The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-11-25 00:00:00

TO M. SEGUIER,
FIRST PRESIULNT OF THE. ROYAL COURT
AT PARIS.
LETTER IV.

sin,— Difficult as it is to imagine that any Gentle
man, whose station in life supposes him to be wel
owl in the laws and history of his country, and to
possess a inisid at once inquisitive and profound,
should be ignorant of the first principles of all civil
institutions, and of those obligations which men liv-
ing in community, reciprocally owe to each other ;
it is far more difficult to suppose, that in this en.
lightened period, and in an enlightened country, like
fiance, stiuggliiig against despotism, with all Eu-
rope iuterested in her success, a Magistrate, whose
peculiar duty it is to most faithfully discharge his
oopert lot functions with a manly, dignified ie.
treeidity, should be found so lost to all sense of de-
cency—to all pride of character—and to all respect
for the opinion of the world, as to publicly insult
Justice in her very sanctuary, by proclaiming aloud
that
4; Kings reign by the Cis .ti OF GOD, and stet by
CONsTITUTIONS."
Sir. the loyalty you profess, injures and dishonours
the Sovereign who receives' and rewards such ful-
some, I;etin!ious adulation, in a far greater degree
than it affects and disgraces the servile instrument
of besotted Power. Your guilt and meatiness will
blend theniseves with the ordinary occurrences of
tbeeas, and perish from our rememioatire : It will be
fereetiett that you have, in direct contradiction to
yeur scholastic education, to your experience, to
your duty as a public functiunaty aud, above all, to
the internal cenvielion of your own conscience, Si.ciiiiced, as far as you were able, the liberties of y our
country to your personal aggrandisement, by a vc-
bintary surrender at once of your honour and your
oath, in a declaration as atrocious as it is evidently
false. •Sir, public opinion has already fixed an iu-
ilelible stain of infamy on your no less iniquitous,
Wei impotent, •attempt to debase the public mind,
wherever despotism would erect her crimson and
sable standard. You will spin out, embittered by
self reproaches, a M.,erable existence, shunned and
despised by every honest man, and with no other
consolation lit your last moments, than that your in-
significance will consign your name to oblivion,
whenever death rescues you from the contempt
of your cotemporvies ! Not so the thoughtless
beings whose criminal vanity you have flattered,
and whose settaltee you would gratify, to the
full extent of thetirdesires. Their names, recorded by
historical justice, for the benefit of posterity, will
blaze a perpetual memento to Regal authority
denouncing the penalties that await its daring
to trample under foot the lights of' mankind, equal
in rights the Laws of Gen and Nature. Arid
let me assert, that RIGHTS both common and ar-
titirial ate sacred, whether they belong to the
Peasant or the Prince; they esist independent of
authority, and are supetior to prerogatives which
are only accorded conditionally to the Sovereign
for political purposes and public convenience—any
other definition of prerogative is delusive.—Your
countrymen, however, Sir, have an obligation to
your vices, which I sin persuaded they would rather
have received from your virtues.—You base, in the
eicefis of your loyalty, informed them what they
hare to expect from the gratitude and generosity of
the Boviteoxs, if they should ever have the power
to carry into execution their numerous proscriptions.
Yoe have haepily put your countrymen on their
guard, without intending it, against designs which
it becomes their honour and their safely to resist by
a unanimous resolve to stand by that Constitution,
which you have endeavoured to invalidate and des
stroy. It is due to the manes of all those who have
nobly fallen in the glorious cause of liberty in other
nations,. as well as .in France ; for liberty is the
birthright of all mankind. It is due to posterity, as
well as to the present generation, to resist and ex-
po-e such a doctrine as you peach in favour of
a combination of bigotted and worthless Nos
leos, and Priests, whose conduct since their
r. tutu to their native country, has been in di-

rect opposition to good Policy, Reason, Justice, and
Humanity- ! Your belief in the'' DIVINE RIGHT
OF'KINGS," is esidently on a par with the pre-
tended faith or your Clergy in the doctrines of
Cllltl.T, u hen they fire their torches to extermiunte
anise ahodiffer with them in the interpretation of (holy
Writ. Your loyalty,like their piety, is a fraud deserving
of the chastisement due to crime, and the more espe-
cially as the principle you would establish is calculated
In give a fatal increase to the atrocities your lay and
eclesiastictsl destroyers are impatient to commit for the
honour of the Thome and glory of GOD! Surely,
Sir, your historical reading mud have informed you,
that when Louts XI V. enquired of your Prelates
" whcther it were lawful to force the heretics to be-
they all answered in the AFPI R M ATI VE.
I will pass ever the horrible blasphemy of selectiug
the anniversary of Saint Bartholomew for the murder
of ONEIICNOItEDTIIOtJAND ettoffending hu-
man creatures to glut the vengeance of a prostitute
(been (CATHERINE DE MEDICIq end her profligate
gsllants). I will make no comment on the Sicilian
"ipers, nor on the atrocious, sanguinary fury of a
Priest in the Cevennes, who on being told that a
Catholic had been thrown bit accident into the middle
of the jt,iming pile, illumined for the destruction 11
the Pintaetants, answered, "no matter—Goo will
know Iris caw. I" nut Moog!' it Is foreign to my pus.-