traordluarY that it was refused 10 restore to the King
of Etruria the city of Placentia, the onl int of

• •

came into his possession, he was therefore doming!,
and taken before Mr. Serjeant Smos ; when herrn,
the Magistrate, however, he gave a satisfactory
count of himself, and was discharged.